INTO THE DEEP - Knowing Christ

Because another one is on the way.

Come on, let's all say praise, hallelujah.

Here's what I know that my Bible tells me that he is the same God that made the sun stand still so that a battle could be won.

He is the same good God that gave two people, in the beginning, a choice.

He is the same good God that, even though we may squirm and not enjoy it, he will allow us to mature.

He is the same good God that when you aren't feeling faithful, he still is when the clay breaks.

Thank God he didn't throw the clay away.

When we stumble and when we fall.

Thank God he doesn't leave us where we fall, but yet he gives us the strength to come back up again and try again.

We serve the God of first chances, second chances, third chances, fourth chances, fifth chances, sixth chances, seventh chances, eighth chances.

You can count it to the day of your last breath and it still would not be your last chance.

That's the good God we serve Well.

Hallelujah.

So today we're going to be coming out of Philippians, chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

If you got the text with the points and the notes texted to your phone.

If you don't get that, one of the you know they talk every time when they come up here about texting the 9400.

This is a way we communicate.

So when we have like our back to school fast, some of you are like well, I've ate breakfast this morning and I didn't know.

Well, if you were on that text chain, you would have already known by Friday.

I gave these notes out from the sermon Thursday.

So I'm trying to make sure that even if you are not a note taker, you can still take the notes with you.

I'm trying to come where you are, I'm trying to meet you wherever you are.

So if you don't text that number, we can't get in touch with you.

And if you don't want to be a part of it, that's fine.

I'm not going to chase you, but we're saying that it is available for you to be a part of what God is doing here and we hope that you make that decision.

So look at Philippians chapter three, verse eight through 10.

Now I know we just talked about good.

God was in our 50,000th chance, and the way that this verse starts off is not very uplifting, but give me a second, okay.

Yes, everything is worthless everything that we love and hold dear is worthless.

Your spouse, your kids, some of y'all just elbow some kids when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

There is nothing more valuable in this world that we can pass on to our children than our declaration and display of loving on Jesus.

We raise up in our houses kids that consume and listen.

When you talk about how spoiled your kids are somebody else's kids, somebody let them get there, hello, hello compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.

As garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.

I no longer count on my own righteousness Through obeying the law.

Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ, for God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith you can't earn it.

You can't do it.

I want to know Christ and experience his mighty power that raised him from the dead.

You're probably worried we won't get a lot of amens.

I want to suffer with him.

Sharing in his death.

Let that sink in for a second.

I want to take on his suffering as he took on mine, picking up my cross every day, laying aside the things that I truly may enjoy, but things I have to understand that because they are good might mean they're not good for me.

Let's pray, father.

We thank you so much for your mercy and your grace.

Thank you, god, for your presence here today.

I pray for not a stop and start, but a continuation of the praise through the word in your name.

We pray Amen, amen, amen.

Man, my allergies are on full attack.

So we're in a series.

Right now this is week number three Into the Deep, knowing Christ, if you're going to go deeper, you need to know where you're going.

If you're going to be traveling deeper and waiting out the deeper waters, you need to know what's waiting on you.

Because a lot of us, like we talked about last week about my anxiety of the ocean.

I don't go in there because I can't.

I told them we were doing baptism at the lake and I don't know why the lake doesn't get me the way the ocean does.

I guess because in my head I'm thinking fish touched my leg In the ocean?

I don't know.

There's too many variables out there that I ain't trusting.

I trust the Lord, but I also trust that he gave me common sense to not go where I'm not supposed to be.

But the first week we talked about the cost, how going deeper means that we, as children of God, should bring something as a sacrifice to God.

We need to every day examine ourselves, saying Lord, is there something that I have allowed to become my master?

Is there something that I have allowed to become my master?

Is there something that I have allowed to become my Lord?

Is there something I have allowed to become the one that sits on the throne of my heart that actually should belong to you?

A lot of this will come in the form of relationships.

It will come in the form of children or grandchildren.

Think about it for a second.

What if you get?

Now?

I understand we have families.

I'm not trying to tell you don't go back home and be like well pastor said, and then do all this crazy stuff, because that ain't what I'm saying.

That's not what we're teeing up for.

What I'm saying is we should understand that Christ should be number one in every believer's life, and then the family comes after Now.

Don't start splitting households, saying well, pastor said Christ comes first and I got to serve in the church and be there every day.

I'm not talking about the church.

The church comes third in my life.

I don't know what you got going on, but I got God, I got family and then I have the church.

I love every single one of you, but you don't come before my family, and I love my family.

We'll give my life for them, but they don't come before God.

And because we have this rightfully betrayed order that the Bible maps out to us from cover to cover, my house has peace, my house has character, my house has God in the center of it.

So we talked about the cost and last week we talked about surrender and renewal.

We must learn to yield our lives and our minds daily to him, daily, daily, if you want to get out of it.

Some of us have been thinking the same way.

We've been thinking for the last 50 plus years and we think, because we boohooed a little bit at the altar, that everything's going to be all rainbows and butterflies when we get back home.

Bro, you took 50 years to get here.

Give yourself some grace and mercy and understand that you've got to unlearn some stuff and, matter of fact, some of the people in the church house got some things that they aren't willing to be delivered from.

To be delivered from, it changes the progression of your health in your mind, in your soul, in your spirit.

When you allow yourself to be delivered from sinful nature, it will speed up your process.

You whine about the process taking so long.

Maybe you need to get some deliverance and healing in your life.

Maybe get some forgiveness flowing through your veins and then you'll start healing faster.

Woo, you can't heal if you keep picking at the wound.

You've got to address it, address the wound.

You see what I did there.

Wordplay Address the wound so it can heal properly.

And complaining is not a part of the process.

Had to take a drink, but this week we're going to talk about a deeper life and what it looks like.

The answer isn't complicated.

It looks like knowing Jesus.

It looks like knowing Jesus.

It looks like knowing Jesus.

There is a and I don't know if this is biblical, but I'm just going to throw it in there when Moses was out and the burning bush that did not burn lit up and the voice of God came out of the bush.

The Bible says that God told him to take off his shoes for you on holy ground.

Now this is what we like to call extra biblical.

It's extra the story's in there, but I'm gonna throw a little something in there In my mind.

Moses was called to somewhere to do something he had not yet ever done before, and he had to do it through his things that he saw himself as.

Let me give you a good example.

If you read in the New Testament when it quotes back and talks about Moses, they actually say he was a well-spoken man, but yet Moses, his place of where he couldn't do what God wanted him to do because he said I stuttered.

Think about it.

And if we go to Peter, we see that Peter had one of the biggest mouths in the New Testament.

Both feet fit in there all the time.

He was good at that, but yet the same mouth when sanctified, covered in field.

So when he gave full control over to it, he was able to speak out and be the biggest mouthpiece for the gospel.

Moses took off his sandals because he was on holy ground.

In my head, I'm thinking the reason God took it off is because on the sandals where he came from, he still had the residue of where he had been.

Some of us are walking in our Christian walk now with residue of where we've been.

Y'all this ain't even in my notes.

Some of us are trying to walk clean Christian lives and walk holy, but yet we're tracking in.

Are you hearing me?

Don't do it here, because I don't want to smell it, but take off your shoes because you are on holy ground.

Whatever you've been holding on to, if you want to know Christ, you've got to let it go.

Christ is about forgiveness.

That means the people that hurt us.

We've got to let go of it.

Yeah, I like it, that's okay.

Leave the residue where you came from and begin to walk in something new that Christ has for you today.

Now, let's be honest.

Now let's be honest.

Coming in the church and doing spiritual things are easy.

Every person in here who has been in church for a while you can probably make everybody in here think you're saved.

We know the lingo, we know the terminology, we know how to greet somebody and how to walk away.

Bless you, brother.

Thank you, brother.

But churches can be filled with people that know the lingo but don't know the Lord.

Churches are filled with people who have an understanding of what God has done, but they have no understanding of who he is.

Let me this isn't in my notes either.

I'm just going to give it to you.

There are three stages of perfection that we're going to touch on in a second.

Actually, we're going to do it now.

Religion is not the goal.

Go to Philippians, chapter 3, 4 through 6.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

I'm sorry, let's go back to 3.

Let's just go back to 3.

That's why I bring my Bible, so I can jump wherever I want.

Look at verse 3, it says For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised.

We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us.

We put no confidence in human effort.

You can't come to this specific church with this specific theology from this specific region of the world, and you're in the Bible Belt.

So that means you're saved.

It don't matter where you go, but it matters where you're going to end up.

Human effort is not a part of the equation.

It comes after the salvation.

That's why in the Bible, it gives the example of being born again and then being baptized, because baptism is not your salvation, it is an outward expression of an inward work.

Verse 4 it says, though, I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could, because, if you remember where Paul comes from, he was the man, he was the Pharisee, he followed the law to.

Paul comes from.

He was the man, he was the Pharisee, he followed the law to the T.

So he's reminding them listen, from where I come from, I have every right to make it into heaven.

But he said, every effort that I am doing, every effort, every outward thing that I try to do, does not mean that I'm inwardly following Jesus.

Indeed, if others have a reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more.

That was a humble brag, if I've ever seen one.

Verse 5, it says I was circumcised when I was eight days old.

I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin, a real Hebrew, if there ever was one.

I was a member of the Pharisees, who demanded the strictest obedience of the Jewish law.

I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church and, as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

So how can we go and look at this?

Religion is not the goal, dressing a certain way, saying certain words.

That's why, on the back of these cards.

I said it last week on these invite cards to people that either know jesus or they don't.

You just want to get them here.

They scan that qr code, google map pops up and it brings them right to this location.

On the back of it there's not a lord's Prayer, because a Lord's Prayer that is like a salvation prayer is not biblical.

There's no verse in the scripture that says, if you say these words, you're set free, but there is a mapped out lifestyle and a life change of what we must do to be saved.

And that's what's on the back of that card and that's what he's saying here.

I have outwardly done all these things, but I'm telling you that there is a relationship inside of me, so let's look at some things right here.

I don't have it for you, but in my study Bible it says this and I thought it was so cool, I wanted to read it to you there is three stages of perfection perfect relationship, perfect progress and complete perfection.

Perfect progress and complete perfection.

We are perfect because of our eternal union with an infinitely perfect Christ, not something we have done.

Yes, you must receive, turn or burn right.

Some of y'all don't know that phrase.

That's okay, thank God, when we become God's children, we are declared not guilty.

Thus we are righteous because of Christ.

What God did, what Jesus did on the cross, what he came and fulfilled the prophecy, he was the one that carried that burden of proof that he was who he says he was.

He was not a man that just spoke well, he was not a man that just drew crowds.

He was not a man that just drew crowds.

He was not a man that just lived a great life.

He was a lamb that was without blemish, he had no sin, he lived a perfect life and thus he was able to be the one that done sacrifice for us today.

So that is why we are saved.

So if we know Christ, if we want to know Christ, we must know that that burden is not ours to carry, that he is the one that paid it all.

This helps us, as believers, to stay away from as Paul is describing here what we just read, to stay away from being self-righteous, because what we do when we become self-righteous, we put our chest out as if we are the one that stressed our arms out and died.

So if we want to know Christ, we must understand that it is because of him, it is because our union.

This is why God hates divorce, because he designed unity, and when you step under the covenant of unity with Christ, you are now his, he is yours and therefore you live according.

This perfection is absolute and unchangeable, and it is this perfect relationship that guarantees that we will one day completely be perfect in heaven.

Perfect progress.

We can grow and mature spiritually as we continue to trust Christ, lean more on Him, draw closer to Him and obey Him.

Our progress is changeable.

So Jesus dying on the cross is without change.

He has done it, it is done.

It's no takey-backsies.

Okay, but our perfect progress in this relationship, our progress is changeable because it depends on our daily walk.

You either live for Christ or you don't.

Matter of fact, the Bible describes living for Christ halfway as being lukewarm, and he says he will spit you out of his mouth.

He would rather you be cold than to be lukewarm, because at least you're not lying, and I don't know if you know that or not, but it's one of the big ten.

So we mature in seasons of life, some more than others, but we are growing towards perfection if we press on.

The good deeds we do.

However, do not perfect us, rather as God perfects us.

We do good deeds.

Do you see the flip there?

There's some major religions out there Catholics and they say that the more you do, it's false theology, it's all it is.

It's false teaching.

You cannot work your way into heaven and after you die, there's no time that you do your penance to where you read some more scriptures and say Hail Mary and all this other stuff.

It is a false religion.

Y'all are quiet.

Y'all are scared of the Catholics.

That's all right.

That's all right.

That's okay.

They can know Jesus too.

Complete perfection.

When Christ returns to take us into his eternal kingdom, we will be glorified and made completely perfect, but it is only through Christ Jesus.

Philippians, chapter 3, 4, and 6, it says this I could have confidence in my own effort, if anyone could.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more.

Paul lists his spiritual resume here.

He's laying it out.

He's saying listen, if anybody was going to make it to heaven because of what they do, I would have been in there, and this is true.

According to that, if that was the rules, he would have made it.

Thank God, that's not the rules.

Thank God.

That is not the way it is designed, because I would not make it now.

Here's what Paul's really trying to say in these verses you can be fully immersed in religion but still be far from Christ.

You can come to church every single day the doors are open and not know Christ.

You could have the right family background, you could have the best education background, you could have the best education, you could have unquestionable discipline.

We might need some more of that around here, amen.

You might have a zealous commitment, and yet he realizes that none of it could please or replace knowing Christ.

Alright, y'all ready for this?

Knowing Christ, hmm, all right, y'all ready for this?

This is specifically for us In Pentecostal circles.

If you don't know, hello, that's what we are.

We value fire, good, right, huh, y'all with me?

Yo, why are you scared to answer?

We value the gifts.

This is for the church.

The Bible clearly talks about this.

We even value the experience.

People can argue with the Word, but they can't argue with what God did in my life, and rightly so.

But if we're not careful and here's the point, listen to me if we're not careful, we'll start worshiping our form of godliness instead of God himself.

This is true.

All the things I mentioned are for the church.

They're so.

We have power to go out and speak the gospel to those that we don't know that.

We have boldness in the streets to declare his goodness and his mercy and his grace.

We have gifts so that people can't know that.

We have boldness in the streets to declare his goodness and his mercy and his grace.

We have gifts so that people can be healed, so that prophecy can go forth, so that we can have discernment.

Thank God for discernment, man.

Some church people need to get on that more.

These are good things, but we can end up, if we're not careful, worshiping what happens instead of where it comes from.

Let this convict us the deeper life isn't about performing well spiritually.

It's about walking closely to the Savior, and then from that flows gifts, from that flows the fire, from that.

If these people would not have traveled closely with Jesus, I don't believe they would have been so faithful to do what they were told.

Point number two Christ is the treasure.

Let's go to the same chapter.

Philippians Start at verse 7.

We're going to go to 7 and 8.

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

For his sake I lied, we're going to go on to 9.

For his sake, I have discarded everything, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him.

I no longer count on my righteousness to obey the law.

Rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ, for God's way of making us right with himself depends on faith.

The word Paul uses here is garbage.

This is a strong reference.

It is talking about filth, it's talking about dung.

That's how he sees all his former achievements in the light of Christ.

What a radical statement.

Let's ask the hard question what do we still count as valuable that Christ is asking us to count as loss?

Is it your platform?

Is it your reputation?

Is it your theological knowledge?

Is it your routine?

Is it your comfort?

The truth is, you cannot cling both to Christ and your self-righteousness.

You cannot read it in scripture in the full context, not cherry-picking, that's immaturity.

Read it in its full context.

You cannot read it and still deny it.

You can't have both.

You either believe it or you don't.

If one part of it is false.

All of it is.

Either it is true or it is not.

You who can't decide what is what.

Now, I'm not saying you got to have it all figured out.

Stay curious and don't ever take my word for it.

Read the scripture yourself.

Don't ever follow a podcast or a man with a mic in his hand or somebody who has a mic and they tell you it's this way.

Read for yourself.

This is called maturity.

Paul doesn't want to just talk about Jesus.

He wants to gain Christ.

You understand gain Christ.

You understand To possess him, to walk in such deep communion with Christ that he becomes the greatest prize he owns.

I am his, he is mine.

We just sing that a minute ago.

I belong to him and therefore he belongs to me.

When you become grafted in the new vine, the nutrition that flows through the vine now comes to you.

The deeper you go, the more you realize Jesus isn't just a means to something better, he is the better.

Point number three knowing him in power and in pain.

Let's go to verse 10 in the same chapter.

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.

I want to.

This is not preaching territory.

I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death.

Let's go to verse 11.

So that, one way or another, I will experience the resurrection from the dead.

Hear me, church, you can't live in his resurrection if you won't put things to death.

You can't live in his resurrection if you won't put things to death.

You can't have the life that he is offering you if you first do not die.

The verse is the heartbeat of deep faith.

Paul wants both the resurrection power and the fellowship of suffering.

This is where many stop, even those that were around Jesus when he broke the bread and said this is my body, this is my blood.

He had people there that left because things got weird.

Huh, we've got to be okay as a church.

That's weird.

I've been, I've been planning for this my whole life.

That's okay.

Look at me, crazy.

I want you to walk away healed and then look what happens.

Crazy is crazy.

Till it ain't.

Huh, crazy is crazy.

Oh, that man, he lifted his, he put his hands on me and prayed in the middle of Walmart.

It was weird.

Let the story spread, as God does the healing in his life.

Let's get a little weird and follow the Bible, if you like.

Well, that's a little weird.

That's a little outside the box.

Read the scripture.

It's all outside of the box and none of it normal.

God ain't trying to do things where you feel comfortable.

Matter of fact, every miracle made somebody feel weird and uncomfortable.

You don't believe me?

Jesus healed a man by hocking a loogie in the dirt and he made mud and he put it in his eye sockets.

I don't know if I would have that faith, but he did it.

If we want to see miracles, we've got to be so close to Christ.

When he whispers the word, we hear him.

I don't want to have that speaking in tongues that's fine, you ain't got to have it you ready?

I'm just saying, if you get up running, if I was that man, you ready?

I'm just saying if you get up running, if I was that man that got mud in his eyes.

First of all, think about logically.

For a second, think about actual miracles in the Bible.

Go to any one you want, but I'm going to stick on this one because I really I think it's hilarious.

Like me closing my eyes, right now I can't see anything.

I hear the voice of Jesus, most likely every sense, like most people that are blind, the rest of their sense is heightened.

So two things happened.

One I probably smelt the saliva coming out of his mouth.

I'm going to gross you out for a second, but listen to me.

And then my supersonic hearing here's a man, go, saliva coming out of his mouth.

I'm going to gross you out for a second, but listen to me.

And then my supersonic hearing here's a man, go.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I can't see and I hear these things going on, I'm going to start checking and seeing what's happening, because something, what is what's going on?

And then I hear the.

My ears pick up the mush in the mud.

Now, I don't know if you've ever done this before.

But if you just take your arm and you lick your hand and sniff it, it stinks.

Now think this is logical.

This is actually what happened.

So, jesus, now, maybe it smelled like roses, I don't know.

But Jesus spits into dirt and makes mud.

And you know why?

He probably was blind Because God knew he couldn't see it coming.

Think about it.

He didn't put mud on nobody else, but this guy.

He couldn't see it coming, so he wouldn't have ran.

So he puts it on his eyes and all of a sudden he begins to see things.

He see what he described as trees, but it actually was people walking around.

His eyesight came back to him because Jesus got weird.

Now, if that don't strike you as weird, I don't know what kind of weird stuff goes up on in your head, but that's weird to me.

But this, this story, speaks to me because, listen, if we want to see signs, wonders and miracles, if we want to see signs, wonders and miracles, we've got to step aside of what's comfortable to us.

Now listen, if I see on the news tomorrow somebody attacks somebody else with a mud pie made from their spit at Walmart, that's not what I'm saying.

But if God tells you to do it.

I ain't going to tell you not to.

He either told you or he didn't, and we're going to find out one way or the other.

That's just a word.

This is how I read the Bible.

Y'all, woo, we love the power, we love the miracles, we love the breakthroughs.

Man, we always talk about breakthroughs.

Oh, I'm on the verge of a breakthrough.

Maybe God's not so concerned about your breakthrough and he's worried about your brokenness.

Maybe you're trying to break through a wall that was actually meant to hold you in a place still long enough so God can do something.

Oh, we love the miracles, we love the breakthroughs, we love the fire, but we do not welcome the suffering.

We don't love the miracles, we love the breakthroughs, we love the fire, but we do not welcome the suffering.

We don't welcome the waiting, we don't enjoy the dry spells.

If you've been serving God long enough, you know that dry spells in your walk is a fact, that it feels like you have been going and going and, oh, things are on fire, and then, all of a sudden, you're like Lord.

You have been going and going and, oh, things are on fire, and then, all of a sudden, you're like Lord, all of a sudden you turn around and you're like well, I don't feel you.

You ever have somebody walk up behind you and not say anything, but you felt a presence.

We get familiar with God's presence and then, all of a sudden, when his presence is gone, we get a little antsy because we're like I don't feel you anymore.

Now do we stay faithful when we don't feel him?

That's maturity.

That's maturity.

You don't stay in your marriage because everything is good.

You don't keep loving your kids because they never mess up.

You don't keep coming to the same church because we never have any fights and we do everything you want us to do.

The moments of obedience, whether it's stay still, whether it's move, whether it's wait, this will cost us.

Deep intimacy with Jesus will lead you to the mountaintop and also into the garden of Gethsemane.

It will lead you Now.

You know what happened in the garden.

This is where they came and got him to crucify him.

That was the place he went to pray, where the trap was set, where they heard he was coming.

Who was it that sent Jesus into the wilderness?

It wasn't the wise counsel of a church member, because, just like they told Paul when he said I must go, they were like no, no, no, we have been shown You're going to die, you're going to this and that, and they were right, but it's not where God was leading him.

Deep intimacy with Christ will.

It will lead you through the city streets where people are praising and singing your name, and we love those.

We love those when people are like, yeah, man, great job, you're doing awesome, you're killing it, and then next week you need to go on somewhere and they will curse your name.

And the same spirit that will lead you into the city where people are singing your praises is the same spirit that will lead you into the city where people are singing your praises.

It's the same spirit that will lead you into the wilderness to be tried and to be tempted.

Romans 8, 17.

8, 17.

And since we are his children, we are his heirs.

In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory.

Hallelujah, shout in a moment.

Testify somebody.

But man, sometimes those are good and sometimes they ain't.

But if we are to share in his glory, we must also share in his suffering.

Suffering isn't punishment.

It is a covenant of partnership with Christ and it pulls us closer to the heart of Jesus.

This is maturity Not asking God to rescue us from hardship, but recognize that even in the hardship, he is revealing himself more deeply to you.

I know that wasn't shouting territory, but that's okay.

You don't have a shouting fit of good.

Yes, good Lord, the God is good.

When you're in the middle of the worst time of your life, matter of fact, you question a lot of things.

You may even scream at God and ask God why is this happening to me?

What is going on?

Do you even see me?

Do you even hear me?

Do you even know I'm crying out to you?

Do you see me?

Am I suffering and I can promise you today God is not a liar and he promises that he sees you, but he loves you enough right now to leave you where you are, and I know that's not fun to hear.

Right now, my little girl in the back in the nursery, she's got her left arms casted up.

Well, right now we got a split.

We're gonna get a cast this week.

You know how how much it tore me apart.

And just so happen, my wife needed to go to the bathroom when they asked us to go to the x-ray room.

I don't know if that was timed or what, but I had to hold my little baby girl as she's screaming and crying and stretch out her arm.

So that we can find out what needed to be healed.

Let me rest on this for a second.

Some of us are not willing to go through the pain, to stretch out so that what hurts can be examined.

We would rather pull it in, and it's a natural habit.

I'm not saying this is unnatural, I'm not blaming you for anything, but if you want healing, you have to make what is hurt to be exposed so that the healer can examine what needs to be healed.

There is nothing magical that I can do, but I do know this.

The Bible calls us to lay hands.

I believe there are people in the church house right here right now that have been sitting on ailments, have been sitting on sickness that should have been casted out of them years ago, but they got things they won't let go of.

God's desire is to heal us.

Look at the example of Jesus.

What is the majority thing he would say?

Your faith has made you whole.

Now go and sin no more.

There was something inside of them that took place too.

That was also demonstrated on the outside of them.

I don't know why he does it that way, but I have heard of stories of a young boy that was a cutter on his arms and they prayed for him.

They actually had to cast some things out of him and the cuts on his arm literally disappeared.

Not only this happening to this young man.

He repeated the story at a conference, just telling the story and people that had scars on them.

It disappeared in the middle of the testimony.

Let me tell you something.

I'm going to let God do whatever God wants to do, but we got to be understanding that we get closer to God.

Less of us, more of you, means more miracles, more signs and wonders, but we got to be close to him and that starts with examining what hurts, examining where we've been done wrong.

Expose the things in your life that are uncomfortable to talk about.

Expose the things where you've been hurt.

Let those things be aired out so that God can do it.

You know most of the time in my studies of deliverance and people being healed, majority of the time it was once they confessed it out of their mouth, when they spoke what was ailing them.

They spoke forgiveness.

They let it out, something they had deep rooted in them that they forgot was there, but it began to flow out of them and healing and deliverance happened in their life.

Now, as we close, a personal question Philippians 3.11.

So that one way or another, I will experience the resurrection from the dead.

Let me start at the first of that sentence.

It's in the middle of 10 in my version.

It says I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another, I will experience the resurrection of his death.

Paul ends this section with the personal resolve.

He says in essence no matter what it costs, I want Jesus.

I want to know Him so fully that even death can't steal what I've gained in Him.

What about you?

Do you want to go deeper or do you just want to feel spiritual on a Sunday morning?

There's a difference.

We're really good here in East Texas in the Bible Belt.

We love coming to church and feeling good about how we are and leave the same as we walked in.

I believe God has more for us than that.

If we wanted to see this place fill up with people hungry for Christ, we first must become hungry with every head bowed.

If you will stand Now, I don't ever want to leave a service without offering up and asking.

If you're here today and you don't know Christ as your Lord and Savior, maybe you've served in the church for years, but you don't have the intimacy with Christ.

Maybe you know the word, but you haven't heard his voice in a while.

Maybe you've tasted his power, but you've been afraid to embrace his pain.

He is calling us in deeper waters.

He is calling us in deeper waters not into busyness, but into being with him.

If that's you today, maybe you don't know Jesus or maybe you felt like you've been distanced from him for a while.

I want you to step out of your seat today in faith, and I want you to come to the front and say I just want to be closer to Jesus.

I want to know Jesus, I want to intimately know Jesus.

If there's sickness in your body this morning, whether it be for you or whether it be somebody you want to stand in the gap for, would you make your way to the front?

Bible says to bring your needs and make them known.

We want God to do something here today.

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 connectchurchlife.

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.