Open House - Week 3

Amen.

Amen, We're going to continue our series today open house,

talking about building relationships for the purpose of sharing Christ

with people.

How many of you, how many of you have.

You've you've taken that first step and you started having

initial conversations with people that maybe you've been dodging and uh,

and you started having some conversations with people. I had

a testimony just yesterday. We went by and we're Pastor

Clay and I were making some visits in the hospital

and we were there and somebody said, hey, you know,

I listened to your sermon two weeks ago and I

went in and now now listen. I'm not sure this

is how I'm telling everybody to do it.

Amen.

This is not how I'm telling everybody to do it.

But but it's it's the Lord opened the door.

She said. I went into the lady at the convenience store.

And she's just mean to everybody, said, when people walk in,

she's just mean. And she's in customer service, she said.

So I walked in and she was being mean. I

just looked at I said, why you mean to everybody?

She said, I'm not mean to everybody. She said, yes,

you are, she said, And ever since then, She's sang

a different tune every time I've walked in.

She's a different person. She said.

I walked in the other day and I said, hey, beautiful,

and she turned around looked behind her.

She said, no, I'm talking to you. Let me tell

you something.

That lady is on her way to being born again

because somebody's trying to build a relationship with her. Amen,

that's what we're talking about. Through this is Listen. We

put those active gifts and talents that are on the

inside of us to work in the world, and God

shows up through us.

Amen. If you got a Bible, go to Jude chapter one,

where it's only one. There's only one.

Chapter in Jude. Just go to Jude and we're gonna

be in verse twenty Jude verse twenty. If you're there,

say amen, it's a little one. You may have to

use the index for it. Don't be prideful. Just use

the index or look at the screen. Jude verse twenty.

Let's read, but you beloved, building yourselves up on your

most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves

in the love of God, looking for the mercy of

our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life and on. Some

have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear

pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment

defiled by the flesh. Let's pray, Father, we thank you

for your word.

Lord.

It's our it's our motivation, it's our source of obedience.

It is always true. It is the only change agent

on the face of the planet. Your word is so

many things that bring us and point us towards our purpose. Today, Lord,

I pray that you breathe deep the very fabric of

our spirit, that you plant your word there, and our

lives are revolutionized for Kingdom purpose in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You know in Jude the writer is h he's talking,

and the whole thrust of Jude is there's some problems

going on in the church. There were some serious problems

going on in the in the church that this letter

was written to, and that the writer he's addressing those things.

And then he gets down to this place and he

starts saying, Okay, here's.

What you need to do.

You need to build yourselves up on your most holy faith.

You need to do the work of building yourself up

in faith. And how do we build ourselves up in faith.

There's only really one way that our faith is built,

and that is hearing the Word. That's how our faith

is built. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word

of God. That is what That's how our faith is

developed and inspired and build. It's by getting into the

Word of God. We try to go through life thinking

that just listen, you can't make it to heaven.

You can't make it through crisis on what I know

about scripture. Let me say that again.

Let me say that again, because y'all got awful quiet

real fast. You're like, why, that's your job, that's why

we pay you. It's not really as that's actually not

You can't make it through your trials, your situation, and

your circumstance on what somebody else knows about the gospel.

You can't make it on your granny's faith. Come on, somebody.

Everybody got that praying granny that would go down by

the cornfield, sit down and pray for hours. Come on,

y'all know who I'm talking about. Everybody's got that one

in their family. You can't make it on her faith.

You've got to make it on your faith, and you've

got to do the work to build up your holy

faith by getting into the Word of God.

Just what we preach and what we in worship experience.

It's not enough. It's not enough.

You have to be in the Word daily if you're

going to be an agent of change in the world

around you. He says, build yourself up on your most

holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit. We'll talk to the

Pentecostals for a second. Okay, I listen, I pray in

the Holy Ghost. Pray in the Holy Spirit. You need

to access that gift and you need to be praying.

As a matter of fact, Scripture teaches that when we

are doing that, we're unlocking the wisdom of God laid

up from the foundations of the earth, the hidden wisdom.

It's what First Corinthians calls it, the hidden wisdom of

God laid up from the foundations. We speak it in

a mystery, same word that's used when we speak in mysteries,

when we speak in tongues, when we are using that

prayer language and accessing that prayer language.

So listen, pray in the Holy Ghost. Host. When you're

riding in your car and you're praying, let that gift go,

and you're thinking, well, what if I pull up next

to somebody, they think I'm a nut. You are.

I know, y'all just own it on the fact that

you're different, that you're not like everybody else. God has

called you to be an individual and do things that

nobody else can do. Accomplish things that He didn't set

for anybody else that you are supposed to do. You

are an individual, You are unique. God has called you

apart for a purpose. So access that gift of individuality.

Praying in the Holy Ghost, he says, build yourself up

in your most holy faith. Praying in the Holy Spirit,

keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the

mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life.

When you stumble and fall.

Don't get so wrapped up in it. Let me say

it again, When you mess up and you fall short,

when you stumble, don't get so wrapped up.

In it that the enemy uses it as.

A tool to hold you in a prison of discouragement

and guilt for the rest of your life. Because there

is mercy from the throne of God. There is mercy

that we come to him when we fall. We repent,

and He renews us, and he cleanses us, and he

sets us free and.

We keep moving.

Some of you have bought into the lie that I

don't have it together yet. So how can I tell

anybody else about Jesus? I want to just tell you something.

You know, when I look online and I see all

those advertisement for all these different supplements and stuff, right

at least I take. I take a double handful of

stuff every morning, vitamins and all.

Kinds of stuff because I want to feel good. Amen.

When I look at it, I see all.

These things that got these people these big muscles and

ripped up stomach. I'm like, who Anybody's like, Oh, yeah,

that's that's I don't want to buy sethlements people look

like that.

Because I don't look like that.

Come on, somebody, they feel good because they in good shape.

I want to buy supplements from a fat man. I

want to buy something if somebody looks like me, because

if it works for them, it'll work for me.

Amen.

I'm not trying to be a bodybuilder. I'm fifty two

years old. I'm not gonna be mister Olympia. Amen. Not.

Don't have you a goal to do, don't want to be.

I just want to feel good.

I want I want to experience life feeling good, not

feeling bad. Amen, let me tell you some off that

when people are broke, busted, and disgusted, they're not looking

for the holiest person. They're looking for somebody that's been

through something they're looking through. They're looking for somebody that

has just been teetering on the edge of giving up.

That little thread of faith and that little thread of hope.

Has kept them from falling over because the loss.

Can identify with that more than they can somebody that

tells them how.

Wrong they are. Live your life out loud and.

Let people experience the grace of God that you experience.

Don't act like you're not you're something you're not. Act

like you are the person you are, and that God

is still working on you. Listen, He's still working on me.

There's times I wake up and I don't want to

come to work. There's times I look down and I

see your phone number calling me and I don't want

to answer. Some of y'all are like, you don't, I'm

not dodging you, though, I promise we're still working through it.

We're still we're all still in progress. And if we

will live our life in transparency, people will be attracted

to the grace that Jesus shows us.

Amen, and listen.

If you are that person that you think you've got

it all together, it's probably not the place for you,

because you know perfect people. They don't like it around

here too much. So there's some other churches you probably

fit better, and we'll help you find it. But if

you're broken searching for God's grace and you're just a

work in progress, you're.

In the right place.

And we want to see God maximize his glory in

your life. Amen, looking for the mercy of our Lord

Jesus Christ, unto eternal life. And now let's switch to

our actual message today. That was all introduction and on.

Some have compassion making a distinction, but others save with

fear pulling them out of the fire, hating even the

garment defile by the flesh. Let me read it to

you out of the New Living Translation. It says, but you,

dear friends, must build each other up in your most

holy faith, pray and the power of the Holy Spirit,

and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who

will bring you eternal life. In this way you will

keep yourself safe in God's love, and you must show

mercy to those whose faith is wavering, rescue others by

snatching them from the flames of judgment, show mercy still

to others, but do so with great caution, hating the

sins that contaminate their lives. He says, there's different people

at different stages in the journey, and you need to

look at their lives because some people are in need

of different things. And the only way for you to

know that is if you're building relationships with people so

that you know what's going on in their life. Ok,

we wanna we we just want to shoot every problem

with the same bullet.

And I want to.

Tell you you can't shoot every problem with the same bullet.

You can't just cover everything with the same spray.

Don't work.

H give me one second, mm hmm.

So uh so we just continue in the path of

building relationship for the purpose of leading people to Christ.

It is the greatest miracle on the face of the planet.

And by taking the time, by taking the time to

invest in someone, not for you to get something out

of it, but for you to invest for the purpose

of them finding and having.

An experience with Jesus.

It is the greatest feeling the greatest moment of fulfillment,

the greatest miracle anyone can experience, and Jesus uses you

to do it. I want you to think about that,

the greatest miracle.

He uses you to do it.

People are sick and they wake up saved and we

don't know why, I mean, and they wake up healed

and we don't know why.

People are mad and they wake up glad and we

don't know why.

But no one is gone to sleep lost and woke

up saved because he uses people for the very most

important thing in the kingdom, the ministry of reconcation, bringing

fallen man to a holy God. You get to be

part of that journey. And when we look at Jesus,

he did it too. The heart of jesus ministry wasn't

preaching from the mountain. The very heart of jesus ministry

wasn't from a platform or a stage. When we read

those things, we even misunderstand what Jesus is doing. When

we look at the beatitudes. When Jesus preaches what is

what most people call his greatest sermon, he's not even

preaching to the masses. It says that he went up

the mountain, he called his disciples to them. They sat

down and he taught them. There's a multitude of people

gathered at the base of the mountain, but Jesus isn't

preaching a sermon to the multitudes. He's sharing with those

who he's in relationship with on the mountain as the

multitudes watch, because he understood the important of the importance

of relationship and the power of connecting with someone at

that intimate level. The reason we have so many problems

and so much division in the world today is because

we try to solve every problem with policy preached from

a platform, rather than getting people together around a table,

eating a chicken leg and getting to know one another

and getting to the heart of issues.

And it's the same with the gospel.

The reason people think you're a hypocrite is because they

only hear the words you say, and they can't know

your heart. The reason people are turned off from a

church is because people like me stand up on a

stage and we just shoot out information without ever building relationship.

The gospel is a lie in you.

And it has to be transferred individual to individual.

Listen to me.

The next great move of God, the next great outpouring

of God, is not going to be revivals like we've

seen in the past. It's going to be marketplace evangelists

that carry the gospel into their schools, into their workplaces,

into the places they shop and where they do life,

and build relationships and transfer that relationship.

One to another and people get saved.

That's the next great move of God that's coming, the

attractional church, where we sing good enough and our lights

are good enough, and we preach good enough and people

just show up.

That day's over.

Our culture has passed that point, and we must go

into the world with the gospel. In Luke chapter ten,

verse thirty eight, we get to see the picture of

Jesus and the value of relationship. This is where we

begin to see a relationship with a family begin to

be built. And Luke chapter ten, first thirty eighty says,

now it happened as they went that he entered a

certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed her

into her house. So Jesus met this lady. There was

some kind of cordiality exchanged, and Jesus was invited over

for dinner. Now I only know a few people that

invite people over for dinner, that invite total strangers over

for dinner. John Blanga invites everybody he meets home for dinner.

He does.

I mean, it's just it's like his his thing, it's

his gift. He's never met a stranger. He just is

an open book. And the moment he meets you, you

know his life. He's exciting to be around. At one time,

I invited him and his family over to I hope

John watches this sermon. I hope Pastor John watches it. Hey,

I invited him and his family over to my house

one time and to eat dinner. And he shows up

at the house and I go to the door and

I opened the door. And when I opened the door,

there was fourteen people with him besides his family. And

I looked and I was like, hey, he said, I

just invite and he named their name.

I knew them all, but I was like, oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come on, there's plenty, there's plenty of food. Yeah.

I mean, I'm feed thirty just as easy as I

can feed six.

Come on.

In this lady invited Jesus into her home because there

was some kind of exchange at some moment. Most people

think it came earlier because this was the woman that

had an encounter with him where she was a working woman,

a prostitute, that she had come in and she had

laid at Jesus' feet and anointed his feet and washed

his washed the tears away of his feet with her hair.

And many people think that that's the origin of this relationship.

But now Jesus has moved it from that, and now

he's invited to her home.

Now.

It happened that when they entered a certain village, and

a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house.

And she had a sister called Mary, who also said

at Jesus' feet and heard his words. But Martha was

distracted with much serving, and she approached him and said, Lord,

do you not care that my sister has left me

to serve alone? She said, can you tell my sister

to get up and help me? Don't you see that

I'm doing everything? Jesus, are you okay with the fact

that my sister is lazy and she's just sitting there

and I'm having to make all the biscuits and all

the tea. I'm having to do everything. Can't you do

something about it? How do we know Jesus had a

relationship with these people? Because we're about to see Lord.

Do you not care that my sister's left me alone? Therefore,

tell her to help me. And Jesus answered her and said, Martha, Martha,

I want to point out something. When the Lord calls

your name twice consecutively, it's a sign that he's entering

into covenant with you. There's a contractual happening.

There's a deep.

Spiritual thing that's occurring, and he said, Martha Martha.

He said, listen, sweetheart.

I understand, and I'm calling you into a higher level.

I'm calling you beyond the into a partnership. I'm calling

you to be Kingdom minded and to be about the

same purpose that I'm about. He said, Martha, Martha. You're

worried and troubled about many things, but one thing is needed,

and Mary has chosen that good part which will not

be taken away from her. Let me translate it into Steve,

I appreciate what you're saying, but go back in there

and fixing biscuits. Jesus says, she chose the best part,

and I'm not gonna tell her to stop. Lady, just

because you're upset doesn't mean I need to be upset.

Your problem is not my problem. Go do what you

were doing.

Now.

Let me tell you something.

Had they not been in relationship together, she would have

invited Jesus to leave.

If I came to.

Your house and I didn't know who you were, and

I said, get in the kitchen, woman, how well would

that go?

Not very well? Would it make me a biscuit? Get

me some tea?

But that's what Jesus said to her. He said, Hey,

she chose the good part. You chose the bad part.

I'm not getting involved in this. Go do what you're

supposed to do. Relationship allows you listen to me. Relationship

allows you to say hard things to people. Relational collateral

and doing life together gives you the ability to look

at somebody and say hard things. You know, Pastor Clay

and I we've been together for a long time and

for a long long time. Well still today. He doesn't

listen to most of the things I say. And he

went through this stage that every young man goes through,

where you know he was he us needed a girlfriend.

Come on, somebody, he's a teenager. He didn't know who

he was.

Listen, young people, look at me, every single person, look

at me.

If you don't know who you are. If you haven't

figured out your.

Identity yet, you certainly don't need to be in a

relationship with somebody else that hasn't figured out their identity yet.

That's extra, that's free. Don't even I'm not passing the

bucket again. That's just voluntary information.

But he was.

He would start dating somebody. Then he would cut to

me and say, oh, we broke up. I told you

I told you so. You don't need to be dating.

He'd come back, He go date somebody else for a

day or two. He come back, Oh, I'm doing my

LIFs over. I'm so broken. I'm just just so devastated.

And I would say I told you so. And then

he would do it again, and I would say I

told you so. I know he was looking for sympathy

and mercy. I don't know why he kept coming back

time and time again. But the reason I could say

I told you so was because of the crying we

did together about other things, because we did life together.

Because I invested in him and I believed in who

God was calling him to be. And that's why I

was able to say hard things. That's why I'm able

to say hard things to Kayla it's why I'm able

to say hard things to people that have been with

me for so long. It's because of the relational collateral

and the investment. Because relationship gives me the ability to

speak God's word and planet at the very fabric of

somebody's soul.

But we are adverse.

To relationship. We have to program hospitality. We have to

assign people to be friendly, to shake hands at the

front door. I have to say, stand up and go

shake somebody's hand and hug somebody's neck, and then watch

to see if you do it. But the reality is

God created us to do life together. He created us

to invest in one another, and the moment we grab

hold of that, we become instruments of transformation. God wants

you to be an instrument of transformation.

He has so.

Much more for you than what you're experiencing right now.

And then we jump ahead and we see the same family,

same relationship, but now things have gotten a little bit harder.

In John chapter eleven, we have the story of Lazarus

and Lazarus and Jesus had become very good friends. Lazarus

is the brother of Mary and Martha, the two and

the story that we just read and the word is

sent to Jesus that Lazarus is sick. You need to come,

and Jesus decides not to go. As a matter of fact,

he waits where he is until Lazarus dies because he

had a grasp on God's plan, a grasp beyond anything

that we could know. And Lazarus dies and Jesus, after

Lazarus dies, looks at his disciples and he says, okay,

let's go. The disciples look at him and say, Lord,

you know we just left there and they tried to

stone you when we were there. They tried to kill

you man, and now you're saying, we got to go back.

And it was Jesus' love for this family, the relationship

that pulled him through danger and discomfort into encounter. When

we have a relationship with someone, we're willing to cross

boundaries that we don't for strangers because there's a compelling reason.

There's an investment. I've made an investment, and because I've

made an investment, there's a little bit of anointing that

draws me there. And in verse thirty nine, Jesus said,

take away the stone he's gotten there. They come to

him on the road and he has an exchange with him,

and Jesus says.

Take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, Lord,

by this time there is a stitch, for he's been

dead for four days. She said, Lord, yeah, Jesus, you're wrong.

Don't do this. Don't This is a bad idea.

Are you close enough to Jesus that you can have

those conversations with him? I feel that, based on my

current situation, this is a bad idea.

Lord.

You know, I tell the Lord all the time, no,

it's not a good idea, Lord, but he just laughs.

Now I usually come around to see it his way. Amen.

Nine point nine times out of ten, there's that one

that I blow it. Though, there's that there's that percentage

of times that I get it wrong and I blow it.

He said, roll away this saw. She said, no, no, no, no, no,

no no. It's been a while.

Now, and it's not a good idea. And Jesus said

to her, did I not say to you that you

would that that that if you would believe, you would

see the glory of God.

She said, you're wrong, And Jesus said, I already told you.

That if you would just believe, When we build a

relationship so deep that when we come to that place

where we're challenging somebody to cross and to trust Jesus

and they say, I don't think that's a good idea.

You can look at them and say, did I not

tell you?

If you'll believe? We want to start out with I'm

telling you to believe?

But they have no reason to believe because they don't

know you. You haven't infested, they haven't seen your life.

Did I not tell you? If you would believe that

you'd see the glory of God? You guys could get ready.

We continue in the story, and now we're in verse

forty three. We know how this thing goes. Jesus says,

roll away the stone. They roll away the stone. Jesus

looks into the tomb and he says, Lazarus come forth.

They can hear sounds rumbling in the darkness. They can

hear something going on, but they can't see because of

the darkness of the of the grave. And then Lazarus

comes out into the light. People are shocked and mesmerized

at the miracle that's just happened.

Isn't it cool when when we see.

Those things happen after all It's why most of us

are Pentecostal, because.

We love the experience of it, and we don't like

to just sit. We like to participate.

Now, when somebody says, oh, I'm not I'm this, or

I'm that, I just look at them and I have

the same I say, say, listen, we do things exactly

the way you do. We just do them faster and louder.

We're experienced based people. And Lazarus come out of the tomb,

and that's where we shout, and we want to run

the aisles because Lazarus came out and woo hoo, everything

is good and everything is done.

And then we go the other way because there's been

an experience.

But relationship is not based on experience, is based on

follow through, because relationship just doesn't pull somebody, call somebody

out of the tomb. In verse forty three, he says, now,

when he had said these things.

He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth.

And he who had died came out bound hand and.

Foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with

a cloth. Jesus looked at Mary and Martha and said,

loose that man.

And let him go.

One of the biggest problems we've had in the modern

church is that we've called people out of the grave.

We've done all these incredible things to draw crowds, and

people have come to the Lord and accepted the Lord,

but we've allowed people to continue living with the same

grave clothes that they had on when they were in

the tomb because we've not invested in relationship to do

the hard things, and that's unwrapped the death that they've

lived in for so long that still vexes them and

binds them. Because when we get saved, we still have

some tendencies, we still have some junk that we bring

into our.

Saved life from our old life.

And it's through relationship that we love people and cloth

by cloth begin to unwind them and unbind them so

that they can live free the way we're free.

That's what groups are.

But beyond that, it's what you're a call to do

through relationship, to not just have that conversation so that

someone gets saved, but continue the process of discipling that

person until they look like the person that we can

recognize and they're free and they're not clothed in the

stench of death anymore. They're not clothed. They're not bound

by those things that they were bound by.

Because we've made.

The investment and done the hard work, God is calling.

Us up to a new level.

He's raising the bar a little bit for every individual

in this room for you to do the hard work

of investing in people and building the kingdom. Open your life,

open your home, open your house, and invite people in

to do life so that change happens. And I'm not

calling you to do something that I don't do. My

most successful ministry is not done from this stage. I

was able to have dinner with my cousin and his

wife earlier this week, and I'm investing in relationship with

them because i want to call them up to a

new place.

I live in that.

In that place where the value of preaching the word

is that there's nothing more valuable. But if I had

to choose, the board called me to the table and

said you either have to pick preaching or talking to

people about Christ and the world, I would resign and

go win people to Jesus at the grocery store every

day of the week, because that's where real life happens.

That's where change happens. So let's get about the Father's business.

Let's make an impact in our community, one life at

a time.

Are you with me?

Are you with me to get on board with the

new look of revival that's sweeping the New Testament.

World because our world's desperate for it.

Everybody's staying with me all over the room. If you're

standing next to your husband or wife, just reach over

and grab their hand. If you don't know them, don't

grab their hand and freak them out. Just put your

hand on their shoulder. Father, this is nobody else's responsibility

but mine, and I pray that you help me and

my spouse, men, this person that I'm standing next to me,

and the rest of the people here at cornerstone. I

pray that you birth in us the personal responsibility of

building relationships and sharing Christ. Well, then, when we wake

up every day, you're the first thing on our mind,

and the very next thing is who we can talk

to about. Jesus, make us storytellers of the goodness of

the Kingdom of God. Let it be the mark of

our lives. Lord have your way in Jesus' name.

Amen, Amen, and Amen, Let's worship together