No One Is Good

My title of today's message is No One Is Good.

No One Is Good.

Now I don't know about you, but this is an exciting day for a pastor and his family because we're the church is growing.

Some of the new members now literally doing their part to grow the church.

They're having babies.

We're doing our part to grow the church.

Where are some of y'all older people at?

If Sarah can do it, mm-mm.

Don't laugh because that's when God shows up.

She did, she laughed.

What happened?

She got pregnant.

Keep on laughing.

God's gonna have his way.

Some of y'all ain't want God's way when it comes to that.

Like, no, sir, I'm gonna find another church.

That don't have the faith to pray for that.

So no one is good.

No one is good.

Out of all the people that I have met, and I've said this before, and I'm gonna sing her praises till the day that I die, and I'm going to embarrass her now.

But if anybody was close to the goodness of Jesus, it's my wife.

Her heart is of gold, her mind and her body were sanctified, and she stayed close.

If you want to see two polar opposite people be married to each other, look at me and her.

I'm loud and proud, and I run around and I dance and I do whatever I want.

I got the thing going on.

And she used to tell me I got on her nerves.

But the perseverance of the Lord, somebody.

But even my wife, as much as I honor her and love her, and she is my best friend, and I would do anything, laid out my life for her, any day of the week.

She surpasses any person I've ever known.

She has loved me beyond my mess ups.

She has accepted me beyond my damage.

She has been there for me even when I had to take her into a courthouse for something I had to pay for that she was not a part of.

Now that's love.

And that is something that I honor and encourage for anybody who's looking for someone in their life.

You need to be the person worthy of someone you desire to come and get you.

So I know this sounds counterintuitive for such a glorious day of celebrating.

Well, that stinks.

So much for being encouraged when you come to church.

No one is good.

Actually, I think the opposite.

I personally find great and deep encouragement when the Bible says and when Jesus says, the perfect man that was born lived a life that we could not live, died a death that we could not pay for.

He was the ultimate price and sacrifice for us.

And still he said no one is good.

That gives me great courage because that means that all of us are in the same boat.

And there ain't nobody I'd rather be in a boat with than Jesus.

And if he says I'm not good, then that takes a little bit of the pressure and the weight of legalism off my shoulders.

To where I stopped looking to work to get into heaven, and I realize that it is only by his grace and his mercy and the blood of Jesus that I am saved, sanctified, and by the power when he left, it came down and filled with the Holy Ghost.

That it is not through us and by us, that it is by him and only through him that we can find salvation, that we cannot earn our way into salvation.

Why?

Because no one is good.

If you are living under the umbrella of God, if you are under the salvation of Jesus, through that, God sees you, and through that filter of Jesus, you are made righteous.

Outside of that covering, you are not worthy.

And you, in your own strength, your own spirit, evil people can do good things.

Just like good people can do evil things.

But none of these, both sides of the coin, whether you do good or people say you are good, it does not make you good.

It is actually a self-defining definition we give to ourselves to make us feel more holy than we actually are.

Only God is good.

Now, if Jesus is saying this, think about this.

The only perfect human who had ever lived in the history of man and ever will live said this.

I'm not saying you should just go out and do whatever you want, because then you're just living in sin.

There's a difference in us being sinners saved by grace and living in sin.

Why?

Because we all mess up, we all have hangups, we all have issues that the devil likes to extract from us and pull out of us, specifically in the heat of the moment when we're angry.

Hello, men.

I'm telling you straight up, yesterday, the spirit of the Lord was strong in my life because I did not slap a child.

I'm telling you, we were sitting at the dinner table, and I'm bit I was in my office and we came, we ate together, and the whole time I felt I felt the boiling.

But in the kitchen where my wife was, I heard the steam.

Come on, somebody.

And I reserved myself, and I suppressed the anger.

We sat down and Tristan was acting a little nuts.

Well, y'all laughing, but guess what?

So do you.

So do I, but not last night.

I'm gonna take my wins when I get them.

Anybody else with me?

When you got one, tell everybody, because it won't last long.

But I sat down and I told him, I said, Tristan, and I said it in such a calm voice.

I told I told Jesse, I said, Man, I have been so patient.

He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be.

Because the spirit of slap comes on me more times than it should.

And I want to wreck anybody who gets in my way.

I'm not gonna touch on driving and getting the fast lane, but you know what I'm talking about.

Move over.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm gonna leave it right there.

You know who you are.

Apparently, actually, that's probably false.

Everyone else knows who you are except for you.

Alright, let's get back to the text.

And I sit down and I told Tristan, I said, Tristan, I said it in such a calm voice, the Spirit of God just came over me, you know, as a father.

I said, you know, son.

Have you ever seen a volcano?

You see it look just like a regular mountain.

If you didn't know it was a volcano, you probably wouldn't even be able to tell.

But below the ground and below the surface, there's things happening.

And things are boiling and bubbling.

And if you don't stop, this volcano is gonna blow.

And I looked him in the eyes and I said, Do you understand what I'm saying?

His countenance changed.

And he got all of a sudden serious and said, Yes, sir, because he knew that I was serious.

You see, we all have issues.

We all have things that are like an exposed nerve, and the enemy has been doing this for such a long time.

He's what we call skilled at the craft.

He knows where your nerves are open.

He knows which ones you're trying to cover up and protect.

He knows how to get to you when nobody else can.

When you feel like you're good to go, he's gonna get you.

This is why I tell you every week, without fail, you have to start your day off in prayer, reading, and praising.

Because you've got to preemptively choose first, like we just got off the series about choosing before the bad times come, before the valley hits you, to choose first.

Now you've got to understand this that even though you choose first and you say, God, I'm going to be this, does not always mean you're going to be perfect.

And I will go back to my text and say, if Jesus will say, uh, no one is good but the Father.

You know, out of coming on the other side of methodiction and jail and divorce and just messing up my parents' life and just being a leech on their finances and doing everything I could to destroy and leave bodies in the wake of me going through my sinful valley.

On the other side, the hardest person to forgive was myself.

I fixed my relationship with my father.

I fixed my relationship with my mother.

I fixed my relationship with my brother.

And now my son lives with us full time.

Has for years now, after we've gotten married.

I have remarried a wonderful woman who loves me in spite of me.

I'm the pastor of a church that I love dearly, that I don't know why you still come, but you do.

There are things in my life that God has blessed me in spite of me not being good.

So, what does that say?

That speaks on God does not give you blessings according to what you do wrong or good.

Now, doing good obviously brings glory to God's name, but sometimes we wear the cloak of shame and misery, and shame is not God's game, it's the devil's game.

Why is it the devil's game?

Let me point something out to you.

In the word of God in Revelations, it talks about this that you will become an overcomer through the blood of the Lamb, his sacrifice, Jesus' sacrifice, the perfect Lamb of God.

By his sacrifice and his blood, you will be an overcomer.

And number two is the word of your testimony.

Why does your testimony count?

That means you're taking the ammunition off the table of the devil and speaking it out first and bringing what was a table of shame that now is a place of glory for God.

Do not allow the enemy to shame you for what you have done, but let it fuel you to be better and begin to speak on where you have messed up to those who are still in the valley.

Your purpose is not to come and do serve you.

Your purpose is not to come and have some awesome career.

Your purpose, like me, when I thought at one point was not to just marry up.

But thank God.

Hey, and stay married.

Come on, somebody.

Feel the anointing.

For some reason, for some reason, in spite of us not being good, God still pours out his blessings.

If you can figure that one out, there's a lot of questions I'm gonna ask God when I see him finally face to face after I get off the floor crying and praising him for who knows how long.

Just thanking him for who he is.

But one of the questions is like, why in the world did you still love me and bless me in spite of me?

Because we don't know that answer.

We have no clue why.

Because as Jesus declared, not even he was good, but he was the perfect sacrifice with no blemish of sin.

And yet he gave his life and became that sacrifice so that we can be made right, be made righteous before God.

A lot of people stop coming to churches because of self-righteous Christians.

For some reason, we've got it in our heads that we have done something to earn our place in heaven.

That we have done something to earn our seats that we sit in.

Y'all may not know this, you probably do, but everyone in here has a seat.

You may move around sometimes, but you got a place that you go to every time you come in.

And I think you probably do an inside praise dance when somebody ain't sitting there.

Come on, let's get real in the church today.

Come on, you got your spot, and if you move and mess up the pastor, you feel awkward the whole service.

You're like, man, I feel I'm not this don't feel right.

I feel something ain't right.

You weren't in your spot.

But even though we have stuff that is that is it's funny because how petty it is, you get your parking spot on the lot, and you come to church.

Oh, we're getting we're getting serious now.

Before you even get into the pew, if you got my parking spot, I don't know if you know this, but my car always is out there in the second, third, or fourth spot out there out in the caddy corner.

Every Sunday.

And I come early enough that I usually get to choose.

Thank God that his love, mercy, and grace looks past my petty, ignorant, selfish ways.

Because we are all in the same boat, we're all on the same journey.

We may be in different places during the journey, but we all born and we all die.

We're all in the journey.

Let me let me let me show you this.

So if we think that we are good and righteous, it's usually because we're good church people that follow the rules.

Tell me that ain't right.

That when you feel like you're following the rules that you're supposed to, you feel like you're a good person.

Am I wrong?

And if you follow the Bible, now you're righteous.

Right?

Yes?

Am I the only one that feels that way?

What does that mean?

If you read any of the Old Testament, matter of fact, go cover to cover on the book of the Bible, and you find out that no matter how good we think we are at following the rules, we don't last forever in that department.

Matter of fact, now this blows my mind.

I don't understand, I cannot put a reason or rhyme on it, but I do not know why God chose the children of Israel.

They were stupid, they were selfish.

There's a reason they were called sheep because sheep are stupid.

I've seen multiple memes and videos and reels on Instagram.

This one sheep, this guy got inside of this ditch, he got the sheep out, and two seconds later, it goes boom and boom, headfirst.

Anybody else feel like you do that in your daily life sometimes?

Where God pulls you out, he sends a good Samaritan to get you out of where you got yourself stuck because most of the time it's our fault.

We did it, we made the wrong choice, we made the wrong turn, we've made the wrong relationship, and now we're suffering, and God ends up rescuing us, pulling us out, and then we go and jump right back in the snare that He rescued us in the first place.

We are terrible at following rules over and over and over and over again.

We break the rules.

You don't believe me?

I'm gonna tell you a little secret.

All the cops in the house don't listen.

I'm not a hundred percent sure my speedometer's right.

No, listen.

But when I'm when I'm traveling, a lot of times between here and Tyler, I will set my speedometer to what it says about two or three over.

Okay?

Anybody else do that?

Some is five over?

Some don't even have a speedometer.

It don't matter how fast and how much.

I feel so guilty when I'm speeding to get somewhere trying to beat Brother Vernon.

And I cannot beat him.

I don't know where he goes, but all of a sudden he is gone, and I get to the restaurant, and he's there waiting outside on his phone, just sitting there propped up, like he'd been waiting there for hours.

But to me, two or three over, and I set my cruise.

To me, because I'm not going five or more over, I don't feel like I'm breaking the law.

But the speed limit is 55.

But I'm at 57 or 58.

Now, something so innocent, but that I do daily, I'm not good.

That's funny, but we're breaking the law all the time like this.

We do things all the time, probably laws we don't even know exist.

Because we're not good, we are natural rule and lawbreakers.

We are, we don't have to try for it.

You get a little toddler.

The first word they usually know is no, because they have to be told it so much, and then mine, and then don't, because they always get selfish and they get rebellious from birth.

Sinful nature is something you don't have to strive for or try for, but it's in you.

This is why you have to understand that nobody is good, but underneath the righteousness of Jesus and the salvation of Jesus, you have been made more than.

But we we self-define what truth is.

Has anybody been listening to anything going on in our world right recently?

A self-defined truth.

It's my truth.

Well, when you're creating it, yeah, you can make it however you want.

But you are not the standard.

Brother Vernon shared with me last week and before church, we were talking about it about a pastor in Oklahoma.

Was he arrested?

He was arrested for apparently preaching something that was offensive.

In the United States of America.

This is not some foreign land, this is not something that's crazy and off over in China, some some regime somewhere.

This is in the USA.

They keep trying to suppress, keep trying to depress, trying to make us feel like we need them to survive, but we don't need nobody but the Father.

We have to understand to be living in this truth as Christians.

I uh I have a little podcast and I put a little video out or whatever, and it was about demonic spirits.

And here's what I know is that we don't want to see the evil that's in the world because we don't want to believe it or deal with it.

There are things happening right now, demonic spirits trying to infiltrate the generation.

After us.

Why?

Because if they can get that generation, they can put a gap between actual truth and whatever they're saying out of their mouths making up.

And the further and further they can get that gap between actual truth and people that really believe, the further and further.

If you notice, there's a gap between really old and then there's a little bit of young and some middle in between.

But there's a massive gap in the church house.

And what that is doing is for the generations to come, it's diluting the truth.

Every single generation.

It's a spiritual war.

We begin to define what is good and we center it around us.

This is what they're doing when they say my truth.

They're centering a truth.

I'm putting those big quotations because it's not actual truth.

It's made up.

But they're putting a truth on it and calling it them, so they're self-righteous.

They don't need a God, they don't need a savior.

They found truth in themselves.

And I don't know about you, but eventually that's gonna burn itself to the ground.

But when we center around us, this is where we go wrong.

We self-prescribe remedies as if we have a true understanding.

Remedies and prescriptions from the word of God, we end up self-prescribing and make up our own, and we make ourselves feel good because we call ourselves good.

But like in Mark, Jesus said, Why do you call me good?

No one is good but the Father.

And this type of wisdom and true understanding can only come from God.

Only.

Only.

This is why there's such a disconnect with actual truth, because you can only get real truth from God and they do not know him.

This is why in today's culture we see those that rewrite self-definitions of love, meaning, and even gender.

The devil is the chief accuser, and he is the great confuser.

If he can get our young people's minds so twisted up, get them so sexualized.

And if you look back on some of the older TV shows, it's not anything that's been new.

We just haven't been paying attention.

It's not something that the devil's just snuck up and done yesterday.

This is something that's been happening for a couple generations now, more and more every generation.

The devil keeps getting more bold and bolder.

Now we're the bad guys because we're speaking out of what's right and wrong.

But it's not our judgment, it's not our definition.

You read in Corinthians, Paul was writing to the church.

And people want to say, You can't judge me, only God can judge me.

That should scare you straight into heaven.

But in Corinthians, Paul was writing the church.

And he was talking about judg, you know, judge not lest you be judged.

Church people are the worst about thinking they got it figured out and don't want nobody to tell them they ain't good.

When really we can preach the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ to the world, but there needs to be some true judgment going on in the church house today to correct our house.

There needs to be people that will step up and love each other enough to say what you're doing is wrong.

When Paul was writing the church of Corinth, they were actually doing things sexually immoral.

There was one instance, one example of a guy, I think it was, he was with his lying with his stepmother.

In the church, look around to the modern church today, and they're accepting of almost any lifestyle that you want to live.

We must be beacons of light and the bearers of truth, God's truth.

Why?

Because it's not of us, we are no good.

But these are the words of Jesus.

This is the love of the Father.

What true love is, this is why the enemy is trying to distort the definition of actual love because God is love.

And so if he can manipulate what everybody believes to be love and sexualize it and make it where you're being intimate, and that's love, and you can change our partners whenever you want, as often as you want, and it's fine.

Just show you all those, everything will be okay.

And yet they try to skyrocket in the abortion clinics because they want to cover up the sin.

We have HIV over and over again, commercials coming on, Amazon Prime when we watch something, because they're trying to cover up sin.

They want to wear the badge of being good and do nothing that is good.

Because good only comes from the father, he's the chief accuser, he's the master manipulator, he is the great confuser.

The devil is out to destroy the family, he's out to destroy the church family.

Think about it.

Anytime you have an issue, it's between two people.

And what do we do in church?

Sometimes we think being discipled is church hurt.

And it's not.

You just need to shut up and act right.

Spiritual hush just hit this place, yes, Lord.

But sometimes we walk around with our heart on our sleeves and we and we act like, oh, if someone says something to me that I don't like, well, I'm just gonna be mad and find somewhere else.

You gotta go with you there too.

You're gonna find the same problems, the same hurt, because you might listen to me, you might be the problem.

But that's okay.

Because I know a God that can figure out the solution if we just stick together and we go to each other in love and resolve the issues.

There's biblical principles.

Why do we need these principles and rules?

Because none of us are good, we're selfish.

We're always right.

Well, they said this and they did that.

You know what I found?

When you're in a heartache of a place and you submit yourself to the person who hurt you, and you tell them you're sorry, it breaks down every barrier the enemy has tried to build up.

And all of a sudden, you are taking your place as a servant to them and not the corrector.

Listen to me.

When Jesus was training the disciples to be leaders and to be in the upper room and to lead the new wave of what is now known as Christianity, he taught them first to serve.

He said, If you want to be the greatest, you will be the least, and those who are the least will be the greatest.

If you want to be a leader, learn to serve.

If you want to be a better spouse, learn to serve them.

If you want to be a better parent, learn to serve them.

Why do I serve my kid?

I'm the boss.

You're right, and they will be as you are.

Your spouse will be as you are.

Why?

Because anger breeds anger.

Hurt produces more hurt, but healing and love and mercy and grace begins to produce a fruit that is godly and spiritual and will produce healthiness to your body and to your very bones, your spirit, and your soul.

Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 20.

Ecclesiastes 7:20

Very short, very simple, not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.

Now, what does this mean?

This means that even though in this moment, right now, you may be living your life according to the word and the scripture, and you're doing exactly your life is a blueprint of spiritual healthiness and growth.

You have the fruit of the spirit in your life.

You have been planting seeds in other people's lives of the same, because whatever that fruit is, it will produce more of that fruit.

So if you have the fruit of the spirit in your life and you are around people, it will get all over them, even the ones that don't like it.

But when you get in an argument with somebody, you have issues with somebody, you have to remember, even though you may be living the way you're supposed to, they may not be.

And when you remember that you yourself cannot wear the badge of good, that puts both of you on the same level.

And so when you begin to see people who are coming against you through the eyes of Christ and understand that you never know what's happening behind closed doors in their personal life, you never know the torment or the issue or the trauma that they have experienced.

You never know until that moment where the spark hits and the flame goes up.

And still, until you talk it out and you go to each other and you love on each other and you display and give over mercy and grace, you'll never know what happened.

You'll think and you'll wear a badge, you'll put the badge in your mind on them that they're just a jerk.

When really they're a person that may be deeply hurt and scarred and can be severely emotional when something happens in their life.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if you've ever been married and you had a bad day at work and you come home and your spouse is all happy and cheerful, you're gonna have two mad people pretty quick.

Because it don't matter how loving she is or whatever, well, that was dumb, you shouldn't have done that.

Why did you do that?

Sometimes we have days where we snap.

And every time that this happens, if the other person receiving it does not understand that sometimes you're just in a bad place, they will snap right back.

And sometimes they don't even care.

You dish it out, you're about to get take it.

Take it, amen.

But no person is always good, and no person has never sinned.

We are all in need of a savior, and we need to remember.

Did you mention Romans earlier?

Get up out of my sermon, brother, every Sunday.

My goodness.

Remember, if we ever feel as a church, no, listen, we had something very cool and exciting today of new members.

And as we grow and as we mature, and as we disciple, and as we do things God has called us to do, to be the church and the hands and feet that God has called us to be in this community, the church is going to continue to grow.

That's just a fact.

Because people are looking for truth and they are looking for authentic love, and they're looking for real people, real people who actually care and take a moment that they exist.

But I know this.

We're gonna knock this wall out, knock that wall out, and knock the devil in the face.

And we're gonna do it all in Jesus' name.

Well, then we start getting self-fulfilled.

We start thinking we're doing it right.

And we leave out the spiritual aspect of it, and then it just becomes a program to get money.

Or it becomes a altar of a pastor.

Listen to me, church.

Do not raise a pastor of this church.

I don't care if it's me today or in 20 years, it's somebody else.

Do not raise a man or woman of God up over God.

I am not the authority of God.

I speak in authority under Jesus, but I do not have the authority of God to speak into your life unless he reveals that to me and I say it to you.

I am not above God.

I am not equal to God.

Matter of fact, he's way up there.

I'm about 17 down.

On the bottom half, not the top half.

I don't rank is what I'm saying compared to God.

Never put, I don't care how good you think I preach, I don't care how amazing you think I sing, I don't care how awesome you think my wife is, I am not good.

I am a sinner.

I have God's grace and mercy washing over my life every single day, not because I just want it, but because I need it.

I have to have it.

Because I am to God's righteousness, I am filthy rags.

None of us are good.

In the future, we're gonna have somebody who's gonna be leading worship, and they're going to be better than I ever was.

I will not accept that less than what I am.

I want it to be better than I ever was, better than I ever was.

I want someone to come in who's going to usher in the presence of God that when they step in in humility, the presence of the Lord comes in, and you have to understand before we ever see them, before we ever meet them, you have to understand that they are not good.

You cannot elevate people that are on this stage.

You cannot elevate a pastor or a YouTube preacher, or even a predominant minister who's been doing this for years.

You have all of his books, all of his tapes.

Is that still a thing?

Do they still play those?

All of his CDs or his audible books, I don't know.

Whatever, whatever your flavor is, you got them all.

No one is good except the father.

No one.

It doesn't matter how hard I try to earn that goodness.

I can't.

I can't earn heaven, I can't earn salvation.

But because God has done something in me, this begins to produce fruit out of me.

Because God has done something in me and has transformed me, then that produces the works.

The works does not produce the salvation, the salvation produces the works, and through that, that makes it to where you become righteous and good through God and do good things.

It is not of us, it is only of God, it is only by Jesus.

Look in Romans chapter 3, 10 through 12.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 3, 10 through 12, and it says, As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

There is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away, they have together become worthless.

There is no one who does good, not even one.

Outside of God and out from underneath the covering of Jesus' sacrifice and the salvation, we are not good.

That way, we cannot boast and say that we have done something to do what God has done in our lives.

It is only by his grace, only by his mercy, only by his salvation is he the bridge to heaven.

We receive salvation in Christ through repentance and faith.

There must be faith.

Faith has to have application.

This means turning away from our sinful ways.

Repent, turn.

Every time Jesus healed somebody, he put salvation with it.

Now go and sin no more.

To tell them who you are today does not have to be who you are tomorrow.

Let that be the banner for the church today.

That whatever you've done, you may have sinned on the way to church this morning, but God's grace and mercy is still available for you.

His salvation is still there for you.

Thank God because I am not worthy.

This means turning away, repentance, and turning to God by faith and trusting in Christ.

Jesus will forgive our sins and he will set us on the path to life with him.

This is not a journey you can do by yourself.

You have to have Jesus at the center of your life, not just included, but centered in your life.

That means everything you do needs to be around the Father.

Needs to be centered on Jesus.

Because when Christ comes in and he begins to redeem things that you thought were once gone.

When I was first married to my wife, I had some serious issues with damage that had been done in previous the previous life before her.

I had to stop adding Jesus to the equation and make him the equation.

And if it did not measure up or fit in with what God wanted in my life, it did not come in.

Listen to me.

God is not an addition to what you're wanting to do, he should be center of it all.

And if it does not align with his will in your life, you do not partake.

That's why the Bible tells you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Because it does not need to be your standard, it needs to be God's.

Turn to your neighbor and say free.

His free gift to us of salvation.

Look in Ephesians chapter 2, 8 through 10.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

It says this.

Ephesians 2, verse 8 and 10 through 10.

Ephesians 2:8

It says, God saved you by his grace when you believed.

Not by yours, not by your moms, your dad, your sister, your brother, your wife, your husband, whatever the case may be.

On judgment day, you will stand before the Father by yourself.

Nobody will be between you and the Father.

He is the judge.

He is the jury.

I want Jesus as my lawyer.

And so God saved you by his grace when you believed.

And you can't take credit for this.

It is a gift from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so that none of us can boast about it.

For we listen to this.

Some of you need to declare this over yourselves again.

I don't know about you, but when I came out of a place of being broken by the world and by my sin where it came down and crushed me, I forgot this next verse, and God says that you are his masterpiece.

Just because you have mess ups does not mean that excludes you from being his masterpiece.

That just means his art ain't done yet.

That he's still working, he's still painting.

You know, I think of our lives as being this.

You ever seen those paintings where you're up close and it looks like a bunch of dots and it's distorted and it's not very pleasant, and it's like this is junk.

Somebody's famous for this, but then you get some distance, and you begin to get a wider view, and you begin to see the full picture of what the artist was trying to do.

Today I want somebody to stop being so close and stop trying to get up and figure out what is this, what is this, and just step back and let the artist work.

I promise you, when you begin to step back and you zoom out a little bit, you realize that all the mess that looked crazy and chaotic up close is actually a masterpiece by the artist.

I want somebody here today to understand that you need to begin to declare over your life that you.

You are a masterpiece of the Father.

And you are not done yet.

Thank God He didn't throw the clay away.

Thank God He still takes the time to fashion and mold me in the way that He sees fits.

I don't want God to just show up in my life when I need Him.

I want Him to be my life, to be the center of my life.

And when we do this, this actually in our life, it negates happiness and what we seek after to be happy, and it brings a joy that no man can waver.

That in spite of any storm, in spite of any darkness, in spite of any season, the joy lasts.

And there may be sorrow in the night, but thank God the joy comes in the morning.

Thank the Lord.

For we are God's verse 10, for we are God's masterpiece.

So we can do the good things He planned for us long ago.

Last week I told y'all, listen, every person in here, whether you're in here in person or you're watching online, God has a purpose for you.

If you are not dead, God is not done, and the master is just painting the strokes right now.

Get out of his way.

We want to tell God, be the center of my life.

To Lord, rewrite my story, but we want to grab the pin.

We want to say, God, sit in the seat, drive me wherever you want, I'll go wherever you want.

Here's directions.

Got a bunch of backseat drivers.

But God has a purpose and He has a plan that the scripture says right here that you are made new in Christ, and now you can begin to step in to the purpose that He has designed for you long ago.

The Bible says that while we were in our mother's womb, He knew you were going to be you.

And yes, I'm sorry, He knew I was gonna be me.

But just because you're in a season of not knowing does not mean that you don't have a purpose where you're at.

That where you are in the field of waiting, I think of this all the time.

I want to preach a message on it soon.

That David he was anointed as king by the prophet and sent right back out into the field to watch the sheep.

Because the perfection and maturity that he needed to be who he needed to be in the season and the giants that were about to be in his way, he first had to conquer the lions and the bears.

He first had to understand how to use that sling and get good with that sling.

I can see him out there on the rocks, setting up something, an old piece of wood from his daddy's barn or something.

I don't know.

Propping up a stick.

Or I could actually see this.

This would be Tristan.

Somehow strapping a stick to a sheep and hitting it on the rear and letting it run off, and you'd hit it.

Poor sheep.

But he had to get good and to be mature, to be prepared in the field of waiting before he was ever to face the giant.

And the tools that God gave him, he used what he had.

Y'all ain't hearing me.

He used what he had.

He even tried on the king's armor.

And he was mature enough to understand that somebody else's armor was not going to help him do what he needed to do.

Some of y'all look at other people's blessings.

You look at things God's been doing in their life, and you want what they got.

God didn't call you to what they have, He's called you to be what you are, to serve how you are, to use what you have to serve in His kingdom.

You don't have to be somebody else, you don't have to have what somebody else has.

You don't have to talk like they talk.

Matter of fact, you'll probably end up preaching people they'll never be able to.

Because God designed you, planted you, and set you here for a purpose and a reason and a season such as this.

And when you mess up or you step out from underneath that umbrella of God's protection, don't listen to the devil.

When he's saying, I told you, you're not good enough, you're not worthy.

Look him back in the face and say, Yeah, I know.

Neither was Jesus, apparently.

Because nobody's good but the Father.

I'm in good company.

Shut up and go back where you came from.

Some of y'all need to start speaking to the demons in your life and rebuking them in the name of Jesus.

It's time that the church begins to rise up and speak out on truth, in truth, through love.

Because if we are silent, the devil will have his heyday.

He's already having his heyday.

None of us are good.

Don't worry about being good and perfect.

That comes with maturity.

God has sent something inside of your heart, has designed you specifically for where you are.