Activate Spirit Growth Pt. 1 | 07/26/2026

We're going to dive right in.

We're going to go into 2 Peter.

And this is a feeding back a little bit, guys, if y'all can get that, please.

And thank you so much.

Second Peter 1, and we're going to start at verse 1.

Let me go ahead and put this up here for you.

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

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

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

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

That verse 2, let's just read that again real quick.

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

Second Peter is Peter's last writings, okay?

Many believe that Peter probably was martyred around AD 64.

So this would have been, you can help me with my math, around 30 years after Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection.

Okay, so Peter's more of an older man.

He's martyred in Rome around AD 64.

Now, this book believes, you know, they know that Peter wrote this, but also Peter had an assistant, John Mark, who actually wrote the Gospel of Mark.

So this was like Peter wasn't necessarily like a wordsmith, you know.

John Mark helped him gather his thoughts.

Okay, so some believe that John may have like written this and sent this after Peter's death.

And also there's some a little bit, tidbits from the book of Jude in there as well.

Okay?

Joe Hall that's but Peter's last writings, Peter is a he is someone he he had a rough start.

And I I am actually very encouraged when I think about Peter, when I read about Peter and Jesus, Peter wasn't like, you know, what you would call a church kid.

Peter had a rough past.

Peter, you know, was probably a brawler, had a dirty mouth, liked to swear a lot, and was a fisherman.

He was just a working dude.

We think just a working country dude, tough and ran his mouth.

And what's interesting is that when he comes across Jesus, that his response to Jesus is he falls on his knees before him and says, Depart from me, I'm sinful.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting that we can even have these seasons of our life where we're just not living right, and it's we're aware of it.

Yeah, yeah.

And the encounter of the Son of God, we get into his presence and we're like, Depart from me.

I'm not even worthy.

Jesus doesn't depart from them.

Can I tell you that today?

If you if you've you've come from rough stuff, yeah, Jesus is not departing from you.

He tells him to get up.

Instead, he says, I'm gonna change you.

I'm gonna call you.

Okay.

But Peter's not like a church kid.

Now, all the Jewish guys they were raised up in church school, they had a theocracy, so when you went to public school, you were in church as well.

I'll put it that way.

Does that make sense?

But he just didn't follow the way.

But, and we have another guy, Paul.

Y'all have heard of him.

Yeah.

Right?

Okay.

Paul's the opposite.

Paul is a church kid, Pharisee, rule abider.

He tells you, he goes, Listen, I was the master at doing the whole religious thing, obeying the rules.

And so you have these two guys in the New Testament, okay, Peter and Paul, very different in their upbringing.

Okay.

And we have Paul, who's governed by the laws, okay?

That's how he's learned to relate to God, is through law abiding.

Then he encounters the resurrected Jesus.

Sometimes in our law abiding, we could be persecuting the very thing that we're meant to be living.

Okay.

That's good.

Paul comes to a revelation.

He says this, I don't even remember which book it is, but he says, My ability to obey the rules is garbage compared to knowing Christ.

Okay?

It's Pharisee.

This was like his life.

This is garbage compared to knowing Christ.

He doesn't say don't obey the rules, right?

But he's saying that the purpose of these things is dramatically different in my life.

And Paul is all of a sudden using language like follow the spirit.

Yeah, yeah.

God is alive and active, and he's living amongst you.

The veil was torn.

Follow the spirit.

It's a living, real relationship that each that you and I each have.

So it's interesting this language coming out of Paul, the rule.

Okay, now look at Peter on the other end.

Roughneck, he's not thinking about the rules.

Okay.

In the midst of Peter's ministry, Peter has this organic relationship with God, and the spirit is moving within him.

Who do people say that I am?

You are the Christ.

You didn't figure that out on your own.

That was spiritual.

Y'all catch what I'm saying.

Peter doesn't have the training, but yet he's speaking revelation.

Okay.

So what's cool is that Paul in his maturity in Christ is speaking spirit-led relationship.

But Peter, in his maturity, is gonna say something that is talking about, hey, let's follow the rules here.

My wife clapped.

Thank you.

She's very supportive of me.

Y'all catching this?

Led of the Spirit, relational God, follow his leading.

And you have Peter who started out that way, who's matured and saying, Hey, we gotta make sure that we're paying attention to the details in our maturity.

Okay?

I'm gonna show this to you.

Let's keep reading.

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

It's very easy to read and have knowledge and not obtain and actually understand what is this saying.

By his divine power, not ours, God's divine, apart from this world, not limited by the rules of this world.

God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

You know how many times I ask God, will you please give me this?

Will you please help me with this?

This is telling me I have everything I need.

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

And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us a great and precious promise.

Sorry, he has given us great and precious, precious pula.

Precious promises.

That's a tongue twister.

Precious promises, precious that's hard to say.

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

Okay, I know.

Can y'all actually read that?

Yeah, it's big enough to read.

Okay.

These are Peter's last words.

This is the man like on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Like Paul wasn't there for that.

Peter was.

He's in the inner three with Jesus.

He's a guy that, you know, Jesus is like one day, you know, my father has just shown you, revealed to you my identity, and also, you know, he's rebuked for being Satan.

And then also he's gonna want to, you know, upon that truth, I'm gonna build my church, that whole that whole rock.

People misinterpret that.

They think Peter is the rock and the first pope.

That's not what Jesus meant there.

It was a revelation that Jesus is the Christ, just FYI.

But Peter's a big deal, and there's so many things he could have said.

Think about we see such a small fraction in the Bible about what actually happened in Acts.

Such a small fraction of Jesus' ministry.

Peter's been a part of this, he's seen it.

He's been fathering the very start of the New Testament church.

There's signs, wonders, and miracles.

Peter's, like, listen, I mean, this guy one day, a few years ago, is falling at Jesus' feet.

This cussing, brawling, sinful Jew who doesn't probably actually care about God that much.

He encounters Jesus, falls at his feet.

Jesus calls him a few years later, his first Holy Spirit-filled sermon, 3,000 people get saved.

But these are his last words.

Peter, what is most important to you in the big, in the big ministry that you have?

Walking with Jesus, seeing things that we would never even be able to fathom that you've seen and encountered.

You watched him ascend.

What is important to you, Peter?

I want to talk about your ability to obey God's law.

Because I have been very impulsive in my life.

And I have been feelings driven.

When I was following Jesus, I was feelings driven.

And sometimes I got it wrong, right?

And then sometimes it was the devil working through me.

I need to take us, church, back to the Word of God.

That is going to be your foundation of life.

This is what is most important.

Let's get back to God's law and applying it because the world wants to corrupt you, and what's going to cause you to be corrupted is your human desires.

You don't have anything else, Peter?

No, like revelation about some heavens and angels or something?

No.

Let's talk about how we handle our human desires.

I mean, if I was Peter, I would be like describing everything, what it looked like when Jesus ascended.

I really want to know: did he get wings or just float?

When he walked on water, give me some details.

Were there waves?

Was he like stepping over the waves?

Like what'd that look like?

He doesn't share any of that.

Write that down.

This foundation, the the the few uh the first four four verses I just rest, he's he's setting up a foundation, okay?

And the idea of this foundation, he's gonna talk about spiritual growth.

Okay, and I want to notice a couple things from this, okay?

The first thing is that he lists three things that God has given us.

God has given us faith.

And faith is interesting because we have faith, right?

Yeah.

But it says God gave us faith.

I want us to understand what he means there by this.

Faith is the opportunity to come to God, it's the invitation.

Like if I give you an invitation to a party, you've been given an invitation, but you're not necessarily at the party until you accept it and actually come.

Does that make sense?

We've all been given a faith equally.

God has no favorites.

Doesn't matter how rich, poor, doesn't matter how crazy your past is, doesn't matter the color of your skin, doesn't matter your socio and economic level, anything like that.

Equally, we've been given an opportunity for faith.

God has given us that.

Think of that of like a foundation of life.

I know we've got some people that work with their hands.

We got some builders.

Raise your hand if you're a builder or you know about building like homes and stuff.

All right, let me get your numbers.

We got some plans and some lands.

Let's get we got people that build.

Anyone that builds, they understand it starts with the foundation.

Sometimes there's foundations that you can't build upon.

It starts with the foundation.

God has given us faith.

That's the foundation for everything.

Everyone say, everything.

Just like that.

Everything.

Yeah, good job.

Mike did the hand gesture too.

Thank you, brother.

But then this is still feeding back a little bit, but you're good.

I still love you, Josh.

Everyone give Josh a hand back there.

Listen, y'all are y'all should see what our sound guys have to do to keep up with the you know, all the stuff happening, our services.

One person, you got people running across here singing all this stuff.

Our camera people are like, We make it work.

Thank you, Jesus.

But then the second thing that he's given us is he's given us everything we need to live a godly life.

So think about this.

You have a foundation for life to build upon, a faithful foundation.

Then you have the tools that will make it make you be able to build.

Y'all follow me?

And then he says, also, God has given you promises that will enable you to escape the world's corruption.

This is what's beautiful is that the faith is the foundation, the provision of what we need to be godly, already given, is the tools.

But check this out the promises is the confidence that it'll be successful.

If I came to one of you builders with a blueprint saying, I got an idea and I want you to do it, okay?

I want to do it on this land, you would first go check is this a good foundation?

Is this solid?

Can this hold the structure?

And then, secondly, do I have the tools?

Do I have the materials?

When COVID was happening, there was a lack of materials.

A lot of people wanted to build.

They couldn't build because there weren't materials.

Do I have what I need to build?

And then finally, though, you've got to get the blueprint.

Is this possible?

If I said, hey, I want you, I want you to build a skyscraper on top of a metal pole.

They probably say, I'm not gonna do that.

Why not?

Because that won't work.

The promises of God is the confidence and the reliability that stepping into this is actually going to work.

Y'all following this?

Peter's telling us something important here.

God's not setting you up to fail, but has he called you to the impossible?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But he's giving you everything that you need.

He's giving you a solid foundation, he's giving you the tools, and he's giving you the hope and the confidence that this is not gonna be a waste of your life.

He also does something else here.

I'm gonna go back to the previous verse.

Three things were given already.

There's something else that we can be given, but we haven't yet.

You ready for this?

He says, Where is this so big?

It says, May God give you.

So when he says, May God give you, that doesn't mean it's been given.

Did y'all catch that?

There's a lot we've been given already, but there's still something yet we've been yet to be given.

May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge.

So check this out.

Grace is God's active favor and help operating in a believer's life.

When I okay, when I got saved and when I really got serious about the Lord, I'm gonna be honest, when I looked at my life, I was like, there's so much sin, there's so much stuff that's off, it seems impossible.

When I started to feel God's call, when I had desires, I want to make God happy, I look around, it was like a bunch of mountains in my life.

I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna overcome this stuff.

It's impossible.

God's grace is his favor and his help.

And so we see this all over scripture.

The power of God is working within you.

You know what I'm talking about?

God's power is working within you.

It's something that we say all the time, but what does that mean?

Does that mean that I don't do anything?

God just does it?

His power is working within me?

God's favor, God's favor is the thing that opens doors that no man can close.

God's favor is just being at the right place at the right time.

God's favor is when you're searching in a world where there's so much we could find.

It's like trying to find truth.

There's so much information.

God's favor is we just happen to find that right person or that right resource right when we need it.

It's favor.

And then peace is the is God, the God-given condition of spiritual wholeness, security, and well-being that comes from being rightly related to God through Christ.

I want you to hear this, y'all.

Everybody is looking for wholeness and fullness of life.

It doesn't matter.

Like we think, okay, if I just get rich, or if I get really popular, if I just have friends, or if I just have a quiet little life with all my bills paid and my family, that's wholeness of life.

But even as beautiful as all those things are, as wonderful as those things are, they don't bring wholeness.

We're still if I could just get a good spouse, all of a sudden I'll be complete.

You get that good spouse, and you're still not complete.

That this is the peace.

The peace is the opposite of the instability that we can have in our Christian walk.

Y'all follow me?

So check this out.

How do these two work together?

Is that grace is God's help, and peace is what is activated when he helps us.

This is very important for us to get.

Grace is God's help, but peace is the product of that help taking place in our life.

But this is what is important, and I believe this is something that Peter understood even 2,000 years ago that the church is going to know.

As much as the spiritual things are good, and I'm all about the spiritual things, signs, wonders, and miracles, all of that, give it to me, give it to me.

But here's the thing: he's saying, listen, I want you to focus on your desires.

I want you to focus on escaping this corruption of this world.

And I want you to know something.

You're gonna need help and you're gonna desire peace, but God hasn't given you that because something has to happen first.

You need to grow in your knowledge of God.

Wow.

Wow.

And knowledge here doesn't mean just book knowledge.

Knowledge includes book knowledge.

I break it down like this for myself personally, is that when you have knowledge, you have this.

You have three levels of knowledge.

First thing, the actual informational aspect, like reading a book, website, podcast, whatever it is, Bible, information.

Y'all with me?

The next step, that's just information.

And we can quote, when I was in school, I would memorize information, but I didn't understand it, but I memorized it so I could pass a test.

And I passed the test, but then later in life, they asked me, well, what was in the class?

I had no idea because I just memorized information for the sake of passing a test.

We all can have that, as Christians, we can have that with the word of God.

We can know stuff, we can quote stuff, but that's just the first step of knowledge.

The second step is understanding.

And that means I understand what this actually means, what this is saying, how does this apply to my life?

How am I supposed to use this?

That's the next step.

And then finally, we have wisdom.

Everyone say wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of the understanding from which we got the knowledge.

You can have understanding and be great, but never apply it to your life, and therefore you're not walking in wisdom.

And it says this it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Okay, let's go on to the next part.

This is where it gets fun.

This is actually the meat of the message here.

2 Peter 1, 5 through 7.

Look, can I just go ahead and tell you this?

I've really been fascinated with this little place of scripture.

These couple few verses, they've always fascinated me.

But I'm gonna be honest, I've read it so many times, and I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, I don't really know what that means, but it looks so good.

You ever done that?

I'm like, that looks amazing.

I'm sure it means something awesome.

That's how these verses have been for me.

Like, even, you know, I studied it over the last month.

So here we go together.

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

Remember what I said before about Paul, Peter?

Paul be led of the Spirit.

Okay?

We're a charismatic church.

Now, this is where charismatics, I'm gonna just be honest, I'm not saying you, I'm just saying in general, charismatics are weak a lot of times in this point because I it the the purity of the relational aspect with God and the belief of his spirit still being alive today is so beautiful.

But what it can do is is it can it can make us avoid the practicals.

Okay?

And because a lot of times the charismatic it's and again it comes from a place of purity, but the fruit of it is not necessarily pure, is that they get off track because it's all spirit, but they're not actually getting the knowledge of what actually pleases God.

Okay?

In view of all this, make every effort.

So Peter now is talking about, listen, he's been that guy, just relational, getting revelations, but now later in life, his his last letter, he's like, You're gonna have to make every effort to respond to God's promises.

Catch this, church.

The reason I'm preaching this message today because I believe the Lord wants to encourage people who feel like they're in spiritual stagnation.

What I mean by that is that we feel like we've hit a wall in our Christian walk.

We feel it feels lifeless.

We don't see fruit, we don't have desire, we're not doing the things that we should be doing, it's just not there anymore.

Maybe it used to have life on it and now it doesn't.

We feel like we're in a dry desert season.

We're lacking spiritual growth.

Like God, God says, I want to take you from glory to glory to glory.

But we've just gone from glory and then just riding on that same glory.

Okay.

I want to talk to you if you're here today, and maybe you've there maybe you've been here before and you've been in these seasons, and I and I believe the Lord wants to give you a key, a clue.

How do you break out of spiritual stagnation?

How do you activate?

Is it possible to self-activate spiritual growth?

Or is it just something that we have to sit back and wait for God to do something in his time, and while we wait, we just do nothing and we're miserable.

Is that really what it's like?

No.

This is very encouraging.

Make every effort to respond to God's promises.

Again, he said this God has given you everything you need.

Faith, the provision to be godly and promises.

You have it all.

God has already supplied it.

This is what you have to do.

You have to respond to it.

Come on.

That's right.

So I've had these I've had these seasons in my life where I'm just like, man, I just don't feel like I'm growing spiritually.

And what it can do sometimes is that it can hurt your relationship with God.

And if you feel like this is how the serpent got Eve, he got Eve by saying, Hey, God's withholding something from you.

Right?

Adam wouldn't have fallen for that.

Guys, say amen.

We're gonna have a men's becoming conference.

It's gonna be called better becoming.

We're gonna have puppets.

That was just my idea.

I don't know where that came from.

That was impulse.

We're gonna respond to God's promises, guys.

It says this.

He says, 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 affliction and brotherly affliction with the love for everyone.

Everybody said amen.

That's a mouthful, okay.

What he's doing here, this is common back in the ancient writings, okay?

He's actually it's called um so rightes.

Uh Dr.

Randy, did I pronounce that right?

I looked it up on Google how to pronounce it.

So right sorightees is a rhetoric.

He's like, I have no idea.

I'm smarter than you now.

Just kidding.

That will never happen.

So right is a rhetorical scripture where it says, okay, when you have this and then add this onto this and then this.

What that's what Peter's doing.

So he's not necessarily implying that you know you have to exactly perfect this first thing and then you can move on to the next.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

So we have this big list, and he's saying, I want you to, he wants you, goes, I want you to respond and make every effort, and he starts with this.

He starts with faith.

Okay?

He starts with faith.

God has given us a faith, but it's interesting that he's mentioning faith here.

The the word faith in verse one and verse five are not the same thing.

The verse in the the verse the yeah, the verse in wait, the word faith in verse one, sorry, I got ton tied there.

The word faith in verse one has a different meaning.

It's what's shared with people, okay?

What's shared with God, the good news.

The word faith here in verse five is talking about our commitment and our devotion and our trust to God.

Wow, wow.

Jesus comes, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to me, you know, comes to the Father but through me.

Okay, that's an invitation given to you from God.

You don't have to take it.

Right?

Yeah.

Okay.

And Paul shows us something very important.

He says, if you want to take the invitation, you have to confess that Jesus Christ is okay.

When you get saved, like, I'm jumping ahead on myself.

Let me stop there.

We're about to go into this.

I'm sorry.

Let me let me go ahead and build a foundation.

Okay, okay.

This is gonna be a foundation because we're gonna go into some of this stuff, and this is very key here.

This is a way to spiritually diagnose ourselves when we feel like we're not growing spiritually.

Did y'all follow that?

Are y'all good?

Is it hot in here?

Okay, okay, cool.

If someone's hot next to you, just blow on them.

Just kidding, don't do that.

As we go into this, I want to build like a rules, a set of rules before we try to engage these things.

Is that fair?

The first one is say, I'm not the judge.

Everyone say that, I'm not the judge.

Turn and look at your neighbor and say, You're not the judge.

Look at your spouse and say, you are not the judge.

My wife even threw this in.

I'm not the judge means what we can actually do that can cause spiritual, a spiritual like lack of growth is that we start fixating on trying to determine, am I right?

Am I right before God?

And I've done this, especially if there's things that I'm not sure, like, you know, I've been in situations, I'm like, you know what?

What I did in the moment felt right, but I'm not really sure.

And so what I do is I I exercise my virtue, my thinking, and I'm trying to think of it, and I'm like, yeah, you're definitely right.

And I come before the Lord and I'm trying to just convince God and myself I'm right.

Does that make sense?

And we're trying to play judge.

We we we expend a lot of personal virtue trying to convince ourselves of this.

So Paul says this.

He just says in 1 Corinthians 4 3, he says, As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or any human authority.

Okay.

But then he says, I don't even trust my own judgment on this point.

Yeah.

Okay.

I don't even trust my own judgment on this.

And he says, My conscience is clear, but that doesn't prove I'm right.

Y'all hear this?

We can we can have a clean conscience.

Okay, and this is sometimes what we do is we try to convince ourselves it maybe if we've sinned, but we don't want to own up that it's a sin, we just have to justify it.

We have to play, you know, merry-go-round with it.

And we have to convince ourselves, no, no, no, no, I I totally had a reason for doing that.

You know, that it was totally justified.

No, I'm good.

And we try to come before God.

And so we're not mentioning any of the junk in our life because we've convinced ourselves there's a reason for it.

Okay?

God knows my heart.

God knows my schedule, God knows the challenges I have.

I don't have time to devote myself to these little technicalities.

Lord, you know my heart, I'm fine.

And we played judge.

It's not our place.

Because our conscience can be clear.

You can call me and I can be standing in a room in a house, and you can say, David, is the house clean?

And I can look around in the room that I'm in, and maybe it looks clean.

I said, Yeah, the house is clean, but I haven't looked in the closet and I haven't seen the other rooms in the house.

I haven't got onto the crawl space.

So there's things.

This idea of conscience is only in the eye of the beholder.

Only our ability to perceive certain things are we able to actually feel justified.

But the problem is we're very limited.

We're very limited.

I can feel right.

I don't, maybe I don't have guilt.

That does not make me right in God's eyes.

So therefore, I'm not the judge.

The one who writes the law is the judge.

The one who sees all is the judge.

But we'll do this sometimes.

We'll try to play tug of war with God when it comes to authority and roles.

We come to Him, Lord, you are my Lord.

You are the one coming to judge, not me.

I'm not the judge.

Second one, I'm not the solution.

Everyone say that.

Turn to your spouse, say, I love you.

You're welcome, men.

I'm not the solution, but I have access to the solution.

This is what God means when he said, I provide it for you.

You have access to the solution.

You're not the solution.

Your good works, your charm, your strength, your stuff, your good ideas is not going to be enough to make you godly and break spiritual stagnation.

But you have access to the one that can.

Okay?

Thirdly, desire matters.

And we'll say desire.

Matters.

This is another thing.

This is what I found in my life is that I would always be paying attention to the technical, what I would call technical sins.

What are the actions?

What are the things I've said?

Is it any apparent thoughts?

Is there things that I'm entertaining in my life that has caused me not to spiritually grow?

Okay?

But here's something profound that the Lord has really been dealing with me personally.

He said, David, your desires or lack of desires also matter.

Wow.

And so what I do is when I look at the Bible and I look at the ministry of Jesus, I see myself lacking in certain things.

If I'm completely honest, I don't desire that.

I don't care about that.

But I know Jesus did, but for some reason I don't have any desire for that.

And I never bring that to the Lord.

I only pay attention.

Well, did I sin or not?

I never bring, hey, what is my desire?

Does that even matter?

Yes, it does, because Philippians tells us that God is working in us, giving us the desires and the ability to please God.

A lot of times our issues and our Christian walk and our lack of spirituality and our lack of discipline before the Lord is not because we're not able.

We've convinced ourselves we're not able because, again, we're trying to play judge.

But if I told you, hey, listen, I will give you a million dollars if you can wake up an hour early every day and read your Bible and pray for one whole hour.

Right now, that might seem foreign to you, and you've already justified yourself again because you're playing judge and saying, No, there's no way I have time to do that.

My life is too busy, I have too much responsibilities.

But if I tell you, I'll give you a million dollars if you can do it.

I bet every single one of us would find a way to get up an hour early, read our Bible, and pray, would we not?

Because our issues was not the inability, our issue was the desire.

We don't have a desire, but you get offered some money, and all of a sudden you're like Mrs.

Mr.

Discipline.

Honey, my alarm clock's going off.

I gotta get up and read my word and pray.

A lot of times what we lack is desire.

And we don't become honestly before the Lord and say, Lord, you know what?

I know your word says this, but I don't care.

I know I should care, but I don't.

And so we stay spiritually stagnant, we stay lukewarm, cycle after cycle, because we just keep trying to hide and justify ourselves before the Lord and convince ourselves that God doesn't see the problems in me.

When He does, desire matters.

Secondly, fourthly, small things matter.

Small things matter a lot of times, and this is what I do is that I uh this is what I do a lot of times, is that whenever I'm taking something on, I'm always like a go big person.

All in, go all in.

I got back into working out, okay?

Heavy weights.

It's the only way I work out.

42 now.

It's way different.

But I still went to the gym leg day.

I said, I'm gonna knock this out.

I packed on some weights on the squats, and I was like, all the way.

I was doing this, I was doing all these leg muscles.

Then I said, you know what?

I'm probably gonna do some high-intensity interval training while I'm at it, because you know what?

I'd rather just get in shape.

So I just worked out legs.

I get on the bike and I'm like, ah, you know, and that day I'm feeling pretty good.

The next day I'm sitting at home and I'm like, ah, poor wife needed help with the baby.

I was like, I can't do it.

God loves to do this thing because Jesus is a builder.

He's a carpenter, but I saw this video where they kind of got like they didn't, they fully didn't understand what builder meant, carpenter meant, but he's a builder.

He probably worked some stone.

Okay?

Jesus a builder, he used a lot of examples of building, okay?

Build your build your home on a solid foundation, okay?

Upon this rock, I'm gonna build my church, right?

Jesus a builder, he would start with small things.

Parable of the servants and the talents, right?

He rewarded the ones that took the small things seriously.

Small things in life doesn't mean they're not important.

What it means is it's not important to us.

We don't think it's consequential, we don't think it matters.

And a lot of times God's saying that little thing that you don't think matters matters.

And we're so focused on the big mountains.

I gotta climb this high mountain of God, and I'm just gonna get to these high places.

You know how you climb a mountain?

One small step at a time.

His word is a lamp unto our feet.

You know when your feet are lit up?

It said it doesn't say that his word is a lamp unto our future where we just see the full path unfold before us.

It's to our feet.

One step, there's some light.

One step, there's some light.

I've been going after God so hard, at least in my mind, this year.

Getting brutally honest with him, because here's the thing revival is coming, church.

A harvest is coming.

We're about to go after the loss.

The Lord told us earlier this year in a prophetic word, he said, hold off on outreach.

Okay?

He told us that.

And there's a reason, I'm not gonna go into that.

There's a reason he did that, but now all of a sudden he's he's starting to say, okay, we're gonna start getting them.

The harvest is ready, but now the gathers, we're gonna go start gathering them, right?

And so I'm seeing this, and also I believe Jesus is coming soon.

Not like I'm talking soon.

I'm talking probably within our lifetime.

I think my son Hayden, like, it's getting real, y'all.

Jesus is coming, and Peter's writing this because he's saying, Listen, one of God's promises that you need to not forget and you need to live from, the thing that's going to enable you to avoid the world's corruption is the promise that he says in chapter 3 that he is returning soon.

And I'm coming to God and I'm like, we gotta get real with this, we've got to do this, we've got to get revival, we gotta see miracles, all the crazy stuff needs to happen, Lord.

And so I'm coming after God, and you know what he tells me?

He goes, David, you've got an addiction to energy drinks, and I want to work on that.

What?

Revival, fire, angels, rivers, eagle spirit, not to libre.

Alright, whatever.

David, I I want to talk about your addiction to energy drinks.

Not technically sinful.

Technically, again.

Okay, Lord, what you like them a lot.

Yes, I do.

They're amazing.

But they're more than amazing for you, David.

They're a source for you.

Okay, go on.

You're dependent upon them.

And I know they're I'm not healthy, guys, okay.

I'm gonna be honest, Kathy.

Here's the thing, I didn't care.

I was drinking ghosts, I was drinking C4, and then I what's the other ones?

What's the last ones I was drinking?

Alani.

Alani.

Yeah, they were apparently healthier.

They got a vitamin B.

Oh, yeah, it's healthy, honey.

But I was drinking all of them for years, and I wasn't just taking one can, I would drink two cans.

That's right.

Two cans Sam.

Two can Dave.

I need to focus.

I'm drinking energy, and God's getting on to me this, okay?

I'm praying about the coming revivals, the loss, and all the issues.

God's talking about something small because small things matter.

And Peter's not saying, get all of this at once.

He's saying, let's start here.

And what he means by what he means by supplement, this is very interesting.

I want you to hear this.

He said, this idea of supplement, he's gonna say, supplement your faith with this.

This word he's using too in other translations it says add to.

This is what's amazing.

Actually, I need to read this to make sure I don't mess this up.

Supplement means spending one's uh what uh spending one virtue to attain a supply of the next.

Hear this.

It's deliberately invest yourself in developing Christian character.

Don't expect spiritual maturity to happen automatically.

Plan for it, pursue it, and willingly pay whatever effort it requires.

I want you to hear this.

We've all come to faith.

And we have a devotion for God and we believe in God, we believe in God's promises.

I've got faith.

And what we can do is it's saying, what are we doing with this faith?

If we thought about it like this, if faith is like faith is like a type of income, like money, what am I purchasing with faith?

I can take my faith and then I can go and pursue greatness and I can pursue success, I can pursue fame.

I want breakthrough.

My faith, I my my primary motivation of having faith is this thing.

Y'all following with this?

But Peter's saying, I want you to take your faith, and I want you to invest it in moral excellence.

I'm over here praying about, you know, third heaven fall down.

God's over here talking to me about the small things of moral excellence.

Y'all hearing this?

It's not the big revelation of the spirit-led, you know, just revival fallen, okay?

It's it's it's not as exciting.

But God's coming in and he's saying, Hey, I want to get that little thing.

Faith is not just your belief.

Faith is not just, I I know about God, I know the story, I've looked at the information, I've looked at the evidence, and I like the story of God.

It's very encouraging to me, it's very hopeful, and I want that for my life.

That's not just faith.

You know the Bible says this?

It says that many are gonna come to me.

This is in the word of God.

Many are gonna come to me and they're gonna say, Lord, Lord.

Y'all know this part, it's a scary passage, okay?

I'm not gonna read it, okay?

But it says they're gonna come to me saying, Lord, Lord.

He's gonna say, Depart from me, I don't know you.

I want you to, I want you to get this, y'all.

Faith is not just because faith isn't doesn't happen because you like Jesus and you like that story.

Yeah, yeah.

Follow me.

Faith doesn't happen because you just cry out for God, save me, and I don't want to go to hell.

Faith doesn't happen because you enjoy church, because church is so appealing to many people who are lonely, they just want good community with good people, and that's what church is, and that's what faith is.

Just come and have friends, and we can have servants, we can have fun, and we can have meals, and that's so great.

That's not faith.

Faith is a commitment to a king.

Y'all hear me?

Faith and salvation is an exchange.

Lord, your life for my life.

Here's my ways, and I'll take your ways.

Are y'all hearing me on this?

Many people think they're saved because their faith is simply for benefit, but it's not yielding to a king.

Paul says this confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Jesus Christ, when you go back to Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, he gave them rule after rule after rule after rule.

It's so boring to try to read all of those rules, but after every rule, he would say, Thus saith the Lord your God.

I'm telling you how to live, I'm telling you how to govern your life, I'm telling you how to think, I'm telling you how to be, because I am the Lord.

And we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

It's a commitment, a devotion to.

Many people think they're saved and they come to him, Lord, Lord, because they know him.

The problem is not do we know God, the problem is does God know us?

And the way that Jesus tells his disciples to get intimacy to begin to know the Lord, it's not you would think, it's not just believe for miracles, it's not tinkerbell, clap your hands, and maybe she'll live.

This is it's a real living God who says, if you want to be intimate with me, he tells his disciples this in the Gospel of John.

He says, You need to obey me.

I no longer call you slaves, I call you friends.

And why did there a difference in intimacy now?

Because you obey me.

You make every effort to live from the devotion of your faith.

Lord, I don't want to just be saved.

I'm committed to Christ the King.

It may his will be done, not mine, and I'm gonna escape the corruption of this world because I have human desires that are not according to your ways, but you're gonna teach me your ways, and I'm gonna live according to your ways, even when it hurts.

That's what my faith is for.

So it goes into faith.

Contained within that commitment is a trust and dependence upon God.

Contained within, I'm committing myself to you.

Every single one of you know what it's like to commit yourself to God and all of a sudden all hell breaks loose.

You know what that's like.

It's not a promise of a perfect life, it's not a promise of not having problems, it's not a problem, it's not a promise of never being afraid, uncertain, scared.

Your vulner your vulnerability is exposed.

It's not a promise of that.

It's a hope of glory.

The next thing he moves to is moral excellence.

Moral excellence is being of the finest character to your commitment.

This is what the Lord's been dealing with me personally about, and I'll go ahead and tell you just don't judge me, or God will judge you.

I'm just kidding.

Love you.

I I I got before the Lord, and this is what it was.

It was it was the question of David, do you desire to be holy?

Not to desire to be pretty good.

Okay?

Pretty good guy.

There's things I do well.

You can ask my wife.

He's a good man.

Thank you for agreeing with that.

I try.

But I get before the Lord.

You see, God's holy.

And he's perfect.

And I've and my conscience is clear a lot of the times.

Okay?

But I get before this holy God, and all of a sudden stuff starts to show.

I get into the fire of God, and like this gold, like this metal that has impurities, when the heat comes, it exposes the impurities.

You know what I'm saying?

God says, David, you like energy drinks too much.

They're your source.

I want you to quit.

I want you to quit energy drinks.

I know silly, stupid, but little thing.

Not a big deal, okay?

God's coming.

I want you to quit energy drinks.

So this is what I did.

I looked at this and I had a two-way road, okay?

I really enjoy them.

I enjoy the way they taste.

I would drink them up here while I'm preaching.

Y'all think, man, this guy's on fire.

Yeah, because I'm hopped up on energy drinks.

It's anointing hands.

Whatever.

But I like this.

And the Lord says, I want you to deny yourself.

Okay.

And this is what I'm finding when I'm looking at this thing with Peter is that the issue is not do I have the ability to do it.

The issue is I don't have the desire.

And the question is, as I started to diagnose, is I tried to say, why is that?

And when we are in a spiritual stagnation, we can try to say, if y'all ever done this, what is wrong with me?

You know what I'm talking about?

What's wrong?

We can misdiagnose.

I went to the doctor this week and got a physical, and there was a problem.

There was like a little mess up in the app, and I got a message the next day saying, David, you've been prescribed a medicine for lice, like head lice.

And I'm not gonna lie, for a couple seconds when I saw it, I was like, my doctor didn't even look at my head.

This man has infinite knowledge.

I called the nurse and I said, Hey, I think there was a mistake.

I got a prescription for lice.

And she was like, Do you have lice?

I said, No, that's why I'm calling.

We go to the doctor to get the right prescription, right?

To get the right diagnosis.

We can misdiagnose.

We can think our struggle is with I'm just not disciplined enough.

What if our struggle actually goes deeper than that?

What if it's not just, oh, I like discipline?

What if it's I don't lack knowledge and I understand the word of God?

What if it goes deeper?

Oh, I lack even a desire for holiness.

What if it comes down to a simple I don't trust what I'm devoted to?

When God gives a description of marriage, I don't trust that your way is best, so I'm gonna do it my way.

When God gives a description of his provider, I'm not gonna trust that I'm not gonna trust that following you is the right way, so I'm gonna do this my own way.

I don't trust that you're actually good.

I don't trust that you're faithful, I don't trust that you're ever present.

You see, a lot of these things boil down to what Peter would show is a foundation of faith.

What do I actually depend upon?

My own self-reliance, my own ability to understand, my own ability to play judge and try to tell myself that I'm right.

Wow.

Moral excellence, being of the finest character to your commitment.

1 Peter 1:16 says, For the scriptures say you must be holy because I am holy.

1 Peter 1:16

If you're wondering if God wants you to be holy, to be upright, to not have impurities in your life, the answer is yes.

That's New Testament, okay?

Can I can I go ahead?

I'm gonna close soon.

Can I go ahead and and and just mess up a primary argument against what I'm preaching in the charismatic scene?

Can I do that?

And you can use this, okay?

I have been like this before, so I know exactly the symptoms and I know exactly the thinking, I know exactly the heart.

It's not an evil heart that it comes from, okay?

It's a heart of purity, it's a relational love of God, okay?

And the idea is that I read about Jesus and I see him attack Pharisees, the religious leaders.

I don't see him really attack sinners.

I see a love for sinners, right?

But he attacks religious leaders, and I've got into my head that the Christian life is not about just rule following, it's about what I what I talked to you earlier about.

It's about just the revelational love and living spirit of God in you.

And the Holy Spirit will teach you everything you need, and the Holy Spirit will talk to you, and you've got everything you need, and it's just you and him seen in kumbaya.

And so when people would start talking about rule following, in my mind I would say, that's a religious spirit.

Follow me.

And people will talk about rule following, make every effort, take personal responsibility to do what is right, okay?

I was like, oh, there's something wrong with that.

Hear me.

And maybe this will set some of you free, I hope.

The Bible clearly says God wants you to be holy, and it says God's power is working within you.

Jesus did not attack the religious leaders because they were rule following.

Jesus did not attack him because they followed the rules.

He attacked them because they didn't follow all of the rules.

Matthew 9 tells him then go ahead, then he then he added, Go now go and learn the meaning of this scripture.

I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices, for I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who th who know they are sinners.

You've gotten really good at this area, and and I'm not telling you to stop that.

You're neglecting more of my rules.

The Christian life is not you just not reading the Bible and then all of a sudden expecting yourself to be godly.

When you don't read the Bible and you're led of the spirit, you don't know what spirit you're being led of.

And if Paul tells you, then pseudo for armor, we're in spiritual warfare, you better believe there's gonna be other spirits talking, but if you don't have the knowledge of God in you, you're not gonna be able to know.

The devil is a very convincing person.

Very good.

Okay.

This is what the Lord has been getting me personally about.

Is that on the outside, the Lord, it's like he's saying, You're a whitewashed tomb.

I'm not saying I'm evil, okay?

I'm your pastor, you can trust me, but I am human.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm a human that I've deceived myself for years thinking that I'm right because I'm trying to play judge.

And I'm ignoring the fine print of the scripture.

And I'm when I don't have desires for certain things, you can okay, I'll tell you this: it says love everybody.

I don't have a love for everybody.

I see people in need all the time, and I'm just like, whatever.

And I come to the Lord, and I'm like, there's something wrong in my heart, Lord.

I know, I know we're in church and we all gotta be like, you know, super saints, you know, and really care about people dying to go to hell.

Do we care?

Do you know how many times I've been led by the Lord to go witness to somebody and I didn't because I didn't want them to reject me?

Oh, I really care.

That's a heart issue, and I've been withholding it from God, and what's changing is I'm saying, Lord, this doesn't line up with you, but you're holy and perfect, and you provision everything I need, I and I'm getting knowledge of you, so here I am.

I need you to fix this.

Beautiful on the outside, but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity.

In Genesis chapter 6, this is what this popped out to me.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

This is before the law.

So check this out.

This is when God's gonna decide to bring a flood.

He's just over people, okay?

It says, The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.

Did you know that?

They didn't say everything they were doing.

Everything they thought or imagined was evil.

Y'all.

So as in the days of Noah.

So as in the days of Noah.

Listen, being in a church, lifting your hands during worship, all this stuff, that's not gonna be the thing where he you get before Jesus and he's gonna be like, I know you.

It's a reverential fear of the Lord.

I'm devoting myself to your ways.

And Peter, in his last moments of life, he's about to give up his life for the sake of Christ.

And this is the thing that's most important for him for the church to know.

Make every personal effort, pay the cost to respond to what God has promised you.

Pay the cost to be godly.

And I want you to take that beautiful faith, and I want you to understand that is a commitment before the Lord that you're no longer governing yourself.

And I want you to then pursue moral excellence.

I want you to pursue holiness with everything that's in you, and when you mess up, and you will turn right back to me and repent, and then keep on going.

And then as you keep on going, listen, if I want to be holy, I gotta know what holiness looks like.

So I've got to get the knowledge of God, I've got to study His Word.

This is one of the things that God convicted me on recently.

He says, David, listen, you study really well because you have to, because you have to create a sermon, you have to preach.

So, yeah, you spend hours of devotion, but you don't read my word to get fed off it personally.

I was like, Lord, that hurt my feelings.

So he started inviting me to do that.

Back to the energy drink thing, because this is important.

Write this down.

I I respond to the Lord and I get off energy, like I cut it in half and go from two to one, and I do that for a month, okay?

And then all of a sudden, the Lord says, Catherine and Hayden about to go on a ministry trip, they're gonna be out of town, and the Lord says, Okay, this is I want you to do it now.

And what and all of a sudden I'm starting to respond to him, okay?

I'm starting to recognize this is not okay.

I'm starting to accept the truth.

I'm no longer justifying it.

Well, I got, you know, I work a full-time job and I got a pastor and I got a kid, and I'm just tired all the time, so I need the energy drinks.

I stopped that.

I said, No, Lord, I'm disobeying you, and please help me.

Okay?

No repeating around the bush, okay?

Stop making excuses.

If you want to break spiritual stagnation, stop the excuses.

That's what the Lord's telling me.

Okay, Lord, this is sinful because you're telling me what telling me to do this, and I'm not doing it.

Anything outside done outside of faith is sin.

All right.

Okay, so I'm gonna do this.

He tells me to quit.

She goes out of town, I quit.

I take a couple days vacation off from work because I knew I'm gonna be moody, probably gonna have headaches.

It's a good time while her and Hayden are gone in case I'm a little grumpy pants.

I don't have to see that.

I can just stay in bed all day.

And so I did that.

Now here's the thing.

I stayed in bed all day.

I watched the chosen series because I love the chosen.

Season six, yo, we're gonna have to go out and see the movie theater together.

I'm very sad about what season six is gonna happen, but I'm still going.

You know what I'm talking about?

You know what I'm talking about?

It's the season where Jesus is gonna be crucified.

I heard the main actor say a lot of people are not wanting to go see that season, and he said, Are you gonna abandon Jesus in his time of need?

I'm going.

I'm going to the movie theater.

Who's coming?

I'm getting popcorn, and I'm getting cherry coke, I'm getting candy, uh, all of it.

You know what I'm talking about?

Twizzlers.

Focus.

Wait, what'd you say?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Submit woman.

Just kidding, I love you.

So I give up energy drinks.

Listen to this.

So two days I take off work.

Now I ate a lot of junk food, okay?

I'm not gonna lie.

I was pizza, ice cream.

When she goes out of town, I usually stock up, do all the things I'm not supposed to do when she's home.

You know, it's typical.

But I was off energy drinks.

Here's what's amazing.

And and church, I'm I'm not exaggerating this just for the sake of a message and to inspire you, okay?

I want you to really hear this.

This is the this is the real truth of what happened.

I've been asking God for more dreams.

I have spiritual dreams sometimes, but not very much.

The day that I quit energy drinks, okay?

I it's like I got flooded with dreams from God.

I'm not kidding.

I made this little step, okay?

I'm not going out and conquering the world and conquering every little issue around me.

I took one little step.

I got off energy drinks, boom, spiritual dream.

Next day, spiritual dream.

I'm like, I can barely keep up.

I'm waking up and I'm journalized down.

You know when you have a dream from God, by the way.

Next night, boom, spiritual dream.

And then Thursday night, you know, I'm like, okay, Lord, I'd really love some direction on a dream tonight.

All of a sudden, we've been praying about church buildings and all that stuff.

I have a dream about Catherine's with me, and I'm all of a sudden I'm flying over a map, and the Lord's leading me to a church building, and I walk in and I see what it looks like the very night I ask God for it.

Draw close to me, and I will draw close to you.

Deny yourself, take up your cross, give up your life, you will find it.

A lot of times the problem with our spiritual life is not because God's not answering, God's not invested, God's not faithful.

A lot of times is we're not making effort, we're making excuses.

And then Peter's wanted to tell you I want you to take your full devotion, take your full effort.

I want you to give yourself to the very faith that you're committed to and watch God show up.

Because as you do this, church, I want you to see this.

As you do this, God's going to give you more and more grace and peace as you grow.

But when you stop growing, that means you stop trying.

And I want us to be honest and real before the Lord today.

I want us to say, have we stopped trying?

Have we stopped with the things that we can do?

Do we look at things that God's pointed to as small and unimportant and we don't respond to him?

Because I'm telling you, when you respond, even respond even to the small whisper of the Lord on that little thing that maybe you don't think is a big deal, maybe it's how you talk to your spouse.

And maybe God's trying to tap you on the shoulder, but you're praying for breakthrough in all these other areas and you're not getting it.

And he's saying, Hey, I just want you, hey, can you treat your spouse a little bit nicer?

And I really want to do all that stuff, but I'm not gonna do it until I get your attention.

Wow, good, good.

Hey.

But that's not what I want to pray about.

I want to pray about revival, and I want to pray about the third heavens, and I want to pray about eagle spirits all day long.

But God's like, you know what?

Maybe your appetite, maybe your desires, maybe the way you spend your time is not pleasing to me.

Maybe I would like you to turn off social media every once in a while.

You are disconnected from life, disconnected from your family.

You're missing your killed kids grow up because all you do is you're on a phone.

You're missing this because all you're doing is entertain yourself.

You don't know my word, not because you're unable to know it, it's because you don't try to know it.

And then you get in circumstances and you think you're following God, but you have no idea what the will of God is.

You think you're being led of Holy Spirit, but you're being led of demons because you have no way to tell which is which.

What did Jesus tell his own disciples, James and John?

He says, You don't know what spirit you're of.

In the midst of their passion, their fire for God, calling down fire, they're of a demonic spirit leading them.

Peter trying to counsel Jesus, you're not gonna die.

You need to take care of yourself.

That was Satan.

Let's stand.

You guys had enough?

Are you thirsty for more?

This is me having grace on y'all.

That was just the opening.

I'm gonna finish this up eventually.

I quit energy drinks, and all of a sudden, my dream life started to explode.

It's been amazing.

And then all of a sudden, I'm gonna be honest, once another struggles I've had, and I've been asking the Lord is for self-discipline.

I'm very disciplined in certain areas, but then when it came to my health, what I eat, um, exercising, and how I spend my time, I didn't have discipline, and I justified it because I'm very busy and faithful in other areas.

I'm very faithful and devoted to this church and to the preaching of the word of God, and I use that to justify watching social media, being entertained by moves and TV every time I got free time during the um during the later parts of the day.

And the Lord started to then we got through energy drinks, and now he says, Hey, I want I want to focus on how you spend your time.

Can we do this, David, a little bit?

Can you just take this one little step?

I want you to take times where you would normally turn on the TV, where you would normally turn on that show, where you normally get on YouTube or social media.

I want you to take that time and I'd like for you to read my word.

Again, okay, I'm not just trying to conquer the world.

It's one little tweak, okay?

So I do it and I start a reading plan for myself.

Read the New Testament in in three months.

Okay.

And so I start it.

And every time, normally at the end of the day from the office, and guys, you'll and guys and ladies, you'll know what I'm talking about.

You know what you're tired at the end of the day at work?

You don't have it, you're just physically exhausted, you're mentally exhausted, you've been thinking, you've been doing stuff all day.

You just want to chill, put on a podcast, put on music, zone out, okay?

Every time I got in my car after work, there was a desire.

Go ahead right to the thing you always do.

Put on a podcast, put on an audio book, put on music.

And every time I go, I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me.

Listen to my word now.

Put on my word.

And that was the moment, listen, to choose desire or spirit.

Okay.

And so I was able, I would make that hard choice.

I'm like, ugh, okay, Lord, I'm gonna follow you.

And I put on the Bible.

So then I'm driving 50 minutes home, and not only have I completed one day of this 90-day plan, I've completed like three or four days by the time I get home.

And the moment I start listening to it, within a couple minutes, I'm into it and I'm listening and I'm eating.

It's feeding my soul.

And I get home, and all of a sudden there's more grace, even the way, because sometimes I'm a grumpy goose when I get home with my wife and I'm tired.

I can she I can be a little bit grumpy, I can be a little bit moody.

You know what I'm talking about?

You're just tired, you're just ready to relax, and all of a sudden there's more grace, and I'm being nicer, and then all of a sudden, baby goes down, and I have more grace, and I'm like cleaning the house up, and I'm helping out, and I'm like, man, this is amazing because I've been getting in the word, and I want you to understand something.

There's something supernatural happening when you take these small steps to say, hey, I don't want to do this, but I'm gonna do this.

You're gonna find grace upon grace, you're gonna find your desires changing.

In the past couple months, this is what has happened.

I've gotten off energy drinks.

This is not because I'm amazing, I've gotten off energy drinks.

Um, I read the New Testament in 30 days, and now I'm doing a Bible plan where I'm reading the whole Bible in 30 days, and I'm on day five because I decided I'm gonna spend my time better.

Just for me, by the way, and I'm not trying to be braggy, I'm talking about the grace of God that comes upon you when you finally say yes to these little things of sacrifice.

When you put your flesh on the altar, this is where it matters, and all of a sudden my diet's getting cleaned up by going on a healthy diet.

I I wanted to, but I didn't have the ability to, and all of a sudden there's a grace to do that, and then I'm working out, and even my whole spiritual countenance, my stability internally is much better.

There's much more joy because what?

I started to take these steps of make every effort.

Faith, moral excellence, the knowledge of God, devoting myself to his word, and then going into self-control.

And I'm here to tell you, church, you can do this.

Father, I thank you for this church body, Lord, and I thank you for your faithfulness.

I ask that you'll pierce them in the heart, Lord.

I pray that this revelation will give them life and breakthrough in the name of Jesus.

I ask, Father, that you'll breathe life into their spiritual walks, Lord.

I pray, God, that you would let, Lord, spark revelation of devotion within the commitment of their faith for Jesus Christ, Lord.

I pray that this would not be a patty cake game, Lord, but that this would be a hunger growing up inside of them, Lord, where they start saying yes to the small things.

And Holy Spirit, I ask right now that you begin to point out the small things in their hearts and in their life, the things that they've been entertaining, and maybe they've been avoiding, they've been ignoring, or they've been unaware of it.

Help us, Holy Spirit, and I speak the grace and the peace of God, the mercy of Christ.

We come out of agreement of shame and condemnation.

We come out, we don't want that filth.

Lord, I thank you that you called me and you called them, and it's because of you, Lord.

You are the solution, you are the God who is able to do more than we could possibly imagine.

So let faith arise in the name of Jesus.

Amen, amen, amen.

Love you, church.

Go in the grace and the peace of God, more and more grace as we grow.

Love y'all right now in Jesus' name, and we command the fire to fall, Lord.

We just pray for the wind, and we think that's a good thing.