Finding True Faith Beyond Appearances

Oh, Crossing Nation, it is so good to be with you.

I want to welcome all of our different locations, those of

you watching online and those of you who are part of the Crossing

inside. We announced this a couple weeks

back, but I want to restate it. We have every intention of

launching a location in Weaver, Iowa at the very end of this

year. We cannot wait to see what God

is going to be doing and there might be some of you across all

of our different locations who you would love to be part of

giving birth to a church. And the reason we are launching

in Weaver is because Weaver is strategically located between

two population centers that we have desired to be a part of

helping the people in those regions find what we have found

in Jesus Christ. It is located about 15 minutes

from Fort Madison and about 15 minutes from Burlington.

And to give you context, I live 15 minutes from where I am

preaching to you right now, and I'm able to make it to church

every week. And so we're thinking, hey, if

it's the same distance that Clayton drives, they can drive

it, too. And so we are starting a

location. We've already repainted the

building. We've ripped out all the stuff

that needs to be ripped out with a couple more things to go.

But we are looking for some people who would like to help

us. And you might be a person who's

going, yeah, I would love to be a part of it.

And if you take advantage of the QR code, there's a spot on there

called the Weaver Launch. We're going to leave this up for

about the next a minute and a half while I talk through ways

that you could be a part of what we believe God is doing.

One, we are looking for about 200 people.

They'll be willing to say, hey, I would like to help out on a

work day. Or I have a gift, talent and

ability that could handle some of the projects that we are

trying to facilitate at that location.

And you might be going, yeah, or you might have a kid who you

just grounded and you want them to rake leaves.

And we've got a spot for them to let us join you in the maturing

of your children. The second thing we're looking

for is we're looking for 300 people in our church who'd be

willing to make a month long commitment to helping out this

location once they launch. And that one month commitment

might be an entire month of four consecutive Sundays, or it might

be 4 or 4 Sundays over a course of a period of time.

Because we want to help this church cover every single need

that they're going to have on a weekend from Christmas all the

way to Easter. Our hope, hope is that by that

time they will be able to go to two services and that their

people would be able to work one and attend one.

And you might be going, you know what, I would love to be a part

of doing that. And you can let us know on the

QR code. And there might be some of you

who are going. I am not driving to Iowa because

Clayton is from Iowa and I don't want to meet more people like

him. And you want to stay safe and we

totally acknowledge that. But you might be going, you know

what? If somebody else is getting

ready to go, I would be willing to backfill at the location

where they serve and be a part of participating and making this

region the hardest place on planet earth to get the hell

from. And if you would like to go, you

know what? I'm not going to go, but I will

be in their place at the location that I attend

regularly. We would love to give you an

opportunity to join us as well. That being said, when I was a

10th grader in high school, I was given the chance to go to

New York City with the choir. Yep, I was in choir.

Don't hold it against me. I made choir cool.

I was in choir all right. And while we were there, we we

got a chance to go to some Broadway musicals.

We got to sing at a couple special events and we went to

the Empire State Building, we went to the Statue of Liberty,

we went to Central Park, and of course, we went to Times Square

and buy. A stroke of incredible luck.

While I was on Times Square, a guy came up to me and I found

myself in a position with the ultimate hookup.

The guy was selling Oakley sunglasses for only $20 and I

had been wanting a pair of Oakley sunglasses, but they were

just a little bit out of my financial reach.

And so I was like, this is fantastic.

So I bought some and then I went a little bit further down the

road and it was if God was blessing me on my right and on

my left because I met another guy and this guy was selling

watches. He had a whole briefcase full of

them and he had a bunch of watches inside of his trench

coat. And these were not just any

watches. This guy had Rolex watches, he

had Tag watches, he had Omegas, he had Cartiers.

I was like, I couldn't believe this.

And guess what? This guy did not realize what he

had. He had no idea because he was

selling them for an incredible price, way below retail.

And so after we got done negotiating and I got to be

honest with you, I felt bad, but I bought A tag watch off of this

guy for $50.00. And I was sitting there thinking

to myself, I could go into a watch shop.

I could sell this thing back and make all of the money back that

it cost me to go on this trip. I'm going to be rolling in

money. And so that's exactly what I

did. I went and I walked to the Tag

Hauer store and I walked in with my watch and I plopped it on the

glass and I said, listen, I would like to sell this back to

you. And the guy looked at me and

said, get out of my store. And I said, I want to sell this

to you. You can give it to me at 50% of

what it's worth. He goes, it's a fake, get out.

And I came to a harsh realization that I had just

spent $70.00 and had nothing to show for it.

Today we are in a brand new series called Counterfeit Fruit,

Establishing an Authentic Walk with Jesus.

In our walk with Jesus, it is important to differentiate

between the fruit of the Spirit and its counterfeits.

Genuine godly character is not just about outward appearances,

but about a heart that abides in God.

And I'm going to unpack abide a little bit later in the sermon.

You see, Jesus promised that when he left he would send us

the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit would produce in US

fruit. And we're told what this fruit

would look like in Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

This is what it says, but the fruit of the Spirit is Lovejoy,

peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. Why does this matter?

Well, because you and I have been given the gift of

salvation. And because of this gift of

salvation, we have access to the Holy Spirit who takes up

residence in our lives. Fruit is expected.

It is not accidental. It is expected in the life of a

believer. These characteristics that I

just walked through should be evidenced in our lives.

And Jesus takes this fruit production very seriously.

One time Jesus was walking and he saw a fig tree in the

distance and he saw that had leaves on it, and so he expected

there to be fruit. And so he walks up to the fig

tree, and he finds no figs. And then Jesus, with all of his

Jesus superpowers, was a little hangry because he thought there

would be fruit and there was no fruit.

And Jesus cursed the tree and it withered and died.

Jesus used this to symbolize what happens to people who

profess to be Christian but have no evidence of a relationship

with him. Jesus expects fruit.

Let me show you how much so he puts it this way in John 15.

Now remember John 15 is Jesus has just concluded his his final

meal with his disciples. He is praying.

He is giving him his final address before the cross.

And this is what he says in John 15 verses one through 6.

I This is Jesus in the true vine, and my Father is the

gardener. He cuts off every branch in me

that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He

prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

You are already clean because the word I have spoken to you

remain or abide in me, as I also remain in you.

No branch, no branch can bear fruit by itself.

It must remain, abide in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain abide in me and I in you, you will bear much

fruit. Apart from me, you can do

nothing. If you do not remain in me.

You're like a branch that is thrown away and Withers.

Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

4 things to notice here. One, God expects fruit.

If you have the Holy Spirit in your life, he's going how could

you not be producing fruit? And when he doesn't find fruit,

cut off. Second thing, good branches bear

good fruit and he prunes them so they become even more fruitful.

In other words, the godly scissors are coming to you.

They will either cut you off, or they will cut you and prune you

to be even more fruitful. Here's what you need to

experience. Here's what you know.

When you feel convicted over a sin, when you feel a prompting

to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone, when

you feel an urging to do something for the cause of

Christ, He's pruning you. He's inviting you into deeper

dependence in Him. Remaining and abiding is how we

produce fruit. When you abide in Christ, you

become fruitful. This is not accomplished by

human effort. You're going to have to hang

with me because this will make more sense at the end.

So the fruit that we are supposed to produce, we cannot

produce on ourselves. God produces the fruit.

We produce the fruit by remaining in Him because we have

nothing to offer apart from Him. You cannot live the Christian

life on your own power. You cannot live the Christian

life on your own strength. It is lived through the Spirit

with very real implications. And so throughout the series,

we're going to present a couple fruits of the Spirit, and we're

also going to discuss its counterfeit.

And the best way to understand a counterfeit fruit is something

that has the appearance of the fruit, but it lacks its

nutrients. And there are at least 2 main

styles or types of counterfeit fruit.

The first one is cultural fruit, and the second one is what I

call good intentioned fruit. Let me unpack them for you.

Cultural fruit is when a secular progressive tries to guilt trip

Christians into supporting their particular agenda by baptizing

it with aspects of Christianity without accounting for the whole

counsel of God's Word. So they take a Christian idea or

a Christian verse, they RIP it from its context, they divorce

it from its original meaning, and they make Jesus or the Bible

say whatever they want Jesus or the Bible to say.

And when you are done doing all of this, what you have done is

you make it seem like Jesus has always been on your side.

You've seen this the entire election.

Have you noticed that there are plenty of verses for the

Republicans and plenty of verses for the Democrats?

And what they were trying to do is they were trying to get you

to believe that Jesus is on their side.

However, look right here. Look right here.

The goal of Scripture, the purpose of the Holy Spirit, the

life of Jesus were never intended to get them on our

side. It was to get us on their side.

God is not trying to get you to let him.

Would you please let me be on your team, Clayton?

The Trinity is not going. Clayton, please, please, please,

please, please let us play kickball with you.

They are not trying to convince me to let me to let them on my

team. He has been trying to get us to

join him on his team. That is the Book of Revelation.

The Book of Revelation can be summed up like this.

God's team wins, pick a team. Don't be stupid.

That is, that is right. You're like Revelations

complicated. Nope, it's not.

God's team wins, pick a team, don't be stupid.

The goal of Christianity is not to get us to allow God onto our

side. It is for us to be shifted,

transformed, redeemed, repurposed, to be on His team.

If we would have kept going like 6 more weeks in Decisions in the

Desert, we would have walked you through all of the victories

that Joshua led the people of Israel through.

And one of the very first victories that they go through

is they've made it their way through the Jordan River.

They are in front of Jericho and they are getting ready to go

around this fortified city a whole bunch of times and blow

the trumpets. Walls are going to fall down and

Joshua is like, this is going to be a little scary.

And he is. As he's walking around, he sees

an Angel standing in front of him with a sword in his hand.

And Joshua goes, hey, are you for us or are you for our

enemies? Guess what?

The Angel said. I am commander of the Lord's

army. He's answering a completely

different question. He is saying I'm not for you,

I'm not for your enemies, I'm for God.

The question you need to ask Joshua is are you on my team?

Not am I on your team? So cultural fruit tries to get

Jesus onto your own team so that way you feel like you are in

charge and God is a supplement to your life and therefore God

is not the ruler. You're the ruler.

God's not the author of morality.

You're the author of morality. And we get to point to God and

Jesus in service of ourselves. That is a cultural counterfeit

fruit. The second counterfeit or

counterfeit fruit is the good intentioned fruit.

Hear me This does the exact same thing as the cultural fruit.

It does the exact same thing as the secular progressives, but it

does so with pure intentions. Here's what I mean.

It has a desire to live the life that God called him to, but it

doesn't allow the whole counsel of God's Word to inform or speak

into their actions. They try to live the Christian

life on their own personal power by their own strength instead of

the strength and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Cultural fruit comes from people trying to hijack Christianity

and turn it into something that it was never intended to become.

Good intention fruit comes from well meaning desires, but an

incomplete theology about God. And there are many of you who

probably are in the good intentioned counterfeit fruit

game and you are trying to navigate people who are living

in the cultural counterfeit game.

And we think that we are doing the very thing that God desires

us to do and has called us to do.

And at the exact moment, we are not at all in alignment with

God's will and purpose in our lives.

Why does this matter? If you want to know why I'm

doing this entire sermon series, it's right here.

In your effort to live the Christian life, you might be

wearing yourself out trying to do something that God never

commanded you to do. And if God never commanded you

to do it, He will not empower you to carry it out.

Must say that again, in your effort to live the Christian

life, you might be wearing yourself out trying to do

something that God never commanded you to do.

And if God never commanded you to do it, He will not empower

you to carry it out. Let's take a look at how this

shows up. And just two of the fruit of the

Spirit, love and joy. I'm going to move fast.

Here we go, love and joy. Christians are to be known for

their love. We are to love God with all of

our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and we are to love our

neighbor as ourself. Love, love, love, love, love,

love, love, love, love, love. However, over time many people

have begun to believe that love equals no boundaries, and love

without boundaries is a counterfeit fruit.

While there is nothing, hear me, nothing, off limits when it

comes to your relationship with God, there are very clear

boundaries for the love that we were supposed to have for people

and for this world. Counterfeit fruit equates love

with universal acceptance and unlimited access.

However, God who is love, and Jesus who is the ultimate

personification of love and the Holy Spirit who produces love,

are the only ones who have the authority and the right to tell

us what love is and what love is not.

You see, when you give universal acceptance, you step outside of

God's word. Look what it says in first John

1 John 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. Do not love the world or

anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love

for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world, the

lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life,

come not from the Father, but from the world.

The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will

of God lives forever. Now hear me, there is a

difference between having a love for the people of the world and

the world that God created and one thing to be a part of and

accepted by this world. By being a part of the sin in

this world, allowing the desires that war against our flesh to

interfere with our commitment to God.

Look what it says in First Corinthians chapter 13 verse 6.

1 Corinthians 13:6

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

You know what that is? That's a boundary.

Love does not delight in evil. Love rejoices in the truth.

If was, if love does not delight in evil, and if it does, and if

it rejoices in the truth, then love has boundaries.

A love with universal acceptance is not love.

It is a counterfeit fruit. A love with in with unlimited

access will turn you into an enabler.

For instance, love is doing for somebody or for someone

something that they can't do on their own.

However, enabling is doing for somebody that they could easily

do for themselves or helping them to do something that is not

good for themselves. You see, love disciplines.

The Bible tells us love speaks truth, Love empowers, love

sacrifices, but love does not accept, participate, condone,

enable sin. For instance, you've heard me

talk about this. I've tried to make it more PG

because I've always used a different illustration.

I'm like, oh, there's younger kids in here.

So here is here's what I'm saying.

If we were good friends and you were an alcoholic, I could never

drive you to the bar. I could never enable you to

participate in that behavior. But if you called me from the

bar drunk, I could always pick you up.

Now, could they use that? Could they twist that around and

be like, listen, I only got to pay for the Uber there because I

got Clayton home, right? They could definitely.

And if I found that out, I'd have to navigate it.

But there's some of us who get a couple Bible verses slapped in

our face and we feel like, well, I just got to.

I just got to be a part of this all the time.

No, no, no, no, no. There are things that I can do

because of my love for Jesus. And there are things that I

cannot do because of my love for Jesus.

For instance, some of you, you've had to help somebody out

who's in a bad spot financially. We can definitely help people

who are in a tough spot financially.

But you know what you can't do? You can't subsidized poor

financial decisions because then you just got to run your budget

and go. So how much do I have to

subsidize If you're stupid, right?

Like you're just going to keep making decisions like I got an

endless supply of cash. So at least we should both make

decisions about how we're going to spend my money for you,

right? When you get in a tough spot.

How could I not help? But if this is a consistent

behavior, there's a line. Here's why this matters.

Often times people come to faith when they fall into a hole and

hit rock bottom. A lot of people come to faith

when they hit rock bottom. Do you know why we are so

relentless and making sure that somebody's first time at our

church is as great as we can possibly be?

Because people usually don't show up for church skipping.

Oh, everything's going so great and I was bored today.

They're coming because everything is falling apart and

what happens is well meaning, good intentioned people.

We see people going through hardship and we put so many

mattresses down in the hole that they never actually hit rock

bottom. And then you finally run out of

energy and you run out of resources and you can no longer

give them what they've become accustomed to.

And so they resent you and God because you never, they never

got to fully experience the weight of their decisions and

life without him. Let's that's just love.

Let's do joy. Like, OK, whoa.

All right, here we go. So many people today have

equated joy with what psychologists would call toxic

positivity, according to Psychology Today, so that we

were using their definitions and not my own.

Toxic positivity is the act of avoiding, suppressing, or

rejecting negative emotions or experiences.

I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.

And we end up faking our emotions and putting on a happy

face and just being strong. Why?

Well, because I, I, I've found this relationship with Jesus

Christ and because of everything I have in Jesus, how could I

possibly not have these harder emotions, these edgier emotions?

And maybe you felt like somehow now that you came to faith in

Christ, you got to fake it in Christ.

And there's this pressure because since we've been made

right with him and he's put eternity in our hearts, then all

of a sudden, like we've got rainbows and butterflies just

falling out of our pockets. When we toot, it's like just a

little pocket of gold falls out. We're like, Oh my goodness,

that's fantastic. But then what happens when you

don't feel that way? What happens when you have these

other emotions that show up in your life and now you think that

unless you if you're feeling these emotions, that somehow

your baptism didn't take, that your faith is fake, that your

relationship with Jesus is rubbish.

And so instead of going all right, I'm going to figure out

my way through it. I'm going to pretend like

everything is fine so that way I can somehow maintain this

relationship with Jesus that doesn't seem to be working out.

Anyway, Hear me God does not condemn the harder emotions like

anger, sadness and grief. These emotions are a natural

part of life and the human experience, especially since we

live in a fallen world. And rightly handled, there is

nothing wrong with experiencing them.

Let me show you why I talk about good intention.

Fruit has a bad theology. All right, pay attention.

God calls us to mourn over sin in Matthew 5.

Weep over disobedience in 2nd Corinthians 7.

Fear eternal separation from God in Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Be angry at injustice in Isaiah chapter 1.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

Rather than tamp down these negative emotions, the Bible

says we are to weep with those who weep in Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

God wants us and welcomes us to be honest in our relationship

with him and our relationship with others.

It should come as no surprise to us that God knows all of our

thoughts. Like why are you?

It's like remember when you were when you have like the what?

I don't know what size kids are, but what's the side when they

like close their eyes and they think that like you can't see

them anymore. What age is that?

Like 17 I don't like I weigh. I don't know what age.

And that's somehow what we do with God.

Like somehow I'm going to fake it so that way God doesn't know

that I'm completely ticked. I can fake it in front of my

spouse. I can fake it in front of my

family. I can fake it in front of my

faith friends. And so, you know, can't see me.

But the Bible says that nothing is hidden from God.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare.

Look what it says in Psalm 139. You have searched me Lord, and

you know me. You know when I sit and when I

rise. You perceive my thoughts from

afar. You discern my going out and my

lying down. You are familiar with all my

ways before a word is on my tongue, Lord, You know it

completely. OK, let's just, let's just

loosen it up for a second. How many of you have scare

cussed in the last 12 months? OK you guys, we're going to help

you guys find a different church.

Only perfect people here, OK, before you scare cussed, God

knew it was coming. So when you're going through

emotions, do you know do you know the one person who's fully

aware of what you're going through Him.

In fact, he knew you were going to be going through it before

you went through it. If you're looking for something,

go home and memorize. I didn't put it in the sermon

because I'm just going to give you like a nugget for you to do

when you get home. Second Corinthians chapter one,

verse 3 through 4 gives a really incredible description about our

God. It calls on the God of all

comfort. And why would it matter if there

was a God who comforts unless there was a people who needed to

be comforted? And if God is a God of comfort,

that means that you are going to be going through seasons and

things and emotions that need you to be picked up and cared

for. Jerry talked about this a couple

weeks ago about limitations in the Bible.

The author was more than likely Jeremiah, who was described as

the weeping prophet. Imagine me being called the

weeping pastor. He's just just sad and angry and

crying all you're like, actually, he's getting pretty

close. It's called lamentations because

he was lamenting. He was crying, he was wailing,

he was moaning, he was sobbing. So instead of ignoring or

suppressing these emotions, pay attention.

We hold them in the context of joy.

Here's what this means. Joy is described as a sweet

perfume hitting our nose. Fellows, if you ever like your

wife is getting ready and she's been doing all the painting that

she does and then like the last thing she does.

And have you noticed guys put on Cologne like they put on

deodorant on us, right? We take it like on us, not women

because women are not frugal. Women do this.

Oh, I mean, we didn't marry you because you're smart.

We OK. They just.

I don't, I don't 7 squirts in the air and then put it on you.

OK, We put Jesus. I celebrated 15 years this week,

folks. It's a it's a miracle.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's the greatest decision she's ever made outside of her

relationship with Jesus. It's the joy is described as the

feeling after a great harvest or a great promotion.

Hold on a second, stick with me. Farmers, Have you ever had a

great harvest and things were not going good at home?

Did you experience both the joy of the harvest and the hurt at

home? That this joy is this perfume

that hits our noses? Watch with me.

Joy is keeping an eye on the on the fact that Jesus is seated on

his throne while we are seated in our circumstances.

This is what set the early church apart.

The early church was marked by joy.

Can I describe to you what the early church experienced?

Yeah, they experienced extreme persecution.

Why? Because Jesus promised that

those who follow after him will experience hardship, persecution

and pain. And at the same time, God says

you, my people will be marked by their joy.

So how do I have joy in the midst of my pain?

Because joy is the assurance that our circumstances will not

have the final word. Joy is knowing that our pain

will not have the victory. Joy is knowing that God, in his

timing, will redeem all things and reward us for our steadfast

commitment to Him in the midst of the storm.

Joy is this trust that God will eventually work all things

together for His good. So when I'm sad and I'm hurt and

I'm struggling, I can still have joy because I know that while he

hasn't redeemed it yet, He will redeem it.

And while it isn't going my way now, it doesn't have to go my

way because my way was crucified with Christ and I no longer

live, but Christ lives in me. So my will has already been

crucified. My life doesn't belong to me, it

belongs to him. I'm his chest piece.

He can move me however he wants to move me because I don't

belong to me anymore. I belong to Him.

And the Bible says that God loves me.

Send his Son to die on the cross for me, so he will redeem it in

his time. What this means is that during a

contentious election, Christians have joy because our leader

can't be impeached, assassinated, and for that

matter, he can't be elected. It means that that our diagnosis

is no match for what God has in store for us in eternity.

Why does this matter? It's because this is what the

world needs right now more than ever.

Christians need to be the light of God in this very Dark World.

We need to be set apart and different from the world in the

way that we love and the way that we live in joy.

They need to see the difference and experience the difference of

being around authentic followers of Jesus.

Counterfeit fruit leaves everyone disappointed.

It is an unbiblical burden, an unnecessary burden, and a

devastating burden to bear. However, the fruit of the Spirit

produced in us by him is powerful and effective and life

changing. So how do we produce this fruit?

By staying connected to him. The way I describe it, the way I

describe the word abide is this is going to get weird.

So just stay with me. I've talked about this before,

but it's always, it's a weird illustration.

Have you ever guys OK? A long time ago, I would take a

long hot bath. Guys shouldn't take baths.

It's just weird. Like who wants to walk into a a

room and see their husband with suds?

I mean, it's just, you know, But you know what happens when your

kids stay in a in a hot bath too long?

What do they get? Yeah, Yeah.

We, we call it pruney. I don't even know if that's the

right word, but you get pruney. Now question.

Can you make yourself pruney? Nope, there's only one way to

get pruning and that is to stay in the hot water for an

extremely long period of time. You cannot produce prunes make

me pruning. You can't do it can't.

There's only one way time in. So when you abide in Christ,

what you are doing is you are putting yourself in a position

to get a pruning faith. I'm going to abide, I'm going to

remain. I'm going to stay in His Word,

in prayer, in obedience, in community.

And when I put myself in, the Holy Spirit produces the fruit.

I cannot manufacture God honoring love.

I cannot create God honoring joy.

I cannot manifest it in my life. There is no special prayer.

Holy Spirit, give me joy now stilt it.

I can't make it. He produces it.

The only way He produces it in me is when I choose to remain in

Him. And that is why this matters is

because the world is looking for Christians.

And the only way for us to be the Christians that God called

us to be is for us to produce the fruit that this world

desperately needs. And the only way for you and I

to do that is to have a genuine, authentic walk with Christ.

We're moving to a time of decision.

To those of you in this room and to those of you watching online

who don't have an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ, you need to hear me. You cannot possess these, you

cannot experience these, you cannot distribute these until

you're in a right relationship with Jesus.

And so all the people around you are not experiencing the full

power and potential of God in their lives because it is not

flowing through you, but it can. You might be going.

There's no way God's going to put all of that in me after all

that I've done. But you need to know that that

has been his track record since the beginning of time.

There's only one perfect person he ever used, and that was his

son Jesus. But everybody else in the Bible

was as busted up and broken as you.

He has always used broken vessels to carry His Holy Spirit

into broken places. The question is not not whether

or not you're broken. The question is whether or not

you will take the broken pieces of your life and put it in His

hand so He can make you whole and He can fill you up.

And what I would call that, I would call that an intimate

personal relationship with Jesus.

And that is the heartbeat of this church because we believe

anybody at any time can start it, can have it, can experience

it, and that means it's available for you.

And so if you're here today and you've never started an

intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, please don't

put it off any longer. Right over there, in just a few

moments, when the people around you stand and sing, there's

going to be somebody over there by the baptistry who would love

a chance to talk with you to those of you who already have a

relationship with Jesus Christ. Our world does not need a fake

manufactured appearance of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

They see your Christian bumper sticker leaves, and they see

your Christian calendar and where you're at on Sundays, and

they're seeing that you're calling yourself a Christian.

And then when they show up to eat, there's no fruit.

And sometimes they feel an awful lot like me, feeling like they

just came into this great relationship with Jesus, and

they show up at the tag shop trying to sell it to realize the

prophet, only to find out that what we've passed on to them is

just more pressure of faking this life with Christ than being

honest and real about it. The people around us need to

bump into people who have truly abided in Him so they can

experience what we have experienced in Him.

There might be some of you in here.

You've been trying to live the Christian life instead of

abiding in Christ. This series, I'm going to unpack

it more in like 3 weeks, man. There's this fear I have in this

series that some of you, this will be incredibly empowering

and for others of you, this will be a huge permission slip.

But if you're here today and your walk with Christ is you're

struggling to be genuine and authentic in it, and you're

trying to live this Christian life on your own power and your

own strength, and you're trying to live this life with Christ

without abiding. Oh, impossible.

And so maybe one of the steps we could do is spend a little bit

of time at every worship moment on our knees begging God to help

us be who he created us to be in him.

Would you stand with me? Heavenly Father, your your word

describes the spirit as a wind. And so Heavenly Father, I am

asking you to blow through this place.

Blow through every one of our campuses, blow through every one

of the places where we're gathering inside.

Go through, blow through every place that is watching online.

God help us to catch the wind, catch your Spirit and God take

us to places we never would have been on our own.

In your name I pray. Amen.