Growing Up!

If you were not here when service started.

Man, the middle section's empty today feels weird, non't. I

didn't mean that to offend you. It's not like empty empty,

you know, I said earlier. This is not pink eye,

so you don't have to be afraid to be around me.

And Lisa did not punch me in the eye, so.

It actually I woke up yesterday morning my was a

little swollen, so I.

Rinsed it out with baby shampoo and put a hot

pack on it or a hot press and all that

good stuff, and then went to a wedding and was

trying to like angle for my pictures and uh, and

then woke up and it was worse.

Hallelujah. So where's Micah? Hey?

Can I get you on the keys? Were We're gonna

we're gonna do something a little different here and we'll

see how are you young man, and we will see

where this goes. I feel like we need to do

some body ministry, so.

I'm gonna spend a.

Little time getting words of knowledge, maybe some prophecy, and

then we'll go from there. Yeah, just some keys, bring

me a musician.

It's all Quietybody's like, what's going on?

I always love the silent, awkward moments in church, because

we don't have a lot of silence in church, and

so everybody's like looking at each other suspiciously.

What's what's happening? What's going on? You're good? I said

first service that now's the time of the harvest. Mm hm.

M hm.

Yall might just watch me cry all the old.

Time, then we'll say amen.

Mm hmm h who.

I don't know about y'all, but there's.

M h m m.

Such an urgency in this hour, and y'all we are shifting.

Into a whole different wine skin right now in the church.

Thank you.

M m h m hmm. All the stuff that's held

us back, all the immaturities we've allowed to come in

and bring division and discord, and.

Yeah, we've got to grow up.

Time is short. We've we've not been.

Ready for what's coming on the earth, and we've we've

got to get ready. God is moving in amazing ways

and unprecedented ways right now all over the globe. And

so many times, h we make the think about everything,

but Jesus, it should be just about him when.

You wake up.

He should be on your heart and mind, not all

this other stuff. We get so fixated and focused on

stuff that we're not going to take with us into eternity.

We get so upset.

When things don't work out the way we want them to,

not understanding that God's mercy, love, goodness and fathering is

why certain things don't happen.

When we want them to. The enemy knows time is short.

He knows there's a war in the heavenlyes right now.

Then it's intense. There's a war over this region. There's

a war over this nation. And if we are not careful,

we will end up divided in every way possible, spiritually, politically,

race everything. If the enemy gets his way, and.

Yet seeds die and go into the ground.

And fires start, Charlie Kurt gets assassinated, martyred, and all.

Of a sudden, lines outside the Bible Belt, people long,

each just to want to know them. How hungry are

you this morning?

Do you want to know them? Do you want others to?

And I think we need to ask ourselves, why is

he not moving in the Bible Belt? Why is he

not Why aren't people lined up here in this region

to go to churches like there have been in other areas.

And I understand you can't make him move, says the

wind blows where it pleases.

You can't make him move.

But we need to be asking questions because too much

is given, much is required, and we are accountable.

For all the knowledge.

If he didn't say another word of revelation to you,

it would take more than a lifetime to unpack what.

You already know about him to get it from here

to here.

Twenty five years ago, when I got the baptism of

the Holy Spirit in my quiet time and I realized

that God was way bigger than what I thought, and

I studied on revivals, I said, God, I just want

to be in one. I literally went to college with

a revival going on across the town in Pensacola, Florida,

and knew nothing about it.

I believe that God is going.

To move in the greatest ways we've not even thought

of in the days ahead. And when we planted this

church in twenty sixteen, we didn't plan a church to

play church. We didn't plan a church to add to

the hundred other churches here. I did not think God

had a good idea by asking me to pastor and

plant a church in twenty sixteen. I'm like Lord there's

a hundred churches here. Let me just equip them.

But not.

Only am I, Not only do we recognize that we're

going into a new wine skin and things are vastly changing.

There's got to be a hunger. There's got to be

a hunger, a fire inside of.

You that will not be quenched, because I promise you,

with the shakings that are coming, if you don't have

that first love, that fiery love for Jesus that cannot

be quenched, you will not make it through. There's been

a historical reversal that's recently happened, and for the first

time in decades, younger adults gen Z the millennials are

now the most regular church goers, outpacing the older generation.

Who once formed.

The backbone of the church attendance. Why does it matter.

Because without a generation that Gods moving on their heart,

we have no hope in this nation. Without and without

youth filling a church house, you have no hope for

that house. Because the youth are the next generation.

God's moving.

The wind is blowing and it will blow where it pleases,

and you don't get to tell it where to blow.

You can join in and you can Stewart the.

Dove on your shoulder, But make no mistake, it's sensitive

and it will fly away.

Wow.

I'm still in ministry today for one reason, the Lord's mercy,

and secondly, as I'm here.

To see the move of God that he said was

going to happen here.

I'm here to see this become a movement, not just

a gathering.

And it takes in a.

Company very hungry people. They won't settle for second best

in their lives. They won't settle for religion.

They don't care what other people think about their spiritual

life when they were running after Jesus. Because we're called

to be torchbearers. We're called to carry the fire of

God in this hour. We are called to the harvest.

Now's the time, it's not later. Now's the time. The

wind is blowing. God is moving and you get to

be a part of it, or you can stand idly by.

But the glory train is moving. And I just believe

that the Lord wants to heal and set people free

this morning.

I believe that repentance needs to take place.

In our hearts and areas that we have been numb to,

that we have justified that we have overlooked that we

have been calloused over because sometimes Jesus isn't plant a

he could be planned d in that aspect of your life. Listen,

this shift that's happening, this wind skin that's forming, brings

new opportunities for ministry. You've got a generation that's hungry. See,

he said he would pour out his spirit on all flesh,

and we are living in that fulfillment. It is not

fulfilled because it's fulfilled when He returns. And so there's

a crescendoing and outpouring, an increase of his spirit in

this hour. And the young people are responding. In spite

of what we have done in the last generation and

weaknesses and spiritual abuse and sexual abuse in the church

and everything under the sun, the gates of hell will

not prevail Nigeria. They're being beheaded like crazy right now Mozenbique.

For years, their pastors are losing their heads for their faith.

The Muslims are taking their heads off in front of

their children, trying to terrorize them, just like the enemy

is trying to terrorize this region.

With all the loss, but not on.

Our watch, because we have a promise that He's working

all things together for the good, and we have the

grace to give up our right to know everything, and

we can go on this journey with him and pursue

him in ways that we have never pursued him before,

and watch him move in our lives in ways we've

never even dreamed of.

But there's one way into the Kingdom, y'all, and that's

the cross that you bearing. Your cross Mercygate.

Girls, that program is not just a tea to be

crossed or an eye to be dotted. It's an opportunity

for Jesus to truly transform every one of you from

the inside out, so that you don't have to pretend

to have faith. You don't have to pretend to be different,

you don't have to pretend to be free. You can

genuinely be transformed by the power of Jesus, by his spirit.

Let him do what he's doing, Anthony, I know.

It's painful, trust him in this hour. He's got it.

Carl I saw you changing clothes, and clothes have to

do with spiritual preparedness. Not every path works out the

way you want it to. But he never changed his

mind about what he wants from you. It's you, nothing else,

and you were loved.

And seem and I'll always fight for you.

No, we have to let him change us. We've got

to grow up. Time is too short.

For us to play games and hold on to the

things that we hold on to.

Y'all, if you want to release fire, you got to

let it start in you.

There's got to be purity.

There's got to be purity with power, and we got

to be zealous for the right things. We've got to

let the fear of the Lord burn like never before,

because it's the fear of the Lord that's the beginning

of wisdom, and we have to depart from evil in

order for that to happen.

M God, I didn't ask, Lord, would you below in

this place?

Would you cause your power, your presence, your glory, Lord

to fall?

Would you awaken us from slumber? Lord? Would you knock

the callouses off our souls? Would you expand our spirits?

Three hors?

M h.

Father? Would you captivate our hearts? This morning?

Lord?

There's been way too many casualties of war. Lord, we're

giving our right to be right up.

We lay our rights.

We always know why things don't work out the way

they should at your feet.

Lord, we're here.

We give you the ashes of this last season, and

we're just simply asking for you.

Lord.

We're asking for a fresh and filling We're asking you.

Don't pass us by. Lord, So come, Holy Spirit, Come,

cause your wind to blow in this.

Room like a mighty rushing wind.

Lord, break our hearts for what breaks yours? Fell us again, Lord,

fell us again, we wait for you. There's an invitation.

I saw these massive double doors open during worship right

when she started talking about the light coming in. You know,

part of equipping that has missed a lot is that

you actually get equipped to learn.

How to study.

H m hmm.

I want to ask, and I want to ask. I

want Yeah, do you understand that I want you to

ask the Lord a question right now? Say Lord, what

is in the way of my hunger for you? Increasing m.

Some of y'all may be numb right now.

Some of you all may be going, I feel nothing,

and that's okay.

Faith isn't a feeling. But ask the Lord right now, Lord,

what's in the way?

What what's been capturing the affections of my heart besides you?

Because he likes to take idols down. So Lord, speak

to us.

Father in Jesus' name, Lord, right now, I ask Holy

Spirit capture our hearts, that there'd be the spirit of

burning Lord, that there would be old pacifiers laid at.

This altar.

That have been hindering us from our first love. And

just like you asked, Peter, do you love me more

than these? What are the these in your life? What

are the things that you've loved more than Jesus? Because

this world is looking for followers of Jesus that actually

look like Jesus in this hour. They're looking for an

authentic expression of Jesus on the earth. And that's why

you're here. This is why you've been left behind. And

when we sing Heaven Come, Heaven Come, what does that mean?

Heaven's got to advance inside of you? First?

Do you have an expectation for Heaven to show up

when you come here on Sunday morning? Are you gathering

a connect group? Are you're out and about at Walmart

or h GB or wherever?

Do you expect Heaven to flow through you?

Do you expect that when you preach that eternal Gospel,

the Good News of the Kingdom, that you see the harvest,

that you actually expect signs and wonders to follow after you?

You don't chase them, they chase you. It says, it's

the gospel that's the power of the salvation.

It's the gospel message, the good News, the eternal Gospel.

This is why we're here.

And too many times it's the last thing that's on

our lips. We will run to a conference to get

a word, but we seldom run to the loss to

give them the good news. And third John one two,

he says, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in

all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.

When's the last time you saw something of God's covenant

in your life that would make a Jew jealous?

Because we're supposed to make the Jews jealous. They're supposed

to look at.

Your life and go, wait a minute, why is this

gentile seeing all the benefits of the Covenant of God

in their life?

One Thessalonians five twenty three. Now, may the God of

Peace himself sanctify you can and may your whole spirit, soul,

and body be preserved blameless at the coming of the

Lord Jesus Christ. This is the expectation that's on our

lives to actually be transformed from the inside out.

To radiate light, to outdo each other with honor, not

try to take it from the other. When we were in.

Love of Land the last couple of days at that.

School, I was actually very shocked at the culture there

for a secular.

School, and found myself taking notes.

The guy that founded the program fifty years ago was there,

and they said of him that he would always praise

people in public and criticize them privately.

Y'all, we have lost so many battles and had too many.

Casualties of war because we have entered into the enemy's

sandbox and allowed him to set the battle lines.

And we took the bait. That has to stop.

There's one team, one body. There's one Church of Kerrville,

and I don't care about the labels. If they're preaching

the gospel. We may not agree with all the little

pet doctrines, whether you spring or immerse or things of

that nature, but if they're preaching the eternal gospel, that's

your brother and sister, and I got news for you.

We're all going to be in heaven because of one.

Thing, not because of how perfect your theology was, but

because of the blood of Jesus, the death, burial and resurrection,

and his blood speaks a better word. And the only

way this region, the only way this region heals from

the flood and from all the loss, is because of him.

We can have hundreds of millions of dollars flood into

this region, which we have had. But if the good

news isn't given to the people, and it's just temporal, earthly,

earthly recovery.

It's the church's job to take care of the poor,

look after the widow, the fatherless.

Mm hm.

Hm hm. Some some preachers sweat. I cry, m.

H what's your what?

What's your inheritance?

What are you?

What are you leaving if you were gone tomorrow? What's

your legacy? What are they going to say about you?

What are you leaving of eternal inheritance behind?

Right now? What are you building eternally? Mhm.

If you can see it with your natural eyes, you're

not taking it with you. How much time do we

spend building that which we can only physically see with

our eye? When you leave here in three and a

half hours, I hope you leave.

With a fresh.

With a fresh hunger for jeans. I don't know that

I've ever cried for a full sermon, But.

Here we go.

James five sixteen says, therefore, confess your sins to one

another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as

it's working.

Who do you got in your life?

You do that with Who's in your life that you

can go and say, hey, man, I just really messed

this up?

Would you pray with me?

Because too many times we live with a culture of concealment, deny,

and suppress and call it spirituality because deep down inside

we're terrified that if they see.

The real me, they're not going to want to be

aro mee.

And it comes from an orphaned mindset, not understanding who

you really are in Him, how valued, how loved you are.

The reality that it was the blood of Jesus that

proved your value.

You feel unworthy.

The blood speaks a better word, you know. Accountability is

not just about staying away from sin. Accountability is also

about someone holding your feet to the fire of your destiny.

Who you really are in.

Christ and who you're called to be and where you're

called to go. That is a big piece of biblical accountability.

So again, who in your life does that with you?

Who gets in your face and says, hey, that's not

who you are.

Stop it. This is who you are.

Because the Lord dealt with your sin at Calvary. Now

he's dealing with establishing the image of his son inside

of you. Now you're supposed to have a conscience that

is renewed. That is about Christ, the mind of Christ.

The old passes away. Behold, all things become new. We

quote these scriptures over and over and over, and yet

somehow we spend years stuck in immaturity and areas of

our lives and not growing. Yea all, I believe with

all my heart. The trains leaving the station. It's time,

and we have a choice. We can get on that

train and go on a journey with the Lord, or

we can just watch it go. You understand He never

begged people.

He never begged him.

He said, if you don't eat my body and drink

my blood, you have no life in you. And tons

of people left, Tons of people left, and he didn't

chase them. He looked at his disciples and said, are

you going to You ever had a friend that started

running from God and you thought you were gonna save him.

You can't run fast enough. They're not running from you.

Oh they may on the outside try to make it

your problem or make it look like you're the issue,

because that's the tactic of the evil one. But the

truth is, when somebody's running from the Lord and they're

bound and determined to keep their run and shoes on,

you can't run fast enough. But you can look through

the window upstairs with faith that they'll come back. You

can pray, and when they return, you can throw a

party that ticks off the older brother. Listen, in this hour,

we need to continue to mature in the midst of

turbulent times. We cannot get sidetracked. We got to keep

it about Jesus. We've got to keep it about the Gospel.

There is no revival, there is no awakening without the Gospel.

There's no move of God without the eternal Gospel being preached.

And every one of us.

Ought to be holding on to that message looking for

who to share it with. It should absolutely change every

aspect of our lives. There are things that have to

change in our lives. We've got to stop using God

to run from God. You can't ignore anger, sadness, and fear.

You got to deal with it.

You got to undamn your emotions. You got to stop

dying to the wrong things. We've got to stop denying

the impact of the past on our present, because your

present pain is really.

The source it always.

Lord, show me where this is coming from. And we

definitely got to stop dividing secular and sacred. Your whole

life is sacred. If you leave here and you feel

less spiritual in an hour, you don't understand your identity

in Christ.

You don't understand the proper.

Mindset that everything you do, whether you're digging ditches, unplugging

a como that somebody filled up. Hallelujah, professional pooper Scooper.

You know, regardless of what you're doing, you're doing it.

Everything is supposed to be done under the Lord. Your

entire life is sacred. We have to stop doing for

God and be with God. Stop spiritualizing away conflict. We've

got to stop covering our brokenness, our weakness, and our failures.

Means you got to let people in.

I can't tell you how many times my wife and

I have been counseled over the years by the previous

generation of leaders, of which I love and respect and honor,

But we were counseled to never let our leadership get

close to us because they.

Couldn't handle it.

Have there been people that have tried to get close

to me for a position?

You better believe it. Did it hurt?

Yeah, it hurt, feel like a prostitute. But it doesn't

change my calling, doesn't change my focus.

You got to keep believing, keep taking risks.

We've got to ease off of judging other people's spiritual journey.

Too many times we're quick to pass judgment on somebody

we don't know, never had a meal with, never prayed with,

never spent time with, and yet we're the expert of

their lives. Living in brokenness and vulnerability is the process

to wholeness.

We've got to live in the honesty, which means.

We embrace our brokenness and we're going to be honest

because every single one of us is in process. In

this moment, there's some aspect of our lives that is

not yet complete, mature, that looks exactly like Jesus.

In fact, being.

Vulnerable about our weakness creates a pathway for others to

feel safe to approach us. When others see our vulnerability,

it'll develop a breakthrough culture because they will know they

can deal with their pain and strongholds and not be

condemned in the process. But make no mistake, there is

a difference between transparency and vulnerability. When we open up

about our past, we're being transparent.

When we open up.

About our current weaknesses and struggles, were being vulnerable.

And it takes both if you want to be a

good leader.

So we can clearly see through one of my eyeballs

at the moment that we can be transparent about the

past and yet still not let anyone into our lives

in the present. Lisa and I committed years ago that

if we were going to plan.

A church and be leaders, that we were going to

be real.

What you see is what you get, whether on the

stage or off the stage, and we had committed to that,

and the moment either one of us sees any hypocrisy,

that does not fly. So if I'm a mess off stage,

and we'll be a mess up here. Good leaders aren't

just talking about victories from the past, but have actually

cultivated enough humility to open up and.

Be vulnerable about the present.

When we bring everything into the light, then that is

actually living as children of light, and the enemy doesn't

have anything he can exploit in your life. Swift repentance, transparency,

vulnerability ensures that you live a life without shipwrecking. And

I might add for people that are called to ministry

full time church ministry, it actually shows them that you

don't fly into your pants in the morning. You put

them on one leg at a time like everybody else.

I want to encourage you this morning. There are things

that every one of you are called to do, and

you've allowed fear to speak louder than faith.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not growing.

It's a big difference between making mistakes and living in sin. Y'all,

what he's called us to individually corporately, we're gonna mess up.

The church is nine years old. You don't think there

would have been things I've done different. Nine years ago,

I had no clue what I was doing.

I was like, you sure about this Lord?

And here we are nine years later, a little bit grayer.

I just my heart is that the fresh fire that's

imparted into me in the last few weeks transfers that

that we have a company of people that are legitimately

laid down, that we lay our lives down for him,

and that we love well, and that when he comes.

Whenever he does, he finds us faithful about his business

and not our own, not our own empires, but that

we build His kingdom. We can give up hope when

we live in hurting places. At times when you have

been fighting battles for so long, you can end up

just settling into Well, I guess this is just how

it's gonna be. And that is deadly for our faith.

It's not this is just how it's gonna be. It

is not on my watch. Whatever doesn't look like the

kingdom in front of you, whatever doesn't look like heaven,

whatever's not in heaven, shouldn't be going on here. You're

ambassadors of Jesus. Sons and daughters are the most high

God that literally has the creator of the universe, his spirit,

living in sight of you. And I'm challenging you the

morning to start living like it. I'm challenging you to

step up what you have faith for. Perseverance, persistence, keep seeking,

keep asking, keep knocking, because it's in that persistence that

one day and an hour and a moment, you know not,

that door opens up. Yeah, that breakthrough comes. That bowl

of prayers is filled with incense and the fire of God.

And is turned back over under the earth and fulfillment. Listen.

All I can tell you is there's an urgency in

this hour and I can't get away from it. There's

an urgency. God's on the move and the time is short.

Let's stand, oh, if.

I can have the prayer to income. So here's the

final challenge, Joe, don't leave here resisting the Holy Spirit.

Don't leave here today because I know for a fact

that the Lord's been moving and speaking and there's stuff

on y'all's hearts and minds. Don't leave here.

I don't care.

If you've come up a million times for it, what's

one more time? So my challenge to you, if there's

something the Lord was speaking to you about, fill this alter. Father,

thank you for your love. Lord, I thank you that

your love changes us from the inside out. Father, I

thank you.

Thank you for listening.

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