You know, one of the first things Pastor Kevin did when he
became the lead pastor at the church was he said, I
want to call them gatherings instead of
services. I want to call them gatherings because of the way the
family of God comes together. And.
And I have always appreciated that. That the way the
Lord brings the gatherings of the family together.
And that's what I see in
this room. Ooh, I'm ringing a little bit. That's what I see in this
room. When we come together to worship up here and when we come together like
this. Guys, can I tell you, I don't know
what an energizer bunny feels like, but I have a pretty good
idea. It feels like when you stand in with your brothers and your
sisters and there's just a charge
in the room, there is just something where we can stand with one another
and worship this God that we call our God.
And I will always encourage you to do that. I
know sometimes it may feel like, oh, no, they're gonna make us come to the
front again. It isn't. It's cause we wanna hide in your midst
is what it is. But actually what it is is we want you to
experience that. You know, it's like when your brothers and sisters come and lay
hands on you. And it's not just one person praying and you can just
sense the presence of the Holy Spirit and you feel like you're covered.
That's what it is. Like if you've never come forward
and just been a part of mass worship. Now, some of
you were in mosh pits when you were young and you're
like, oh, I can't go up and be with them. I'm sure there's video out
there somewhere would prove otherwise. Anyway, I just
wanna encourage you. And at the end of this gathering, at the end
of this teaching, I'm gonna offer you another opportunity
because there's something that I was sensing in my spirit earlier as I was
worshiping. And it's exactly what they've been saying is he
is worthy of our praise. He is worthy of our praise, and we
have come together to worship him. Right? Our eyes are
set on him. Well, last week we talked about
seeing the goodness of the Lord, right? And how the
stars. On the fourth day, when the stars were created in the canopy of the
heavens, the word said that they were set in place to mark sacred
times and that we would be witnesses. The stars
are witnesses. And we are witnesses of what the Lord is doing.
And my encouragement last week was to allow the Lord to
hide you in the cleft of the rock and to be still and know
that he was God until you saw his goodness pass by. And if you
remember, I said, don't judge a moment, don't judge a season
until you see God's goodness in it. Right? And so
that is my heart, and that is what I believe the charge is to do,
but rightly so. After the gathering,
someone came up and said, what if I cannot see his goodness?
What if I've been standing and I've been waiting for a long time and
I have not been able to see him in this situation?
And I just said, you know, what if that is the case and you've been
standing a long time and you still can't see the goodness?
Can you just remember his faithfulness?
Can you remember his faithfulness in your life over time?
Can you trust him, knowing that he is
sovereign, knowing that he is holy and knowing that he is good?
In the midst of moments where it's difficult to be still
and see his goodness, can you just trust
Him? Can you just trust Him? We are going to
jump back into that same passage of Scripture a little bit, because when I left
you last week, I had shared with you the
idea and the concept if we are witnesses in the
earth, and According to Hebrews 12, we are
surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses that
we are a part of that. We are part of that bigger picture with
them. I felt like it was really important to go and see. Okay,
well, what was the encouragement in that? What came after that?
Because if you can't see him in the moment, you can still know
he's there. You can still, by faith, know and trust him
when you cannot see how this moment is going to go.
He is a good God. That much you can know. Amen. So
we are going to stand and we are going to read Hebrews
12 if you would stand with me, because we are going to touch on this
cloud of witnesses for just a moment,
see what the Lord has to do with that. So, all right, guys,
let's read this thing. Therefore, since we
are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses,
let us throw off everything that hinders. Stop just a
second. What are we throwing off?
Part of it. The part we don't like. All of it.
Let us throw off, because we are part of those witnesses.
Let us throw off everything that hinders and
the sin that so easily entangles. And let
us run with perseverance the race marked out
before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of faith, for the
joy Set before him. He endured the cross,
scorning the shame and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God. Consider
who endured such opposition
so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Look for a second at that third verse. What does it say? It says,
consider him, consider him.
Why? So that you will not grow weary
and lose heart. We grow weary and we lose heart
when we consider everything but him, when our eyes
get on everything but. But him, the one who for the
joy set before him, endured the cross
scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of
God. And guys, he is still standing. He is still sitting at the right
hand of God. Nothing is lost in this. So consider
him so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Father, God, I
thank you so much for your word. I thank you for your truth. I thank
you Lord. As my granny used to say, the truth will stand when
the world's on fire. And I thank you Lord, for your truth.
May it burn our hearts. May it
burn in our hearts. Father, let my stuff fall in your
stand in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. God
is so faithful. He's so good. I couldn't get out of this passage of
scripture. I've been living in it this week
because I was thinking about another gentleman came up last week and he said,
you know, I've been doing that all week. You just described my life. I've been
sitting outside looking up at the stars and seeing the goodness of
God sitting under those stars. And guys, I just want
to ask you at least once or twice this week
or 17 times because that's a little bit more
memorable than once or twice. Go out and sit
on your step, sit in the grass, sit outside,
get a lawn chair after dark and look up at the
sky. Look up at these stars that are still marking time,
sacred seasons. Look up at them. Because see, the word of God says, the
heavens declare the glory of God.
And sometimes we need to recenter and we need to refocus
and we need to allow the heavens to declare
the goodness of God. One version says, the heavens speak
of him, the heavens speak of him.
And that is where I would like to encourage you this week to
spend some time with him, bringing your
focus in to his presence. I
really feel like this will be an abbreviated teaching this morning, but
you never know because things happen.
But I was looking at this passage of scripture and the thing that kept staying
with me was, consider him,
consider him, consider him so that you do not grow.
Has anybody been weary of. Has anybody Been tired?
Has anybody been distracted? Has anybody got their eyes
off of the Lord? Has anybody got their eyes on circumstances or
situations or pains or diagnoses
or you've gotten your eyes off center and see, when we
come into this room, I want us to focus
on him. I want us to focus on Him. I grew up on a farm,
and we had horses, and we would put blinders on those
horses because did you know that with the
positioning of a horse's eyes, they can look to the sides?
It's pretty funky when they do that. I'm just saying. But they can look to
the sides, but they can see behind them, too. And so they're
skittish. And so you put blinders on them in order to
take them across something that they don't trust. Like a
gate that we would put across the branch or the creek. We
call it a creek, you put a gate across it that you would have to.
When you would have to take those horses over something that they couldn't really
trust, you had to put blinders on them so that all they could see
was you, and all they could see was that you
were gonna take them to that place.
Sometimes in our faith walk, we get so
distracted by the things on the side and the things
that are behind us and the things that are happening. And we need
to add prayer and fasting and studying the Word
and focus on Jesus Christ so that we
keep our eyes on him. Because here's the cool thing, guys.
He is the author of your book. Even if you don't like
the chapter you're in, there's another chapter coming,
okay? And it says that all the days of your life
were written, were ordained before even one of them came to be.
There is nothing that is happening in your life that caught God
by surprise. There's nothing. And you can trust
him. You can trust him. God is. Pours into
us so that in good seasons and bad seasons and testing
seasons and trying seasons, we can remain fixed
on him. To remain fixed on Him. And that's what
this says. It says to consider him. And see, when
we think of the word consider, we're like, oh, I will consider
these things. No, this is a verb.
This is an active verb, to consider. And what's
interesting is that this particular word is only used
one time in the whole Bible. In the Old Testament. In the
New Testament, it's only used one time. And it is
literally, it means, okay, I can spell the word
for you, but I can't really say it. But it is a N, a L,
O G, I, Z, O, M, A, I.
I felt like I just went through the Alphabet anyway.
But it literally means to add weight
to this thing that you are considering, this weight that you're gonna be,
this thing that you're gonna ponder, that you're gonna set your mind on, that
you're gonna engage in. And he's saying, add weight to
what I'm doing. Add weight to what the Lord is doing
in this moment. Actually, one of the other things
it says, compare it to everything else. Compare it to
everything else. Every other instance, every other thing that
might be happening in your world, in your life, what spoken.
Compare his goodness to that.
And add weight in your situation to the
goodness of God. And add weight to the fact that we are part of
so great a cloud of witnesses and we are still marking
sacred times on this planet to add weight
to that. And here's what it says so that you will not grow weary
and lose heart. God, you can't lose heart. You can't grow weary. We
don't. Ain't nobody got time for that.
We just don't. We just don't have time for that. We're still running
a race. We are still running a race. And not
only are we running a race, we got people behind us in that race.
And we are setting the pace for that race. And we have got to
finish strong. No matter what God is calling us to do,
we finish strong. Our middle son, Matthew,
decided he felt like the Lord told him to run a marathon.
And so he trained for that marathon. He trained for
probably a year or two, trained for that marathon,
and it was scheduled and he was gonna come and run that.
And Covid happened. Covid hit. And it
was early enough in that season to where they weren't okay with you
hanging out outside together either. You were limited to the number of people.
They cancele that marathon.
And Matthew said, I wasn't
running that race for them. And he decided to
get up on a typical day. Could have been a Tuesday, Justin.
Or he could have slept in on a Tuesday afterward, we don't know.
He sent me his GPS location.
And I watched that man, boy in my eyes,
but that man, I watched him run around warehouses
and neighborhoods and all around the city,
all by himself, running the marathon that God had
called him to run. Because he wasn't running that race for anybody
else. He was running it because God told him to. And he said, I knew
I had to go out 14 miles if I was gonna come back 14.
You know, he's like, I was gonna go out A little bit further than I
intended to. Guys, you're running the
race for him. What he has called you to do, he has
called you to do. And I. I want us
to throw aside every weight that would hinder us
from accomplishing and going and running the race that God has called us to
run. Amen. Because every single one of you have
something that God has poured into you that he is
waiting and watching you to run. You know what? I don't believe for a second
that Matthew ran alone. I believe there was a wind
with him. I believe that there was someone. Because we are never
alone. We're never alone. There's a
song in that. Oh, my goodness. But here's the thing. So we do not
grow weary and lose heart. Why,
if you jump back, if you go home today, I want you to get
your Bible. If you have a paper one, I hope you do.
I want you to go to Hebrews 10 and jump
down. You got it up here, Hebrews
10. So do not throw away your
confidence. It will be richly. What confidence
in your abilities, in the way that you do things. No,
guys, you know what? I had this dream. Just leave that there. I'm going to
let that camp there. I had this dream, and in my
dream, I was in a really nice hotel room, hint, hint, Hal
Laughlin. Anyway, it was a really
nice place, but it was nighttime. And the curtains were
drawn, you know. Cause if you're near the ocean, if
you'll open the curtains, there's the ocean. Well, it was nighttime in my dream, and
you couldn't really see it,
but I could hear it. And, man, it sounded like it was right on
my doorstep. And so I pushed the curtains back and I
pushed, opened the doors, and I stepped out onto the edge of this balcony.
And I couldn't see anything, but I could hear
everything. I couldn't see what was
beyond my balcony, but I knew who
created those waves. I knew who made
that water. And the scripture tells me that his
voice is the sound of many waters, right? And so
I was afraid. But I went all the way to the edge and
I just heard the Holy Spirit just say, will you trust me?
Will you trust me? Now, let me tell you why that's funny.
Because when I was a kid, it was difficult for me to learn to
swim. And I used to fake being able to swim.
I know. How do you fake being able to swim? I'm
gonna need some help over here. The way you fake being able to swim
is you use one leg and one arm, and on the surface, you
Pretend to swim while you hop with your left foot.
I thought I was swimming so sublimely across the
surface when what everybody else was seeing was this.
Because I wanted one foot on the ground.
I wanted to be able to be in control, and I
couldn't trust that. And so what I was having
going on on the surface in my mind looked like, oh,
that girl knows how to swim. But my left leg was
cramping under the water because I wasn't
being able to do it. So to me, this dream
showed me God's sense of humor from one standpoint. To go,
you want to keep your foot on the bottom, even in a pool, and I'm
asking you to step into something. You have no idea.
You have no idea. And I said, but, Lord, in my dream, I
said, but, Lord, I can't touch bottom there. And he said, the point is
not to touch bottom. The point is to trust
him. Because as long as we can touch bottom,
we are still in control. But once you're in over your
head, baby, it doesn't matter how deep you go, because it's
all him. It's all Him. And so what was in
my spirit is, do you trust him?
Do you trust him? When you are in a situation that you don't
know anything other than that first step that he's calling you
to? You don't know how wide that
ocean is or how high those waves are,
but you know someone who does. And see, we don't back
up and we don't back down because that's not what God has called
us to do. No matter what's coming at you, that is not your
option. I'm just gonna call you up in that. We do not back
up. In chapter 10, it says this. Do
not throw away your confidence, not your confidence in how good you are, how fast
you can run, and that you can actually swim with both feet,
you can't do that. It will be richly rewarded. You need to
persevere. You need to persevere so that
when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has
promised. Oh, guys, come on. Grab this. We. For in
just a little while. For in just a little while.
He who is coming will come and will not delay. Never
lose sight of that. Never lose sight of that. The world
wants you to put you in a state of perpetual. Oh, well, he's not
coming back. You don't know when he's coming back. But I know he's
coming back. And it says, just a little while. He who is coming
will come and will not delay. And that's why we can't give up. That's why
we can't faint. That's why we can't back down. And it says,
but my righteous one will live by faith. And I take no
pleasure in the one who shrinks back. But we do
not belong. Say this one with me, guys, read that last part.
We do not belong to those who shrink back and
are destroyed. But to those who have faith and
are saved. We do not belong to the ones
who shrink back. You are cut
from better cloth than that. If I can quote Granny again.
You are cut from better cloth than that. You are the sons
and daughters of the most high God. And so
we do not shrink back. We consider him and his
goodness and what he's done. My
encouragement is this. It doesn't say,
run the race better than everybody else. It doesn't say,
look really good when you're running it. It doesn't say, you
are never gonna fall once you start this race. You are
never gonna stumble when what it
says is, keep going, Keep going. Persevere.
Did you know? It's not perseverance unless it's hard.
It's not perseverance if you're enjoying what you're doing.
Perseverance costs us something. And when you continue
over time to follow after him, to run the race,
whether anybody sees how you're running or not,
finish your race. Finish the course that God has laid out for
you. Some of you have stopped. Stopped
at times in my life where I've been like, oh, Lord, that looks too hard.
That looks too hard. And then you know what I see in those moments?
Anybody in here old enough to remember the commercials about Nesty
Plunge?
That's what I see. Just trust
fall. Not with humans.
With him. Trust fall. Go, God. This
is what I believe that you said. I'm gonna need some worship leaders out here
because we're gonna worship. Because I do believe what he said when we
were talking earlier. He's worthy of praise. And when you've got a
spirit of heaviness, we're gonna put on a spirit of praise in a minute, and
we are gonna worship him.
God finishes what he starts.
God finishes what he starts. His people finish
what they start through his strength, by his wisdom. And
if your race has not finished yet, you're not finished yet.
So we're gonna run our race together, aren't we? You know what the scripture
that stayed in my heart all
week was When Jesus looked out over Jerusalem and he said,
jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I longed for. Gather
you in my arms. How I longed to gather
you in my arms. But you wouldn't have it. You wouldn't
have it. And what's in my spirit today is a
gathering. What is in my spirit today is a calling up to
go. God finishes what he starts. And I don't know where you are in your
life, but I do know where God is in your life. And he is watching
to see if you are ready to take that step, if you are
ready to just trust him and run the race that he's called
you without excuses. Not going well. I can't run
that anymore. I can't do that anymore. This is my reason.
What if you just trust him? And what if you move over
to the edge of that balcony because you don't have to see it to hear
his voice. You don't have to see him to know that he's there. What
if you just step over to the edge of that balcony,
catch the sound of what God is doing, and make
a decision to persevere and
stay and take that step into the
unknown and trust Him. Don't shrink back.
Do what God has called you to do. And here's the beautiful part of it.
You don't have to do it by yourself. You don't have to be
alone. Matthew ran that marathon.
We got a whole lot of people
that'll run with you, that'll walk with you,
that'll have conversations with you that need to be had. People
who will hug you and love you and care for you and
cover you when you need to be covered. That's what the body
of Christ does. That's what the great cloud of witnesses.
I think when I always picture it this, I always picture them, like,
leaning over. I don't think they have to lean over to look
through the clouds, but that's how I picture it. But I see them. And
we are surrounded. We're surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses. And one day when we
join them, if he tarries,
we'll be part of that, watching as our sons
and our daughters and our grandchildren and our
great grandchildren stand witness to what God is doing in
the earth. God is good. And we
don't shrink back. We don't back up.
We stay focused. We fix our eyes on
Jesus. We fix our eyes on the author and
the finisher of our face.
Author and the finisher. So here's what I have asked the worship team to do.
Because I know they're not tired enough from what they did earlier.
I have asked them, we are going to do two Songs.
And if you
just need to make a declaration in your life, we're getting ready to
speak Jesus. We're going to speak Jesus over our families.
We're gonna speak Jesus over our church. We're gonna speak Jesus over our life. We're
gonna speak Jesus over our kids. We're gonna speak Jesus over our
communities. Because that's what it's about.
That's who it is about. It is about Jesus. It
is about his redeeming power and all
that he is. And we are witnesses and we
testify of the goodness of God. So I'm gonna invite you to a
gathering. Yeah, I just came up with that. Anyway,
I want you to gather with me. Will you come down here? We're going to
gather. We're going to make a declaration of. I speak Jesus. If you are
physically capable of coming, I just.
In the words of Paul, I beseech ye, therefore, brethren,
because you know what I need
the family of God together. And
we're going to speak. I speak Jesus. And then there's something else. We're going to
shift, and you might not have danced in a
while, but clogging is an
option.
I didn't really mean that. River dance.
Whatever. We are going to go into the. The final song is
Praise. I praise. I praise
when I feel it. Come on up, guys. You get up closer.
I praise when I don't.
Everybody, do your hands still work? Can you point
like this and go. Can you make a declaration? I speak
Jesus. I speak Jesus over my family.
I speak Jesus over every situation. We're
gonna go there, and you can't leave after I speak Jesus, because
we are gonna put on a garment of praise for a spirit of
heaviness. And we are gonna watch God go.
Amen. Let's go, worship team. Hey, sound people, push
the buttons. All the way up. All the
way up. Yeah, let's go.