A Burden for the Gospel

If you were based ready for the reading of God's Word, look over Romans chapter 1, verse 15.

Romans 1:15

Romans chapter 1, verse 15.

Romans 1:15

It says this.

So I am eager to come to you and promote.

Father, we thank you for your mercy and your grace.

Thank you more for your presence so evident here today.

We want to bring you more than empty words and false postures.

Let us, in spite of what we're going through where we are, in whatever season and however it looks like, let us never forget to have a heart of praise towards you.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

God is good, amen.

Well, if you've been here for the last one week, we're on week two, we are growing, growing.

We are going, hopefully, we're growing, and we are crawling through the book of Romans.

So last week we went through seven verses, and that was an entire message.

So today, about the same.

Verse 8 through 15.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna read this all the way through, and then we're gonna come back and we're going to crawl through the scripture, okay?

So this is week two.

This one's called A Burden of the Gospel.

I don't know what is on the microphone, but that sounds crazy.

Can you turn that off, please?

Verses 8 through 15.

It says in verse 8, starting all the way through 15.

So if you got your Bibles marked there, if you're coming from Sunday to Sunday, mark on there so you know where we are.

We're gonna be going the same book, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.

So let me say first, starting in verse 8, let me say first that I thank God.

I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you.

Well, that was nice.

Wasn't that nice?

Some of you can't look to your neighbor and say that.

Oh, come on, somebody.

Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world.

So faith, whether great or small, matters in the kingdom, and people talk about whether you believe in or whether you ain't.

Verse 10.

One of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing, to come at last to see you.

So you can tell from that that Paul cares about the people he's writing to.

Okay?

So his heart is in his writings.

Verse 11 for I long to visit you, so I can bring you some spiritual gift that I will that will help you grow strong in the Lord.

When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

So he's saying, I'm gonna bring a little something to the table, and I want you to bring a little something to the table, and then we'll just eat.

By the way, that's what we should do at Potluck.

Come on, somebody.

Verse 13, he says, I want you to know, dear brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to visit you, but I was prevented until now.

I want to work among you and see spiritual fruit, just as I have seen among other Gentiles.

Verse 14, for I have a great sense of obligation.

Somebody say obligation, obligation to people in both the civilized world and the rest of the world, to be to the educated and to the uneducated alike.

Verse 15 says, So I am eager to come to you in Rome too to preach the good news.

So let's break this down verse by verse, like we did last week, before Paul teaches justification, before Paul preaches or teaches sanctification, before Paul touches on glorification, before he says anything about the wrath of God or about the law of God.

Remember, these are Gentiles, they were not raised in a Jewish household, so you have to start at ground zero and work your way up to build something.

Because they have nothing but pagan ideologies on their minds, their hearts, and their upbringing.

Their traditions are pagan.

The world has been pagan.

So Paul is telling them this.

Before I ever get to the root of all your drama, trauma, and baby mamas, I'm sure they had those back then.

That's not new in the 2000s.

Before Paul teaches all of this, before he even teaches about grace, before he even gets to who Israel is and and their part and how God put the He put in the children of Israel in place to make a people for himself, so much so that Paul had to describe to them that they are not of Jewish descent.

All grouped people in that category is called Gentiles.

If you are not of Jewish descent sitting here today or watching online, you are a Gentile.

Okay?

You were not born in the line from Abraham, but we all came from the line of Adam.

Come on.

So he's instead of before he gets into all of this.

What is key phrasing and the subject matter that Paul starts this letter off with?

He says, I care deeply about your soul.

Let's pause here for a second and talk to the good experienced church people that want to slap people over the head with the word of God, but we show no care or compassion for their soul.

What good is scripture when scripture is not going into the seed, it's not going in the ground that has been broken before the seed is thrown.

This is why we must learn to have servants' hearts for those who live perverted, unbiblical lives.

Because when we get upset with people who don't understand what scripture is, and they will listen, they'll curse you in a heartbeat.

But it takes one of the first fruits, all the ones in between, and one of the last fruit of the Spirit, you gotta love them and you need to practice self-control.

If you got all those in their sandwich, then I believe if you get the front one and you get the back one, the rest of them pretty much gonna show up.

If you learn how to love those you see, not see them for what they do.

How many of you know if people saw us for what we have done or what we are doing, some people would walk away now?

Just because they're living their sin out life out loud doesn't mean you have any more right to judge them.

I'm not listening I'm judge, I judge sin.

I'm not the judge of hearts and souls.

Do you understand that's not my place?

And you may not know this, but that's not yours either.

So when we have compassion, I use this example all the time.

It is the greatest display of compassion, in my personal opinion, is when Jesus looked down from the cross.

Now, if you understand the Roman tradition, they would try to outdo each other in the gore in different pockets of Roman Empire.

They would try to outdo being more gory, do worse things to their people.

They would beat, they would crucify, they would do, try to do things different to be more creative in torturing and killing people.

So when you think about that, that's their upbringing, that's their culture.

You can understand why they did what they did to Jesus so bad.

Somebody who was going to make an uprising in their house, they were gonna make an example of.

So, that being said, after he went through all of that, Jesus got on the cross and looked down at the people that put him up there.

Now we think automatically physically the Roman soldiers, but can I tell you if he looked down, he saw you?

So when we understand that we are sinned, put Jesus on the cross.

God didn't design us to be this way, he designed us, get ready, to be naked and unashamed.

Thank God, right?

Oh, yes, Lord, thank you.

But he didn't design us to be where we are today.

That was not his design, that was man's choice.

And so as he was hanging on the tree, he looked down with eyes of compassion, with a heart full of love for the very people.

I believe not just for the people that were there, but for the people behind and the people to come.

So, Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they do.

Because we've been in that place where we could act all wrong, all kinds of wrong, and not know what we're doing.

But he wrote this letter and he starts off with just talking about he had the heart of Christ.

Listen, on the road to Damascus, when Paul had his encounter with Christ, immediately the first words out of his mouth was Lord.

When you have an encounter with Christ, you put Christ in the proper position over your life.

We put Christ in the proper perspective, and the way we do that determines how we live, how we act, and how we respond to people.

It determines what we allow to take root in our lives.

Bitterness, angry, judgmental.

Also, no, aka if you look up in the dictionary, it has church people right next to it.

Huh?

We have got to find that heartbeat of Christ and compassion for those that don't know God.

When we start living like that, you gotta understand it's not for tomorrow, it is for the long gang.

It is for the long gang.

And so, as Paul was writing this, I love his heart.

He says, I care deeply about your soul.

He shows us what it looks like to carry the burden of the gospel.

There is a weight to the gospel that every believer should proudly carry.

It has substance.

It listen, if I give you, if I put up here in front, that would have been great illustration.

I could have embarrassed some of y'all.

Us men that like lifting heavy things.

If I had two bags in front of you, I could fill one with air.

I could fill one with concrete.

They would look exactly the same.

But you would have one that had no substance at all, and one that would carry weight.

When you carry scripture, when you carry the gospel, it's not empty air.

It is heavy, it is full of substance, it carries weight, it is a burden that I gladly bear, that all believers should gladly bear is the gospel.

What is the gospel?

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Do you think maybe it's going side by side where he says you must pick up your cross?

Because if the Christian does not feel the burden, huh?

Christians fill up buildings and they they are a part of a congregation, but they know nothing of Christ.

There is a difference than being a part of a congregation and being a part of Christ.

We act different, we look different.

We see different, our perspective changes, or at least it should.

And listen, I understand if you ain't there yet, you still hate your neighbor.

Some of y'all, your neighbor is your spouse.

Some of y'all, your neighbor is somebody else that you just wish would have gone to the other side of the church.

See, she's getting up now.

I'm just I'm just and we know we're gonna blame Joe for that one.

Some of you want to change neighbors.

That's all right.

Go to the other side of the church where you where you like it better.

But for our neighbor, we should have a heart of compassion.

That doesn't mean that we automatically get along and everything is great.

What it means is we handle each other with care.

We care about how the other person sees the situation.

We care about how people are affected by what comes out of our mouth.

We care about how our attitude affects somebody else's attitude.

You want poison in the church?

Let people get bitter, angry, and loud mouthed.

But when we care for each other, as Paul does these Gentiles, the people that were viewed as less than because they were not Jewish.

Because it even says in the book, in the New Testament, that Jesus came for the Jews and Paul and the Holy Spirit for the Gentiles.

So point number one is a burden that prays.

So if we carry a burden of the gospel, if we carry the burden of the good news of Jesus Christ, it is a heavy burden.

Why is it a heavy burden?

Because when you proclaim Jesus, you are Jesus by definition, not by label.

You understand the difference?

We're not Christians because of the label that we go to a church.

We're not Christian by denomination.

We're not Christian because some of us speak in tongues and we're holier than others.

We're not Christians because some of us prophesy.

We're not Christians by some of us singing on the worship team.

Everything I just mentioned is a product of salvation, but it is not salvation.

It is a product of the gospel.

It is directly in line with the gospel, but it is not the gospel.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that he came, lived a sinless, blameless life.

He had no relations with a woman.

I don't care what anybody says.

Some of y'all know who I'm talking about.

We call that liars.

He knew no sin.

So that he could be the spotless, blameless Lamb of God that was that blood shed out for us for eternity.

A one and done situation.

And so that burden should spur us as believers when our eyes are our spiritual eyes are open and we realize the lost are not just angry because they're angry.

Has anybody in the house ever been hangry?

Well, Jesus.

One of those is a lot.

Matter of fact, this is the talking about a burden of the gospel.

Sister Carrie and both of them.

Steph Stephanie was up here.

These two ladies, they text me and they're like, hey, what if we did a worship-wide fast?

Like everybody in the worship team, we all picked a day, they picked Wednesday.

And like, what if we all fast together?

I said, Hallelujah.

I said, get it, girl.

Because what I do is I already fast once a week.

I don't ask anybody to do what I don't do.

So why shouldn't you, as believers, if we cast out devils and we want to see miracles by much prayer and fasting, why do we not do it as Christians?

Don't get caught up on the food.

If you got medicines and you can't do food, maybe you should fast smoking.

Some of y'all right now have been telling me how many days because you've been fasting coffee.

Woo! Or you may not have been fasting coffee, you're fasting spending money on coffee.

Look at the check book explode when you finally give up your vice.

What if you fasted being a jerk?

Woo! Yes, Lord.

Hallelujah.

I feel it, spirit.

What if you fasted, blaming everybody else for your problems?

You might just find some freedom in your life.

Hallelujah.

Woo! Yes, Lord.

Even the Bible says with your spouse you can fast sex.

It says don't withhold.

Let's not get caught up, y'all.

But it says that fast so that when you come back together, it's even more enjoyable.

Like it's a fresh new start all over again.

I ain't telling that to happen at the house.

I'm just saying.

All I'm saying is we get caught up on food when maybe we really started doing without the things that are toxic in our lives.

Imagine how much more pure of a bride we would be for Jesus when he returns.

Y'all getting two sermons, and I ain't even trying.

But when we get the burden, we have a burden to pray when we understand.

Oh, the reason I even started on hangry, it's a great point.

And I just went, I went all left field.

Y'all know about squirrels, right?

I find them all the time.

But we we see people outside the walls, and all we see is angry people.

But what if it's people starving spiritually and they're hangry?

Come on now.

What if they are out there and they are starving?

They have no clue why, but they are mad at the world.

It's ever if you ever if you go without food, it's everybody else's fault.

Surely you're not the problem.

But maybe they are spiritually hangry.

Take that home and chew on it.

Maybe the people you're getting upset about that that are coming at you or acting out, and you're like, dude, just go outside somewhere.

Maybe they're in there with you because God has an assignment that you ain't ready to intake yet.

Be aware.

Be aware, God, what do you want us to do?

Because when we have a burden of the gospel, that burden spurs us to pray for.

Those who come against us, even in Psalms, it says, You set me at a table with my enemies.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to even nobody I don't like.

Am I the only one?

But the Bible says that He sets us at the table with our enemies.

Not we set ourselves.

So when we're sitting across the table from someone that we don't like, we don't respect, and blah blah blah, whatever, fill in the blank with however they make you feel, maybe you should not act like a sinner and start acting like Christ.

Take it home with you.

Write it down.

Text it to yourself if you have to.

Paul starts with thankfulness, not for buildings, not for budgets.

We're trying to get a van though.

Y'all got some extra cash.

We're trying to get a church van.

Not for extra church fans.

He didn't call, he didn't call them up.

Yeah, he just called them up.

He didn't write them a letter the old school way, but for the faith that is echoing across the land that these people have.

A true burden doesn't begin in criticism, it is birthed in gratitude.

Some of us have lost the burden of the gospel because we won't stop being ungrateful.

Lord, if you don't do it my way, I ain't moving.

And then we quote some scripture because that's how we do it when we're real spiritual and we're being rebellious.

Like a tree planted by the water, I will not be moved until I get my way.

I know a God that can pluck a tree up by the roots if he has to.

Your roots don't go that deep, bro.

A true burden doesn't begin in criticism, it begins in gratitude.

Paul says, God knows how often I pray for you, day and night.

That wasn't an exaggeration.

I believe that that was Paul's burden for people.

Think about this.

There was somebody actually that pulled up in the parking lot.

They don't go here anymore.

They were dropping somebody off.

They got out of the car to hug me and they were crying and they asked for prayer requests.

I didn't do the old church where I'm like, oh yes, ma'am, I'll pray for you and give them a little pat on the back.

I said, Well, can we pray right here?

I grabbed their hands and I began to plead the blood of Jesus over their life.

And then she said, And pray, we'll come back to church.

I said, Oh, come on, Jesus.

I said, and Lord, soften the hearts of the hardest hearts of people and pull them back into this place where they belong.

Pray for people that run from the truth and don't come here anymore.

They need Jesus.

The same problems they complain about is gonna find them in a new spot.

Paul says, I bring your needs before God day and night, not because they were family, not because they tithed, not because they supported him, but because the gospel connected them.

The burden without prayer can become burnout.

The burden with prayer grows us in power.

He also says, one of the things I always pray for is the opportunity, God willing to come at last to see you.

He is not praying for convenience.

Hear me, good old-fashioned Christian.

He's not praying for convenience, he's praying for opportunity.

Some of us think that God needs to remove us out from where we are, but we haven't fully learned the lesson from where we stand.

He loves you that much to leave you crying and wondering where he is.

Let me give you a quick little firsthand experience.

When I got arrested the second time, I don't know, they blend in together.

My daddy always told me, it was his one rule if you get arrested, if you ever get arrested, you're gonna have to find your way out.

And I'm like, okay, dad, I have mom's number.

I'm being honest with you, I'm being honest, I knew my way of escape that the Lord was gonna provide.

Come on, somebody.

Well, by the time I actually got arrested here in the state of Texas, my mom had already gone up to Arkansas.

Guess whose number was the only number I could remember?

It was my dad's.

And I said, Surely, surely, my saved father that says he knows and loves Jesus would not leave me in here.

And I had a cell with nine other people.

There were bunk beds all along the walls, and I had the top bunk, one bunk away from the phone.

And so I was high when I went in, and at this time, when I when I finally called him, it was a few hours later.

And I I when you come down from I don't know about anything else, but when you come down from Meth, you're very emotional.

And so I'm over in the corner up against his wall with the phone, and I'm like grown man crying.

Because I'm mad at my dad.

I cursed him out on the phone.

I used every word I knew.

It's not a lot, but I used them.

And he just was so calm on the phone.

Now that was the Christian dad.

He knew that if I didn't feel the sting of my sin, Stephen would find another way to get back to where I was.

No matter who bailed me out, no matter who bailed me out.

It would have been the convenient way to get bailed out.

But convenience would have robbed me for my later purpose.

You understand what I'm saying to you?

Sometimes it could feel now that may not be extreme.

I did something wrong, I'm living in that, but some of us are living in things that maybe we didn't design ourselves.

You ever been there?

Sometimes life happens, and you're sitting in the seat of a car you don't feel like you're driving, called your life.

And it feels like everybody's just coming by taking a turn driving wherever they want to go.

And you're just there along for the ride.

You can take that one home too.

And you're just along for the ride, and all of a sudden you're like, okay, I'm about to grab the steering wheel and take this thing back over.

When in reality is, no matter who's driving, if you have the peace of the Lord, it won't matter.

If you have the compassion and love of the Lord, it won't matter.

And you'll just be good with the ride.

You'll just be thankful for the car.

Because praying for convenience oftentimes can rob you.

Has God ever gave you what you asked for?

And then after you got it, you're like, now wait a minute.

That wasn't exactly what I was wanting.

And he's like, but it's exactly what you prayed about.

Here you go.

And for the next 10 years, you gotta feel like you're cleaning up the mess.

Paul wasn't praying for convenience.

I want us as mature believers, spiritual maturity, spiritual maturity to stop praying for convenience and praying for a spiritual opportunity.

Lord, what what are you doing that I can be a part of?

Not Lord, I'm gonna do this, and then you come and stamp your approval on it.

Do you see the difference in living for Christ?

Is living with Christ, what God is wanting to do, not what you're wanting to do, and then God come along and say, Good job, guy, but you do it according to his plan, his will, his scripture.

Sometimes it moves a little slower than we would like.

Come on, somebody.

Sometimes it doesn't look like we had planned.

Come on, somebody.

But I do know this that the God we pray to and the God we say we serve is a faithful and just God.

So no matter what it looks like on the other side, I promise you that is better than you could have ever done yourself.

And it is better for you.

It may not feel like it because in the process, it's not pleasant, but unpleasant processes will lead you to a divine appointment.

It will lead you to actually living in purpose.

We got people that walk around their entire lives and have no clue what they're supposed to be doing.

I'm not talking about a job, I'm not talking about a family, I'm not talking about all these other things, but what are you doing for the kingdom?

You can have the lowest paying job and be satisfied and content because you're serving the Lord, because you know you are where you are supposed to be.

There is nothing more satisfying than when finally my purpose is not starving anymore, and I'm living in it being filled every single day, living out my purpose.

Every person is called to pray, every person is called to carry the burden of the gospel.

So these two go hand in hand.

We must have a burden for the lost, we must have a burden of prayer for our fellow believers.

A gospel burden asks this, Lord, where do you want to send me?

A lot of us, and myself included, I'm a go-go type of guy.

I don't like to wait around.

I don't like to sit and wait for an answer.

I don't like to sit and wait for something to be designed.

Matter of fact, I ordered some t-shirts for my business, I don't know, like six months ago.

And I was so annoyed by the time they emailed me twice.

I'm like, I gave you what I want on it, put it on there, stop talking to me and give me the product.

But they had quality assurance and then they had they wanted a review, and I'm like, I'm deleting you and I'm blocking you.

I don't care about all that junk.

Give me my stuff.

And then by the time I got it ordered, they got it to me quickly, but then one like half of the shirts were like down here.

I'm like, bro, what is going on?

So then I had to call them up and get quality assurance.

I'm like, listen, there's half of the shirts that are longer.

Can you send pictures?

Give me five minutes, I'll get my phone, and I'll get the shirt.

So I had to stand in the kitchen and look like a doof when my wife was taking photos of me so that I could send them to these people so that they can give me the right size.

And I'm like, come on, like these people have a podcast, and I'm trying to support your business, but you're making it incredibly difficult.

How many of us in the church people want to come to know Jesus, but we make it incredibly difficult?

You could be the blockage of why people aren't pouring in here.

Hello?

You could be the reason people don't want to go to church.

That should change the way you see people, that should change the way you see yourself.

The gospel should birth a burden for those who don't know Christ, where we pray before we do anything.

Point number two after the burden of the gospel produces prayer out of you, the burden of the gospel produces fruit.

When you become saved, there is, hey, I am thankful for the people that God just you don't want alcohol anymore, or you're free from cigarettes, or you don't you're not depressed anymore, anxiety is gone.

Hallelujah.

Come on, somebody.

But a lot of the times there is a trusting process in the desert where we have to understand and relearn and undo some bad patterns that we have in our life.

Most of us have had a long time on this earth.

Why y'all looking around?

Some more than others, and because of that lifelong pattern-building system that we have from sinful nature, when we finally give ourselves to Christ things that we don't want any part of anymore, now we have to fill it with something because now there's a gap, and our bodies freak out, our minds freak out, our spirits freak out.

Like, I don't, I don't have my crutch anymore.

We have to be redesigned, and the Bible even calls it reborn.

That means from zero to spiritual maturity.

That means we have to start from the beginning.

A lot of us want to just jump in and serve in the church.

We want to jump in and be leaders in the church.

We want to jump in.

I love that you want to serve, but you ain't ready, bro.

You ain't there yet.

I love you.

I can't, I'm so glad you're here.

But there's more pro, it's okay to have more process that needs to take place.

There's no shame in being in the middle of your process.

There's no shame in being in the middle of discipleship.

Do you understand that with Jesus, the people that walked with him, it took three years?

Think about that.

They didn't just show up and get a microphone.

Matter of fact, even after Jesus ascended and Peter was speaking, the spirit broke out and he stopped in the middle of his message because God wanted to do something different.

It's okay to be in the middle of a process.

Even some of the disciples and the ones that followed Jesus and have been filled with the spirit, they still argued and divided, but what the devil tried to use for harm, he actually multiplied the gospel in areas that wouldn't have gone in.

When we belong to Christ, it takes away the judgmental, critical, criticizing spirit, and we realize that it doesn't matter if we get upset with each other, it doesn't matter if you leave here or more people come in, whatever that looks like.

We believe that if you are a believer and you leave here, that God's going to use you in a different place.

Church people can let the devil get in the middle of them.

It's true.

The most saved is saved is saved and sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost people can have a mouth that shoots off faster than they can stop it.

It's true.

We are still flesh, but we the Bible says that much love, a love covers a multitude of sin.

You see how sometimes we can get real super judgmental and super spiritual when the Bible's very clear that, like, listen, hey, have compassion for each other.

That's how they're gonna know who God is.

So we have to have, here's a here's a tough word tolerance, not with sin, but with people.

You know, you can witness to people and never mention their sin, and the Holy Spirit can convict them.

A burden produces fruit.

Paul isn't trying to gain a platform, he's trying to strengthen the saints.

He says, I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift.

When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

This is what we call iron sharpens iron, it's mutual strengthening.

A lot of times in church, we come and we see each other on Sunday, but throughout the week there's no mutual strengthening.

Speaking of which, shameless plug, the men's Bible study is now operational every Wednesday night.

So we were doing second and fourth.

So if you can't make it on some of those, that's fine.

But right now we're walking through experiencing God, and there is so much meat in there.

We voted last week, and everybody said, Yeah, let's do it.

So now we're doing every single Wednesday.

So step it up, ladies.

I've been actually wanting to do this for a while, but I didn't want to get ahead of God.

I wanted the people who are hungry to bring up the need, and then they get fed.

You understand?

So he says, I long to visit you.

I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by you've mutual strengthening.

This is relational humility in the body.

Do you understand?

It's relational.

I understand that you may not like people, and I guarantee you probably they don't like you either.

But that's not the point.

It's not about you.

It's about us serving each other to strengthen the core of the body so that the body can be strong, and then the body looks healthy to other bodies of believers in different beliefs.

You understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, I don't know if you know this, but all the people out there, they have a belief system too.

They are believers just in the wrong direction.

They believe in so that's why it's so hard to convince them because they have belief, and they, even though they won't admit it, they have faith in something.

Most of them, it's themselves.

So if we can't show them what a healthy person, Christian, looks like, why would they ever turn to us for anything?

Relational humility.

Burdened believers don't just consume, they contribute.

You feel the burden for the gospel coming from the church.

What can I do?

I'll give you a very quick example that happened about 30 minutes ago.

Brother Mickey felt a burden and he mentioned something.

He passed that burden to Brother Vernon.

And brother Vernon said it up here, and I looked at Cassie and I said, We've already had this figured out for like a week.

They had no clue that we had already talked and this was already going on.

The burden spread naturally in the body without anybody communicating with each other.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

So when you have a burden for something, share it with other people.

You don't know who else is thinking in the same direction.

And if your burden is thinking in the direction of serving people, let me tell you, we're already going to be there standing waiting for you.

Because that nobody said amen on that at all.

Y'all need to learn to serve some people.

Come on.

Yeah, we love serving people.

Woo! Hallelujah.

Get that old Pentecostal at the end of it.

Burden believers don't just come and consume, they contribute.

You don't have to come when we do the serve day on Thanksgiving.

But my family knows in other areas of the country, they know that on Thanksgiving I'm going to be serving and handing out food that don't get with them about me coming up there because I ain't going to show up.

You can invite me.

Matter of fact, go ahead and mail some of that food down here.

That'd be fine.

But I ain't going to come and partake firsthand.

I would be down here serving the kingdom.

Why?

Because serving other people should be inconvenient.

We should be okay, not just okay with, but wanting to be inconvenienced.

Because it's in that inconvenience where we're not so confident.

Now our confidence is not on us or in us, but it is on Christ and through the Holy Spirit.

So now we're not dependent on us.

And so this is a muscle that will be exercised if you allow God to do it.

That we don't depend on ourselves, but we listen to Him and move where He moves to go where He goes, to do what He does.

Because when you're in the middle of God and He is the center of you, miracles happen.

Revival breaks out because we get outside of ourselves, out of our comfort zone, and we just want to be in the middle of what God is doing.

And we're not doing it to be seen, we're not doing it to be heard, we're doing it just to be obedient.

Obedient.

A burden for your neighbor produces a bond that can rarely be broken.

When I care about you, and I display that I care about you, I am building a bridge between you and I.

You are building a bridge between that person you don't like and the person you do like.

All bridges should be connected equally.

Amen.

Don't try to trick them and build a bridge that'll fall through and they try to come over.

When we have a burden for those next to us, not our family, family's a given.

I love my kids more than yours.

I hope you knew that.

If you didn't, you do now.

I love my wife and our families more than I love your families.

Y'all got super quiet.

Don't you sit there and pretend for a second like that?

Ain't you too?

We do.

It's ingrained in us.

My son can do some of the dumbest stuff.

My little girl can do some of the dumbest stuff.

They cannot listen, but.

If you didn't, you wouldn't go to a restaurant and you wouldn't have to do anything.

It's nice to be served.

It's nice to have someone do something for you.

I tell my wife every single day something I'll write this down.

Hallelujah.

I said, baby, I love and appreciate everything that you do.

I've said this before.

When we sit down at the table, we pray over the food as a family.

Every every night we we eat together at the table.

And I look at her and I say, Thank you for making the food.

Even if she don't make it.

I'm thankful that she does what she does, and I want to always show her that she matters to me.

Even though I can't lavish her with all kinds of Gucci purses and all that stuff.

I ain't got to bank account for that.

Although I'm taking donations.

And she don't want that kind of stuff.

That's not her, but what I'm saying is like everyone loves to be taken care of and pampered and stuff.

That's the same feeling that you like other people feel that when you do it for them.

So use what is familiar to you to feel doing it for somebody else.

I don't like that for opportunities to deserve others.

It is the key servanthood.

It is the key to building the kingdom.

It produces results.

I don't know how you feel about it.

God doesn't call us to deserve one another when we like the person or when we're feeling good.

When you aren't in the right mind and you don't ever serve anybody else, that's gonna come back on your head.

You will be judged for that.

Lastly it says 14.

I have a great sense of obligation.

Not not pressure, but a divine urgency.

He was eager to go to Rome and preach the good news.

Not out of duty, but out of desire.

The desire to see people turn to Jesus.

The desire to see the law of bounds.

The desire to be those that are bound.

A desire to leave those that you cry to do not know him and a desire to help those who are in Christ are doing it wrong.

That means something was done wrong.

So we must be willing to help each other in a time of correction.

What do we do things in love?

Not for the credit.

We don't do this thing for the credit.

If you're looking for credit, you're in the wrong business.

If you're looking to be seen, you're in the wrong business.

If you're looking to do it for accolades and acknowledgement, guess what?

I'm gonna acknowledge you less.

I'm telling you right now, if I see that pride in you, I will make sure that I never invite you to anything, and I will make sure that I never tell you good job.

I don't care.

Pride is poison to the body.

I am charged to protect the body, and so the fruit that I see growing, what do I do?

I'm not gonna feed the fruit, I'm gonna starve it.

Now, this is the same process.

I know it sounded a little rough, the same process I use on myself because if I'm feeding the wrong fruit, I'm gonna have fruit of the flesh, and if I am a believer, I don't want to have fruit of the flesh, I want to have fruit of the and if we all desire to be closer to God, if we all desire to to love Him and get closer to Him, the closer I get to God, the less of the old me attitudes, attributes, whatever you want to fill in the blank with.

I want less of that, I want more of what He has.

But a lot of us we want to we want to get close to God, but we still want our foot over that line.

Not only are you being sinful, you look foolish.

And eventually, eventually, it may not be tomorrow, may not be the next day, it may be a year, maybe two years down the road.

Eventually, what you're allowing your foot to stay in, it always affects in a bad way the good fruit you're trying to grow.

Always, always, because you have made that connection between gardens, and what you've said you wanted to leave behind, now you've become the bridge for what you said you wanted to walk away from, even if you mostly walk away, you haven't fully committed to one or the other.

The Bible calls this lukewarm.

You can pretend to be the best Christian that's out there, you can know all the right scriptures, you can read, you can read the Bible to the day you die and never know Christ.

Are you who you say you want to be?

Some of us have to speak out in faith of where we want to go first so that our feet start moving in that direction.

Take your foot out of the old garden and plant your feet on Christ, the solid rock.

You know what it does when you're like this, you immediately become unstable, you immediately lose your bearings, things easily push you over, and like I already said, you become the bridge from where you're wanting to be.

Most of us in here probably desire good things, we desire good fruit, but we're not willing to completely face Christ and completely step out of where we used to be.

I fully believe in the story of Moses where he was standing before the burning bush, and God spoke out of the bush and said, Take off your shoes, you are standing on holy ground.

Now, this isn't in the Bible, this is just me, it's extra biblical.

But in my in my mind, when I read this part, I'm like, you know what?

Where did those shoes come from?

He had a lot of the residue of Egypt from all the things he had walked through and all the places he had been, but God was taking him into a new place, and until he stepped out of the residue of where he had been, he could not fully plant his feet on the holy.

He what would have happened if he would have taken one shoe out, one foot out, and stepped on the holy ground, but he kept one foot in what would have happened, but yet we do this in our spiritual walk all the time.

We have one foot out, we have one foot in, and God does not believe, God, God did not send his son on the cross for counterfeit Christians that are pretending to have both feet in, and I'm not here trying to condemn you or shame you, but I hope that the Spirit convicts you as He convicted me.

Without conviction, there is no true salvation.

The Bible says to simply call on the name of the Lord and you will be saved, the burden of the gospel leads us to pray daily.

The weight of the gospel, the seed of the gospel, produces the fruit we desire in our lives.

But for every person in this room or watching online, whether you've decided, here's something that I know it's it's human nature, so don't beat yourself up, but you need to make a choice is that we can in the beginning plant our feet where they should be, and then as time passes, how easily is it to let your foot, your life, your heart, your mind go back in other directions that you said out of your mouth you were free from, that you believed in your heart that you had been redeemed of?

God did not design this whole Christian system for believers to live in bondage.

He set this up so that who the Son says free is free.

With every hip bow, we will stand.

I just want to say a prayer for the congregation.

Holy Spirit, if there's somebody here today that does not know you, maybe they have more questions than answers.

Maybe they're unsure.

Lord, I pray if they don't make that choice today, Father, that you draw them.

It doesn't have to be in a sanctuary to do.

You can reach us anyway.

If there's somebody here today, you haven't fully given your life to Jesus.

I just want to invite you.

I just want to invite you to make your way.

Step out of faith.

If you don't come by yourself, take your neighbor by the hand.

And just take that step and give your life to Jesus.

Jesus loves you so much.

God loves you so much that He sent His Son for you.

Don't let your pride make you sit there.

I don't care if you've been in the church a hundred years or if you today's your first day.

If you need a touch, if you need somebody to pray and believe with you, we have people up here ready to receive you.

Step out and say, I am ready to have both feet firmly planted on Christ the solid rock.

I've been I've been doing it for too long.

And I've allowed life to reshape me and misform me and make me into somebody that I don't even recognize.

Today I want to give a call to those that maybe you've been you've been living life.

Maybe you've grown cold, you've become complacent, but you want to get closer to God today.

If you will, just come down to the altar.

Thank you for that step of faith.

We want to pray, we want to believe, we want to lift you up in the name of Jesus.

In the name of Jesus.

Come on, don't let your pride keep you there.

We want you to feel loved here, to know that God loves you, that we love you, we care for you.

One more call.

If there's somebody here today and there is sickness in your body, we believe here that prayer changes everything.

Not just some things, it changes everything.

Maybe it's healing in your mind, maybe it's healing in your in your heart, maybe it's healing in your in your body, maybe it's healing in your spirit.

Maybe you've grown weary and you want to be feel that freshness again.

To feel the breath of the Lord come back in your lungs again.

Is there anybody else?

Come on, step out in faith.

Step out of faith.

Hey, this is Pastor Stephen, the lead pastor here at Connect Church in Longview.

I truly hope today's message has encouraged you, empowered you, and challenged you to go deeper in your walk with Christ.

If you would like to find out more about us, I invite you to visit ConnectCurch.life.

There you can find ways to give what we believe, our values, as well as different ways to reach out to us so that we can reach out to you.

We love you.

We're praying for you, and I hope you have an amazing week.