Spirit Growth Pt. 3 | 08/16/2026

It's really good to see you all.

Good.

Yeah, Bill.

Amen.

Lord, I thank you for this day, Father.

I thank you for your faithfulness.

I thank you for mercy.

I thank you for grace.

I thank you for sending your son Jesus.

Died on a cross.

You shed his blood, Lord, so that we could be redeemed, restored, made into a new creation, Lord.

And I thank you for every person here today under the sound of my voice, also watching online.

I thank you, Lord, that they're created by you, called by you, that you have plans for their life, Lord, that you love them more than any of us could possibly even fathom.

Thank you, Jesus.

We thank you, Father, that there is a thing and a work that you desire to do today in them, Lord.

So we ask, Lord, for your grace.

We ask that you'd open our ears to hear and our eyes to see what it is that you want to do, what it is you're wanting to say, Father.

And we just speak your life, your peace, your blessing, your protection, your provision over them, their family, their health, their wealth, their calling, and your plans and purposes.

In Jesus' name, everyone said, Amen, amen, amen.

Okay, so I started a it's not really been a I didn't intend it for this to be a series, but it just turned into one.

I thought I was gonna like hit all these virtues in 2 Peter chapter 1 in one message, and I was very wrong.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

I got through like one of them.

I don't know what I was that was a rookie move.

Yeah, Apostle Peter's over there saying, you know, I don't know what you're thinking.

If y'all want to, there's some slides there for the message called spiritual growth.

You can just go ahead and put that one up there.

Can I go ahead?

We have a team that came in this weekend that's been pouring into our production team and uh providing training stuff, you know, and these are some guys that we have history with.

Hunter's back there in the back.

Just go ahead and just give a little wave.

But uh thank you so much for coming in and pouring into our church.

This has been such a blessing.

And um, we've known Hunter for a long time.

Back when we were at the ramp, he's uh the one of the sound guys over at the ramp's been there forever, I feel like.

And he's a kind of a jack of all trades, got a servant's heart, just a wonderful man of God, him and his wife Allie.

Allie comes here and leads worship sometimes.

Do y'all remember Allie?

That's that's his boo-boo.

Okay.

But they just had a baby.

So uh Hunter, thank you for making it out here.

You know, how long?

When did you actually have the baby?

Has it been like two weeks, three weeks?

It's been three weeks, so yeah, so it's a lot, and we just pray grace over Allie, Lord, just reinforcements in the name of Jesus.

All right, so this is the third part of this message, and we're just gonna see.

I quit trying to plan how far I'm gonna get through this.

So let's go ahead and I'm gonna put up this verse.

This is 2 Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

We've been hitting verses 5 through 7.

Can y'all see that?

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

It says, in view of all this, make every effort to respond to God's promises, supplement your faith with a 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.

If you have not been here the last couple times we've talked about this, there's been a foundation that we've established of what Peter's talking about, okay?

Peter is not talking about earning your salvation.

Yeah, can we just go ahead and take a take a deep breath there?

Like, ah, just exhale.

The pressure's off.

This is not about earning your salvation.

Okay.

This is not about you creating godliness or making yourself more spiritual.

Go ahead and exhale.

I carry, you know, because I I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, I'm a little bit of a control freak, I'm a little bit of I have to plan to know everything that's gonna happen in my life, and I can lack peace because I've taken responsibilities upon myself that God did not call me to.

Jesus was being for real when he said, Listen, my yoke is easy and my burden is lying.

He wasn't lying.

Okay, there's things that God is doing, and Peter's saying, God has given us wonderful promises, and he has provisioned what we need to be godly.

Okay, and what we do is we're responding to what he's already done.

And this is hard.

I mean, I'll be honest, it's like it's so easy to read over this and be like, amen.

But really thinking about what does this mean and how is this applied to my life, it's like this balancing act.

You know, I feel like sometimes I get back into the works, and then all of a sudden, like I'm not doing the works, and I'm like, oh, this is faith, but I'm not doing anything.

You know, it's kind of a balancing act.

But but Peter says this, I want you to make every effort.

This is personal effort, a decision that we make ourselves.

And in the topic of spiritual growth, a lot of times what happens is we get to this place where we feel like we plateau with the Lord.

We have these seasons where we ramp up and it's like we grow in God, we have experiences, and it's amazing, but then we get into these seasons, and sometimes they're long seasons, sometimes even years, and we just feel spiritually dry and dormant.

And and a lot of times when that happens, we can be waiting on the Lord to fix it.

Yeah.

Alright, Lord, I'm just kind of waiting out life, and I need you to fix this.

You know, we cry out, Lord, rain down from heaven.

I do all that's one of my big ones.

Lord, rain down from heaven.

You know?

And Lord's like, quit sinning.

And I'm like, okay, touche.

But Peter's saying here is that there's something that we can proactively do to respond to God.

And before this verse, God actually says, is that I'm going to give you more of something as you grow.

Think of it like this: as we can put effort into responding to God, he's actually going to provide more grace and peace.

And that's what we want.

Yeah.

His help and then solidifying his peace, the foundation he desires for us to live life.

He's going to provide that.

But I would like to propose this not to scare you, but also to bring a soberness to our Christian faith.

There is an effort that we need to put into this.

And I've really struggled with this.

I'm telling you, I've been in the greasy grace camp for many years.

And any message like this, I would be like, whatever, Pharisee, you know.

But I will say this that when I was living in the freedom, everything's grace, you don't have to do anything.

I'm going to tell you something.

I didn't experience the life of Christ.

I had a deceived, counterfeit, temporary peace.

I didn't have real spiritual fruit, okay?

When I've actually applied this, as my maturity and understanding, Lord, and even taking the hard things as I've accepted the hard things, I'm finding more life.

I'm actually having peace.

It's real.

I'm having legitimate joy.

I'm having fruit.

Not because I'm amazing, but God is responding because there's effort being put in there.

Amen.

God is never withholding from us.

That is a lie of the serpent.

That is the original lie.

And we can get into seasons of I feel spiritually dry.

And we can look at God and have this thought because the enemy loves us.

He wants to plant a seed of doubt.

Lord, you are withholding something from me.

And all of a sudden we'll get we'll get offended at God.

We won't say it out loud, but in our heart we'll deal with it.

Lord, why have you mistreated me?

Why didn't you provide for me the way I wanted?

Why wasn't there breakthrough?

Why didn't this situation get better?

Why do I have not peace?

Why do I have joy?

I read your Bible all the time.

Why don't I live it?

Why don't I experience it?

We start to blame God.

Peter's saying that there's effort.

And so we've been going through this to diagnose ourselves.

And what's beautiful about this is that go as we go through this, it's not about just getting everything perfect, it's about allowing God to identify stuff in us and expose it through his word, through his spirit, expose what is wrong.

And when we can't fix it, we bring it to him.

Does that make sense?

That's been so freeing for me because I am naturally a person that I need to fix it myself.

And I just I'll run myself ragged, I'll get burnt out, my joy, no peace, and I'm really trying, but I don't have what it takes to be godly.

I don't have what it takes to do this, and I have tried and tried and tried.

Where I'm finding life is is just admitting that to the Lord.

And I think He really likes that.

It's like the whole point is like, duh, you don't.

The Bible says God knows our weaknesses.

I try to put on a brave face in my prayer life.

I'm like, but the Lord knows, David, you're wretched, you're weak, you're fearful, but you're coming over me praying like you're Superman.

I know you're not.

You know what I'm saying?

Lord, I thank you for your faithfulness.

Inside, I'm like, oh my gosh, the sky's falling.

But I'm like, Lord, you are so faithful.

And the Lord's like, stop posing, David.

So now I'm like, Lord, I I'm I'm I don't I'm having a hard time trusting you.

I'm having a hard time, Lord.

I I don't fully desire you the way I need you.

Something's wrong.

Please fix me.

Please help me.

Okay.

I don't love people like I should, Lord.

That's that's an issue.

I see in your word where Jesus, you know, does things that I'm not doing.

I can't do that on my own.

Amen?

Okay.

So that's the heart of it.

So we already hit faith.

If faith is a trust, it's it's a it's understanding that God is who he says he is.

His character stays the same.

He is trustworthy, that his ways for our life is the best way.

It will be hard sometimes, but it is the best way.

If you want to have your best life, motivational speaker moment.

Your best life now.

Die to yourself.

Amen.

Be encouraged.

But that's it's an understanding, Lord.

I know your way is best.

Now, this is what's interesting.

There's many things that we know is good.

We have all these things in our life.

I know that if I just did a good diet and I worked out, I'd feel much better and life would be better.

I know that's probably the best, but we can also know it's the best, but not desire it.

I can tell you how many days, like I know if I just ate healthy, that would be good for me, and I'd love, you know, I'd feel much better, but I don't desire that.

I desire pizza.

Amen.

Pizza and ice cream.

Amen.

Any flavor.

Any flavor ice cream, right?

Is there any flavor that's not those those flour-flavored ice cream.

Can I just can I just tell y'all something?

Ice cream that is the flavor of a flower does not taste good.

Like lavender?

I'm like, this tastes like a plant.

But I think chicks like that type of stuff.

I want lavender ice cream.

Give me some, no, okay, Stephanie over there.

Thank you.

She knows.

She walks in the tree.

She's like, uh uh.

Sunflower, coconut ice.

I'm like, come on, y'all.

Putting at your Starbucks.

It's like crazy.

Oh, Lord Jesus.

Write that down.

So this thing of he did, it's this idea of we can come to the Lord and say, Lord, do I actually believe in you?

One of the things of faith is actually believing God exists.

Like, you know, it's very easy.

I did this study of this area, like Noonan, Georgia.

This has been around many years, and there's been many generations, and this has been a primarily Christian area, a Christian city.

And what happens is people are raised up in different denominations.

And, you know, so your parents, your grandparents, they all went to this church, they all did this, and it's just a way of life.

And you don't have a true faith, you've just been taught to do this, and you just habitually follow everything that you've been taught to do.

Well, we always go to church, you know.

My parents, we do this, we do that, but it's not a real living relationship with God that you have.

And this is like a cancer in the church.

It's like this thing of we don't recognize there's a living God, there's a presence and a spirit of God where he desires for that spirit to be in you, for him to have communion and fellowship with you.

There's a place in the Bible multiple times that talks about how do we do how do we relate to the Trinity, okay?

It's the love of the Father, the salvation of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit.

Jesus says, I'm not going to leave you as orphans.

Jesus ascended.

Jesus is in heaven interceding, but his spirit is down here for us.

That's a living, real relationship.

It's one in the Old Testament that the prophets, they desired, they wished they could live in our day and experience that.

They didn't have that.

The presence of God was limited to God's plans and purposes and calling.

God's spirit would come upon somebody when God was going to do something, but it wasn't just ever present like that.

But we live in a time where it's ever present, where it's in us.

Amen.

So I trust that.

And since I trust that, I now desire that way.

I can know the ways the I can know God's ways the best, but I may not want to walk it.

Jesus says the road to life is narrow, and few find it.

The wide road that the world offers, the walk the wide road of our intellect, the wide road of our human desires, which that's what Peter's talking about right here.

It's a wide road.

Many take it because they're trying to get temporary satisfaction.

They're leaning on their own wisdom.

But then I desire his way.

I desire to be righteous.

I come to the Lord, I'm like, Lord, I don't really care about being righteous.

There's a problem.

This is a cancer in my life.

Then I desire his way.

Well, the next thing is I have to learn his way.

I can't just assume that I know it.

His word is there.

Written through man, but by God, authored by God.

That's challenged by atheists.

Well, listen, I'm not having an atheist pastor me.

The world is going to rebuttal that because you know why?

The devil is the ruler of this world at this time.

Of course, the world is going to combat that.

But the written word of God, God is able, if He can create all the cells and the organisms and all the intricacies if you look at creation, even with our modern technology, we can't even fathom even how complex creation is, okay?

And we struggle to think, well, how did God, you know, save which interpretations and all the books that were supposed to be kept and which ones were supposed to be kept?

Like, oh, God's not powerful enough to preserve his word through history?

Are you kidding me?

These arguments are so stupid.

If you look at the complexity of an eyeball and what it would take to actually make an eyeball, and then we question, well, how did God write scripture through a man?

I think he could handle it.

The word of God is trustworthy.

And I say, Lord, I believe you're real and I believe that's your word.

Don't take away from it, don't add to it.

And I desire it, so I'm gonna go to it and learn it.

One of the biggest problems in the church today is that we don't actually read the word.

We sit there and we pose, oh God, I want your way, kumbaya, but we don't go to the word.

You want an emotional fix, you want an emotional high, you want to come to the altar and cry, pray for me.

You're a victim before God, but you can't actually make effort to learn and read his word.

You're fine watching pornography, you're fine watching your radar movies and filling all of your time on social media.

I could look at your phones, look at your screen time, and see the countless hours that you spend on social media, and yet you do not know the word of God and you've been a Christian 10, 15, 20 years.

And you wonder why I am spiritually dry?

How come when I pray nothing happens?

Jesus says, Listen, you ask anything in my name and you'll get it.

Do you understand?

He says, anything in my under me.

That means that's anything within his will.

Anything within his way that represents him properly.

That's the secret to getting your prayers answered.

Well, how do you know his way if you haven't read it?

Devoted yourself to it.

The Lord convicted me on that.

Because I I love to think up ideas and I'd make all these ideas about God, and I wouldn't go to the Word to for to confirm it was true, and I would tell people stuff.

I was just having this moment with the Lord, and I saw this thing, and I just make up some revelation, and I didn't go to the Word to confirm it.

I had to repent of that.

It's fun to do, I get it.

But we live yielded to the Word of God.

We can make effort to do that.

No one's stopping you.

Our own self is stopping us from doing that.

Amen.

Well, David, I feel convicted from that.

Well, good.

That's the point.

I've had to repent many times for that.

Lord, I'm neglecting your word.

Lord, I'm filling my time up with stuff that I don't need to be filling my time up with.

I still do that.

I still have days where I just get caught off in just entertainment land.

And I'm like, Lord, forgive me.

I'm coming back to it.

I'm reeling myself back in.

I'm putting effort, but I'm relying on your grace.

Amen?

Okay.

I say that because I love you.

Self-control, choose his way.

Let me put this stuff up here so you can see it.

There we go.

We trust his way, we desire his way, we learn his way, and then we finally choose his way.

I can pull up my phone, I can put an address in GPS, it can show me the way, but then you gotta start driving.

Amen.

God choose his way.

We can get to the knowledge, and we can this is what we like to do, and I say we, I'm including myself in this.

We love to get to the knowledge, knowledge, and just fill ourselves up with knowledge and talk about knowledge, and everyone's got knowledge, and we don't actually apply it.

Knowledge alone will puff you up with pride.

It's the application of it.

I would rather have someone that reached through the Bible one time than applies it than someone who's read through it a thousand times and memorizes it and does not do it.

The whole point of it is for us to live it, not just blab off how much we know about it and try to win debates and try to show everyone, you know, how godly we are because I spend so much time in the Word of God.

That is a thing, especially in this religious region.

I'm not calling you religious, I'm calling the region religious.

I don't know you well enough.

But it's a thing we love to do.

I've caught myself doing that.

If you feel called to ministry, let me tell you this, young men, women, let me tell you this, and this is a thing that I've had, I have to fight this off almost on a daily basis.

When you grow in the Lord, when you grow in calling, when you start getting in the word, you're naturally going to get pride.

And you're gonna feel like you're better than others.

I know I can just pull off scripture.

You're gonna have to, you're gonna have to resist that.

You're gonna have to bring that before the Lord.

You're gonna have to humble yourself.

The word of God is not a sword for you to use against all these other people.

Amen.

It's a sword that's meant to pierce you.

Okay.

So that was the opener.

Now we're gonna get into the fun stuff.

This is where things get deep, but this is where things get really fun.

I started on this the last time I talked on this, but in endurance.

Is we we built up this thing of try of trust, desire, knowing him, seeking him, and then choosing him.

These are all four things are very they're difficult.

When we get into the choosing, that's not gonna be fun.

Okay.

When you get into laying down yourself, your desires, that's not gonna be fun.

But then it takes this one step further and endurance.

Endurance is okay, now we've got you on the right track.

Now you're putting some things into into action.

Now I want you to do this, is that I'm gonna have things now come against you, and I want you not to quit.

Self-control itself is hard enough.

Now I'm going to bring opposition against you.

And I don't want you to quit.

This is where things get intense.

This is where a lot of people fold.

We can start with a good thing.

And God takes it one step further.

I want you to remain, and I want you to stay.

When there's something good we have been established in your life, when you say yes to something, when you should get something bad out of your life, I'm getting something bad, I'm making room for the good, I'm answering a call.

It's going I uh it's like clockwork, it's going to be challenged.

And God orchestrates that.

He allows it.

And it's very profound, and there's a reason he does this because it's gonna go back and it's gonna purify our faith, the very foundation that is built up to this place where we finally said yes.

I've said yes to things for the for good things with the wrong motive.

In those seasons, he's gonna allow hard things.

Hard things can be stuffed internally and it can be externally.

I was thinking about this and I was like, okay, wait a second.

And I looked at I looked at the word endurance there and where it's used, that actual word that's used here and where it's used other places.

That's one of the ways that you can determine, you know, what certain things mean is that you look contextually, well, how is it used in other places?

If it is, okay.

There's many things that we can have that's bad in our life.

We can have many different seasons with many different types of hard things.

We can even have seasons where maybe there's nothing ex circumstantially bad, but internally there's a storm.

You ever had that?

Like, there's no reason to feel bad and awful, but you just do.

I'm like, why?

We can have storms on the inside, on the outside, we can have opposition.

Do you ever had just people come against you and you're like, why are people just coming against me?

This is odd.

A lot of times that's a marker that you're on the right path, by the way.

And there can be bad things, but here's the thing just because something is hard in your life, just because something is bad, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're in a season where God is producing endurance.

Hear this?

Because we can misdiagnostic.

Knows hard seasons and then we respond wrongly.

I'll get you uh let me let okay.

So there's a season that if something is uh hurting in my life, it's it's it's hurting.

That can be the discipline of the Lord.

Because not because he wants me to continue to do something good, it's because he's trying to get my attention to stop doing something bad.

Y'all hear this.

David says, he David says this, he goes, When I conf didn't confess my sin to you, Lord, your hand was heavy on me.

My body was wasting away.

There's times sometimes it's not praise that's going to lift the spirit of heaviness.

Sometimes that heaviness is the hand of God, and it's confession that will lift the heaviness.

Oh, I want to get heaviness off my life.

Well, go for well, is God pointing to something that He wants you to stop?

Is He pointing to something?

And so when we go into a hard season, we got to ask ourselves, okay, well, what was going on before this?

Has Holy Spirit, has the Word of God been pointing to something that I know is wrong, but I'm just trying to ignore him and I'm just trying to allow it in my life?

You following?

If that's if the answer is yes, then maybe the hard season's not God teaching you endurance.

He's not telling you just remain and stay strong.

No, he's like, no, please stop that.

But we can misdiagnose, call it endurance, and all of a sudden our endurance has actually become stubbornness to his spirit.

I've made that mistake, by the way.

God just teach me because he's so happy with me.

And he's like, no, I'm trying to get your attention, bud.

You need to get this out of your life.

Amen?

So there's lots of, there's I'm not I I don't have time to go fully go into that, but there's like many different things that hard seasons and hard things could be.

Sometimes it's mere just consequence of sin.

We and we can be forgiven.

The moment we repent, we're forgiven, but we can still have to experience the consequence.

And a lot of times when we're still experiencing the consequence, we still feel rejected even though we're already forgiven.

That's a hard one.

Sometimes it's just we live in a fallen world.

And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason why we had to why we suffered.

When you look at Job, God, uh Job, everyone's familiar with Job or the book of Job.

That was stupid.

Job goes through everything's stripped from him.

His hell, everything it's awful.

When you look at Job's life, his friends are saying, Man, this is your fault, you sinned.

His wife is like, you know, just give up.

Curse God and be done with it, you know.

Job started out doing something right, but here's the thing: Job is not aware of why this is happening.

We as the reader are aware of what happens in the courtroom of heaven.

The discussion between God and the devil.

The devil's like, well, listen, Job only honors you because you've blessed him, but you take that away and he'll curse you.

Job is doing something good.

He's honoring the Lord, okay?

Check this out.

That God allows trials to come to Job's life.

Job does not know why.

He's not aware of the conversation in heaven.

Okay?

Put yourself in his shoes.

He doesn't curse God.

There's other things he doesn't do well, but the thing that remains is I'm not going to curse the Lord.

And his friends try to make up all these reasons.

Hey, this is just happening.

And we have to be careful when we're trying to discern when people are going through hard stuff.

I'm guilty of that, by the way.

I'm just as guilty.

But this whole thing, well, this just happened because of this.

Like, please be careful and don't dabble in witchcraft.

Alright?

They're trying to do this with Job, his wife, just give up.

Job remains and he doesn't curse the Lord.

God never tells Job why all that stuff happened.

You think about that.

God never gives him a reason why.

We naturally are going to try to look for why this has been allowed to happen in my life.

That's going to be our natural desire.

But I will say this.

Through this hard season, this is what's very interesting.

Through this hard season, in verse 42, towards the end of the book, right before God's about to restore Job's life and bless him, Job says this.

He goes, Before I had only heard about you, but now I've seen you.

These seasons that are hard, and there's no reason, rhyme or reason why this is happening, and maybe you've searched yourself and there's no sin that God is pointing out, and maybe, maybe you're just not you don't understand why this is happening to me.

Sometimes what God is doing in in the mystery of his ways is that he's establishing an intimacy for you to see him.

Not for you to have a reason why, but for you to see him.

I've gone through these hard seasons and and I gave up on trying to answer the question why.

But I will say this there were seasons where things were stripped away from my life.

When my parents died, there's something, even when you're an adult, there's something where you feel less secure.

You you know what I'm talking about?

Anyone that's lost a parent, it's like all of a sudden there's no longer a covering in my life that used to be there.

You feel you feel vulnerable.

I don't have them to call anymore.

I can't just and and and the l and the and when those things happened, it put me in this place of vulnerability where I was just like, you know, who do I have?

And the Lord's like, you have me.

And all of a sudden there was more of a turning to him.

I got you.

You're my father.

You'll sustain me, you'll be there.

We can have this.

You can lose a job, and that could be your identity.

And maybe your thing shifted and you're like, Who am I without this?

And it feels like things are just being ripped away because God is pruning you so that you can see him.

These seasons of endurance can be a thing where we become we get to know the Lord better.

I want you to hear this verse in Hosea chapter 2.

Hosea 2 · chapter mention

This is this is God, and He hasn't changed, okay?

This is the same God yesterday, the same God today.

Listen to what God says.

It's beautiful.

Hosea 2, 14 through 16, he says, But then I will win her back.

Her being his people.

He's the groom or the bride.

You know, God pursues us.

He says, I'm gonna win her back.

We think that God's abandoned us in your hard season of rebellion, in your greatest sins, you think God's rebanding you.

Maybe you're that one sheep that the shepherd's coming after.

Maybe you're that great love that he's coming to rescue.

But then I will win her back once again, and I will I will lead her.

I will lead her into the desert.

You've been in the desert season, and I will speak tenderly to her there.

I get in these seasons and I think God you're just raining down fire because you're mad at me.

He says, I've led you to this and allowed this because I'm showing you my tender voice.

We come before the Lord and like, Lord, I just I've just messed up and this is why this storm is happening.

He says, No, I'm showing you my tenderness.

I'm winning you back.

I'm stripping things away, things that you've relied on, you put your faith in.

I don't want your faith in that, I want your faith in me.

And and if I have to, I'll strip away other things.

But when you come to me and find me, you'll be truly fulfilled.

And then he says, I will return her vineyards to her and transform the valley of trouble into a gateway of hope.

Thank you, Lord.

He pulls us into the desert to re-establish the connection, and then he restores us.

All the stuff was stripped away from Job, but Job had heard about God, but now he'd seen him, and then God restores him.

This bridge of endurance, it's not that you're gonna be perfect through the storm, but you're gonna keep going after him.

When I've gone through seasons of endurance, it has been ugly and messy.

But there was one thing, if I could just say this, the one thing that I feel like I did right is I just kept my eyes on him.

Lord, please help me.

Please forgive me.

I trust you, you're my hope.

Please help me.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

His heart is so is so big.

His love is so big.

We think we know love.

You're never gonna be able to experience the magnitude of his love on this side of eternity.

The very creatures that surround his throne and surround his throne even before the world began.

They look at him and it's a it's a fresh perspective every time.

Holy, holy.

They've been doing thousands of years.

Holy, holy, and we think in our short little lifespan that we can know the full love of God.

Thank you, Doctor.

Doctor said no.

In case you were wondering.

Not Brian Johnson.

Jesus tells him Simon Simon.

Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.

Look at the details of this.

I never noticed this.

Simon Simon, Satan has asked to sift each of you like wheat.

I looked at this thing of sifting.

It's where you would take wheat and you're trying to separate like the impurities from it, and you'd put in this thing and you'd shake it.

Simon, Satan has asked to shake your world.

But I want you to look at what Jesus prays.

He says, I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail.

He did not pray that Simon would be protected from the sifting.

And I mean, if I was in that moment, I would be like, Jesus, can you not fix that prayer a little bit?

Ask that the sifting won't happen.

I don't have to go through that.

I love you.

He says, No, I'm gonna allow Satan to come and shake your world.

He's gonna rock your world a little bit.

He's gonna rock your perspectives.

Everything that you think you know, maybe you're not gonna know in the moment.

But look at what Jesus says.

I want you to hear the heart of this because God knows us.

God knows the future, okay?

He says, I pray that your faith won't fail.

And look at what Jesus says.

So when you have repented, he's not saying if.

What he's saying, he's saying, Peter, I'm already expecting you to fail.

But your faith is gonna be is gonna call you back to repentance.

Judas didn't have that.

Judas failed massively.

He could have repented, he didn't.

Satan, Satan entered his heart.

He says, But Peter, when you fail, when you repent, oof.

You know, God calls me into seasons sometimes.

He goes, David, I know you're gonna fail.

But I'm praying that your faith won't fail.

The righteous man may fall seven times, but what makes him righteous is that he keeps getting up.

It's not that he's perfect and got life figured out, it's that when he messes up, he keeps getting up.

Lord, I'm still going.

I'm trusting in your grace.

I'm trusting in the blood of Jesus that washes me and cleanses me white as snow.

I am a new creation created for good works.

That's my hope.

That's that's my trust.

When you've repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers.

That's young Peter.

He gets a little sifted.

But Jesus does not abandon him.

Jesus comes back from the dead, Jesus goes to the shore side where they're fishing, making him breakfast.

That's the God we serve.

The devil wants you to think that God's rejected you.

The devil wants you to think, oh, he's still mad at you.

He's not answering your prayers because of what you did 20 years ago.

You're just not at the same level, you know, as the other bishops and pastors, so he's not really gonna hear your prayers.

When he forgives you, he remembers your sins no more.

Do you know that Paul is defining what love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13, 4?

And he says, love keeps no record of wrongs.

It wouldn't make sense for love itself to keep a record of wrongs, would it?

When we come and confess, when we repent, we keep the record.

He opens the prison cell door, but we decide to remain in the prison.

And he's like, Walk out.

Walk out, be free.

And so then we have mature Peter later writing says since then since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had and be ready to suffer too.

It's so extreme.

But I will say this when we can get it in ourselves that Christianity is not just a everything's gonna be fine and amazing the rest of my life, everything's gonna feel good, nothing hard is ever gonna happen.

If we can get that out of our system, detoxify of that, and recognize in the suffering is the beauty.

This is what I didn't like.

I found it, I found this to be true, not because I willed it, but because God put me through it, and I realized in the hardship I've gotten to where I don't just know about him, I've seen him.

My intimacy with him is closer than it ever was before.

And when we're choosing his will over ours, it's gonna hurt.

It's gonna physically hurt, it's gonna emotionally hurt.

It's good.

If you can go ahead, we'll turn on the instrumental.

Can I read this again, what Peter writes?

Peter following Jesus, it was all about personal enjoyment and fulfillment when he first follows Jesus.

But Peter that has matured and he's been through the hardship, he's learned some stuff, he starts to talk about this thing of suffering.

And it's not a popular message, but I will say this.

If we can just accept this, Lord, I'm going to choose you, and I can accept sometimes this is gonna be hard.

Sometimes loving your spouse can be hard.

And it and sometimes them loving you can be hard.

Sometimes forgiveness can be hard.

When you've been betrayed, forgiving them can feel like you're dying to yourself, and that's a good thing.

Because you're starting to connect with the heart of God.

Jesus, he's the same guy that when we're they've nailed him to the cross, he's pleading to God for them.

Please forgive them.

That's what I want to have.

That's beyond myself.

And that's what Christ wants in us.

I feel led from the Holy Spirit to say this.

Some of you are walking in forgiveness, and the Lord says you're doing a really good job, but you still struggle because you feel like you've been taken advantage of.

There's something not restored to you, and the Lord wants to encourage you.

You've there's people here, and you're operating in great forgiveness and mercy.

But you it's the thing of a debt, and it's hard because you feel like so much has been ripped away from you.

And the Lord says, what you're doing is beautiful in my sight, and I'm going to be the one to restore.

This is not something for them to restore.

The Lord says, I'm going to restore.

Your heart and your forgiveness is beautiful in my sight, and I am healing the wound.

Lord, I pray, Father, for people here that have experienced betrayal and heartbreak, and they're walking out forgiveness so faithfully.

They're going through seasons that are hard, these seasons of trauma, these seasons of pain.

Holy Spirit, I ask that you will meet them, Lord, in this desert season and speak tenderly to them.

I see you restore their vineyards, Father.

Holy Spirit, he's here.

For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.

You won't spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God.

Pain detoxes us for sin.

Lord, I thank you for every person here.

Lord, I thank you that you want to speak to the people here, Father, that carry failure over them like a heavy burden.

The idea of being godly and doing this right is impossible for you.

And that's the way you see it.

This is just too hard.

It's too impossible.

Nothing, I can't connect to any of this.

The Lord says, I'm going to meet you.

I'm gonna pull you in.

I'm going to lead you.

It's almost like Peter when he tries to step out of the boat but he sinks.

Jesus doesn't let him drown, he pulls him up.

He just asks him, Why didn't you have faith?

Peter's faith grows.

It's not a failure.

We break off failure right now, a failure mindset.

We break off a failure mindset in the name of Jesus.

I saw this thing.

If you have pain in your side, like around your rib cage, pain of any kind, will you please raise your hand?

There's one.

Is your hand up back there?

Okay.

There's one right here.

Alright.

Let's lay hands on the people.

Leave your hand up, please.

We're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna pray healing over them.

Lord, I thank you that you're a healer.

I thank you by your stripes, Lord, we are healed.

We just speak healing over their bodies right now.

We come into agreement and we call all that pain in their sides to be gone, and also the cause of the pain to be healed.

Whatever the source of the pain is, let it be completely healed.

In the mighty name of Jesus.

Um it can be loss of hearing, pressure in your ears, um, issues with balance.

Apparently, balance like can also have to do with your ears.

I want you to start raising your hand if any of this connects with you.

We have one back here, problems with the ears, hearing, pressure, even headaches, sinuses, balance issues, ringing, like you.

I don't know if there's someone here, you get there's one right here.

There's like you get ringing in your ears a lot.

Like, and I know it happens to some of the perfect, you get a lot.

Raise your hand, please.

We have some over here.

If y'all could come around um up here as well.

God could heal them without anyone praying over them, but God loves the unity and he loves the body caring for one another.

And I believe that it provides a medium for his spirit to go through.

Lord, we speak healing over the ears in the mighty name of Jesus.

We call that pain, that pressure, that misalignment, balance issues, Lord, any lack of to be completely restored and healed.

We thank you, Father, that you are the healer, that you are able, that you are willing.

We speak life over them right now in the name of Jesus.

We thank you that you are the God that's able to open the womb, Father, and we speak life over their marriage.

We say life come forth in the name of Jesus.

Whatever is stopping them, whatever is blocking them.

We rebuke you and bind you up right now and say, get off of them and their marriage, Father.

We thank you for their children that are coming in the mighty name of Jesus.

Go ahead and take the hand of your spouse.

If they're here.

If they're not here, you can just grab an imaginary hand.

Do it in the Spirit.

Father, I thank you for revival that's coming over marriages, Father.

It's not even like it's bad marriages, and sometimes we've had issues and major issues.

But Lord, I thank you that you're bringing revival and life and healing over marriages, Father, where they're going to be abundant and full of life, Lord.

I thank you, Lord, that you're depositing your heart into every husband, Lord, to be the Christ's image to his wife, Father, to be willing to lay down his life, to serve her, to love her, to be tender to her, Lord.

And I thank you, Father, that you're breathing your life and your heart, Lord, into every wife towards her husband, Lord, where she's going to love him, Father.

She's going to respect and honor him, Lord.

She's going to meet the needs that he has, Lord, and he's going to meet the needs that she has, Father.

There's going to be lives laid down for one another.

And we even just speak supernatural healing, God, where healing is needed.

Where words have been said, things have been done, Lord, that have created deep wounds, Father.

You're the God that's able to heal deep wounds.

And we bind up every plan of the enemy.

We say, get off of marriages in the name of Jesus.

Amen, amen, amen, amen.

Oh, thank you for reminding me of that.

So we're getting back to Wednesday nights, and the Lord has put it on our hearts to really start hitting marriage and family.

So Dr.

Randy and Miss Kim are going to be leading a we're calling, it's not a class, but it's like a group discussion to if you if this is an area that you would like to grow in, you would like to learn what does the Bible say, what is the biblical pattern and image, and even talk through these things and even minister to one another pertaining to marriage and family, then that's gonna start.

Is it the second or fourth, second and fourth weeks of the month?

So is it coming up this Wednesday?

This Wednesday will be the first one.

So if you want to come uh do that, please come.

And now is there a sign up for that, Miss Jenny?

Yeah, there's a sign-up online if you want to register for that, just so we can get like a head count and make sure we have ample room.

Yeah, if couples could come, that would be awesome.

Oh yeah, that's really good.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

So we had uh the Johnson's little girl in here.

I don't know if Micah, if you heard her say it, she prophesied that God was going to heal people's legs.

But what was amazing, it was a twofold um prophecy.

It was about God healing the physical, but also the spiritual, where you've been wounded and it's hurt your walk.

A lot of times walk is used to talk about our lives.

You're not able to go forward.

So if there's leg if there's leg issues physically, please raise your hands.

I know we have some, there's been some knee issues, knee surgeries.

Even Mark Falk, we're gonna pray for you.

He just had a knee replacement surgery.

But go ahead and lift your hands up.

We're gonna surround and just declare the healing of God over them.

Father, we thank you that you're able to heal the physical legs, Lord.

But I thank you also for the people here, Lord, that their walk has been wounded and that you're restoring strength to continue moving forward, Father.

We say no more paralysis, Lord.

We say get up, up, get up, that you're healed, take up your mat and walk and move forward in the mighty name of Jesus.

We thank you, Lord, that you are the healer of the legs.

I even thank you, Lord.

Um it's I just hear like two Monica and Jessica.

I heard that those names, if there's someone watching online, Monica and Jessica, that the Lord is healing your legs.

I thought I even saw there was some injury of a volleyball injury or something like that, and you just had pain for years.

I speak healing right now in the name of Jesus over it's not just your knee, it's all the way up like your thigh.

There's pain.

We speak healing right now in the name of Jesus over that.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Father.

Isn't God good?

Thank you for hanging with me a little bit.

Um, so listen, this is what we have um going on.

This is a really special day, and I want you to please uh tune into this.

Uh we didn't get a chance to get there.

I had this whole plan to get to what Peter talks about with brotherly affection, but one of the think of it like the stepping stones, one of the calls of God is brotherly affection, and it's love for the church.

And the idea behind this is that when as Christians, that God desires for us to actually have a familial devotion and care and affection for other brothers and sisters in Christ.

That it no longer is just you and your family, personal blood family against the world.

It's now you've become opened up and expanded, and you have this huge family that is the body of believers, and God desires the same devotion.

And I just want to tickle your ear real quick with this, okay?

In Acts 2, when the Spirit, when the Spirit pours out, and we see the first characteristics of the church.

What does the church look like where God and the Spirit of God is infused into people?

What does that look like?

It says all the believers devoted, everyone say devoted, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

We all know that.

For us today, that's our Bibles.

Okay, they didn't have the New Testament yet, it was still being taught, but they devoted themselves to it and to fellowship.

I want you to catch this part.

I want to say fellowship.

Hebrews says, don't neglect coming together.

Okay.

This early church, they would get together every day.

But for them, it was a priority, and I want you to hear this is that we live in a we live in a nation and we live at a time where people have been stripped away when it comes to community.

We become independent, we live in our media bubbles, our home, even like everything shipped to our house.

Our world has created a hard obstacle against the very heart of the church, and that is community.

And so part of God bringing revival even to this church is God is forming a spiritual family where you're not just, hey brother, nice to know you, but no, you're my brother, you're my sister.

There's a devotion and affection for you.

Amen.

So when we come to church, we can feel disconnected.

And one of the reasons we're disconnected, if y'all can just hear me and receive this, is because we're not putting effort.

We're waiting for the church to like, I'm waiting for Pastor, you know, to have me over his house every day.

I'm waiting for this, I'm waiting for this.

And we don't make any effort to plug in.

Pastor P said, he'll have everybody over every day.

He'll make hot dogs, chili dogs, anything you want.

But sometimes it's a lack of us actually plugging in.

Okay?

Now the church is supposed to be hospitable.

Amen, amen to that.

I understand that.

But sometimes we gotta say yes.

We have signups for life groups.

Life groups is as Kat as Pastor Catherine was saying, this is a place where you get to know your brothers and sisters.

This is a place where you get to form those relationships.

Okay?

Can I can I take one more minute?

I want to read a hard verse to you, but I want you to understand this is the Bible.

Do you want it?

You ready for this?

Okay.

You ask for it.

Matthew 12, 46.

Jesus was speaking to the crowd, and his mother and brother stood outside.

This is his blood, mother and brother.

They stood outside asking to speak to him, and someone told Jesus, Your mother and brothers are standing outside and they want to speak to you.

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

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.

I'm not telling you to abandon your blood family.

What I'm saying is that God desires for your church family for there to be in a devotion and affection for them.

Not these shallow, let me shake your hand for a minute on Sunday and never see you again.

Maybe if I come to church twice a month, I only see them.

No, a devotion.

The acts church, they were devoted to one another.

And we saw God add to the church daily.

I would ask you, if you're not in a life group and you've been coming here as a member or regular tender, I would ask you to take that step of faith, make every effort to respond and get into a life group.

And so this is what's really cool.

Joey and Chelsea and uh Chelsea Burns, um, they don't like to be like in the spotlight, so I'm not gonna embarrass them.

Um they have a heart for this, they have a life group, but they have a heart for community and they have a gifting for this.

And we also have Dr.

Randy, who is a pastoral oversight of our life groups.

But they have they they they have felt called and they're stepping in to help with the logistics and even building life groups because they want to see community happen where you belong.

Amen.

So please come back here, sign up, get to talk to people, find out about our life groups.

We love you all.

Thank you for sticking with me.

Have a good week in the name of Jesus.