Growing Spiritually In Turbulent Times!

You're listening to the Cross Kingdom Sermon of the Week.

We helped you enjoy this message from Justin Carpenter.

Hey there we go. All right? Does that sound all right? Okay?

Live stream? I apologize we all sound like robots and

I cannot figure it out. We will try to fix

that next week. We don't sound like robots in here.

I promise there's deliverance for that. So yeah, I asked

this first service who had a great week, who had

a rough week? That's interesting? Who had a interesting week?

All right? So we're about split all the way across

the board in here. Oh man, I did a wedding

in the park yesterday at six pm on the island

for Sean and Susan McGinnis for their son Gabe. I'm

engage and Kayla and uh so I got to marry them.

And you know, I, being a recovering Baptist, I believe

in short weddings, and we were. There was no special music,

there was no personal vote. We were done in twenty

two minutes. Yes, And for you men, I mean, like, hello,

we all know that weddings or like is I'm getting

a look from my wife that men us married men?

We love weddings, but maybe not as much as I mean,

like the all the extras. Yeah, you know, there was

way too many landmines to get around there. Listen, I

got almost twenty five years of marriage under my belt.

December fifteenth will be twenty five years and we leave

December eighth for Paris for eight days to celebrate our

twenty fifth. As long as we're not in World War

three or Civil War or some craziness in the United States,

we were flying out and hopefully we'll be able to

fly over there. I'm born sure audio smooth Chacho partly review.

So when I, uh, typically I have two weeks off

and uh. I talked to Lisa earlier this week. I said, hey,

you want to teach, and she's like, yeah, I think

I can. And then she went on to Houston right

with Chay. Where's Chay? Are you playing hooky? Chay? Are

you watching on the live stream? And uh. Anyways, so

they got back from the trip and Lisa goes, I

don't think I have enough time to prepare. I was like, okay,

well that means I'm teaching because I don't have enough

time to put somebody else on the spot. And uh

and be okay with that. So it for me, it's

been an interesting week. Our ministry credit card almost got

hit for fraud. They caught it, we got a new

card come in. We got charged eight hundred and fifty

four dollars for the pro pane at the church. I'm

in the middle of fixing that. All sorts of fun,

fun administrative tasks this week. And yeah, it's interesting, interesting times.

And so I was sitting there last night on the couch.

My couch reclines back, there's like three sections, and I

was reclined back, resting. Lisa's wondering why I'm even talking

about this right now, and I was on my laptop

trying to figure out what I was going to teach on.

And so I didn't figure it out. I just closed

my laptop. I gave up, and I woke up this

morning seven o'clock and I was like, Lord, I kind

of need to hear from you right now. And it

for me, it's been one of those weeks that it's

hard to It was hard to kind of quiet the

clamor of my soul so I could hear clearly. And

I'm gonna be teaching on keys to growing spiritually and

turbulent times. The Lord will not let me off of

this theme about preparing you for the days to come.

And on one hand, I think we're positioned and aligned

for the most amazing things in the Kingdom. But on

the other hand, we are also aligned and positioned to

continue to see an increase of turbulent times. Regardless of

what happens on November fifth, it's going to be turbulent.

There are things in motion, prophetically that cannot be changed.

And the body of Christ has to be ready, rounded

in his word, in a place of emotional spiritual health,

if we're going to be the light and salt that

He's called us to be. If on one hand we

believe we're living in the last of the last days,

some of you may think that. Some of you may

not think that. I want to say one thing. If

your eschatology is built and focused on the United States,

you don't have proper theology. All eyes are on Jerusalem

in the end, and it says that Jerusalem will be

a cup of trembling. All eyes are on the East,

not the West. There are things in motion right now.

I believe actually the turbulence that's happening with Israel and

the surrounding area. This is going to continue to build up.

Russia has already began to make some noise in the

news in the last couple of weeks, and we are

looking at what very well could be biblical proportions in

the very near future where you will begin to see

Russia and China begin to come forward. Where it's very

clear from a biblical standpoint, some of you may be

looking for the war of God and may God before

the Millennial reign. Some of you may be looking for

it after. I just know this that we don't know

the day or hour that Jesus is going to return,

but I know things are accelerating. I know that the

time between the shakings is minimizing, and I know that

it's not a time for the church to be asleep.

We need to be wide awake. We need to understand

the times and seasons we're in. We need to redeem

the time, and we need to be the light and

salt that God's called us to be in this hour.

But I also know this that as the Lord continues

to draw closer to us, anything of darkness is going

to radiate in the midst of his life. So this

is not a time to hide. Right, We don't want

to play hide and seek right now? It says he

who covers his sin will not prosper. I have dealt

with more pastoral discipline and accountability issues in the last

couple of months than I have in my entire ministry

of being in ministry. God is not in the business

of condemning people. He's in the business of convicting, correcting,

and restoring. But I want to tell you that this

is not the time to play games. This is not

the time to play hide and seek. This is not

the time to think that you're going to be as

one of His sons and daughters to live in willful

sin and think that it's going to go well. Not

that any time is a time to live in sin. Right,

We don't get a oh, this is a free scinc season.

That's that's not how it works. But the principle of

what you get away with the in the outer courts

can kill you in the Holy holies, y'all. It's not

the fact that we sin at times, it's when we're

sinning that can change. So the closer He is, the

greater his glory, the swifter the correction. Are you all

with me, the greater his glory, the greater the manifestation.

We've been crying out for revival, right, Lord, bring revival,

Bring revival. But if you go back to the Book

of Acts, Anonius and Savah, we're not the only people

that ever lied to the Holy Spirit. But it's when

they lied that cost them. Are you all following me?

So we are positioned in this moment to see God

move in ways that we've not seen, heard or even

thought of in our hearts. But He's also in this

process going to reintroduce the fear of the Lord. We've

kind of talked about that theme this year. I was

reminded again the shop does do a Friday night watch.

They've been doing it for I think thirty years every

Friday night doing they do a watch of the Lord

and our Mahsi and Bonnie were on staff with Derek Prince,

and Derek always said, if you want to know what's

happening in the spiritual realm, go look at what's going

on in Israel. So whatever's happening in Israel, you know

that that's in a spiritual standpoint. Those things are taking

place in the spirit it's what have we seen. We've

seen three attempts on President Trump's life. We just saw

an attempt on Benjamin Nettan Yahoo's life of him and

his wife with drones. And so you're seeing all of

this stuff politically. Geophysically, I mean, we just had hurricanes

that are acting in the strangest ways ever. We just

had the Carolina's flood historical flooding, and anything that can

be shaken is shaken. The earth is groaning. It says

that the earth is groaning, and every week more and

more leaders are biting the dust. There was just another

pastor out of Arkansas who was exposed for child pornography

multiple multiple accounts. I've also don't know that I've ever

been this burdened and grieved over the church and you

and asked my wife burden to the point where mister

grumpy Pants has been coming out. See, I know myself

when I start getting fatigued emotionally and I start burden

bearing when I should not be, and things start building

up and I'm not dealing with my burden bearing, I

get fatigued, and I get grumpy, and I get grumpy

internally with everything, and I start getting frustrated. And you

don't need a frustrated. Pastor right, he is right, And

Becky Bowen. I told Becky, I said, Becky, I'm getting

angry over the dumbest things. Everything's making me frustrated. I said,

I need to tune up. That's how I go to Becky.

So I'm gonna see Becky Monday. But she just happened

to do a fly by and drop in at the

house yesterday. Scared the snot out of Lisa. I was

in the athroom cutting my hair and the dogs are

barking and freaking out, and we had uh Teddy with us,

and he started barking and anyways, it was quite the

quite the moment. And Becky's like, oh, I already know

what your problem is. She goes, she says, I, I uh,

I was praying for you yesterday and the Lord told me.

I was like, what is it? She goes expectations and offense.

I'm like, I'm not offended. That offended me? And she goes, no,

she goes, you have all these expectations, and when these

expectations aren't getting met, then you're getting offended, and and

it and it, and I was arguing with her for

a moment and processing that and it's not it's it's

broader expectations. And so this morning I was in first

Service and I was doing communion, and I started processing

and taking inventory of what are my expectations, what in

the world's going on? By the way, we don't have

a right to have expectations. Ooh, I just blew something

up there. I felt that you don't have a right

to have expectations, and you don't have a right to

have expectations. On God. You can be expectancy, you can

have expectancy, you can have hope. But expectations are you

putting up a requirement before you lower your drawbridge of

connection with others. And that's typically birth out of rejection.

So in other words, if you meet all my expectations,

then I feel safe in that more in that moment

to lower the drawbridge to connect with you. But if

you don't meet my expectations, then I'm going to typically

keep you at arm's length. That's the relational aspect of that. Now,

what about expectations with God? I had an expectation we'd

be in the New Church already. I'm not kidding. I

used to build homes for a living. This is ridiculous.

How long this process has taken, and I literally I

thought for sure we would be in the new church

on the new property. And I started going through all

these different expectations recognizing that Becky was right once again,

and I had expectations, and I was getting irritated over

some of these things not happening, and then the expectation

on myself for our tribe to look a certain way

as I lead, in the fear that I'll fail as

the leader, and the heartbreak have seeing so many people

messing their lives up. And when I say that, I

mean in a local I mean in this region, not

just out there or out the church down the street. Y'all,

the Lord calling us to live righteous and have holiness

in our lives is not because he's trying to keep

you from life. He's trying to give it to you.

You can't experience abundant life outside of righteousness and holiness,

a life laid down in the pursuit of righteousness. The

byproduct is holiness. You can't become holy because your hair

is in a bun and you don't wear makeup and

your skirt's forty five feet long. That's just legalism. Now,

what you didn't just hear me say was don't dress modest,

all right, and there's nothing wrong with makeup. And I'm

not gonna make any jokes because I can hear my

thoughts right now. But in Tewod Corinthians eleven twenty eight,

Paul said, Paul goes on this whole journey of his persecutions.

And when I read that, it makes me feel so

much better, because my burdens and my weights for the

church are one community. He was the apostle Paul who

spread the gospel all over the earth and wrote three

quarters of the New Covenant, and had a thorn in

his flesh, and everywhere he went he was persecuted. And

I can't hold a candlestick to what he suffered for Christ.

And willfully so, he said, he's filling up in his body.

What is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? What was

he saying, Because you're not living a life that demands persecution,

I'm filling up what's lacking in that area, y'all. Jesus said,

if you follow me, you're going to suffer persecution. If

you have ze row resistance, maybe you're not going in

the right direction. I'm glad that people talk smack about

me in this area. If everybody talk good about me,

I'd be doing something wrong. I'm glad I offend some

people because the truth is offensive when you want to

live in darkness. I mean that in the most pastoral

way possible. But Tewod Corinthians eleven twenty eight says, and

apart from other things, there's the daily pressure on me

of my anxiety for all the churches, even I mean,

Paul dealt with this and his love for the church.

And you know, if you've been around here for the

last eight years, you've heard me jokingly or you've heard

me joke a lot about never wanting to pastor and

God wrestling to the floor, and all of that was true.

But the flip side of that is that I take, yeah,

my calling extremely serious. The expectation that I keep finding

myself putting on myself is not reality. Jesus saidden. My

yoke is easy, my burden is light. I am responsible

to feed and lead. But I will not stand before

the Lord Jesus an answer for your life. I'll answer

for how I led. I'll answer for what truth I

spoke or what truth I didn't speak. And I have

zero desire to hit your ears as the rest of

the leadership. We want to speak truth. We want to

see you walking in truth. The apostle John It said

he brought him delight when he heard his children walking

in truth. Paul said, you have many instructors, but not

many fathers, and we're living in a fatherless generation. And

if you want to talk about revival, you can't have

revival without the restoration of the family. And you don't

have restoration of the family until men stand up and

say enough is enough and they take their spiritual place

of authority and start leading their homes. Third John one

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

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

God's heart is to prosper us. But he also isn't

going to give us a gift that he's got to

turn around and judge us. For every good and perfect

gift comes down from the Father of lights. So the

question is if the Lord is withholding something from you,

is it because he doesn't desire to give you good gifts,

or is it that he's more interested in your maturation

process that you can grow up and actually stuart what

he gives you, because it says that with your talents,

whatever you're given, and you don't, Stuart, what you have

will be taken period. And he is too good of

a father to give us things that he has to

turn around and correct us. For Bill, I've heard Bill

Johnson say he believes all prayers are answered in acorn form.

But what do we do with it? First Thessalonians five

twenty three. Now, may the God of Peace himself sanctify

you partially. No, that's not what it says, sanctify you completely,

and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be deserved

blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So

there is there is a The primary job of the

Holy Spirit right now, in this moment living inside of

you is to conform you into the image of Jesus,

not make you rich. It's to conform you into the

image of Jesus. And he's way more concerned about your

transformation than your comfort. That's my pastoral smile. Anybody figure

that out. Yet, when you feel pressure on your life,

the Father's not up there going oh man, I just

can't handle this one more second. Oh oh no, Because

the truth is while you're over there blaming the enemy,

the Lord probably is the one that put the pressure

on you because he loves you so much. He actually

wants you to repent, and he knows that you're not

going to give up that coping mechanism until the pain

becomes greater than your ability to deal with it. And

that's the truth for all of us. We all have

areas in our lives that we just hold on to

like stubborn, spoiled little kids, until we realize, oh, this

isn't working out. The fifty third time I hit my

head against the wall, it still hurts James five point sixteen. Therefore,

confess where's Troy at? This is his favorite scripture, Troy Faust.

He was in here, he's out, He's but I don't

know where he went. Therefore, confess your sins to one

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

How do you get healing? Confession? Repentance. Repentance isn't the

four letter word of the church, and repentance is way

more than just having another thought. I can still live

like an idiot and have another thought. Repentance means that

you actually stop doing the sin and then you have

a divine exchange with truth, and you start walking in truth,

and you start walking a different direction. Some of you

are going to hold on to your bitterness until you

have nothing left. But that's not God's desire. It's not

God's desire. John ten ten. The thief comes only to

steal and kill and destroy. But I came to give

life and give it more abundantly. He came to give

life and give it more abundantly. Understand that abundant life

is only on the other side of the cross. Every

day you choose not to carry your cross is the

day you don't experience abundant life. You may experience happiness,

which is based on circumstances. You may be having a

good day because things are going your way, y'all. It's

the joy of the Lord that is your strength. And

if you don't understand experientially the difference between happiness and joy,

when the poop really hits the fan in this country,

you're going to very quickly find out that you were

holding on to way more happiness in your soul than

actually cultivating the joy of the Lord. Because Paul was

sitting in prison when he was writing some of these

scriptures talking about the joy of the Lord Romans twelve

one to two. It says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers,

by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as

a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is

your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world.

That word for world is age. Do not be conformed

to this age. Why is this important? Because if you

look throughout history, there's a different theme of age as

you go throughout history. So what is the theme of

the age? Look at our culture, that's the theme. And

Jesus said it would be this way. He said, just

like in the days of Noah, So shall it be

when the Son of Man returns. He gave us all

the descriptions. And isn't it interesting that all of those

things are pretty well present right now? Tell me one

thing from a sign that he talked about that needs

to be in place right now, that's not there. Think

about it. Do not be conformed to this world, but

be transformed by the renewal of your mind, and that

by testing you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and acceptable and perfect. So check this out.

Matthew twenty four We've read this a lot. So Jesus

is sitting on the Mauna Olives. The disciples come to

him privately, saying, tell us when these things, when will

these things be? What is he saying? He's specifically talking

about the destruction of the temple, these things in those buildings,

because Jesus just finished saying, Hey, all these buildings are

going to be destroyed. So they're like, well, when and

then what will be the sign of your coming and

the end of the age. So you have three categories

in Matthew twenty four that you need to pay attention to.

One the destruction of the temple, which happened in seventy

eight d two the sign of his coming, and three

the sign of the end of the age. Right now,

we have roughly fifty five people groups that have not

been reached with the Gospel, gentile nations. Right when the

it says that when the when the Gospels preach to

the ends of the earth, then the end will come.

So you have fifty five people groups roughly left. And

guess what happens at the fulfillment that there's an exact

number of gentiles that will come to know Jesus. And

when that number is hit. God will then turn his

heart fully to Israel, pull the partial blinding off of Israel,

and begin to save Israel in a What you may

want to even say is the midnight cry, which is

a part of the great that I believe, the greatest

move of God. It's the midnight cry. It's the eleventh hour.

It's the last moment before Jesus comes back. Y'all, you

have to lay it all out this life. You got

to lay it all out on the field so that

whenever your day is over, whenever your life is over,

you can fall asleep and wake up in Heaven at peace.

You can know that you're gonna hear well done. We

just lost a local pastor, Troy Way. He passed away

yesterday at about four point thirty in San Antonio. A

couple of weeks ago. He had a really bad heart

attack and just couldn't recover. Sixty years old. We're not

promised tomorrow, which y'all please pray for that church and

for his family. But you have to think beyond this week.

If your whole life is about grinding for the next paycheck,

that's not abundant life. Prosperity is way more than just dollars.

I always when I did that wedding yesterday, when I

said for richer or for poor, I told Gage, I

said preferably richer. But Matthew twenty four, as he sat

on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately,

tell us when will these things be? And what will

be the sign of your coming and of the end

of the age. And Jesus answered them, see that no

one leads you astray. The first thing he says is

see that no one leads you astray. And what is

one of the signs of it? Says that people will

not hold to sound doctrine, but they will heap up

teachers on them because of their itchy ears. And these

teachers will actually be under demonic influence, teaching doctrines of demons.

For many will come in my name saying I am

the Christ, and they will lead many astray. And you

will hear of wars and rumors of wars. Check see

that you're not alarmed, y'all. We literally are on the

cuffs of World War three. We're at a tipping point

that in a blink of an eye you could wake

up tomorrow. We could be in World War three, how's

that happen? Israel strikes Iran, Russia gets involved, United States

is already over there in a moment, in a blink

of an eye, that could happen, and he says, do

not be alarmed. What does it take to shake your faith?

I thought I was pretty big and mature, so I

went to Egypt in twenty sixteen, and a car bomb

goes off in the first session I'm teaching, and I

turned pale as a ghost because Isis was training in

the desert outside of the conference center, and I thought, Lord,

you took me to Egypt to kill me. I'm like,

he could have taken me out in Kerrville. But I

was like, Lord, if i'm I said, am I really

going to be martyred right now? I mean, I was like,

car bomb went off. I literally was visualizing Muslims coming

in and you know, and then all of a sudden,

the strangest thing all the pastors on the front row

started laughing at me. Didn't FaZe him. I asked the

one guy, what happened? Oh, it's okay, something went wrong,

and I knew I was not in the hill country anymore,

for this must take place. But the end is not yet.

For nation will rise against nation. Do you know that

Greek word is actually ethnos ethnis? Or race will rise

against race, kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines

and earthquakes in various places. All these things are but

the beginning of the birth pains. Then they will deliver

you up to tribulation and put you to death, and

you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake,

And then many will fall away. Have y'all looked at

the statistics of the church in the in the the

falling away that's been happening. Could this be the actual

falling away that we're in? And what's interesting about the

falling away is that it doesn't say specifically what will

cause each individual to fall away. So where's your line, Lord,

I'll follow you to here? How what to what degree

are you willing to bury your cross? What are you

willing to lose until you're not because the falling away

could very well just be on the other side of that.

Are you going to pack up your legos when you

don't get your way? Lord? I've been walking with you

for five years and this is still happening. Rather than

taking responsibility for your sin and understanding. You're walking out

of a field that you sowed the seeds in. You

don't like your harvest, change your seed. You don't like

the level of favor that's on your life. Ask the

Lord of your hiding anything. He doesn't wink at disobedience,

he doesn't wink at our sin. He's not a grandfather

on a throne. Oh that's just my boy, that's just

my girl. No, his son bled and died for our sin.

And it says our life is not our own. We've

been bought with a price. So glorify God, offer your

bodies as living sacrifices. Let me tell you something, If

your life's not transformed, why in the world's the world

going to come to you and listen to you if

you look just like them? And then many will fall

away and betray one another and hate one another, and

many false prophets will arise and lead many astray, And

because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will

grow cold. But the one who endures to the end

will be saved. And this Gospel of the Kingdom will

be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to

all nations. Then the end will come. Peter Scazarro says

it is impossible to be spiritually immature while remaining emotionally immature.

It's impossible to say that you're mature if you're emotionally immature.

I like personality tests, but I don't like it when

people try to hide their sin behind a personality trait.

As we embrace biblical maturity, then this will in turn

bring maturity in every aspect of our lives, social, economic, emotional, spiritual.

We need to be emotionally spiritually mature. If you're dreaming

with the Lord right now, and you're dreaming big dreams

and you want to see God move in big ways,

then your maturation process you better be fully yielded to it.

How many words do you have over your life that

you believe actually from the Lord? You've tested them, they're

from the Lord, and yet they've not happened yet. There's

a process. In Psalms, it says in the word of

the Lord tested Joseph until it's fulfillment, and that word

for test means to purge. So don't get frustrated that

a word's not happening fast enough. He's more interested in

your process than your destination. Sanctification is a process, not

a destination. And as long as you're here in this life,

breathing in these meat sacks, then guess what, You're gonna

continue to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, because every

day we're supposed to look a little more like Him

and not us. There are at least ten symptoms of

emotionally unhealthy spirituality. So if you're taking notes ten symptoms,

I guarantee you there's way more than ten. But we're

just gonna talk about ten right now. Okay. Number one,

using God to run from God. Number two ignoring anger, sadness,

and fear. Well, that's what Philippian says. Forget those things

which are behind dying to the wrong things. Hey, peacemakers,

have you died to the wrong things so that there

would be peace? Have you put yourself on the altar

of sacrifice and let people run over you and the

name of peace? Already understand that being a peacemaker means

you make peace denying the impact of the past on

the present. Again, Philippians, Oh, forget all those things what

you're behind, and press on. Go back and read that

and understand in the context Paul was talking about everything

he was in the natural right before he said that.

But he says, forgetting all that stuff, that I was

a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, flawless according to the law.

He goes on to his whole pedigree. He goes, but

forgetting those things which are behind, I press on for

the High, calling to know him, to know Jesus. That

was the context he was never saying deny and suppress

and call it spirituality, dividing life into secular and sacred compartments.

Everything is holiness. Your whole life is unto the Lord.

Whether you're making breakfast for your kids, driving them to school,

changing a diaper, cleaning the house, going to the bank,

going to the grocery store, everything is supposed to be

done unto the Lord. The Hebrews don't have the mindset

of going, oh, this is secular, this is sacred. Everything's

sacred doing for God instead of being with God. And

if you're in ministry, I can promise you one of

the greatest struggles for you is getting stuck doing a

bunch of ministry and then you end up neglecting your

intimacy with the Lord and the process, and the danger

is nobody knows because you're so busy doing, doing, doing, doing,

doing this doing that. You know, even when I want

to quit and go home my gifts work, I can

sit in a ministry room, get words of knowledge, see

people get healed, see them get delivered, tell them the

secrets of their hearts, and then the exact moment still

be just completely exhausted and ready to retire, spiritualizing away conflict.

Let me tell you something. We believe in one degree corrections.

You correct things when they're small, not when you got

a demon on your back. Y'all with me, and it

easier to deal with stuff when it's small, rather than

when you're growling. That wasn't a growl, that was That's

how I feel some days, covering over brokenness, weakness and failures.

Number nine living without limits, and then number ten judging

other people's spiritual journey. I know, uh, I know of

a few heresy hunters. You're gonna come up here and

preach all right, okay, just just not the expensive guitars though. Here.

Let let's go back to mama. You don't want to

hold my hand. It's like my wife. Come on, hey,

your your mama needs to cut hey, honey, your mom's here.

It takes it too far. See that was a beautiful

illustration how we act sometimes with the Lord. Hey, come on,

don't go there, bring bring Living in brokenness and vulnerability

that's fun, isn't it. To live in honesty means that

we embrace brokenness. Being vulnerable about our weakness creates a

pathway for others to feel safe to approach us. Let

me say it this way. When others see our vulnerability,

it will develop a breakthrough culture because they will know

they can deal with their pain and strongholds and not

be condemned in the process. God is totally into healing,

restoring and fixing. So when he puts his little magnified well,

his big magnifying glass called his light on areas of

your life and you feel exposed, it's out of a

loving father who says, if you keep this in your life,

it's going to produce death. And I don't want this

in your life. Every one of you right now, do inventory?

And you know, do you know of you're hiding something?

You may fool everyone around you, but you're not fooling Jesus.

Do you understand whatever you're holding on to, whatever that

stronghold is whatever lie base thinking you have in that area,

it's going to produce death, period. And I can tell

you we're not getting it as a whole as the

church right now with all these exposures happening P. Diddy

and the brutal, disgusting stuff that's coming out from that

and all the human trafficking and everything that Jackknife has

done along with his If that list came out, you'd

be shocked. The odds are the list probably won't come out,

kind of like Ebstein's Island and Epstein's List because there

was way too many people of influence in the government

and every other arena of influences that partook. But it

says what you do in secret will be shouted from

the mountaintops. And there are there are leaders in the

body of Christ ministers that are fully connected with P.

Diddy and and eventually it will come out, and some

of them are in Dallas, Texas. So the difference between

transparent and vulnerable. When we open up about our past,

we're being transparent. How many how many has anybody ever

met people that man, they're the most transparent person in

the world. They'll tell you all about their past, but

they won't tell you Jack about their present or Jill.

When we open up a about current weaknesses and struggles,

we're being vulnerable. Maybe they don't open up about their

present because they believe you're going to take advantage of them.

Maybe that part's not healed. Maybe that's a stronghold. I

can tell you, you can cuss me out and I

can get over it. I've been cussed out in sessions before,

get in line. But the moment I know you're trying

to take advantage of me, that burns me up. I'm

being vulnerable. I'm still not over that. When I know

someone's intentionally trying to ask my wife man, I get angry.

So you can clearly see that we can be transparent

about the past and yet still not let anyone into

our lives in the present. 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.

You want to know why a lot of leaders don't.

They're not vulnerable because they believe they have to hold

a certain look, a certain position among others. And if

they actually get open about their transport, if they're open

about their current process of maturation, in the Lord. They're

worried that they're going to actually lose influence with the

people they're leading. Are y'all with me, and that principle

is true with all leaders and all areas of influence,

not just church. You understand that out of all of Israel,

only ten percent were in full time ministry, the Levites

and the priests ten percent of the population. And yet

somehow in the American culture, when we talk about spirituality

and we think about what is the utmost highest measure

of a spiritual life, we think about being in full

time ministry and church. Ten percent of the people of

Israel we're in that category. But we've idolized stages and platforms,

we've vitalized it. And it's typically from people that actually

haven't walked down that path. Because I can tell you

there's nothing to idolize about laying your life down in shepherding.

It's not easy, it's not and if you're not called,

you won't make it. I can tell you that without prophiseying. Okay,

a couple more, and I'm landing. I don't know all

the technical terms Ben talks about with flying, So we're

just going to land the plane 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. Y'all if I tell him myself

and I live in the light and I live transparent,

you may not like me, but that's your problem. But

I can tell you this, I've just diffused anything the

enemy would try to use against me if I was

playing hide and seek with Jesus, because the moment I

start hiding any aspect of my life, I've just given

fuel to the enemy to blow it up. Okay, prayteines,

bring me a musician. You know, I said this first service.

Our community is and I'm not just saying this because

I'm the senior leader, but I believe that our community

is one of the most vulnerable and transparent church communities period.

And this is what I've learned over eight years. For

those that have come in and then leave, typically they

leave when they don't want to live in our culture,

which is a kingdom culture. Typically they buy into the

lie or the deception and they want to stay in

their strongholds and they leave. Y'all, don't leave. This is

a This is a culture that we're going to walk

alongside of you, regardless of what you've gone through. We

take chances on people we believe in the body of Christ.

We want to equip the body. Don't want around beat up,

bruised up and then telling everybody you're fine, don't do it.

Who wants to live miserably victorious and call it spirituality.

The only thing you have to lose when you actually

deal with that is stuff you never are supposed to

be walking with. Anyways, Julie's been baptized into our office

culture here over the last couple of weeks as the

administrative assistant. And I went to the front desk Thursday,

or it's crazy today. I said, yeah, it happens that

way sometimes. I said, you'll appreciate the downtime. All right,

let's stand.

Again. It's like worship aerobics. H okay, So, Father.

Lord, we want to be presented before you, blameless, spirit, soul,

and body. Thank you for listening.

For more messages and other resources, please subscribe to this

podcast or go to our website at www dot Cross

Kingdom dot org