What a blessing to be able to have a cafe team that serves
so well, and coffee and all of that out there. God is,
God is really, really faithful. How are you guys doing today? Are we
good? Well, praise the Lord. Um,
if you guys will keep the llama back there, um,
we No animals today. No animals today.
Well, good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning. Man, what gorgeous
weather outside. Man, I have just so enjoyed it. We
enjoyed some time outside yesterday, and man,
God is good whether it storms or it's sunshine. I'm just glad He
chose sunshine today. Amen? Amen. Well, we have
a lot of activity going on in the church, so a lot for you
to be a part of, so I wanted to kind of go through that first
before we jump into where I feel like the Lord's taking us today. Okay, first
of all, I didn't have a slide made for this, so Landon decided to wear
his shirt today. If you'll stand up, Palm Sunday is next
weekend, and so this wasn't
intentional today, but
yeah, Palm Sunday is next Sunday, and we hope that you'll join us for that.
Following that, we are going to be having a Good Friday service on
April 3rd. It will be 7 o'clock to 8 o'clock here in the
ministry center. We invite you to come. We're going to partake in communion,
and it's going to be a real special time together. So I hope that you'll
plan to be a part of that gathering, and then we're going to have an
Easter gathering here, and it's going to be at 9 and 11.
Now, if you look around the room right now, you guys are cozy
with about one chair in between some of you or whatnot. I
believe that there's going to be some people that show up on
that Sunday, so I encourage you, if you have the capacity,
if your family dynamics work in this way,
to come to the early gathering so we can make room for the visitors who
come on Easter. I would I would greatly appreciate that. That's just an
invitation to do that. You don't have to do that, but if you, if it,
you know, if it just is a matter of you getting up a little early
and coming, that would serve us well because we want to make sure we have
enough room for the people who will be visiting on that day. And if you
bring some people on that day, we hope that you would invite them back the
following week to see Mike Goodwin. This is not just a comedy show. This is
actually going to be tying into a message toward the end, and I'm excited about
what he's going to bring, and an opportunity for you to bring those friends
that you've invited to be, be to be with us
here during the Easter season. And then the following week, if they stick
around, we'd invite them to be a part of the Newcomers Luncheon so
they can learn who we are, what we're about, learn our
pastors, and we get to meet them in a more intimate
setting. And then on May 15th, there is a
Legacy Conference, and this is for those ages 50 and
above. And the reason I'm putting this up now is because that group
needs you to register in April, and so we
wanted to go ahead and make sure that I just wanted to make sure that
you were aware of this opportunity to be a part of their annual conference, and
so you can register for that on the app as well. Okay, if that's good,
say yeah. All right, well, we are going to talk about being
hated today. It's a great— aren't you glad you came to church? Uh,
we are Hated But Secure, Abiding in Christ. Guys, could you
just look at somebody and smile?
Good, because that's the last time you're going to do that for the next 30
minutes. No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No,
today I believe the Lord's given a real solid word for us,
and so let's stand. We're going to read from 3 passages of
scripture, and I'm excited about where we're at,
and I hope that the scriptures we're reading today you're familiar with.
John 13, John 15, and Ephesians 6. We're not reading the
entire chapters, those are the places we're taking them from. Let's read with some gusto
today. Here we go. 'If the world hates you, keep in
mind that it hated me first. If you belonged
to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I
have chosen you out of the world. That's why the
world hates you. Remember what I told you:
a servant is not greater than his master.' "if they
persecuted me, they will persecute you also.
Be strong in the Lord and in the might—
put on the full armor of God so that you can take
your stand against the devil's schemes. For our
struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers
of this dark world, and against the against the spiritual forces
of evil in the heavenly realms. A new
command I give you: Love one another. As I
have loved you, you must also love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you love one another. Father, I thank you for your
Word, and I thank you that it is true. I thank you that its
work in our lives can change us, and so I just pray, Lord, that you
would do that. Let the that are mine fall to the ground, but the things
that you have to stick with us, may they do that and
change us. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.
Have you ever noticed that it doesn't take much for people to get upset
anymore? It doesn't take much for people to get upset anymore. I mean,
you can post something completely harmless and somehow someone is offended.
You post a picture of your lunch and people are like, Well, must be
nice. You say you like a certain restaurant and you
open yourself to a debate you didn't sign up for. We
live in a world where everyone has an
opinion, and not only that, probably what's worse is
that with our opinions, we're really loud with our opinions too.
You have an opinion, I have an opinion, but here's
the thing, there's a difference There's a difference between
people being irritated with you and people
opposing what you stand for. There's a difference.
And if you follow Jesus long enough,
you will experience both. Throughout history,
there are people who stood for something meaningful, and they were almost
every time misunderstood for it. Dr. Martin Luther
King stood for equality, and and he was hated
for it. This is Corrie ten Boom. She
chose forgiveness when hate would have been an
appropriate option. This is Dietrich
Bonhoeffer. He stood against all sorts of evil, and
it cost him his life. Here's the point.
History remembers people who stood in the middle of
tension and how they responded to it.
It remembers people who are in the middle of tension and
how they responded to it. And if you are a
believer in Jesus Christ here this morning, then you
are living in, in the context of a world that
does not believe the same things you believe. And
therefore, as a believer, you are living
in a place of tension. You should be living in a
place of tension. Because we're living in this world that says
everything other than what you ascribe or
say that you believe. Now, most of us
don't even like being disliked in a group text, right?
Have you ever sent somebody a text and they have
those stinking read receipts on? And you
see they've read it? This is the worst. Then you see the
bubbles, and then the bubbles go away, and And then they don't say anything
else. And you want to throw your
phone against the wall, but you didn't pay your
insurance payments, so that didn't work out. But you're just
so upset you want to lose your mind. See, we don't even like
low-level rejection. Like, I'm talking about when
somebody walks by you and they give you that side-eye, and you know they're thinking
something negative, and you're like, "What's going on? What'd I do this time?" Right? I
offend my wife every morning with my breath.
But here Jesus is talking about
full-on hate. This is what
Jesus says. He says this, "If the world hates you, keep in
mind that it hated me
first." But in the same teaching,
Jesus also says this, "They will know you
are my disciples by your by the way you love. Now,
wait a second, Jesus. Are you telling me as
a follower of yours I'm going to experience
times of hatred, but they're going to
know who you are by the way I love them?
That's hard, because if I get an
inkling that Scotty hates me, My flesh
side says, "I don't care much about you either, bruh."
Right? I mean, if Robert comes up there, up here, and
decides to just slug me in the mouth, in front of all
these people, I'm going to turn the other cheek, okay? But what's going on in
my flesh, Robert, is I want to bear tackle you to the ground. Right? I
mean, am I speaking to anybody but me today? I mean, the
flesh inside me goes, "Wait a second, if you hate me,
"and I know you hate me."
My flesh says, "I hate you too!" You
know what I mean? I hate you too! But here Jesus is saying that
they're going to know that I'm a follower by the way I
love. There's this tension here. There's this tension that we've
got to wrap our heads around because
it doesn't feel natural and it almost feels impossible
to execute. Here's the thing, if
you look like Jesus, you're probably going
to be treated like Jesus. And if you
remember the story, if you're familiar with scripture,
Jesus didn't get treated very well by the world. He didn't really get
treated very well by us. And so,
While the world may not hate you as an
individual person, the world
hates the one you reflect in your life. The world
hates the one that you reflect in your life. Let's look at a definition of
hate that we'll work with today as we're unpackaging this. Hate is
the willful rejection, resistance, and
opposition to a person because their faith, their
life, truth, or identity
exposes what is contrary in us.
So in other words, hate is my rejection
of you because when we get up close to each other,
something in you is illuminated that I don't agree with.
And so because I don't agree with it, I resent you, I
reject you, I oppose you. That's the
definition of hate we're going to work with here today.
And I And what Jesus is saying is
the world hated Him in this way, and if you are a
believer in Christ Jesus and you follow Jesus,
it's likely that you're going to experience moments in your life
where you are also hated. Guys, when
we bring truth to the table, we
bring light. The Word is is
light. Would you say that? The Word— the Word
is light, and light does something that darkness
cannot do. It does something that darkness doesn't
like. Light obliterates the darkness. It's
not like you've got two equal players up here and they're combating
for the win. Light is always going to win. If you
introduce light into a dark situation,
Light is always going to win the
fight. Light is always— light is good! Would you tell your neighbor,
"Light is good!" Guys, I'm going to tell you something. I'm
getting older. I'm getting older. I know
some of you are older than me, praise God! And, um, but I'm
getting older, and I used to— so in this room here,
I've been here for many, many years. I was here when this building was built.
And when it is dark outside, and you walk in this room, and there
are no lights on, This is a very dark room,
and I used to be able to walk in that door and
walk across over here to the backstage without turning on any
lights until I smacked into the pole one day.
And because of that pain— see, there's wisdom in pain. I don't have time for
this message, but there's wisdom in pain. Pain is a teacher to get you
back to wisdom. They don't like each other, okay? So pain will
fight you to get you back to wisdom, and so something said to me, "Kevin,
you better turn on a light when you walk in this place." So now I've
got my cell phone, and I can't find the button, so I'm
going like this, you know, trying to get it. But something else has
happened too, and I don't know, y'all have to tell me, those who are older
than me. There's something that happens now that I'm walking, now as I'm
walking through like a dark area, not only am I trying to, to
illuminate my path, but I'm also like losing my
balance. Does that happen to anybody? Like, I'm like, I'm going
like this. I mean, the floor's not moving. It's a level floor, but I'm
kind of like this with my cell phone. Guys, light is
good. Light is good. I had my first experience. We
were out with the Sevières, had my very first experience with this the other night.
I sat with the Sevières. Are the Sevières in here? We sat at dinner together.
And I can't believe I did this. We got all of the drinks, all of
the stuff's there, and I say, "I'm so sorry,
could you move us into that section where the lights are
brighter, where we could see each other?" I never thought in a million years
I would request that. We move everything over there, and within 15
minutes, they dim those lights.
That tip was cut in half real fast.
Light is good. Here's the thing, we don't mind following
Jesus, we just don't like what it costs us on a social level.
So what we'll do is we take the truth of God's Word and we soften
it. We'll dilute it. We'll blur
conviction. We'll stay quiet so
that we're accepted.
Eric Harding, Elder Eric, gave an incredible message on
Thursday. I encourage you to go back and listen to it. And in his message,
he was inviting us to remain steadfast as salt and light in
this world, remaining true to God's Word, the
foundation of God's Word. And that's the same
encouragement that I have for us today, is that we would remain
steadfast in the truth. Jesus
never called you to be light, He
called you to be faithful. I'm
talking to church folks today. He didn't
call you to be liked. Now, being liked is a bonus. I
like being liked by you guys. I hope you
like being liked by me. But that was not what He
called us to do. He called us, He called us to be faithful.
In other words, if your goal is approval, truth will
feel optional. If your goal is
to be approved, truth will be— and guys, this is where
mature believers are separated from
immature believers. Vonda Coble, come to the stage please, quickly.
If your goal is to be approved, then
truth is going to feel optional. Now, here's the thing.
I want you to understand that the context of this
message, you can make up in your brain— come on over here— make up in
your brain, you can make up in your brain that this has everything to do
with those who are not saved.
But there's something interesting that happens in John 15 that my friend
had a revelation of, and I want her to share quickly that revelation
about the world being in Oh,
okay. She's like, "Remind me of the revelation, please."
Light is good. Light is good. The revelation that God gave me
was at the top, and I don't have my glasses, but at the
top of John 15, it reads— read it
for me, sir. Sure. "I am the
true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch
in me that bears no fruit, while every You can stop right there. In me.
So the entire theme of John 15 lets me know he's talking to
Christians because other people are not in him if he's not
talking to Christians. So the entire thing is about me, is about Christians.
So when I got to the back, we've been studying at our school
about John 15, and the end part talks about,
you will be hated because they hated me. And I went, ooh,
that's gonna be interesting when we get there. So I have already been thinking, okay,
Lord, what is it that you want us to share in that
section. And so, I'll use you as you're up here with
your new pink tennis shoes. Don't think I didn't see 'em. Come on up. I
didn't have mint or green ones this morning. Okay, it's
okay, it's okay. So, there are places in my brother
that the Lord has not refined just yet, okay?
And when they're not refined, where are they from?
The world. Okay, so there may be places in him that
are not refined that may be refined in me. Now, of course, you know there
are places in me that are not refined, but anyway, so in
those places that are not refined in him
but are refined in me, he will hate in
me those places because they're of the
world, but they're refined in me.
Right? And same here. If there are
places in me that are still of the world because they're not
surrendered to God, it's not been pruned, it hasn't been
cut off just yet, I will hate
him because they're refined in him.
Thank you. Yes, thank you. Can you put that up? Thank you. So
This is where the mature and immature believers divide.
Because when you react out of your flesh—
I'm at a table, we all know Jesus, and we start
gossiping, and not one person at the table is
strong enough to say, "Wait a minute, stop this. This is not
right." Not one person willing to say— that is a
group of immature believers that's got the world in them, and here's
the thing, I'm attracted to other people that carry the same thing in the the
world that let me get away with the things I want to do in my
flesh. I'll go to breakfast with those
people, but I'll probably shy away from the one that I know is going to
render me truth in an area that I'm still being refined in.
So this isn't just for, "Oh, they didn't ask Jesus in their
heart." The world will hate you.
There could be believers that have the world in them that also carry
that vein of opposition, rejection, towards
you because of what you are carrying.
You don't have to rest in people's approval when you are secure
in the Lord. This is what John 10 says in verse 27.
We talked about this last week. "My sheep listen to my voice.
I know them, and they follow me. I give them
eternal life, and they shall never perish."
Listen to this. No one will snatch them out
of my hand. My Father, who has given
them to me, is greater than all. No one can
snatch them out of my Father's hand. In
other words, the truth, the
light, the foundation, the rock
does not need your help.
In order to be the authority in the conversation.
The Word stands by itself, and though the world hates you
for bringing it to the table, the world can't do
anything to you because you're in your Father's grip.
He says, "I'm not going to let them go. You can't be snatched
out of His hand." No matter what it is, no matter how— now,
you do have to get over the fact that that some people are going to
hate you. People that have been running with you, do you know that there are
seasons with relationships for a reason?
And sometimes, as we're running in seasons, you have to say,
"I'm ready to start walking into a greater season that you
cannot come with me because God has not worked out of you what
I have now been pruned of so that I can continue to move
forward." It doesn't feel good, But understand that when you stay
in a season, in a place that you're supposed to outlive and you're supposed to
outrun, then you do danger to both you and the individual.
You stunt your growth. You bring about dangerous paths and
dangerous patterns. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? So the people that you
are hanging with, texting with, going out with,
all of those people, you have to ask yourself with discernment, "Holy
Spirit, help me." to filter this
relationship, to understand, "Is this in
keeping with the spiritual maturity with which you have called me to?
With the leveling that I am at, those are the people that I need to
be running with." Now, let me tell you something. When you step out of that
season, you don't go back and say, "I'm gone! I'm out of here! See you
later!" Okay? Now, sometimes you gotta confront it,
but how you confront it's important. We're going to talk about that in just a
"Wait a minute. No one can snatch them out of my
hand," He says. You can survive being misunderstood or
rejected because your security has been established. If you're not
secure, listen, if you're not secure in the Lord Jesus
Christ as a believer this morning, there is a propensity to
do one or two things with the truth of God's Word. Either you're going to
compromise the truth, or you're or you're going to weaponize the truth.
If you're not secure in the Lord, you're either going to compromise, which means you'll
dilute it, you'll shift it, you'll change it to fit the
occasion, or you will weaponize it by
saying, "I'm going to pull this truth out to accomplish my agenda."
Are you secure in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you
secure in Him? Because if you're looking for approval
then truth in your life, and how you render it, is going
to be optional, and neither are right. Neither are right.
Jesus said, "They will know me by the
way you love." He says,
"They're going to know me," Jesus, "by the way you
love." Notice it doesn't say, "They're going to know me by the way
you argue." They're going to know me by the way you show
your opinion. It says, "By your love," but here's
the tension. Truth, when it's not
encased in love, it feels like rejection.
Ain't nobody got time for that. Love,
when it's not cased in truth, can become,
at a certain level, deception. I don't believe
that Jesus spliced truth and love.
I believe they were a combination, a combination
package, and so we can also operate from that place. So
Ephesians 6, and we read some of it today, I'm going to read it again
to you, and I want you to put your listening ears on. Second graders,
that's what we say in second grade. I'm in second
grade in the Lord, so I need to put my listening ears on. Okay, listen
to this. Finally,
Be strong in the Lord
and His mighty power.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your
stand against the devil's schemes. For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against rulers, against authorities, against
powers of the dark world, and against the spiritual forces
of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full
armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may
be able to stand your ground. And
after you have done everything to stand,
stand firm then, with the belt of
truth buckled around your waist, the breastplate of righteousness in place,
your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of
peace. In addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith,
with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the Word of God. Would you look at your
neighbor and say, our struggle is not against flesh and blood.
If you are fighting people, you are
fighting the wrong battle.
Guys, We must stop assigning a face to
a spiritual battle. We've got to stop
assigning faces to spiritual battle. The
person next to you, in front of you, behind you, across
from you, across the street, in the other car, sleeping next to you,
it's not your enemy. You
do not win spiritual battles by attacking people.
Be strong in the Lord and His
mighty power. And then it says 4 times in here,
"Stand," "withstand," "stand
firm," "stand." In our culture,
standing has been redefined to mean something
completely different. Standing sounds like, "Win
that argument." Stand. Standing sounds
like dominate. Standing sounds like,
"This is how we win! This is how I win this fight!"
But we don't have to do any of that. Standing simply refuses
to surrender what is true. As Andy Stanley says,
"We are not in it to win it. Our
victory is secure in Christ Jesus."
So the imagery that we find in Ephesians chapter 6 is
that of a soldier full of armor. What do we
notice about the armor in Ephesians 6? Every
article, every piece of armor, save one, is a
defensive piece of armor. Why is that?
It's because the Lord, in His great wisdom, knew
that we were going to be hated by a world that was
going to attack us. There are going to be moments when I need the truth.
There's going to be moments when I need to work in righteousness. There are moments
when I'm going to need faith. There's moments when I'm going to need the helmet.
These pieces of armor,
and he says put on the whole armor of God, are there to
protect us in a battle that He has already
won. And so the imagery here is not put
on the armor, get the sword, and go run into battle.
The imagery here is stand firm on
ground that your King has already taken victory over.
You are already in the victory promised land. You have
already won the battle. And so the truth
stands alone because of the authority by which it
speaks. And so it doesn't— in other words, guys, this
is the thing. God does not need you
to give the Word and your opinion.
He doesn't need you to give your word and then your Facebook post.
He doesn't need you to give the Word. Give the Word,
period. And in every situation
in this room, every situation in the world, every sin issue
in the world, there is something that the Holy Scriptures say
about those things. Here's the deal. We do not
stand to prove Jesus is right. We stand because Jesus is right.
We stand because Jesus is right. There's no question about it.
There's no proving that's needed. We're already on the side of the winning
victory in battle. Have you had anybody that's been around you and they work
3 times as hard as they actually needed to work to accomplish the goal?
In a way, the invitation is, "Stop
working so hard because you're missing the point and you're
doing it on your own strength!" Stand
firm in the truth of God's Word. Standing
within its own right is not a defensive posture where we go, "Well—"
Standing is confidence in our belief that we actually believe what
Jesus said is true. So where
did we get the notion that Jesus needed us to go out
and fight battles for Him?
Somewhere that kind of creeped into our thought
process. Like, it's as if Jesus said, "Okay,
here's the word. Now take off and let's see how this goes."
He knew you were going to fail. Because just as
much as they need the truth, guess who else needs the truth?
You need the truth. I need the truth of God's word
in my life. So the struggle is not against flesh and blood.
So when I have the belt of truth, I don't address truth to be accepted.
When I have the breastplate, I don't carry false guilt. When I have the shoes
of peace, I don't escalate conflict. The shield of faith, I don't absorb
every hit that comes my way. The helmet of salvation, It guards
my mind.
If you don't suit up spiritually, you're going to show up to the battle emotionally.
And I don't know about you, but when I show up to the battle
emotionally, I can wreak havoc. Now, I said this in the
first gathering, it's not in my notes, this is what I'm going to say to
you as well. Here's another delineation between mature and
immature. When I recognize that I have been working out of my
emotions, and I look back and I see all
the mess and chaos that I have caused, the hurt, the
division, and the gossip, whatever else, dissension.
Here I am at this point, and here's the person that started
the whole thing, and I go, "Will you forgive
me?" And we get on the same page. We walk
in forgiveness, and what an immature Christian goes is, "Okay, now let's walk forward."
And in the wake is this person, and this person, and this
person, and this person that you caused damage to because you
were acting out of emotion. A mature Christian goes like this,
"I am so sorry. Will you forgive me? I caused
gossip and dissension in this way because of something I was dealing with,
and I shouldn't." "Would you please forgive me for the way I said and what
I said? Would you— I said some things, those things are not actually
true. Would you forgive me?" Out of the emotional posture that I was in. Are
you with me? They go back and fix the collateral damage
that was done. And guys, this is super important for mature Christians.
We want to be a mature body. We're going to mess up. Who's going to
mess up? I'm going to mess up. We're going to mess up. Okay, we're going
to mess up, but we need to learn how to go back and fix the
mess up. Address the mess-ups. Now, the Bible says
this, "For all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God." Raise your
hand if you are included in "all." Raise your hand.
Okay, good. It seems like we are on the same
page, okay? So if "all" means all, and you're
part of "all," and I'm part of "all," the scripture also
says that we should do what? We should confess our confess our sin
to one another. Is that true? Do we believe the scripture says that?
It does. Okay, so we're all sinners, and the Word instructs us to
confess our sin to one another. I want you to take the next 30 minutes—
30 seconds! 30 minutes! The next 30 seconds,
and I want you to confess a sin that you are struggling with, or that
you have struggled with, with somebody next to you right now. 30 seconds.
5 seconds.
4, 3, 2, 1.
Okay, you bunch of sinners right here. Listen,
mine is pride. Struggle with pride. The sin of pride. The sin
of believing that I can do it on my own. Strength without help.
That is a sin. All have sinned. We've just
confessed sin to— and you might be sitting next to Jesus this morning,
but otherwise we all confess sin. I need 2 volunteers to come quickly to the
stage, please. Just come on up. Come on up quickly. 2. First 2.
First 2. Okay, Palm Sunday. Come on up here.
Okay, I need one of you to be a sinner and one of you to
be the Holy Spirit. They're fighting to be the center.
I'm going to let you be the Holy Spirit. "Am I being the Holy Spirit?"
Yep. Alright, buddy. Okay, why don't
you go sit over here. Holy Spirit, come stand over here. I want you to
come sit. Sit right over there. Alright.
I just want to kind of demonstrate what the Lord put on my heart about
this message as we close out today, and perhaps maybe bring some—
scoot over one chair for me. Okay. Let me do this. I'm going to go
ahead and take this out. Okay, so what happens here
is— no, I
don't want you to sit down. Just hold that for now. Okay. So what
happens here is my friend here has
got a sin issue. Okay,
he's got a sin issue just like all of us, and he's contending
with this sin. Now, he may be saved, he may not be saved, he may
be walking with the Lord for a long time, may not. Okay, all a variety
of things, but the fact of the matter is that he
is in the middle of a sin issue, and there's a
myriad of sin issues that we could list right now. I don't have time to
go through all of them. Gluttony, lying, sexual identity, all types of things.
Big ones, okay? I want you— this is the reason this is blank, is because
I want you to fill in this blank with your favorite sin. Now, don't
do one that you struggle with, because you give yourself a lot more grace than
you do the other people who are struggling with stuff you don't struggle with. So
I want you to fill in the blank with your favorite sin that gets you
all revved up when you see other people committing that sin. So you got it?
Fill in the blank right here with your favorite sin, that top one that just
really irks you and bugs you, okay? Okay, and so he's struggling with this
sin, and somehow, someway, the
Lord saw fit for me to be in proximity
of this guy who's got this sin issue. And so
I'm sitting here, sitting here, and I look at him and I
see this sin, and I go, "Uh oh,
if he touches me, I'm going to get the sin cooties."
I need him to know that this sin is here. There's something in
me that says I need— because the Word of God says that
if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.
And I'm sitting here next to somebody who I see
through the lens of a biblical lens, I see is
bound by whatever this sin is. And I'm what this sin issue is.
And so I sit next to them and I go, "Hey,
you've got, you've got an issue here,
and I want to give you some truth about this issue." And so
I bring the truth and I hand the truth. We're going to use this drill
as truth, okay? And I hand the truth to them. So go ahead and take
this truth, okay? Now, I want you to push
the button on the Nothing's happening, right?
Nothing's happening. Now here's the deal.
I have given him the truth about what I see as
sin in his life. The Word says clearly
he should not be living this way. But in this context, in
this posture, I have made a lot of assumptions.
The first assumption that I've made is this guy even knows Jesus.
Because somebody who doesn't even know the Lord is not going to care
about the truth that you come that says, "I want to— I want you to
stop doing what you want to do." Are you with me?
And so here he is, and what I've done is I have
given him information, and now he's got
information in one hand that says, "I want to live the way I want to
live," and information on the other hand, some book that I
believe is the Book of Life, "Life, some book
says you shouldn't be living this way." And he's like,
"Okay, I'm probably going to go
in the direction of what suits my flesh and what I want to do, because
I don't believe in the God that you believe in, which means I don't believe
that this is an issue at all."
And so I look at him, and the more
I sit with the more agitated I get
because I did all of the work of
preparing myself to give him truth,
and I cannot believe that you're not going to apply the truth that I know
to your situation. And so every time I come in contact with
this person, all of a sudden I no longer see a face. All I see
is this. Every single time. The
person here is now reduced
to a sin issue. And so I see this every time I
go, and I go, "Why are you not waking up?"
I say, "I'm going to get up and walk away from you. I can't spend
any more time with you because you're not changing your life."
I say, "I can't believe that you wouldn't do that. In fact, I tell you
what, you have no place in this church if you're not going to change that
behavior. Get out of the church." "Get out of this ministry!
I'm looking at everything that you're doing, and I'm judging every single thing, and if
you don't get it together, you're going to hell!"
Okay? So we sit here,
and we go after this person. Now,
something's missing here. Something is
missing here, because I just— we believe that this sin
issue, there is truth to be applied to the sin issue. The Word of
God can be applied. The truth can be applied. There's freedom for this
young man, and I've given him truth.
But here's the thing. Jesus never
asked us to come with the truth and continue to
beat them upside the head with the information.
Here's what we are supposed to do. Relationally,
relationally, we are relationally, we go into
their life and we render truth, and we set
truth on the table to do its work.
The truth is now out in the open. "You are a glutton.
The truth of God's Word says that this is not good for you. It is
a sin. Sin separates us from God." All of the truth,
straight up, just truth, truth, truth. He knows the information.
But it's not activated in his life, because the only
one who can change his life is not Kevin O'Dea, it's the
Holy Spirit. And so once I put truth
on the table, my next task is to point
them to the one who can come alongside the
power of the truth and make explosive things happen.
And so from this point forward, once I've introduced truth, I need to
introduce him, with the truth, to the Holy
Spirit. Now, when the Holy Spirit gets involved, this is what happens. Go ahead and
put that on there. This is what happens.
Power has now been unlocked with the
truth that can be transformative in his life. Push the button.
Now we're in business. Now we're in business. The
power has been activated, and now he can go to
work work about addressing the sin issue in his life
because power has coupled up with the truth, and it
wasn't your job to change them. Are you with me?
So, now, there's a question still that begs itself,
okay? If I'm supposed— okay, I put truth on the
table because I happen to know the truth about this particular issue,
and I'm supposed to point him to the Lord. The question you should ask "Jesus,
how do I point this young man to the Lord?"
What did the scripture say? "They will know me by," what?
"By the way we love." Let me tell you what that looks like. This is
what this looks like. See,
I also have the truth and the power of the Holy Spirit.
This person may very much be an unlovable person,
but
This person, listen, this person in their
sin may be somebody that I can't stand.
Hurting themselves, hurting others, all of that. Do you know what the
power of the Holy Spirit gives you the power to? Acts
says that you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
The Holy Spirit gives you the power to love unlovable people.
The Holy Spirit gives you the power to do what
Jesus was telling you to do. How does
Peter come out of that? Peter is defending
Jesus. It's the same thing as saying Peter was defending the gospel,
and he comes out with that sword. And let me tell you, you could
justify his actions to death. He was defending Jesus,
and he cuts off the ear. What's
Jesus' response? Go get your brothers and take
off and stab him to death? No! He says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! We do not fight worldly
problems the same way the world fights.
And Jesus reaches down and he heals the
ear of the one who's going to take him into custody
But he loves those people who are
carrying it. And our job is. And this is what it looks
like to love people.
We go, holy Spirit,
give me the power that I need. Holy Spirit, come help me. Help me here.
But He loves those people who are carrying it. And our
job is— and this is what it looks like to
love people. We go,
Holy Spirit, give me the power that I need. Holy
Spirit, come help me.
Help me here.
The Holy Spirit gives me the power to lay my
life down, and when this
brother is sitting here and
he sees me laying my life down,
loving him in a way that he does not deserve to be loved,
He goes, "What kind of God do you serve
that you would do this?" The most incredible
God of the universe who saved my life, and He
wants to save yours too! How
is it that you continue to walk forward when they spit at
you, and they talk bad about you, and you're like a doormat? Don't you
deserve that raise, and that promotion, and that acknowledgment, but
that person got it, but yet you continue to nail
your life surrendered to the cross. How do you do
that? Because I've got a best friend named the Holy Spirit, and
I can tell you right now, it's not on my own strength, because here's the
deal. What you don't understand is I'm this all day
long. I was this all day long, and I needed somebody to
come and say, "Kevin, you have got to do some business
with this truth." You've got to do business with the
truth, but you need the Holy Spirit to do it. So let me show
Him to you. I'm going to show Him to you
by loving you so good.
Truth's there. There's no arguing about it.
Truth's there. It's not— we're not hiding it, we're not diluting it. We're
standing on it. I don't have to fight for it. It's there. It's got its
own authority. And guys, if you're honest with yourself and you look at your own
testimony and your own story, it
has to be— come tell me if it wasn't this way— it has to be
that someone along the path loved you. It has to be
that the Holy Spirit got involved. I haven't met people where it's like,
"No, those people got their swords out and cut my ear off, and I decided,
you know, I'm just gonna be a loving Christian."
But man, how quickly we forget that we were the one in the
chair. Guys,
can we do what the scripture says to a world that hates? Guess what? You're
going to be hated. You're going to be hated. What are we going to
do when they hate us? What are you going to do when the people in
here, because we're flawed and broken, they hate you?
How are you going to respond has everything to do with the
power of the Holy Spirit in your life. Stand with
me this morning. Thank you guys so much for helping me.
If those who are going to pray this morning would come forward. And this morning,
here's the call.
Of course, this star-breathing God is available
for every need, right, Josh? Every need, every
single one. He knows all about you,
and He loves you. But also today, I would
put an extra acknowledgement to those who are
in a relational situation
with someone who you know is actively walking in sin,
and you don't know what to do about it. You don't know where to turn,
what say all of these things. You got some— you just know this is
not good. Or maybe you're the one in the
sinful situation and you're like, "You know what? I can only
keep finding myself in the ditch so many times."
The reason that we come to pray here is because these people on the stage
have their life together and they're perfect.
No, the people on the stage here in a lot of ways can
empathize with you because they were on the other side of the prayer many, many,
many times. And they know what it's like to agree with somebody
down here and how transformative it is when you invite the power of the Holy
Spirit into your situation. You can walk away— when
the Word says, "Know the truth and the truth will set you free," you
actually can go out of here doing cartwheels, unless you're Wanda.
You can do cartwheels out the door. Full on cartwheels. But you know
what, Vonda? I know when you see Jesus, it's going to be a full on
cartwheel. It's going to be the best cartwheel you've ever done. Do you
know this Jesus? Do you know the truth of God's Word?
Guys, some of you, listen to me. I want to say this last little bit,
and I'm going to let you come pray. It's okay to carry
grief, and sorrow, and pain
for a sinful, dying world around us. There is, there's sin rampant,
cultural thing, and we know about so much more of it than they ever knew
in the history of time. It's okay, we should be
grieving, we shouldn't be just walking around this world like we don't know that there's
people dying all around us. That is conviction, that's good,
but here's the thing that you do, you don't go out with your sword, you
start getting in relationship with those people so that you have an
opportunity to present the truth.
So maybe you need courage today to speak truth in a situation that
you know is right in front of your face. He can give you that too.
So let's worship together. If any of those situations fit you, you need something
from the Lord, come and let's worship and pray.