Spiritual Growth pt. 4 Godliness | 08/23/2026

Honored and she's absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

Couldn't have said it better.

No, God is faithful.

I I really want you to know that God is faithful.

He's good, and and what he's called every single one of us to do, he will grace us and provision us, okay?

He's he's very faithful.

We are gonna continue in talking about activating spiritual growth.

This is part four.

Hopefully, we'll get through it.

I've given up trying to get through things.

We'll just see what happens, okay?

But let me just go ahead and read this.

It was 2 Peter 1, 5 through 7.

I don't have the verse up here this time, but I'm gonna read it.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises.

Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

We're going to be talking about godliness today.

Now, this is a I I would okay.

I would say that this is probably one of the most important virtues listed here.

Okay.

This is the game changer.

This is where things I let me see if I actually put this slide up.

Yep, there it is.

So I want us to look at this at this little list of all these things.

I've I've been trying to do this because we hear these terms and they become like white noise, you know, like faith, and we don't really realize what is being talked about here and how does this practically apply.

But faith ultimately is trust.

It's it's a trust that God is real, but it's a trust that his way is best.

You know what I'm talking about?

And a lot of times when we really believe that this way is best, we'll devote ourselves to what we think is best.

And a lot of times there becomes a disconnect because I actually trust in something more.

And God is a jealous God.

He doesn't want our trust to be devoted to anything else.

Amen.

Sometimes we can just trust in ourselves too much when we need to depend on him, but it's a trust.

That trust is meant to produce a desire for his ways.

Well, if I if I trust his ways best, then I would desire it, right?

Makes sense.

Well, sometimes we say I trust God, but we don't desire his way.

Because his way is going to be different from our way.

And then it moves on to knowledge.

And the idea is like, well, if I desire his way, then I have to learn and know his way.

Okay?

And sometimes we'll just skip this step and we just think that we know his way.

I've done that.

This is a decision to devote ourselves to something, and then finally, once I know his way, I choose to choose his way.

A lot of times his way is going to be uncomfortable.

Because we're, again, we're dealing with a human nature, a huge natural desires that are opposite of the Spirit of God.

Okay, there's a war going on back and forth, like a butting of heads inside of us.

There's the Spirit of God trying to lead us one way, and then our there's our own flesh, our own natural desires.

There's something that happens that can happen in church, and I really hope that this is doesn't happen here.

And it's it's it's where we have a counterfeit, like a religious culture, and it's where people are fake.

We don't like that, right?

I don't like that.

I'm like, well, I don't want to do that.

It's where people are fake.

And the idea is that I'm coming in, I'm trying to make you think that I don't have wrong desires naturally.

Like I've overcome it, I've risen above it.

That's not what Paul would say is that we have this fight going on.

And it's not like you just all of a sudden rise above it.

Now we can move from glory to glory, and maybe things that were harder things that we've had and had issues with, we can overcome those, and they're not issues anymore.

But there's still, I I find things that I've that I've not had issues with in years, they can still pop up every once in a while.

What the point I'm making is that's still there.

Okay.

So we choose his way.

But then I want you to see something is that once we start choosing his way, we start making those hard decisions.

A lot of times we're thrown into a season of testing.

It's one thing to do something for God one day, but can you do it the rest of your life?

Okay?

And God strategically, it just in you know, in the depths of his wisdom and ways, he will place us in situations where those things that we're committing ourselves to, that journey towards the Lord, is gonna be tested.

There's gonna be oppositions, there's gonna be things externally and internally working against us.

And God is looking for someone.

It's not that you're gonna do it perfect, but you're gonna remain steadfast after him.

I'm not quitting, I may fall, but I'm gonna get up and keep running.

Paul says, I'm continuing to run the race, okay?

I'm not looking behind, I'm keeping my eyes pressing forward.

That's endurance, and that's very important.

Endurance will produce intimacy with God.

It'll produce intimacy.

It'll help you to see God rightly.

Lord, you were faithful.

When I thought my world was come was crumbling, you remained faithful.

And that's very important.

And I want us to make sure that we understand something is that endurance comes before godliness.

The first five things are going to be God working on us internally.

This is working on us.

The focus is us.

The focus is fixing things, pruning things, things being established in us.

But I want you to see something.

Godliness is where all of a sudden the focus changes.

Godliness, this word Eusebia, it means an awesome respect towards God.

A reverence for God.

We hear this term reverence.

It's a good term.

It's spiritual.

But what does that actually mean?

I mean, I say godly all the time.

Like, what does that mean?

It's a spiritual term, but what does it mean?

And what does it mean in the context that Peter's describing here?

He's talking about things that we put effort towards.

An awesome respect towards God.

Um, let me go ahead and read this.

This is a little bit more expanded.

This is the reverent awareness of God's sovereignty in every aspect of life.

And the attended determination to honor Him in all one's conduct.

Godliness and moral excellence, that second one.

Moral excellence would be the desire for righteousness, like right and wrong.

I want to do what's right, I want to be pleasing to the Lord, okay?

It's similar to godliness, but at the same time, it's not.

Godliness is this thing where my motivation is I want to do, I want to please the Lord, okay?

But I want to desire what's right.

I want to know God, I want to choose his way, and I want to continue choosing his way, even when there's opposition and it's hard, okay?

Godliness is going to take the same behavior, okay, and it's going to recalibrate the motivation as to why we're doing these things.

It's like this.

I'll keep explaining because it can be a little bit confusing, and a lot of times this is misinterpreted.

I want to go ahead and tell you something.

Godliness, the focus of godliness is not your behavior.

It's not your behavior.

Godliness is not trying to adjust what you're doing or not doing.

Godliness is going deeper than that, where it's adjusting why are you doing what you're doing?

What is motivating you?

Godliness is going to be the thing, the fuel in your tank that actually helps you do that thing which you're not able to do on your own.

Let's see here.

Let's get a verse up here that might help.

And I'm let me make sure I put the right verse up here.

Yep.

So check this out.

By his divine power, this being God, God has given us everything we need for living a this is what he says right before, this whole list of virtues.

What's the point of all these things?

A godly life.

He's given us everything we need for living a godly life.

Listen to what he says here.

We have received all of this by coming to know him.

This is the idea, and I'm gonna we're gonna go we're gonna dive into this.

But I spend a lot of time really trying to figure out this because it can be confusing.

This is this is what I mean.

I can desire to do the right thing, okay?

And I can do the right thing.

I can have integrity, I can operate in honesty, I can love my wife, I can be a hard worker devoted and disciplined in every area of my life.

I can go to church, I can serve, I can tithe, I can give, I can do all the right things.

I don't tell lies, okay?

I'm devoted to doing what's right, and I cannot, and I can, and I can exist like that in my life, my whole life.

I have a healthy family, my kids are successful, okay?

And I can also do all of that without an ounce of godliness.

Because my motivation is to be right.

My motivation is to be successful.

Y'all catching this?

We can be motivated, people can be there's lots of people in the world that have these ver a lot of some of these virtues operating in their life that don't even care about God.

Even better than a lot of Christians.

We can do all of this stuff and not have godliness.

Godliness is not the behaviors that we're doing.

Godliness is the awareness of Him and seeing Him rightly.

Godliness is this thing where I want to do this stuff right, okay?

But as I'm doing this, what I'll almost all of a sudden what I'm gonna do is I'm going to encounter Him.

When I make every effort to these foundational things, building up to this faith, my moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, and endurance, I'm devoting myself.

What is going to happen is I'm going to encounter and behold him.

When Job said this, he goes, before all the stuff happened in my life, I'd only heard of you, but now I've seen you.

Okay?

I want you to hear this.

The thing that's going to produce godliness in you is not your desire or your ability to produce godliness because you can't do it.

Okay?

Godliness, you sebea, is a relational noun.

What I mean by this is it's always tied to something.

I can't have godliness without it being directed towards something.

I feel like y'all are saying, well, just tell us what it is.

It's the square root times pi.

Go west.

I don't know.

So look at what look at what Peter says here.

He says, We have received all this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.

When we go, when we're trying to know God, we can know God intellectually, we can know him through his word, but when we apply his word, we'll start to know him experientially.

And a lot of times that's what we're missing.

We're satisfied with the head knowledge, but we never apply it.

Okay.

The applying of it, putting it into practice is what's going to cause you to have an actual living relationship with a living God.

And when that happens, you're going to know him and see him rightly.

It's one thing to believe that God is a faithful provider.

It's another that in a time of crisis and you don't have enough to sacrificially give out of faith and watch God pull through, and then all of a sudden you acted upon faith, but then he came through.

You've just experienced him.

And now it's not just an intellectual, I believe God provides.

It's like, I know he provides.

I've seen it happen firsthand.

My wife just sang a song.

I've witnessed your faithfulness because I've applied your word.

I know you now.

So when this happens, you start to know him, you start to see him rightly.

It's going to put a motivation in you that is beyond simple morality.

And it's no longer I want to do right and wrong.

It's now I want to glorify my King.

Jesus came.

The primary motivation of Jesus coming to the world was not to be righteous, it was to glorify his Father.

If you've seen me, you've seen my the idea is when when they see us, they see Jesus.

The perfection, the holiness of Jesus.

This this thing, what this is gonna do.

Peter knows what he's doing right now, okay?

This is not simple morality, this is not technicalities of right and wrong, and what's my freedom?

So what do I do?

This is I'm looking at Christ, and now I'm wanting to emulate him.

Everything apart about every aspect of my life.

I want to look at you and I want to reflect you in it.

In my speech, my actions, my thoughts, my motivations, everything I do, and it's not meant for what is seen.

Godliness, believe it or not, is not going to be as exciting as we might think.

It's going to be invisible.

It's going to be invisible to many.

And I'll explain why.

How do we do this?

I'm looking at this thing of godliness and I'm like, okay, this thing is presented in the context of making effort.

Okay.

This thing is Peter's saying, I want you to make effort for this.

I'm like, well, how?

Just go to church.

The way that we have produce godliness is is we put ourselves in positions to encounter him.

I can't.

Have y'all seen that movie um Twister?

You know what I'm talking about?

I for some reason really love tornado movies.

I like Night of the Twisters.

I like Twister.

I just like it.

And then my wife and I were in a tornado.

It was it was scary.

It was not I was like, I'd rather watch the movie.

But I do have to be honest, I'd never told you this, Catherine, by the way.

So we were in an F4 tornado, that big one that went through Noonan.

You know, we were it went right over house.

And I think there were angels guarding, I don't think I know.

There was eight angels guarding our house because houses around us were like completely demolished.

Ours was fine.

We have all these massive pecan trees, they fell all around our house, but they didn't touch the house.

They fell like and the house was fine.

And but in the midst of this, this tornado is going over our house.

We don't have a basement to hide in, okay?

I'm holding my wife.

We're in the probably the safest area I could imagine.

You know, I didn't fully know.

I'm like, come on, let's get right here.

I'm holding her, she's holding our little dog, a Chewene, Yoda.

We did name him Yoda.

She's holding him, she's like crying out the name of Jesus this whole time this is happening because it starts to get crazy.

It's like you hear the wind, it sounds like a train.

And then it gets real intense.

But when you're when you're in the middle of the tornado, it's almost like calm.

But what's interesting is that you feel this atmospheric lift.

It's like everything went, shh.

I was like, whoa.

And for a split second, I thought, I wonder if this is what it was like in Twister.

And then I went back to ah, oh, so this is what it was like.

But in Twister, these guys, these people are storm chasers.

They're trying to like study tornadoes, and so the whole idea is that they can't force a tornado happen where they want it, okay?

They have to pursue and put themselves in a position to encounter one.

They have to study the weather, they have to look at the predictions, they have to be very intentional about following the storm.

I want you to hear this.

To put them put themselves in a path to encounter a tornado.

When we're when we're asking about this topic of godliness, we cannot produce godliness just because we want to be godly and say we're godly doesn't mean we're godly.

We can't make that happen.

What we do is we make an effort to put ourselves in a place to encounter him.

And as we encounter him, as we behold him, it's gonna do something for us.

You see, endurance is going to keep you in the room long enough to see him.

And when you see him, godliness is gonna be what you be doing, what you do because you saw it.

That's it, it's it.

It's not comfortable.

Well, Dave, what does that look like practically?

Okay, it looks like this practically.

You have a choice.

I'm gonna go to the bar or I'm gonna go to church.

Which one is gonna help me encounter God?

I got a choice.

I wake up, I'm going to I'm gonna pray and read my word, or I'm just gonna get on Instagram.

Which one is gonna help me encounter God?

That's how you make effort.

Okay, let's see here.

Let's see here.

There's a uh I have so much stuff, and I and I feel like the Holy Spirit is saying, David, don't try to say all this stuff.

It's good, it's just too much.

Let me do this.

I want I want to break down this idea of morality versus godliness.

When Jesus comes, he says this in Matthew 5.

He says, Do not think I have come to abolish the law.

Y'all know that verse?

I didn't come to get rid of the law.

Morality is like the idea of I desire and I learned the law, like the law of God, the hard rules, okay?

Godliness is going to go deeper than that.

It's okay.

And what tends to happen is we get in disagreements in the body of Christ, okay?

And also what tends to happen is we read things that is very hard to receive in the Word of God.

It's very hard to like see ourselves.

I don't know if I could ever do that.

I I'll I'll read I'll read one of these for you.

This is 1 Peter 2.18.

It says, You who are slaves must submit to your masters with all respect.

Do what they tell you, not only if they are kind and reasonable, but if they are but even if they are cruel.

Now we don't have slaves today, but I was watching this thing that was talking about in our world today that when you buy a house and you have a mortgage and you have bills to pay, you have to work a job in order to pay that.

If you don't pay that, those things will be taken away from you.

And so what you do is we make ourselves a slave to the system.

You can't just do what you want.

You know, hey, maybe you could just quit your job, but then you're gonna have to go find another job and you know, hope you find one.

Okay?

So a lot of times we can be bound to certain things.

We can be bound to jobs and professions.

Maybe we don't like them, maybe it's hard, maybe people are being cruel to us.

And our boss, we could say it this way, is kind of like our master.

They didn't pay for us, but yet we're bound to them.

We can't just do what we want because we have bills.

We don't want to lose our house.

You get what you're following me.

I heard these people talking about this is like, hey, we're still a slave to the system, and this is what we could do as Christians.

We can be in situations where, hey, maybe people are not treating us right.

Maybe we have a boss that is cruel to us.

This is what the Bible says.

He says, He says, You who are slaves must submit to your masters with all respect.

That means even when they're not there, how do you talk about them?

That means when they're not looking, are you still working as hard for them as you should be?

Even when they're unreasonable, still treat them with respect.

Think about that.

We get so easily offended, so justified.

So righteous indignation, and we start being disrespectful, slanderous.

That's that's a hard when I look at that.

I'm like, I don't know if I could do that.

I need something more motivating me.

This is what it said next.

For God is pleased when conscious of his will, not what's right.

If you focus on morality and what's fair, you're not gonna be able to do that.

And the problem is we're too focused on my rights, my freedoms, he's sinning against me.

Uh-uh.

I ain't putting up with that no more.

For God is pleased when conscious of his will.

Okay, in the midst of your suffering, do we ever take a moment to say, Lord, what is your will in all this?

That's godliness.

Lord, what will please you in this situation?

Jesus Christ, what reflects you in the moments, in the circumstances where I'm being mistreated?

Am I retaliating?

God is pleased when conscious of his will.

You patiently endure unjust treatment.

I always ask the Lord to say, Lord, I want to please you.

And he's like, Well, I'm telling you how.

Not the question.

I know.

Baby's like, ah, it's horrible.

Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you're beaten for doing wrong.

A lot of people's church hurt is their own issues.

They they caused it.

It's called discipleship.

Pastor was wrong.

I mean, no pastor gave you a correction.

And you call and you've labeled it trauma because you're a victim.

And you don't have spiritual fruit.

You have cycles of death and transition after transition and going to church to church, and you never belong because you're a victim.

You lack humility.

That's what the Lord's told me, by the way.

Sort of.

Cadden's like, not really, David, you're great.

Thank you, honey.

But I want you to hear this but if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.

Some of you are here today and you're suffering, and you think you're outside of Will of God, you think your suffering is punishment.

What if it's the very thing that's be that's a pleasing aroma to the Lord?

You're being nice, you're in a hard situation, and you're being loving, and you're suffering.

And what if it's the very thing that He's like, they're getting it?

Godliness is being built up inside of you.

You're in a hard marriage.

And you're loving them unconditionally.

And you're suffering.

Godliness is being formed inside of you.

This is pleasing the Lord.

For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you.

Did you notice the calibration of the focus?

It's not saying because this is the right thing to do.

It's saying do this just as Christ did this for you.

When I behold him, I see what he did for me, and it makes these obediences that seem impossible doable.

I was the master being cruel to you.

Because it says Jesus came, let me just read it.

The focus is I'm not just looking at what is right, I'm looking at an example.

Christ is the example.

He says, For God you do good, even if it means just suffering as Christ suffered, he is your example, and you must follow in his steps.

He never sinned nor ever deceived anyone.

He did not retaliate when he was insulted.

Nor did he threaten revenge when he suffered.

He left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly.

He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we could be dead to sin and live for what is right.

By his wounds you are healed.

Once you were like sheep who wandered away, but now you have turned to your shepherd, the guardian of your souls.

Godliness is when all of a sudden I've gone through these things and I've endured through hardship, and all of a sudden I'm seeing him, and I'm seeing what this is actually all about.

I've struggled with years with forgiveness.

I really want to be good at forgiveness, and I go through all the steps and I pray all the prayers.

Lord, I forgive them.

Love your enemies.

I pray you bless them.

And I and I and I really try to take my thoughts captive.

But Tina, for some reason, for years it's still in my heart.

There's a rage, an anger, a hatred.

I want them to be destroyed.

I want them to fall at my feet and commit and admit their wrongs while I sit there and be like, I told you.

There's a desire for vengeance.

And I was Lord, I said, Lord, I'm doing the steps.

Why is this still an issue in my heart?

And he said, David, you need to recalibrate your focus.

Why are you trying to forgive?

Because it's the right thing.

He said, No, go deeper.

Why are you forgiving?

Peter comes up to Jesus and he says, How many times should I forgive?

Seven times.

You see, morality, righteousness, the search for is look, it's a search for what is the bare minimum that I have to do to be right.

Peter comes to Jesus, how many times do I have to forgive?

Seven times.

Peter says that seven times.

In Peter's mind, he thinks he thinks he's being generous.

Jesus says 77 times seven.

And that's not an actual number of 490.

What that is that means that it means there's no there's no limit to forgiveness.

It's infinite.

Okay?

Do you see what Jesus did there?

Morality is always going to have a standard, an achievement to reach.

If I just do this much, I'll be okay.

Godliness is going to remove all the limits and saying it everything is on the table.

Because we're looking at the one, Lord, how much do I have to give?

The rich man comes to Jesus.

How much what do I have to do to have eternal life?

You have to obey the commandments.

And the young guy and the rich guy says, I've done all of them.

He said, There's still one thing you haven't done.

Sell everything that you own and give it away to the poor.

That's not an answer of morality and law.

It wasn't against the law to have possessions.

That was an answer of godliness.

What is on the table?

Lord, how much do I have to give to be right?

Everything is on the table.

Because when we start to see the one who gave everything, all of a sudden we realize I'm motivated to give everything.

Thank you, Lord.

Morality will try morality will be an argument where we're trying to guard our freedom.

Godliness will be looking for areas to give up our freedoms for the sake of others.

And what's interesting about this, and I think that this is very strategic of God.

What is very interesting about this is that these last two listed right here, these are both love.

The first one right here is love for the church.

It's love for brothers and sisters in Christ, and then it's the love for the world.

One is the familial affection, the next one is the mission.

And the order matters.

You can't love the world and hate the church.

Don't think that you're gonna preach about the bridegroom and then beat up the bride.

I see people with an evangelistic call.

They come in and cause division, hatred, dissension, and let go out there and try to pray for people and try to minister to Jesus Christ.

What are you gonna do?

Bring them in the church and then beat them up?

You gotta learn to love the family before you can love the mission.

But none of those happen until you get this.

Something profound has to happen in our heart.

That I'm reflecting Christ.

It's not about my freedoms, it's not about my well-being, it's about reflecting his character and nature so that when people look at me, they see Christ.

Jesus says, I did not come to abolish the law, but I came to fulfill it.

He's taking it farther than we ever thought it would go.

If someone asks you to go a mile, this was a law back then.

They were in a nation, they were captive by a secular nation.

It's not what they wanted, and they had laws that they had to abide by.

A Roman soldier could ask a Jewish person, hey, carry my bag for a mile with me.

And they had to by law do that.

They didn't like that.

They hated that.

Jesus comes in and he says, Okay, you're gonna be a good Christian.

Okay, if someone asks you to go a mile, okay, we would probably say, Well, I did the mile with a cheerful attitude.

I'm a godly person.

Jesus says, I want you to go an extra mile, free of charge.

We're always thinking, I've done enough.

We're always looking for I've done enough.

Well, God, haven't I served enough?

God, haven't I given enough?

Paul tells one church, he says, Listen, my life has been poured out for you.

And I'm not even finished yet.

It won't be finished until I fully give my life to you.

You see, reverence for God is going to have reverence for what He's established.

People.

Do you know every single person is one of God's creations?

Do you know when you go to the fast food restaurant and you do or the restaurant and you want to be disrespectful to a waiter, do you understand that's an image bearer of God?

And we just yap it yap, root, root, rude.

Do we treat, you know, how do we treat them?

Do we have reverence for that?

You see, you can't just be a slanderer, disrespectful to people, impatient, unkind, and then try to claim you've got reverence for the king.

That's it, David.

There's something more that's got a motive.

I have reverence for God, but you're willing to talk to your spouse like they're trash.

That's not truly your spouse.

That's a gift from the Lord that He's entrusted you with.

Okay, hey, hey, hey, you know what?

Let's go there.

Ephesians 5, 21, 25.

And further, look at this.

It says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

When they build the foundation of marriage, you know what it's built on?

I want you both fully engaged on me.

I'm gonna be the motivator, I'm gonna set the standards, and your goal in your marriage is not your satisfaction, it's to satisfy, please, and reflect me.

Reverence for Christ, both man and woman, both of y'all are submitting to Christ.

But then it puts women in their place, and I appreciate the word for doing this.

Says for wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Guys, I'm gonna go ahead and help you out, and I've had to remind myself of this.

You cannot force your wife to submit.

That is not even the meaning of the word.

It's a voluntary yielding, her actions to your leadership.

It's a choice that of her reverence for Christ that she has to do.

Okay?

Make it easy for you.

But it is a biblical call for her to do, to respect you.

That doesn't mean that she doesn't have a voice.

She has a voice, but she's respecting you, she's yielding to you.

As long as you're within godly standards, okay?

You can't tell your wife to sin and think that she's gonna obey you.

She's gonna obey God first.

Alright?

Just so we're clear.

But look at look at the focus.

Do this, okay?

Submit to your husbands as to the Lord.

Ladies, if your motivation to yield to, respect, revere your husband is motivated on his actions over on his conduct, you are not operating in godliness.

Because godliness is going to take this further where you're saying, no, I'm acting towards him based on the reflection of what I see.

You if you need a good leading motivation, look at the ultimate leader, okay?

And I'm going to respond to him with my eyes on you.

It doesn't matter if it's unjustified, it doesn't matter if he's unreasonable, it doesn't matter if he's not affectionate enough, and he doesn't listen enough, and he doesn't spend enough time with me.

I'm still gonna be respectful because my focus, my reverence is on Christ.

But again, we tiptoe morality and we want to get the technicalities what's right, what's wrong, what's fair, what's not.

I'm totally justified to be a jerk.

Jezebel's my best friend.

We hang out all the time because my husband doesn't hang out with me.

Reverence for Christ.

Do you see what's going on here?

The King of Kings, Lord of Lords, hanging on a cross.

Do this because of me.

Reflect me.

You know what?

It wasn't fair for the perfect man of God, the holy one, never sinned in his life, to be tortured on a cross, brutally beaten, broken, and murdered.

That's not fair, but that's our example.

Alright, let's get the guys.

Ladies say, let's go.

For a husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the head of the church.

For a husband, men, you're the head of your house.

Just as Christ is the head of the church.

How did Christ become the head of the church?

He laid down his life for her.

He left his place of God, the authority of the universe, King of kings, all powerful.

You know what he did?

He became a slave.

He didn't come to be served.

I love this man.

They just look at their wives.

Well, you've got to serve me.

I'm like, do you know what Jesus did?

You're the example to her, and you're telling her to serve you.

How about you get on your butt and wash her feet?

I see this, and it's a southern thing.

I see this all the time.

Walking around, hey, woman, you're a helper, serve me, respect me.

No, how about humble yourself and serve her and be the image bearer of Christ to her?

You want revival in your marriage, man?

Lay down your life for her.

Lay down your desires.

Stop chasing your ambitions.

Well, hey, how can how can I serve you?

There was nothing self-serving about what Christ did for his church.

And yet we wonder why there's not life in our marriage.

Because we're not actually godly.

We're selfish.

Paul says it this way.

He says, do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives' tales.

Instead, train yourself to be godly.

I think I actually have this verse up here.

Godliness is something you train for.

Training is doing consistent, deliberate things that doesn't feel good.

And a lot of times you won't see the fruit of it, but you keep doing it.

Did I put the right verse up there?

Don't waste time arguing over it, but train yourself to be godly.

Now let's hit another one.

2 Timothy 3.5, they will act religious, but they will reject the power that can make them godly.

I didn't put that verse up there.

That's my bad.

Don't focus on that.

2 Timothy 3.5, they will act religious.

Y'all know this verse, right?

I love to quote this verse.

I use it up here like, oh my gosh.

They have a form of godliness, but they lack the power that could truly save them.

They lack the power that could truly make them godly.

I was looking at this verse today.

You know what the Holy Spirit did?

He said, Dave, it's time to look in the mirror.

Yeah.

And so this verse, every time I would read this, you know what I do?

I would just assume that's not me.

I love power.

You know?

I've got the power.

I love the gifts.

I love the perfection.

I'm not doing that.

I don't have that form of God.

I don't have just form.

It's real.

I'm not rejecting it.

And I feel like the Holy Spirit said, he said, David, I'm not giving you something just to make an assumption on what Paul does, he actually gives a prescription.

He gives us lips to symptoms right before this.

Can I go ahead and read it?

And when we read it, understand that we're meant to be honest before the Lord.

Does this apply to me?

Okay?

Let's go ahead and read this.

I'm going to read it out.

It says, uh, for people will only love themselves and their money.

This is talking about the last days, very difficult times.

And what is being talked about here, Timothy, he's talking about the church.

Okay?

He's not talking about the world.

People will love only themselves and their money.

They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful.

They were consider they will consider nothing sacred.

They will be unloving and unforgiving.

They will slander others and have no self-control.

They will be cruel and hate what is good.

They will betray their friends.

They will be reckless.

They'll be puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than God.

That's nineteen things.

This idea of power, it's rejecting power.

What is the power that could truly make us godly?

It's beholding Him.

And how do we reject it?

We refuse to make decisions that could put us in a place to behold Him.

When we come to our seasons to endure, we quit.

When we don't get what we want, we're not personally satisfied, we quit.

So we don't get the opportunity to make it through that endurance to behold Him.

And there's not godliness produced inside of us.

And what and what Peter says here, this is amazing.

He says, early before all the virtues that I've listed, he says this.

He says, as you grow in your knowledge of God, okay?

As you become more godly, God is going to give you more and more grace and peace.

Grace is going to be a continuation for more help, and peace is going to be more stability.

Okay?

And what happens is we plateau, so we don't have more grace because we're not putting ourselves in place to behold Him.

And when we're doing things, we're not refocusing why we're doing them.

I had a problem forgiving people because my motivation was to simply be right.

How the Lord is fixing this in my life, and it's not perfect, but how I'm getting set free is that I'm looking at Christ and I'm saying, You've forgiven me for so much worse.

Because you've forgiven me for so much worse, I'll be happy to forgive them.

And not only am I going to forgive them, but I'm going to love my enemy and I'm going to pray for those who persecute me, and I'm going to really have affection for him and care.

And I ask, Lord, that you would have mercy on them.

I ask you that they will not have to deal with the consequences of what they've done to me because you have been so merciful to me.

That's when godliness starts to take form.

Why are you doing what you're doing?

Why are you serving?

Are you willing to serve the rest of your life even if no one sees it?

Is that enough?

Is Him being your source enough?

Paul says it like this He says, The greatest form of wealth in this life is godliness with contentment.

I'm always praying for things.

I'm always asking God, God, do more.

One day the Holy Spirit just said, David, why do you ask for so much?

And it's not the response you normally want to hear, but he but the Holy Spirit, when I'm realizing this, when the Lord's talking to my to you know my that inner voice, I realize he's doing that not because he wants he doesn't know the answer.

I realize he's doing that because he wants me to see something I'm not aware of.

I'm sitting there, I'm I'm going to work and I'm doing my same prayers.

I'm contending for revival.

I'm doing and I'm praying over all these things.

But I'm specifically started praying about money, financial breakthroughs, certain things.

There's a lot of things going on in my mind, plans that we need finances for and stuff, and I've convinced myself it's all for the kingdom.

But the but the Holy Spirit says, David, what would be the first things you would do if I answered your prayer concerning finances?

And I knew what I knew what to do.

It's time to be honest with the Lord and myself, not to just make up an answer that I think he wants to hear.

And I started to think through things and I started to honestly list.

What all would I do if he started to answer my prayers?

And every single one of them was self-serving.

And I said, Okay, Lord, but I I'm like, I don't, what's the problem?

And he said, David, you're not content.

When we behold him, understand, Jesus says, I'm the bread of life.

Anyone that drinks the water that I have, they'll never be thirsty.

The whole point of godliness is that when we behold him, we have everything that we need.

And everything else is just it's just it's just resources to please him.

Paul says, I've learned to be content whether I have little or I have much.

That doesn't matter.

That's that's not where I get my peace.

That's not where I get my joy.

I'm fully satisfied on him.

You put that into a marriage, it's it even if they never respond to me the way I want to be responded to, I'm fully satisfied on him, and it's my joy and honor to please him, even if I'm suffering.

If this pleases you, I'll happily do it the rest of my life.

Holy Spirit say, You're you're not content.

I want to be your source.

It's fine to pray for things because you do need things to do my will, but I want to be your source, David.

I want you to be fully satisfied.

One of the things that we can do, church, to train ourselves for godliness.

It's to have gratitude.

Thank you for dying for me, Lord.

Thank you for mercy, your grace, your patience.

Thank you for your provision.

A lot of times we get used to the blessings of God.

We ask for things, and when we get them, after we have them for a while, we get used to it, it becomes familiar, and we don't appreciate it, and we move on to the next thing.

It's called hedonic adaptation.

I get used to what I have.

I no longer find pleasure in it.

There's a skill and there's a requirement, there's effort to keep to keep a continued aspect of liking what we already have, and it's called gratitude.

I remember one day in Catherine, please forgive me, but uh there there was there was one day I was a little bit frustrated with my wife, and it wasn't because she was doing anything bad, because she never does that.

I want to make that very clear.

But I was sitting there and I noticed there was a familiarity, there was a lack of appreciation for her.

And I said, and I and I took, as Paul would say, I took my thought captive, okay?

We have to do that, we can do that, but we have to do it, it takes a lot of effort sometimes.

I took the thought captive and I said, wait a second, I said, that's she's my answer to prayer.

She's my blessing, she's my gift.

She's a woman of God.

I'm like, oh my, I'm so blessed.

Lord, thank you.

Wow.

I don't know what I was thinking.

Second Timothy three, twelve through seventeen.

Paul is talking to his spiritual son Timothy, okay?

And they don't live in easy times.

They live in times where Christians are being persecuted.

Christians are being killed and stuff.

Um Paul tells Timothy, he says, Yes, and he says, and everyone who wants to live a godly life, he didn't just say a good life.

Church, please hear me on this.

Things have happened in my life that I didn't realize was going to be part of the story.

But when it happened, I didn't, I thought something wrong, something's going wrong in my life.

There's something wrong in me.

And I look back now and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the glory of the Lord being established.

This is godliness being established in my heart.

He says, yet everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

We don't live in a world in a time where your life is being threatened in this nation.

There are people in other nations that their lives are on the line.

But we can be persecuted in how people treat us.

People can mock us, people can misrepresent us.

Our family can all of a sudden cut us off.

We can deal with, we can have issues where people don't treat us the same at work.

Maybe you don't get promotions because you have convictions for righteousness and you don't join in in all the banter.

You don't go to the bars and hang out with all there's things that you miss in life.

Paul says, listen, sometimes you're gonna suffer.

Teenagers here, sometimes you're not gonna have all the fringe, and you're not gonna be the popular one because you're gonna because you're godly.

When we get our eyes on the prize, it's like the pearl of great price.

When we see this pearl of great price, it will cause us nothing else is even worth this.

None of my grievances, none of my offenses, none of my material wealth, nothing even compares.

He says, You must remain faithful to the things you've been taught.

2 Corinthians 3, 16 through 18, it says, Then whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

If we'll just turn, if we'll position ourselves, Lord, I want to see your face.

But I'm turning to the Lord, not because I'm amazing, but because I'm realizing I'm lacking.

It says the veil is taken away.

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord.

Y'all hear that?

Lord, I want to see your face.

And as I see your face, that is going to help me reflect the glory that I'm beholding.

Worthy is the Lamb.

Worthy is the Lamb.

If you want to come to the altar, we're going to take a moment.

This is not about just getting it and trying to do a religious thing.

This is not about all of a sudden just confessing all of our problems.

This is coming and we're going to behold him this morning before we dismiss.

If you don't want to come, no pressure.

Lord, you are more precious than silver.

And Lord, you are more costly than gold.

And Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds.

And nothing I desire compares to you.

Lore you are more precious than silver.

And Lore, you are more costly than gold.

And nothing compares to you.

Better is one day in your house.

Better is one day in your courts than thousand elsewhere.

And better is one day in your courts.

Better is one day in your house.

Better is one day in your courts and thousands elsewhere.

It show me your glory.

Better is one day in your house.

Better is one day than a thousand else way.

And better is one day, and better is one day in your house.

Better is one day your courts, a thousand elsewhere.

More precious than silver, and you are more costly than gold, and lay you are more beautiful than Timens, and nothing I decide compares to you.

I feel like the Lord, there's a response to this moment.

Um I think the Lord wants to heal some hearts.

We were hitting that stuff.

You're in a situation of mistreatment.

You've been in situations of mistreatment, there's hurt there, and you just say, hey, I my heart needs healing.

Um, I would like you to come up here.

Please.

We're going to pray.

The Lord is going to minister healing to you this morning.

It can be little, it can be big, but he's going to just start healing hearts.

Come on.

Alter team, if you would please come up.

And if you're up here already, you don't have to leave.

You can stay in this moment, but let's just kind of gather around where there's openings.

Everyone coming.

Altar team, try to maneuver.

The Lord is going to touch some people this morning as He is.

I try time and time again to just be tough and will myself into godliness, but I'm going to be honest.

What is changing my life is encountering His goodness.

This is a moment where the Lord wants to be good to you.

There's hurt.

There's disappointment.

There's massive betrayals.

I hear that some of you here you went through a massive betrayal.

Spirit of God.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Holy Spirit.

Thank you, Holy Spirit.

Like maybe someone that played football, and I saw the number 43.

I don't know if that's like a number of your jersey or something.

There's a massive heartbreaking disappointment, and I think it had to do with the trajectory of your life involving football or sports, something like that.

But there's like a heartbreak.

The Lord says, I have you on my path.

And it's a guy, my son, I have you on my path.

And I'm going to mend up these broken areas, and you're going to see my fullness in your life.

Thank you, Jesus.

Is there anybody here?

You feel like I'm trying to run for the Lord, but I feel like my legs are tied together.

I just heard that.

Does that resonate with anybody here?

I'm trying to run for the Lord, but I feel like my legs are like tied together.

I try to do something and just it just fall forward.

Does that resonate with anybody?

Roman, are you worshiping or are you raising your hand to that?

Let me ask that again.

I feel like I try to run for the run towards the Lord.

I feel like I try to run for him.

Okay, thank you.

There's some more.

There's some more.

I feel like my my feet, my legs are tied together.

We're gonna pray over you.

But I need to wait.

I want to see I want to see that.

I want to see that response of faith.

I want to see that response of honesty before the Lord.

In the name of Jesus.

I'll wait a minute, I don't care.

Come on.

I've had to do this before too.

Your heart is beating, you're nervous.

Father, we just thank you, Lord, that you're severing the ties, the binds, the ropes, the thing causing that it's an awareness of like a lack of being able to move forward to run to you, Lord.

We break that off in the name of Jesus.

And we thank you, Father, that the path is being made clear, Lord.

We thank you that the feet are being unbound in the mighty name of Jesus.

We thank you that they are moving forward, Lord, that they are running the race, Father.

And we say every aspect of delay, yield to the name of Jesus.

Every aspect of destruction, every aspect of the thief trying to steal, trying to stop, and trying to oppose.

We rebuke you in the name of Jesus, and we say life and freedom in the Lord.

In the mighty name of Jesus.

This is what we're going to do.

We're going to keep ministering, but I also am aware of the time.

I will I'll I would like to go ahead and dismiss you if you would like to go.

Um, we're gonna stay in this moment up here.

The Lord is really moving.

Is that fair?

But we love you.

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Have a blessed week.

This Wednesday we have youth going on.

Please bring your children, bring your youth.

All right.