Activate Spirit Growth Pt. 6 | 09/06/2026

Go ahead and we'll start making our way back to our seats.

Okay, we are gonna continue.

This is part six.

When I first started this series, it was not a series.

I was gonna try to do all this in one message.

What was I thinking?

That was a rookie move.

You know what I'm talking about?

That was a rookie move.

So this is part six, and I don't know how many parts are gonna be.

I think we you honestly we could probably stay on this topic most of the year, and this would be super beneficial.

My wife and I are talking about how much this series is impacting both of us personally, even for me.

So I'm just excited for what the Lord is doing.

He's doing a work in all of our hearts.

I think the trick is to just be open to letting the Lord fix some things that need some fixing.

Amen.

Alright.

So just to kind of build the kind of rebuild the foundation as we go into this, because we're gonna go into the six of the seven virtues listed, and this is this is powerful what begins to happen.

There's a change in all this, and what's gonna happen, there's a change in our hearts, our perspective, where it's no longer just something being formed inside of us, it's now something coming through us.

This is the ultimate goal.

For God so loved the world, he gave something.

For God so loved us, he saved us so that we could also give something.

Okay.

So let's start here, 2 Peter.

If you have your Bible, we're gonna start at 2 Peter 1, uh chapter 1, verse 1.

Let me put this up here.

It says, this is a letter from Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to you who share the same precious faith we have.

This faith was given to you because of the justice and fairness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior.

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and our and Jesus our Lord.

The first thing I want us to look at this, Peter's writing a letter, the greeting matters.

And Josh, if you can, can I get a little bit more juice up here, brother?

He's he's greeting them as a slave.

Think about this.

Jesus, before he's crucified, meets with his disciples, he says, I no longer call you slaves.

I call you friends.

So why is older Peter later in his life writing a church and saying, I'm a I'm a slave?

You ever think about that?

Slavery was something that was common in this time in time period, okay?

It's the idea is that I could purchase somebody or I could conquer them and force them into in servitude, okay?

And it didn't matter what they wanted in life, it didn't matter what their wishes were, they had they were put to work.

They had to serve a master, serve their well-being, serve their interests, and it didn't matter.

There was not fair treatment, they just had to do it.

And if they tried to escape or run away, they could lose their life.

So it's like if you want to gain your life, you're just gonna have to do this, okay?

They were a slave.

On the other hand, there was another type of slave back then.

It was a slave that was willing and gave themselves.

In Exodus 21, 5-6, it says, But the slave may declare, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I don't want to go free.

If he does this, his master must present him before God, then his master must take him to the door or doorpost and publicly pierce his ear with an owl.

After that, the slave will serve his master for life.

A person could willingly become a slave because they love their master.

They could relinquish their rights and their freedom because they love their master.

It's beautiful what Galatians tells us.

You being called to live in freedom, Christ died on the cross so you could be set free.

But it it encourages us, say, don't use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.

Better yet, it says, Don't return to your old life.

Don't continue to be a slave of sin.

And it gives us God sets us free so that we're now free to choose.

Free to choose life or death.

Peter's coming from a posture of life saying, This is how I found life.

I've made myself a slave to the master I love.

Wow.

And what he's doing here is that he's providing a list of virtues, a foundation, a perspective, and how we're going to pursue this.

He gives us something very key here.

View this as a slave.

I no longer have a choice.

This is not about me.

This is not about my well-being.

I am serving something beyond myself.

Willingly in servitude.

Amen.

Okay, let's go on.

2 Peter 1, 3 through 4 says, by his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

A lot of times when we're trying to spiritually grow, we think that God is withholding something.

This can be common.

I felt this many times.

I'm waiting for the Lord to do something you can fill in the blank.

Okay?

A lot of times what's actually happening, according to Peter, what he shows us is that we have everything we need for living a godly life.

A lot of times what is happening is that we're overlooking what has been provisioned to us around, like the opportunities in our life.

Lord, I'm I'm waiting, you know.

It's is it that is it Elijah or Elisha?

I always get them mixed up.

It's the one that goes in the cave and then all of a sudden there's a storm, a fire, earthquake, all these things.

Was that Elijah?

Thank you.

I gotta remember that.

But you know, it wasn't the big things, it was the still small voice.

It was the unexpected thing.

It could be the small things in our life where the Lord is saying, this is actually the opportunity that's going to ignite spiritual growth.

And what we do is we tend to overlook those things.

I'll say this: my mind is always on revival, my mind's on the end times, my mind is on the work of the church.

Do you know what the Holy Spirit's been talking to me about?

So I'll give you an example.

Okay, I'm in my house and we're getting ready for bed and stuff, you know, and I'm tired.

I've been working a long day.

Okay, I spend a few hours doing all the things and then going to work for a whole day and then coming home and being, I love being with my family, my baby.

But we're it's just work, and I'm tired, and all of a sudden I'm about to go to bed, and the Holy Spirit's like, hey, David, there's some laundry that needs to be done.

Now, your wife normally does that, but hey, why don't you help her out and go do the laundry?

And I, you know those moments Holy Spirit nudges you, and you're like, ah, you're like, I didn't hear anything.

He does that.

And so this and I this is a true story.

I'm going out.

I'm like, okay, I'll help with the laundry.

And I go start doing the laundry, and then you know, I'm pulling it out, I'm folding it, but there's some clothes, there's some shirts and stuff that's not, it's like inside out.

And I just grab it and I fold it, and I'm and then the Holy Spirit's like, no, David, she's gonna have to put in effort to make those right side out, so why don't you take a couple extra minutes and do this with excellence?

And I'm sitting there like, oh, okay, this is the type of stuff that the Lord's been dealing with me about.

My wife's like, Amen.

You know what I'm talking about, though?

It's not the things that we always think is like the big spiritual thing, but maybe it's the things the Lord is pointing to.

These are opportunities that can ignite spiritual growth.

Okay.

Yeah, all the women are like, finally, get my husband to that's not why.

Listen, husbands, you don't have to do laundry.

Just take the it's the heart of the law, not the letter of the law, right?

Amen.

I'm joking.

Oh my gosh.

So he's the provision everything that we need.

We've received all this by coming to know him.

Here's the thing is that the more we come to know him, the more that's going to be given to us when it comes to grace and peace.

This is a big deal.

And Peter, I actually didn't mention this point when I had the first verse up there, but it says, more and more grace will be given to you, grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God.

This is not just head knowledge, it's experiential.

It's like, hey, if you take it and you apply it, you're going to experience the person of Jesus.

Okay?

You're going to experience He's the weight of the Father.

You're going to experience the love of the Father.

You're going to experience the goodness of God, that He's a true, He's He's loyal, He's faithful.

And it's not, it's not like I wait for God to add more, then I grow.

It's I grow with what I've been given, and then He adds more so that I can continue to grow more.

And as He adds more, there's more peace and stability in my life.

A lot of times what is missing is our part in this.

Okay.

And so it says this the one who calls to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence, and because of his glory and excellence, he has given us a great and precious promises.

Here's the thing about promises is that they provide hope and confidence.

There are going to be some days that we feel like we've taken five steps backward, one step forward.

You know, I this is a real thing.

What keeps us going is our confident hope.

It's the faith, it's it's it's our faith, and like, hey, I may not see this working, but I'm confident that God is doing something.

I may not see the fruits of this, I may not have breakthrough yet, I may not have my healing yet.

My confidence is in promises.

Okay, so let me can I give you one of these promises in Philippians 1 6 it says, and I'm certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until his finally finished on the day when Jesus Christ returns.

This is a beautiful promise, and this is what we respond to.

Lord, I feel like I'm not doing a good job, but I'm gonna keep going because I'm confident in your promises.

Amen.

Okay.

These promises enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption caused by human desire.

Now, this is really setting a good foundation for how we go into this.

Okay, we come into it as a slave because we love our master.

You could you confess that Jesus is Lord.

It's the idea is I'm making Jesus my master.

He's gonna be my example.

His word is gonna define my way.

I'm not gonna define my way, he is.

Then you come into this, and I understand I've already got everything I need.

So our job is not to sit there and beg for something we don't have.

Our job is to be aware of what has God put in front of me.

Sometimes we want the big job promotion, and he's provisioned us with this wonderful job in front of us.

It's the small thing.

But can we all of a sudden do this to the best of our ability as unto worship unto him?

I'm honoring you, Lord, with what you've given me to do.

It may not be what you want to do, but I'm gonna worship you with it.

God loves to breathe life on that type of heart posture, but when we're complaining and we're being lazy, giving we're just giving half the effort, that's that's the things that God doesn't like.

You know what I'm saying?

The Lord's really had to deal with my heart with that before.

It's like I always want this big more stuff, but he's like, look at what I've given you.

Okay?

Everything your hand finds to do.

Like folding laundry, I'm realizing.

Okay.

Now let's.

Oh yeah, and then he does this, he says, Look at we're trying to escape the world's corruption through human desires.

This is a big deal.

As we go into this, I know charismatic, you know, because we're all about it.

Deliverance, we'll talk on demons, you know, we're gonna go for it, you know, we're gonna stomp on the heads of snakes and scorpions.

But I I find it interesting that Peter's not talking about snakes and scorpions and demons in this verse.

Who's our big enemy?

Us.

Our desires.

There's something important here that I'm realizing is pretty much all the time that my natural self is gonna respond to something, it's going to stink something, it's gonna be motivated by something, it's usually going to contradict what God is actually trying to do.

Why does Paul say, renew your mind?

Why do we have to have self-control?

Because the self is one of the out of God's control.

We have to self-control into his control.

That's why Paul is saying, I'm a slave, I'm making myself be in the control of my master.

Amen.

Okay, cool.

So now we get into the good stuff.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises, supplement your faith with the generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control and self-control with patient endurance and patient endurance with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love for everybody.

Okay, I've shown this list before, but I'm gonna do a different list this morning.

We're gonna talk about brotherly affection.

Now, I want to tell you what this actually means.

It's love for the church, not love for the building, not love for the organization, love for the people.

We're the church.

Okay?

We're his body.

It's love for his body.

Amen?

Okay.

Let's get a chart up there.

This is gonna be so much fun.

Everyone's like, the first five.

We are focused inwardly.

This is inward focus.

God is working out some stuff in our heart, God is putting us through the fire.

And raise your hand if you've been through the fire before.

Oh fine, you know, I know.

We got some spiritual fire men and women in the house.

The first five is working on us, and we're making effort for these things.

Okay?

Spiritual growth is a conscious decision to respond to what God has provisioned you and what he's promised you.

I'm making effort.

That doesn't mean I'm earning my salvation, but I am responding to him because of the salvation.

Alright?

The first five are working on me.

This is going to lead me down a trail.

Even on our worst day, we're going to be progressing, and we're going to be progressing towards something that's a very profound, life-changing.

This is the real deal.

It's going to be leading us to godliness.

And this godliness is where we behold him.

We've done the last two messages on godliness.

I'm actually encountering that thing of worth that is impacting me.

It's like this, the parable about this the pearl of great price.

I've encountered something that is worth so much, it's impacting me.

I'm selling everything in pursuit of it.

That's the idea.

When I come in, when I see the eyes of fire, the eyes of love, it impacts me that I'm willing to abandon everything.

When the rich man comes to Jesus, he looks at Jesus' instruction as the cost.

I don't want to sell all I own.

What he didn't realize was the reward that you're going to become more wealthy than you could possibly imagine.

You understand what I'm saying?

This is going to lead you.

It's going to take your focus.

You're trying to endure through hard seasons.

Well, you keep on going, you're all of a sudden going to hit to something where all of a sudden you're going to behold him.

Instead of looking out and around and inward, you're going to all of a sudden see the face.

Behold those eyes of love, those eyes of fire.

That thing, it just changes you.

It changes your motivations.

It changes your perspective of life.

It changes the way you see people.

I ask God all the time, help me to see people through your eyes.

Godliness.

But we don't stop there.

We can get stuck in a godliness cycle, and this is where we love to behold Him.

We love to worship Him.

We love those quiet moments.

We want to go to all the conferences and sit and bask and soak and read and just think about how great God is.

But we never actually respond to what godliness is meant to do.

It's meant to produce a response.

It's meant to produce an outflow.

A work.

What does Jesus say?

A fruit.

Okay.

Godliness means an awesome respect for God.

The idea that this carries is that I love you so much and I respect you that I care about what you care about.

Something happens in this exchange as I'm working on my faith and my morality, my desires, my desire for righteousness, and I'm learning about God, and I'm learning to have self-control in my life, and I'm learning not to quit.

Something is being formed, is that I'm encountering him.

But when I encounter him, there's meant to be an exchange here, okay?

Because we've come from this self-focused thing.

I'm focusing on self and I'm depending on God to fix me.

But when I encounter him, there's an exchange where it's no longer just about my well-being.

Is that I fall so much in love with you, okay?

It's his kindness that leads us to change, okay?

When you see how merciful he's been, it causes me something to happen in my heart where all of a sudden I care more about what you care about instead of what I care about.

Do y'all hear this?

This is crucial.

This is crucial.

I actually care more about your agenda than what I want in life.

That's when you behold him, that's what's going to happen.

The stuff in my life is on the altar for you to use as you please.

My virtue, my well-being, my time, my family, my finances, everything I own, all my effort, all my actions, here it is on the altar.

Lord, I would just want to please you.

I want your will to be done in my life.

I don't care what it sounds like or what it looks like.

I don't care if you call me to Africa.

I don't care.

It's all yours.

I want to please you because I'm so in love with you.

If that doesn't happen, this whole process is just going to fall flat.

You're going to plateau.

You're going to plateau.

You're not going to have the fruit that God desires.

You're not going to operate in the works and the calling that God desires.

It has to hit this moment where I finally resolve in myself, Lord, I want to, I want your will to be done.

What you care about needs to be the thing that I care about.

That's it.

As I go through this, you know what I realize?

I have a lot of things that I care a lot about that God could probably care less about.

And my primary priorities aren't necessarily God's priorities.

And I'm coming to Him and I'm having these moments of encounter, but I'm also realizing, Lord, create in me a clean heart.

Ezekiel says, you know what, I'm not just going to change them, I'm going to give them a new heart.

A new motivation.

A new thing that's going to fuel their tanks for life.

This is what's beautiful.

Peter doesn't start out with love when he lists this stuff.

Peter doesn't even doesn't even hit him at second.

He doesn't even hit it third.

He doesn't even hit it fourth or fifth or sixth.

He's going to hit the sixth thing.

This is after godliness.

I want you to see something, y'all.

We're working on ourselves.

The natural self that he talks about, the natural desires, our natural inclinations is going to do this.

Is that naturally, I'm not saying you do this, okay?

I do this.

This is natural.

I'll just I'll preach about myself to you real quick.

Okay?

I naturally do not want to focus, think about any issues or anything wrong in me.

Okay.

But I become very aware of everyone else's issues.

And I become very critical, and I have no patience or grace with anybody.

That's that's me.

This is stuff that the Lord has to work out in me.

Okay?

So I'm not focused on self when it comes to what's wrong, but I am focused on self with what I want out of life.

And I am coming to God asking for things that is going to be me based.

Add to my life, may fix this, do this.

This is what godliness is going to do.

It's going to reverse the two.

I'm going to focus on myself when it comes to what's wrong, and then I'm going to focus on what God of what He wants.

Did you catch that?

I feel like the Amen should have been a little bit better.

Thank you.

Let's wake up, church.

I know we had a beautiful prophetic moment here of rest, but now the alarm clock's off.

Hey, we're growing.

You got it.

Wait, what's this?

Someone say something else.

Okay, never mind.

Hail hail, lion of Aruba.

That was stupid.

I don't know.

It's okay.

Emma, it's really good to see you.

She's been off the call.

Let's just give her a hand.

Love seeing you up here worshiping.

We all miss you.

We love you very much.

You're just growing up.

Yeah.

Love you.

Okay, so with this in mind, we encounter him, and the idea is when we ask the question, Lord, what is it you care about?

What's the next assignment?

Like, what's okay, what's the next most important thing I need to focus on?

Because all this stuff is adding to when you have your faith, now let's, okay, well, you believe in God.

Well, let's let's desire what he desires.

And let's let's learn about it.

Well, when we encounter him, you know what's important to him?

He leads us right to others.

And not just any others, but the church.

Where are y'all's amen at?

Austin, I hear you back there.

Thank you.

We behold this king of kings.

Okay, Lord, I want to pour out my life for you.

What is it you want?

I want you to go to church.

Lord, of infinite wisdom, ways are higher than mine.

What is it you want me to do?

I want you to serve in church.

Everything I have is yours, God.

Pour my life out.

Like oil, like aroma.

What is it you want?

Give ten percent of your girl's income.

God, just like Peter was crucified upside down.

What is it you desire of me?

I want you to forgive your friend for insulting you.

You see, we've got to get to a point where we come before him and we say, Lord, it doesn't matter what it costs me, I want your will to be done.

Okay?

I'm really asking the Lord because it I have I have a war inside of me.

I have my good days where it's like, you know, it's more pure.

And then I have days in that things are very selfish.

I'm just looking out for number one.

Okay?

I have days I'm very prideful.

I have days I'm very critical.

I've had days that I just don't care about anyone else except for me.

I really do.

And then I come to the Lord and I feel like Jacob wrestled in him.

Lord, please help me.

Because I cannot do this without you.

Please fix this.

I want your eyes to see people the way you see people.

I want to care about what you care about.

I don't want to waste my life.

And then he turns us to brotherly affection.

It's love for his family, it's love for his church.

This is what trips people up, including myself.

Everything that I'm going to say is that I've failed miserably in all these key areas and still fail sometimes.

Okay?

So I'll just go ahead and put that out there so y'all don't have to feel bad or ashamed.

We're all in this together.

No one is perfect.

We all have our weaknesses.

We all have our little secret things that if people knew about it, we'd be so ashamed and embarrassed and probably run off to wherever church where all that stuff's okay.

But just kidding, Lord, please forgive me.

That's that critical spirit, John jump in the kid.

Lord's like, David, that's not funny.

They may laugh.

I'm not.

I'm just kidding.

So this part right here, you see this little downward arrow?

I behold him, and then he puts me right back down on ground level.

I see you, now I see others.

If if I care about you, God, and I respect you, then I'm gonna care about what you've created and put around me.

You catching it?

Okay.

What happens here is this thing from godliness to the church is that we fill this with expectations.

I'm gonna help some people here this morning.

Okay?

We fill this expectations is king.

I can if if I expect something to be hard, it's not gonna be as hard.

But when I think it's gonna be easy and it's hard, it shakes my world.

You know what I'm talking about?

Ladies, you y'all, y'all have had babies.

You go into it and know it's gonna be hard.

And it is hard, but you're not like freaked out by it.

You're like, oh my gosh, I mean, I'm sure you're freaked out about it.

I'm not a woman, I'm just gonna shut up.

Horrible example.

I ladies, y'all the queens of the planet.

My gosh.

Without you, there'd be none of us.

And without Adam's rib, you wouldn't be in existence.

So recognize that.

Amen.

Say this.

Come and pound it, bro.

I lost my place.

Give me one second.

Expectations.

The expectations, this is a this is a big one.

This has really hurt me many times because I'm gonna be honest, I'm quick to make assumptions about things.

I'm quick to make assumptions about people.

I'm quick to make assumptions about things that I involve myself in, and then I'm quick to make assumptions about what's expected for me.

Okay?

I've been dramatically wrong many times.

I just want you to know that.

And when I'm wrong, it can do one of two things.

It can cause a course correction that's needed, or it can cause anger, offense, and hurt that leads me down a different path.

Okay.

We have expectations, and I'm can I just speak more plainly?

When we come to church, okay, we're the church, but when we come to church, we have expectations first thing of what's required of me, and then what should I expect to experience in return?

It's like a job.

If you've raise your hand if you've been to a job interview, I think I would imagine everybody here, okay?

You've gone to a job interview.

The idea is that I'm learning about what's going to be expected about me.

Anytime I've been in a job interview, I said, hey, what are y'all gonna expect me to do?

You know, if you're gonna expect me to do 50,000 things, it's gonna cost 20,000 hours a week.

Well, first thing that's impossible.

Second thing, I don't'm not willing to do that.

We have we ask and we get clarification and expectation of what's required of me, but also we establish clear expectations of what are you gonna do in return for the services and effort that I offer?

Okay, am I gonna have vacation time?

Am I gonna have benefits?

What are those benefits?

What's gonna be my pay?

Are there bonuses involved?

We call and we talk and we negotiate so that we have clear expectations.

But unfortunately, what we do is that we approach church and we actually don't have clear expectations of what's required of me.

What am I responsible for?

And also what should I expect to experience?

And we look in the Word of God and we understand how what Christians are called to do and be, all right?

Don't get me wrong.

We see this call to great love, to be Christ-like, and we come into the church with expectations that that's already established.

We come in thinking, I'm coming to a group of people that already have this figured out.

And because I come into this thing and I think they've already got this figured out, I'm not expecting to get hurt.

I would say it's the opposite.

The reason that God does this is He says, okay, now I'm going to put you in the fire so that my love can come out of you.

You want to know something?

On this side of eternity is going to be the only time that you're ever going to be able to extend mercy.

How do you extend mercy?

You get hurt.

I'm going to put them in a group of people and I'm going to bind them to each other, and they're going to have issues and immaturities, and they're going to hurt each other, and I'm going to call them to lock arms and say you're stuck with each other.

Extend mercy and love and grace.

And that's how I'm going to train them to love the world.

They're not ready to love the world.

I need to put them in my melting pot.

I need to throw the pressure on, and I need to tell them, you are family, learn to like each other.

I hear people say this all the time.

I got church hurt.

That's the goal.

That's the goal.

Our expectations are off.

Brotherly affection is the term for love called Philadelphia, not the place in Pennsylvania.

It's Philadelphia.

It's not agape love.

Agape love is the love that comes last in Peter's list of virtues, love for the world.

Philadelphia is a Philadelphia.

Philadelphia is it's a warm regard and it's an affection.

But it's also devotion.

It actually means brother love.

I want you to hear this.

Because I'm going to clarify expectations because I've done the deep dive into all the stuff.

You won't believe my brain is about to explode with how many things and all the stuff, just to make sure this is right.

The meaning, not our meaning of it, but the original intent of this means this it means brother love, not brother-like love.

It means that when you become a Christian, you are baptized into Christ's body, and this is now your family.

Brothers.

When I say, like, for example, you know, hey, Brother Patrick, brother Nathan, what God's intent is, is that that is like your blood brothers now.

Are y'all hearing this?

It's one thing.

Okay, listen, we can have our ideas about church.

We can have our personal preferences and our personal convictions.

The goal is to get before the eyes of the Lord and say, what is it you desire?

I desire for this to be your legitimate true family going forward.

It's not friendship, it's family.

And you know what happens sometimes?

Family fights.

I have six sisters.

You better believe it place was going crazy all the time.

And we listen, we would have family conferences, and then we'd have the the family would split.

There would be one side, and it was always funny.

There'd be an issue with one of the girls, an issue with another, and then we'd they'd each have their own lawyer, their own representation to plead their case, and the whole family would sit around, and the parents, and I was the only guy, you know, out of all, you know, I had sisters, but I was the only boy, and I would sit there and we'd all judge it, and we'd all make determinations on who was innocent.

We would mend things.

We get hurt and we run.

We miss the beautiful opportunity that he's trying to form inside of us.

We get offended.

We get insulted, we retaliate.

This is something interesting, is that this literally means this is your family now.

I'll give you something, okay?

And this is the words of Jesus in case you want to judge it.

As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mothers and brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.

I want you to see something that Jesus is doing.

Okay?

The Bible, the New Testament is going to take something that pertained to blood relatives.

Now, the Jewish people in the Old Testament, they would call each other brother, and the idea was that we all have the same father, Abraham.

Brother meant something.

Okay?

Jesus is going to take this and he's going to transfer it from a bloodline to a spiritual inheritance, a spirit of adoption.

He's going to they're going to transfer the meaning of this to the church.

Someone told Jesus, your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they want to speak to you.

Imagine a guy doing this in church today.

David, your mothers and brothers.

Well, I didn't have any brothers.

I wish it did.

Well, I do now because they're getting married.

Now they're having tons of babies.

Your mother and your brothers outside.

Jesus asked, Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

Look at what he's doing here.

Then he pointed to his disciples and said, Look, these are my mother and brothers.

Anyone who does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

That wasn't a fluffy, empty comment, Jesus said.

Jesus doesn't do that.

God doesn't waste his words.

But we have all been baptized into one body by one spirit.

When I say brother, that can mean something to you because maybe you have a certain experience in your life.

Maybe you and your brother are close.

Maybe you're not close at all.

Maybe your brother actually hurts you.

So that term doesn't really mean much to you.

It's important that we understand what this meant back then at the time of this writing, what the original intent in the heart of God is.

In the biblical world, family was one of the primary structures through which a person received identity, belonging, loyalty, protection, provision, responsibility, and honor.

So when the New Testament starts routinely calling Christians brothers and sisters, it's making a social claim, not merely giving Christians a friendly nickname.

The term brother would mean that it's Pastor Gar it's Pastor Garner and I, this is my brother.

If he's in trouble, then it's now my trouble too.

He's not in that alone.

I'm not sitting on the sideline eating popcorn.

If he's in financial need, this is now a financial burden on me too.

If he gets off the course a little bit, which he never will, but if he gets off course a little bit and has some sin going in his life, I'm taking responsibility to gently but lovingly go try to get him back on course.

Because I'm I'm responsible.

That's my brother.

If he hurts me, if he hurts me, I'm I'm meant to I'm meant to be tender-hearted to this man and forgive him and love him.

And forgive him as em as many times as he needs.

If he insults me, I'm not meant to retaliate.

I'm meant to all of a sudden go back to my godliness, look into the eyes of mercy, the one who did not retaliate when he was insulted, and respond accordingly.

Our expectations matter if we're gonna do this church thing right.

Are you gonna get hurt in church?

Yes.

With that said, please sign up for our new members' class.

Y'all stand.

We could go on, but I'm learning.

I'm learning to restrain myself.

I am, I am, I struggle with a critical spirit.

It's not gone.

I I am I can be very very focused and selfish on myself, think I'm amazing, and I can easily see everyone else's issues, and I can like patience and grace, okay?

I'm asking and I'm seeking the Lord to really help me in this, but I'm making every effort.

This is what's beautiful.

I look out, I look out in this church, okay.

We're a global body of Christ, but the way the body of Christ manifests itself is in local churches.

Okay?

In Acts it says they all met in one place.

That doesn't mean that all the Jews in one area and all the, I'm sorry, all the Christians in one country and the other all of a sudden met once a week and traveled miles upon miles.

They were geographically located and they were geographically specific to their church, okay?

God wants you in a local church.

He wants your brothers and sisters to be something in the physical, not just online.

You can't participate fully online.

It's good if you're sick and you need to stay home and you want to stay connected, but that's not meant to be your main source.

You need to be face to face with real people.

Okay?

And devotion looks like something.

Community looks like something.

And can I go ahead and read something?

And I'm not trying to say that this is you, okay?

But I do want us to hear this.

Um, the modern church often wants the privileges of family without the obligations of family.

There's times that my family, the obligations it brought was hard.

There's times that my sister's pain as they were growing up and going through things, it really hurt me.

I've I felt so much pain, I got numb to pain.

This is something the Lord's fixing in me, Tina.

I went through so much pain.

I was um, when I started out younger, younger Christian, young guy, I was very innocent and pure.

I mean, I mean, I had my issues, but I had this innocence and purity of love for people.

And I would give tons of my time, I would give tons of my effort, and I just really cared, I cared for people more than myself sometimes.

I would, even if I had like no money, the little money I have, oh, you need money, here you go.

I did this for years.

A servant church, it was like there's a beautiful, there was an innocence to it.

And I started getting hurt, and then when people, my friends and people close to me would hurt, it would hurt me so much.

I would feel that with them.

I got I got numb because it just hurt too much.

I got tired of being let down.

There would be people I'd pour my life into, and then they would just run off and make crazy decisions.

And I'm like, I just wasted years and resources.

Some of you here, you know what I'm talking about.

I got numb.

I learned endurance.

I had a form of this, but this is what I did is I said, This is how you, this is how you don't quit, is that you quit caring.

That's how you don't quit, and that's what I resolved.

The Lord has been coming to this because I'm finally letting him into those areas that's sensitive to me.

Okay?

And he's healing that.

He's restoring real compassion and love for people.

Some of you hear that you're numb.

Um, I didn't really this is I'm gonna hiss a bit.

I didn't really cry a ton when my mom and dad passed away.

Oh, it broke my heart.

I was so numb.

I couldn't, I couldn't feel.

And I'm asking God, I'm like, Lord, there I don't feel.

I've learned how to survive and do the work.

I've learned how to be spiritual.

Well, I've learned how to preach.

It's gotta go further than that because Philadelphia brotherly affection is actually a felt thing.

It's not just obeying rules, it's not just serving and doing your duty and being generous, it is a felt affection.

I actually care for you like a brother and a sister, my actual family.

That's what he wants.

And he's working our hearts.

I opened up my heart.

He is faithful, Miss Janet.

I had this one day, I don't know if I shared this with you all.

This was this was a couple months ago.

Catherine was out of town on a ministry trip with Mario Marillo.

She was gone for like four days.

I ended up getting sick.

Great time to do it.

She had baby with her, I had the house to myself, I took some sick time, I put on the chosen show.

I've watched the chosen show probably 20 times.

I love it, I love it, I love it.

Okay, but on this particular time, for some reason, every time Jesus would come and do some type of miracle, something, I started weeping.

Uncontrollably.

Wasn't even trying to be.

Didn't you feel sad, Garna?

Something spiritual in my household came on me.

There was a healing, there was a restoration, there was life brought back to my heart.

I could not conjure that up, y'all.

Because the Lord doesn't want us to be mindless robots, he wants us to be a family that is devoted, committed, and feeling with one another.

When you are in pain, I'm in pain.

When you are in need, I'm going to help you.

When it's inconvenient, I'll be there.

And when you hurt me, I'm still gonna love you past that.

I'm gonna extend mercy where mercy is needed.

I'm gonna extend grace because I I under something some I understand something very profound, is that I need mercy and I need grace constantly.

God has called you to be part of a family.

There's one other thing the Holy Spirit prompted me to say, and I'm gonna break all the responsible pastoral rules here for the next minute.

Okay?

I'm gonna break all the rules of a church growth plan.

Can I do that for a second?

Holy Spirit prompted me.

When we get hurt by our church family, we can get so hurt we run away from them.

But maybe God doesn't want us to run away from them.

You might be here today and you might be one of those people that ran away from church, the church that God has called you to.

And I would encourage you to go before the Lord if that's you.

Return back to your church family you were originally called to.

Because he's not done with you.

Okay.

And I would hope that a pastor would do the same for me when my flock runs astray.

So close your eyes, Lord.

I thank you for this wonderful church body.

I thank you that you've got us in your mighty hands, and I thank you, Lord, that you are healing our hearts and you're expanding us, Lord, to be able to love beyond ourselves.

And I ask God that you give us a revelation of what you desire for us to be within your church, Lord.

Brothers and sisters, real family, actual devotion, Lord, actual commitment, Lord.

Help us and give us grace, and I thank you for this wonderful church family and what you're doing here in your mighty name.

Amen, amen.

I love y'all very much, and I'm not lying when I say that, really mean it.

Okay, y'all have a good week.

Bye.