Hated But Held

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

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

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.