Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Stretching Faith and Embracing Stillness | A Journey of Surrender and Community
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How many of you are excited to be in God's house today? That's good, awesome, awesome. We're gonna get all the lights up so you guys can take notes. How many of y'all are note takers? Raise your hand, let's see them One day. It'll be every hand.
Speaker 1:I like it when we take notes, because leaders are learners and we take in notes. It's something about it. I don't have a lot of time to tell you this, but something about it. You can hear me say it and then it sticks in one place in your brain and if you read it on the screen, it's adding another layer. But when you write it down and you're taking notes, your mind is processing and learning from a different perspective and you walk out with more of it sticking and listen. Why would we not want the more of what God has for us? And really that's what this, the message that we're diving into today, has a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1:We made it to week number five. I want to just say thank you to everybody who made our anniversary services the last two weeks so special. You guys have really made it an honor to be a part of seeing you guys celebrate and honestly, honestly, all the things that God has brought us through in the last seven years. Could y'all just give yourselves a hand. It's incredible that we made it to this point, and whether you've been here for seven years or seven minutes is fine with me. I'm glad that we made it and we're here together at this time, because I think that our future is so much bigger than the road that it's taken us to walk on to get here. God has so many incredible things ahead of us for this year and I think it requires us the reason that we have the word for this year that we have, as a church, together.
Speaker 1:I believe God gave us this word for a reason, and that is stretch. Everybody say stretch. I think we have to stretch. There's some things that we need to stretch out of stretch to reach for stretching our faith, and I think that God's not going to come up behind us and twist our arm behind our back and say, all right, you better stretch or else. But if we're going to become the church and become the people the parents, the husbands, the wife, the marriages, the people that God made us to be to live up to the purpose that he created in us, if we're going to do that, then we have to stretch, we have to reach for it.
Speaker 1:So I want to kind of dive right into week number five, but if you were not here for week number four or week number three, we had special guest speakers. Both of the last two weeks have been a part of our pastoral oversight team. People, men and women, who have come from Pastor Angela and I our past are covering helping to really to father and mother and pastor us and give us words for this church and where we're going, and it was just incredible to be a part of a lot of prophetic things that were said. So if you didn't get a chance to listen to or be here for the last week number three and week number four, I would just encourage you to go back and watch it online, because there's so many things in there that I think were spoken into us as seeds and they'll come about and you want those things in. You want those words and the words of God in your life as well. So today I think it is as important as the last four weeks, maybe more important because reasons that will become obvious as we get into the message.
Speaker 1:But I think that for us to stretch, would you jump up on your feet for one second. I want you to do something for me and we haven't done this the entire time and, believe me, I have wanted to Just put on a workout stretching video. So I want you to just reach to your side and stretch as far as you can Watch out for your neighbor there. They might be kind of close. Now stretch up as high as you can Reach for the ceiling. There's something about stretching and I can tell some of you right now are saying why are we doing this? Put your hands down. You can be seated, but listen, there's an act of doing stretching and reaching and a lot of times it doesn't feel like I don't need to be doing this. It feels like why am I doing it? I don't like this, I hate this. Let me sit down. I've already been standing for 30 minutes. There's some effort that has to be put into.
Speaker 1:So, in our walk of faith, jesus told the blind man stretch out your hand. Do you think he wanted to? Maybe Do you think he thought he could? There's a moment where I don't know if I could do this. I don't like this. It's out of my comfort zone. When God told Abraham leave this land where you're comfortable, where your father's house is, and I'm going to show you where to go. It required that he took a step of faith. That's a stretch. So, whether it's your faith stretching or your emotions stretching today, I want you to leave challenged today to go deeper and to address some things. And so, as it relates to how we're stretching, I don't necessarily care about, you know, the outside stretching and the physical stretching that goes on, because there's an inside, there's an inward stretching, there's the unseen.
Speaker 1:Everybody say unseen, the unseen things. Today you've got to realize that the unseen things are way more important than the seen things. You've got to write that down in your notes. If you're taking notes today in your clicky binder or if you have your notes online, you can put some notes in there. If you're not on the notes, if you don't have the app and get the notes church app talk to one of the Dream Team members with the lanyards on today Get set up on the app so you can get those notes. But the unseen things are far more important. The last few months, as we've been finishing all the lights and production stuff that you can see here, there's still some things that are not quite right. In fact there's an extension cord running across the floor right here for this little camera, and that will be changed. But right now, behind the scenes, the stuff that you can't see, there are cables and network lines and servers being installed so that we can work on the behind the scenes, the unseen, so that the seen things get better.
Speaker 1:And we could all stand in front of the mirror and say I want my muscles to look better and we could go to a doctor and say he could just give me some implants, that I could have a six-pack, eight-pack, 12-pack. But how many of you know that's not the same thing as doing the work that gets you the outward appearance that you want. So I can say, hey, we could do this, we could reach out more, we could grow the church up. But if we're not growing the behind the scenes, if we're not working on us, the inward stuff, then it's all for nothing, it's just for show. Tell your neighbor, it's just for show. Nothing, it's just for show. Tell your neighbor, it's just for show. Those muscles are just for show. Every one of us is carrying around an iPhone or Samsung or Android phone and all the things that you can see. If it's not working. I promise you there's something on the inside that you don't see. That's not right, and most of us don't want to know about the inside. We don't care about the inside, we only care about the outside.
Speaker 1:There's a principle called the skyscraper principle, and the skyscraper principle goes like this In fact, the JP Morgan Chase building downtown Houston you may have visited this building or been outside, I'm sure you've seen it it's the tallest building, not just in Houston, but it's the tallest building in Texas. So Dallas, san Antonio, houston, we've got the tallest building 75 floors, 75 stories high. We have a really muddy picture here, but we have a picture. It's blurry, but you can kind of make out what it's supposed to be 75 stories high. If that story, if that building, 75 stories high, was just built on mud, it wouldn't last very long. It would fall on the ground as soon as the wind blew against it. But you may or may not know this, but 75 stories high it actually goes down underground 75 feet, and so in this particular case, for every story that they went up, they also went one foot down.
Speaker 1:And the same thing works in our faith life, it works in our spirit life that, if I want to go up and out and stretch out and do more and have more and be more, then I've got to also dig down and do the things behind the scenes that nobody else sees. There's some work on the inside that is unseen, that has to be done, or else the first time the wind blows, the first time the waves crash together, the waves of life, the troubles that inevitably will come, the first time they hit me, boom, I fall down. And that's exactly what we see happen in churches, churches, ministries, men of God, women of God. The first time temptation, the first time struggle hits them. The first time the wind smacks against them, they fall down or they crumble because they had no foundation.
Speaker 1:So we can sing about firm foundations, but if we don't actually have a firm foundation, then we just become a statistic. Actually have a firm foundation, then we just become a statistic. Then we become a failed ministry or a failed church, or a failed marriage or a failed relationship or a failed. We end up in failure because we haven't built a foundation, allowed God to put the right foundation in us. So what does a foundation look like spiritually for us? It looks like this Write this word down. It looks like consecration and consecration with the sky. Just imagine the skyscraper principle.
Speaker 1:In order for us to build down, we have to. In order for us to build up, we also have to build down. If we're not building down at the same time to make our foundation strong, it doesn't matter how high we go. As soon as the wind blows, you know what's going to happen If my marriage is not built on a strong foundation. I haven't built down.
Speaker 1:The problem is nobody likes the down. Everybody says, yay, let's go higher. We built, we made it seven years, let's go eight years, let's go nine years, let's go 20 years. Or we get to our 10th wedding anniversary or 20th wedding anniversary and we're just thinking let's get to 50. Wait a second. Have you done the work that will get you to 50? Have we, as a church, become and put the foundation that will take us to 10 years, that will take us to 20 years? We talk all the time about we made it past our first year, time about we made it past our first year. Thank God, we made it past our first year. 90 plus percent of church plants fail within the first year. Thank God, we made it, but that's not enough to make it to 10. Just because we fielded and we weathered the storm of the first year, that doesn't mean that we make it to year 8, 9, 10, 20. If we want to go higher, we've got to stop resisting, building deeper. That's why we started our first Wednesday service, because Sunday morning's fun and we get challenged. But there's also some inward work that has to be done as we go deeper in what God has.
Speaker 1:Okay, consecration, what does that mean? It means set apart, set aside. It's holiness, it's righteousness, it's becoming something more. And this is not me saying, hey, I'm better than you because I'm a pastor and I'm standing on stage and I have a microphone. No, that's not Sanctification. Consecration is me saying I'm better than I was yesterday, I'm better than I was a year ago, that when I gave my life to God, he made me better, not better than you. He wants us to be better than we are. So it's saying to God God, I'm going to let God do it his way. Letting God do things his way, I'm letting go of like we all have a picture of the way we want our lives to go. If I said what do you imagine your life will look like in five years. Most of you will say well, I'm really working towards this right now. I want a better job, I want to buy a boat. I'm not against boats. If you have a boat, I'll invite myself to come ride on your boat. We'll go fishing. Things are great, but consecration is saying God. Okay, I'm letting go of this picture in my mind of what I think my life should look like and I'm yielding to your picture of my life.
Speaker 1:The more that God has for us requires that we go deeper so that we can grow higher. So that's the part of stretching that we don't like to hear. I think you like to hear about it less than fasting. You don't like to hear about fasting. We have to go deeper in things. So I'm going to give you week number five of the Stretch Out series. It's going to be five ways to stretch my spiritual life. Five ways to go deeper so that I can stretch higher. Five ways to grow down so that I can also grow up. So here we go, number one of five.
Speaker 1:Number one is ready for it stillness. It's the exact thing that we don't like. We like to say, oh man, I just need a break. But then, as soon as we get in a break. As soon as we turn off all of the volume and we sit down and there's nothing playing and our phone is not there, and the kids aren't there, and the dogs and the cat and everything's not. It's like, oh man, this is uncomfortable. I don't like how still it is in here. Turn on the TV, let me scroll through social media, let me get some activity in my mind. Listen, stillness is this I give up my activity. That's what stillness is describing that I'm taking. I'm giving up my activity.
Speaker 1:Busyness doesn't mean godliness. Some of y'all need to hear me right now because you think, well, if I could just do more, if I could just go to more church services, if I could just I need to join small groups and go to join the meet pizza with the pastor, and then if I could have a phone call with so-and-so, and if I could just do more, if I could go on a missions trip or an outreach program, or I just need to do more, and then I'll be more godly, and then I'll be right where God wants me to be. Wait a second, you're stretching higher, but then the first obstacle that comes along and you have a scheduling problem and things get tough, everything falls apart because you're doing too much. Tell your neighbor you're doing too much. You're doing too much.
Speaker 1:Busyness is a top of the building kind of thing. When stillness is a bottom of the, I don't want to hear about that pastor, that's unseen, nobody cares about that. That's the bottom of the. That's the foundation that if I can get still, I can get strong. Psalm 46.10, david said be still and know that I am God. It doesn't say, hey, get super busy and then you'll know God better. Add more activity, get into more programs, read your Bible more. If you could just read the whole Bible in a month, you're doing too much. He says be still and know that I am God. So my question for you is are you being still enough to know Him more, or are you so busy that that still small voice is ignored? Watch what Jesus did in Luke 22. In fact, we see this all over the Gospels.
Speaker 1:Then, accompanied by the disciples, jesus left the upstairs room and went how, as usual, it was his routine he went to the Mount of Olives. What was he doing at the Mount of Olives? Somebody tell me what was he doing at the Mount of Olives. You know he was praying, he was seeking God. He was getting alone. He was in his quiet place.
Speaker 1:When I was a kid, we used to talk about going to your prayer closet. Well, I don't want to lock myself in the closet that. We used to talk about going to your prayer closet Well, I don't want to lock myself in the closet. That's weird. You need to get quiet somewhere if it's in the closet.
Speaker 1:Some of you need to go in the closet because your kids won't leave you alone. You're that one that I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands, but I had little kids when you're in the bathroom and they're sticking their fingers underneath the door. They won the door. They won't leave you alone. You shut the door. They want to know why. What are you doing in there? I'm just going to the bathroom, leave me alone. Can I tell you that it is okay to get five minutes alone with the Lord. Some of you need 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Some parents need to tag, team and switch off times. Hey, I just need 15 minutes. I need to pray. You'll like me better if I have 15 minutes of prayer. Just give me a minute. We've got to make the time.
Speaker 1:Where is your place Jesus often went. In fact, how did? The Bible says that Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane and Judas. He was arrested because Judas told them that he would be in the garden. How did Judas know he'd be in the garden? That was where he went. Is there a place where, when no one can find you, everybody knows they're praying, they're in their spot? Or don't mess with dad whenever he's in his room, in his prayer room. Don't mess with mom when she is reading her Bible.
Speaker 1:You need to make a space that is consecrated, that everyone in your life knows that. Hey, this is my space. It's not for me. This is my personal time with God. I've got to go deeper. You want me to be the husband. You want me to be the husband. You want me to be the wife. You want me to be the parent, the best parent that I can be. I need to spend time with God. Respect the time, listen. He had a routine for spending time alone in prayer and if Jesus needed it, how much more do we need it?
Speaker 1:You've got to find a place to be still, and some of you are thinking, okay, I'm going to download the app. Still, I'm going to download the app. Listen. That doesn't work. That's negative. Don't do that. Why? Because the moment that your phone Comes into your alone time with God, watch this. Let me show you a picture right here. This might be your phone.
Speaker 1:Some of y'all, just right now, just anxiety just went up right now Because all little red bubbles. As soon as one of those little red bubbles pops up on your phone, all right, god. I know we had 15, 20, 30 minutes scheduled, but this is I got to take care of this. So give me one second, because you can't get still because there's too many things going on. You think, what's happening here, what's happening there? You got the job, the bill, I got to go check the mail. God, as soon as I get all these bubbles checked, then we'll have some time together. That's sad, but it's true. You just have to put life on pause, put life on hold, because you're a better version of yourself. You're a stronger, taller, stretched version of yourself.
Speaker 1:If you could just spend some stillness before the Lord. Now, sometimes I tell, especially Sunday after church, I just tell Angela, tell Angela, okay, it's time I gotta go lay before the Lord. That's code for a nap. But this is I'm not talking about where you get so still that you fall asleep. I'm talking about where you have a specific time set aside if you need to kneel down on your knees so that you don't fall asleep and get beside your bed and put your hands together. Sometimes we think, well, that's just tradition, I don't have to do whatever you have to do so that you don't fall asleep and get beside your bed and put your hands together. Sometimes we think, well, that's just tradition, I don't have to do whatever you have to do so that you don't fall asleep, so that you don't get distracted by some things. Put some things in place so that your routine becomes an as usual. I'm getting still before the Lord.
Speaker 1:Here we go, number two. So number one is stillness. Number two is surrender. Surrender a word we do not like, but what does that mean? It's not I'm just giving up activity, that's part of it, but I'm also giving up my will. I'm giving up my will. So part of me says I want this and surrender says this is what I want, but I'm going to do something else instead.
Speaker 1:As a follower of Jesus, there has to be some places in your life where you start to surrender. Luke 22, 42 says Father. This is Jesus. Father, if you are willing, he's in the garden praying and sweating great drops of blood. It says please take this cup of suffering away from me. Jesus didn't want to go to the cross. Jesus didn't want to be beaten and tortured and crucified. He didn't want that. But what he actually says is yet I want your will to be done, not mine.
Speaker 1:There's some things you don't want to do, but you need to do it anyway. There's some things you don't want to do, but you need to do it anyway. It goes both ways. And can I just tell you that might mean I don't want to go to church this week. I don't want to go to church tomorrow. I don't want to join a small group. There's some things you need to do. You need to just surrender. Okay, god.
Speaker 1:There was a time in my life where I said, god, if the doors open at the church, I'm going to be there Because I needed to make a surrender to where. God, I've got 50 things I want to do, but I'm giving my life to you, and so I can prove to you that there's some things that you need to surrender, because even in your still time, you try to sit down and pray and the first thing that happens is you've turned off all the volumes on the radio, the social media you've turned off, you've stopped scrolling, you've put your phone. You've turned your phone off, you put the kids in, you've done all those things, but then, as soon as it gets still, your heart is still active. And your heart won't let you be still because there's so many things that you haven't surrendered. Your heart is full of things.
Speaker 1:Maybe that looks like pain. Maybe it looks like something someone said to you one time and you never let go of it and it was just like this arrow that hit you in the heart and you almost have been protective of that. Can't tell anybody about this. It's a thing that weighs you down. When you close your eyes and try to worship, there's something that just pops into your mind and you can't get past it. So maybe it's pain.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's the lie that the devil has told you and you believed it that for me, for the longest time it was I'm not good enough, I'm not like them. I see them with their hands up and on the front row of church and I can't raise my hands because I'm not like them. I can't go to church every week. I'm not that kind of person. I can't go to small groups all the time or lead a small group or be a pastor or read my Bible more, because God doesn't see me that way and we believe the lies and they keep us small and they keep our foundation small and we try to do something more and we try to stretch out and our foundation hasn't grown and so our building crumbles. Maybe it's fear. We don't want to let go of surrender control, because I need to control things and if I don't control things then things will fall apart.
Speaker 1:Ezekiel in the Old Testament describes the prophet, describes a man crossing a river. There comes a point where you have to relinquish control and say I can't reach the bottom At some point you can't control, you just have to let yourself go with the current, where the life that God has for you is out there in the deep. The best things that God has for you are out there in the deep and it requires that you get past the ankle deep, the knee deep, the waist deep, where the current takes you, and that's a very vulnerable place to be in. Well, I don't know about that kind of stuff. I don't know about raising my hands in church. I don't know about closing my eyes and just worshiping. I don't know about just letting go and letting God Sounds good but to actually do it, I don't know about that. Maybe it's unforgiveness, maybe it's I don't know if I can forgive that person. Maybe it's strongholds, addictions. There's some things that you need to let go of and surrender.
Speaker 1:Listen, all those things that I just described pain, fear, lies, strongholds all those things that I just described pain, fear, lies, strongholds all those things that get in our. The Bible describes how they get in our hearts and God says I want you to have a clean heart, a pure heart. All those things that get into our hearts and keep us from being able to be still and surrender. Those are the exact reasons why we have small groups. Like listen, we talk all the time. Everybody. If we said, hey guys, small groups start this week, everybody cheers. Small groups is not about, you know, getting the kids together and having a fun time. Small groups is not. I don't care what your small group is. That's why we have a bunch of small groups. They're all free market.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter if you're underwater basket weaving or vacuum cleaner racing or lawn, if you're fixing up your lawnmower to go race it, I don't know, I don't care, that's not the point. The point is that you're getting with people and building trust to the point that I can process the hurt and the pain, the fear, the lies, the strongholds, the soul ties. There's things in my heart that need to get out. I need to surrender them to the Lord and it's not easy to do that on your own. In fact, in a lot of ways it's impossible to do it on your own. That's why the Bible says confess your sins to one another that you may be healed. God will forgive your sins. But you can confess your sins to God, he'll forgive you. But until you can get with one another, start taking off the mask and revealing. Here's who I really am. I'm struggling with this.
Speaker 1:That is the magic moment in a small group, not where you could share with the whole group and tell everybody hey, everybody, my name is Sean and I have a problem with this. That's not what I'm talking about. That is important. The important part is when you and someone else can sit down. You you've spent a few weeks building enough trust to say you know what that thing you were talking about last week. I've had a struggle with that and I don't know how to get past it. And every one of us in this room you we think that I'm the only one that had that that's carrying that weight. But every one of us in this room we think that I'm the only one that's carrying that weight. But every one of us, as a human being, we deal with those things that we have to share with someone. They take part of the weight. That's accountability. Accountability is not me saying, hey, you didn't come to church, where were you at last week. That's what we think accountability is. Hey, have you been smoking crack? I'm coming to your house to check your checkbook to make sure you gave in the offering last week. That's what we think accountability is.
Speaker 1:Accountability in small groups is really when you know someone enough and you trust them enough. You might say Pastor Ron, I don't trust anybody. That's your problem. You want to clean your heart out. You want to get rid of the pain. You want to clean out the lies. You want to clean out the fears, strongholds, addictions, soul ties Just go down the list If you want to have a pure heart before the Lord and be able to close your eyes at night and live in a peace that surpasses all understanding. You need to connect with some people and start building some trust, and that's the hard work of being a community of faith. It's not just getting together and having pizza. I like that, but that's not it. We need to move on. We need to move on.
Speaker 1:I'm only on number two, so, needless to say, point three, four and five will be quick. Here we go. If you haven't joined a small group, today's small groups start on the board, out there on the orange board 24 different ones to choose from, but it doesn't matter, you join one. The point is, go find someone and when you're at the small group this week or next week, be looking for who's my person. Do you know? It's okay for you to walk up to someone and say, hey, you know what my name is. I know we've only known each other for a couple weeks. You want to have coffee sometime this week? I'm looking for a friend. I'm looking for someone to do life with. I'm looking for someone who can live by faith. We can walk shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm. Let's go to church together, let's let's help hold each other accountable to have words of faith coming out of our mouth.
Speaker 1:Point number three Sacrifice. Point number three is sacrifice, stillness, stillness, surrender, sacrifice. What is sacrifice, sacrifice is I give up my coulds. That doesn't make a lot of sense up front, but there's some things you need to give up that you could do. They're not bad, it's not sin. But there's some things you could do that you need to give up. I could do it, but I'm not going to. You know, in the Bible, samson was very strong. It wasn't a sin for him to cut his hair, but it was a choice of the Nazarene that I will not cut my hair. It's a sacrifice, it's a thing I could do, but his strength was he let his hair grow long. Right, but there's some things that that same principle I could drink alcohol. I choose not to.
Speaker 1:I don't think that one day I'm going to get to heaven and God's going to say yeah, you were a pastor, you read your Bible, you love, I know who you are, but I saw that in you know 2014,. You, really, you drank a 12-pack of beer. So I'm not going to be able to let you into heaven today. I don't think that's going to be the case. I don't think there's a mark against me. But if I want to become who God made me to be, angela, I just made a decision we're not going to drink, we're not going to do this, we're not going to do this, we're not going to go to these places. We're not going to participate in these kinds of activities, because it keeps us from being who God made us to be. It's just an obstacle in the road.
Speaker 1:Why would I want to put more things that I could do in the way of who I could be? Each level that I go to, each new level, requires new sacrifices. I'll read you this real quick 1 Corinthians 9 says don't we have the right to live in your homes and share your meals? Don't we have the right to bring a believing wife with us, as the other apostles, the Lord's brothers, do and as Peter does? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have to work to support ourselves? I know that might not make a whole lot of sense without the context, but in other words, there are some things we could do. But then the very next verse verse 12, it says but we did not use this right.
Speaker 1:There are some rights that we need to give up. I love our freedom curriculum, our freedom small group, because it talks about giving up the right to be right. We can stand up on our soapbox and say, hey, I'm right and I'm going to stand on it, I'm going to defend it, I'm going to make sure everybody knows it. But part of sacrifice is saying I'm right and I could do this, but I choose not to. I could do a lot of things but I choose not to. If I want to be blessed, if I want to grow up, then I'm going to have to also grow deeper. Our rights, the things that we could do, we have to give them up.
Speaker 1:Here's an amazing thing that I've been thinking about this week that in the Old Testament you know that they would build an altar out of stones and that they would put an animal on the altar and they would sacrifice it for sin offerings. They would sacrifice it for praise offerings, for worship. They would put an animal on it at Cain and Abel. They both brought their offerings. But the Bible says you can read in Leviticus it says that bring the fat, that they would take the fat of the animal as a worship sacrifice to God, and it says that the incense of the altar, the incense of that sacrifice would be either a sweet-smelling offering to the Lord, and he would accept it, or not would be either a sweet-smelling offering to the Lord and he would accept it or not. But you and I.
Speaker 1:This thought occurred to me that when we fast and we don't like to talk about fasting, but when we fast what we're actually doing is, if you don't eat for 12 hours or so, 18 hours, what happens? You stop eating, your body stops burning calories in your digestive system and it starts burning fat in your body. And when I give up food for God and I'm fasting, what I'm actually doing is I'm putting myself on an altar of sacrifice and burning my own fat as worship to the Lord. For you, it may or may not be that way, but in my mind, if I say God, I'm not going to eat today, I'm not going to eat for a month, 21 days, I'm not going to eat certain things, what I'm actually doing is I'm sacrificing part of what I could do. I could eat, but I choose not to. I could do this, I could do that. Lots of things I could do.
Speaker 1:Number four is sanctification. This is I give up my impurities. 1 Corinthians 3, verse 12. If anyone builds on a foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw. Their work will be shown for what it is, because the day that's capital D judgment day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's work. There's part of us that God wants to make stronger like gold. He wants to purify us. We're not willing for the impurities to come out then. We're still just a mixture of all kinds of things. So sanctification is I give up my impurities, my actions.
Speaker 1:I think we have to look at our lives through the lens of how am I going to filter what's going on inside of me, my motives, my actions, my thoughts, my feelings, my will? What is the lens that I'm examining myself with? I think that lens is the fruit of the Spirit. If we're looking at ourself and testing ourselves to say, oh, this is not gold, this has to go. Maybe it's not a sin. Maybe it's not a sin for me to watch this Netflix series, but there's some things that I have to filter through my life and say I'm not going to watch that kind of show, I'm not going to look at this kind of social media or go to this kind of website Because it's an impurity in my life and it makes me weak. It makes me weaker and so when the wind blows, I fall down. I want to grow higher.
Speaker 1:So I have to go deeper and so I have to ask myself the questions am I operating in love? Am I operating in the fruit of the Spirit? Am I living with joy? Or if I'm just pretending like I'm happy, I high-five everybody and handshake people, give people hugs and I'm doing great and then when I actually leave and get still I'm not happy at all, do I have peace that surpasses? Or do I go home wrecked and full of anxiety because the bills are coming and I'm too busy and I've got this coming and that coming and I've overbooked myself and I've over budgeted myself? Am I living with the fruit of the Spirit Patience Am I a patient person? I have to be honest with myself. When I get in my truck, I'm not patient and I'm driving around on the road and maybe I get behind some of you, I don't know, hopefully not. I have to remind myself and put on something on the radio that reminds me to live and walk and think and live by the fruit of the Spirit, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.
Speaker 1:Finally, number five, and we'll get ready to close with this one. The first four are things that we're taking out, the things that I'm giving up. I'm giving up my activity, I'm giving up my will, I'm giving up taking out, I'm giving up taking out. But the number five is something that has to be put back in, and that's the Spirit's power. The Holy Spirit wants to empower you to grow and to stretch and to become who God made you to be. The Holy Spirit is the only way we get there.
Speaker 1:Imagine if I said, hey, we're going to walk to Houston, let's go to Houston. Right. If I said we're going to walk to downtown and go see the Chase Tower that we just looked at, how long would it take us to walk there? Huh, I don't know what is it? 30 miles, I don't know. It could take a long time. We might be able to. It might take us 20 hours to walk there. Some of us wouldn't make it, but Some of you sleeping on the side of the highway passed out with an ambulance. But if the car could take us there in 20 minutes, why would we not take the car? Why would we not get in the car and go.
Speaker 1:There's some things that God wants for you and wants for me and really we could fight to get there. We could struggle our whole life. We could fight to have the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. We could fight for those things and struggle and fail and struggle and fail. Or we could reach for the Holy Spirit and make room for the Holy Spirit and then all of a sudden, that fruit starts growing in our life and it's not because of us, and it becomes easy, it becomes automatic, it becomes the fruit that grows out of what's happening inside of us. That's what God wants for you and for me and this church.
Speaker 1:This is us saying it's not by our power. Imagine God made you we say this all the time that God made you on purpose, for a purpose. But you cannot achieve that without his spirit in you, without his spirit empowering you. This is why, acts 1, jesus tells the disciples, whenever he's getting ready to ascend to heaven, he's like I've shown you what to do, I've shown you what it looks like, but you can't do it. Someone else is coming and he tells them that the Holy Spirit, god, is sending a helper, a comforter. God's sending someone else to live in you, and he says this but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. There's more. We have to figure out what that more is, for it's to actually get where he's made us to be.
Speaker 1:Galatians 5.25 says since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. You cannot follow the Spirit and live by the Spirit unless you are filled with the Spirit. Last verse, and then we're going to pray. Zechariah 4.6. The Spirit of God says not by might, nor by power, but what? But by my Spirit? Say that out loud. But by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.
Speaker 1:He says you cannot do what I've called you and made you to do without my spirit. You can fight, you can try, you can struggle. You can wake up every morning and say I just need more willpower, god, god, give me more willpower so I can make it and not fail again. He's saying you just need my spirit to empower you. So would you stand up on your feet? If you're that one that's saying, well, I don't know what that means. I need the spirit of God. Let me tell you we're gonna go deeper on our first Wednesday service. I'm gonna come back and we're gonna talk about the Holy Spirit and we're gonna dive deeper. We're gonna invite the Holy Spirit to do whatever he wants to do in our lives, to empower us to do those things. But right now I need you to just commit yourself. Let's become the church that he made us to be. Would you worship with?
Speaker 2:us for a minute. So I pour out my praise to give your word, god. You're worthy of our praise. Your promises never fail. I've heard stories, I've been told, so I pour out my praise to give your word, god. You're worthy of our praise. Oh, oh, oh. To the broken, I'm with you still. To the hurting. I witness death To the hurting. I witness death To the lost. I will witness death and I'm telling this. I'm telling what I witness To my family. I witness death To my city. I witnessed it To the nations. I witnessed it and I'm telling this. I'm telling what I witnessed. I witnessed your faithfulness. I've seen you breathe life within, so I pour out my praise again. You're worthy, god. You're worthy of all. Your promises never fail. I've got stories I've lived to tell, so I pour out my praise again. You're worthy, god. You're mine.
Speaker 1:We're going to pray together.
Speaker 1:I need you to just make a commitment in your own heart to the Lord. Maybe it's some things that you need to let go of. Maybe it's some things that you need to let go of. Maybe it's some things that you need to add into your life, making some adjustments. But ultimately, we're just asking God to speak to us. God, show me, what do I need to do? So often we ask God for a plan. We ask God for like. God, give me a vision of, like a blueprint for the rest of my life. That's not how God works. I'm not saying he can't work that way, but in general, what he does is like what he did with Abraham. He says you just got to leave this point and go that way and I'll show you what the next step is. He just gives us the next step. When you get there, I'll show you.
Speaker 1:The challenging part is that when you pray the prayer God, what do I need to do now? He will show you. You just might not like it. You need to do this more. You need to stop doing this. You need like just take this step. If you'll ask Holy Spirit, what are you trying to say to me today? Maybe you already know and you've just been resisting it and you thought, oh, maybe that's just because I need to go have lunch first, and then I'll ask again and the answer will be different. If we'll just surrender to God and say, holy Spirit, what are you trying to show me right now, and then take that step, would you pray with me right now? Let's commit ourselves to being his church and being his people who follow him. Let's pray God. We thank you and we praise you. We honor you and we worship you for who you are, not just what you do for us, god. You've already done enough. God. You've given us so much already by sending your son to die on a cross to pay for our sin. So, lord, we commit ourselves to taking those steps to making this year our best spiritual year ever, that we're closer to you than we've ever been. We commit to building our foundation stronger and embracing your Holy Spirit, your voice, in our lives. In Jesus' name, before we go, I would like to offer and give an opportunity for every person in the room, if you've never taken a first step of faith and surrendered your life to Jesus, and become simply become a Jesus follower, accepting.
Speaker 1:The Bible says whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. It's. This is that moment where you say, god, I need you in my life, lead me, guide me. I'm going to follow you from this day. And so we say that confession of faith as a prayer together, and then we walk it out together. So would you just bow your head and close your eyes, right where you are, and we're going to pray this prayer together. Would you say these words with me Dear Heavenly Father, dear heavenly father, I invite you into my life. Thank you for sending your son to die, to die on a cross for my sin. Forgive me, fill me, lead me, and from this day forward, I will follow you in Jesus name. Amen, and from this day forward, I will follow you In Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Let's put our hands together Real quick. If you said that prayer, I'm proud of you and I'd love to meet up with you even today at 6 pm for Pizza with the Pastor. I'd love to get to know you and I'd love to. If you have never been baptized, let's do that this Wednesday night at our first Wednesday service. Otherwise, the prayer team, you guys, are invited to join me at the front. If you'd like to come and pray with someone. Feel free, otherwise you are dismissed. In Jesus' name, have a blessed week. I believe you are who you are.