Pastor Jarman Leathwood

Amen.

As you're standing, just have a word of prayer.

God, you're so awesome, you're so amazing.

And we worship you.

God, worship means worship.

It means how much you mean to us.

And we're grateful for all that you do and all that you are.

We thank you for your son Jesus, God, who died for us.

God, who gave his life for us.

God, but not only did he die for us, but he got up again.

And because he got up, Lord, we're here because of your grace, because of your mercy, because of your kindness, and because of your love.

And we pray that someone here who doesn't know you might get to know you better.

And Lord, we just simply want to say thank you.

It is in Jesus' name that we pray.

We all sit together.

Amen.

Let's give the Lord a hand clap of praise.

Amen.

Come on, let's give the Lord a hand clap of praise.

What an amazing church.

Such an amazing leader.

We thank God for your pastor.

And I want to apologize to many of you because I know you came to hear him.

Amen.

Such an exciting man.

I tell you what, he has been a mentor to me.

I was telling my wife before we came.

I said his wife is one of the most nurturing spirits that you can meet.

You can't deal with the troubles of this world and not meet her and feel the comfort that comes with Jesus.

She's such a sweetheart, and I thank God for her.

Why don't you join me in giving God a hand clap of praise for your pastor and his wife?

Amen.

The doctor.

Danny Lovett.

Amen.

He's a friend.

And I definitely thank God for my wife who came with me, who weathers the storm with me.

My kids, they had to do ministry back home.

We have three kids.

Jeremiah, who's 16, amen.

Jakiah, who's seven, by Acts 30.

And Kristen, who is four, and he keeps me on my knees praying before God.

Yes.

I was telling them on last week that they have a color system at school.

And Christian, he can either get pink, blue, orange, green, or red.

Red is the bad color.

And for about three weeks straight, Christian had gotten red.

And I told him, I said, if you come home again with another red, you're going to have to answer to me.

And so that same day he got red.

And my wife says, calls me and says, You're not going to believe what your son did.

And I said, What did he do?

He said, When he got in the car, he put his hand on his head and said, Lord, I need somebody to pray for me.

I keep getting these red colors.

And I say, You tell him that when I see him, I'm going to lay hands on him.

I'm going to do just pray for me.

Pray for us.

As Pastor has said, we have the privilege of planning the church, House of Hope and Restoration Church there in Huntsville, Alabama.

We're about five years old.

I ask you guys to be praying for us because if God has his way about it, and January 1st of next year, we'll be moving into a new facility.

Amen.

And so please be praying with us about that.

We're grateful.

But lest I hold you long, I want to ask you guys to do two things for me.

The first thing is I want you to turn with me to the Romans chapter 11, verse 36, and put a mark there, and then turn to chapter 12, verses 1 through 2.

Romans 11:36

Amen.

And after you get it, amen.

Yeah, I thought about it that it seems that the whole service, one of the things that has been sticking out to me has been the glory of God.

And not only that, but also this idea of sacrifice as we'll as we'll be celebrating Veterans Day.

Amen.

And so this is where God would have me share.

Does everybody have those two scriptures?

Romans 11, 36, and then Romans 12, 1 through 2.

If you got it, say amen.

Now I want to ask you to do the second thing for me.

I want you just please, if y'all will.

This is my right hand.

I want those of you on your right hand.

I want you to just lean to your right.

Everybody, just lean to your right.

Just help me out, okay?

Alright, now I want you to just lean to your left.

Alright.

Alright, now one more time.

Lean to your right.

Amen.

Alright, now lean to your left.

Thank y'all.

Y'all are so kind.

I appreciate it.

It was simply because I didn't want to leave here and nobody say that the preacher didn't move me.

Amen.

I want to go ahead and get that out the way early.

Everybody.

Everybody, nobody could say that they weren't moved on this morning.

Amen.

The scripture says in Romans 11, verse 36, for of him and through him, and to him are all things, and to whom be glory forever.

Romans 11:36

Amen.

Romans 12, 1 through 2 says, I beseech ye, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed.

Somebody say, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may be able to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

And if I could for a second, I want to speak briefly from this subject.

When God gets the glory, will you do me a favor?

Turn to your neighbor and say, neighbor, say when God gets the glory, say when God gets the glory.

There's a fella who I had the privilege of reading named Dwight J.

Pentecost, who wrote a book designed to be like him.

He says in this book that if there's one thing that runs throughout the whole Bible, one thing that you would hear over and over again, that thing is simply the glory of God.

He talks about how God takes things that in and of themselves have no intricate value.

How God would take something that to the natural man seems to be of little to no instance.

And how God would take something so small, so little, so meager, but yet use it for a grand purpose.

God has a way of taking things that seem to be the least, the last, and the lost, and using them for his glory.

It makes sense then why Paul says why he does it simply because no flesh should glory in his presence.

I thought about it, Dr.

Lovett, for a minute, how God takes things that are little, things that are meager.

That's why you can never really judge a book by its cover.

Because while man looks on the outside, it's God who looks at the heart.

Do I have a witness here?

God can use whoever he wants to use, he can use them wherever he wants to use them, and he uses them however he wants to use them.

That's why you got to be very careful about turning a deaf eye to people who, from an external perspective, does not look the part.

Because there was a man named Saul who looked the part, but there was a brother named David who had the heart for the part.

Have I witnessed here?

He is a God who can use things that other people would turn their eye on.

Can I talk to somebody here?

And so when you look at the beginning, God takes a world that is without form and vault.

Some people say it's ex nio.

He reached back from somewhere and makes everything that you see out of nothing.

In other words, if you look at the sun, the sun is shining.

Nobody has ever had to change out a light bulb on the sun, nobody has ever had to change out a light bulb on the stars at night.

But yet when God got ready to call the world into existence, all he did was speak and the whole world came into existence.

Am I preaching to somebody?

When you think about how he made us, let's be honest, it always amazes me that when many of us are progressing in our academic affairs and when God is blessing us financially, that some of us have the audacity to get a big head that they call.

But when you look at how God made us, God did not make us from the finest jewels, God did not make us from the finest stones, He could have chosen, He could have chosen gold, He could have chosen.

Do y'all see where I'm going with this?

Wouldn't you love it if you were walking around here looking like a whole lot of platinum?

Wouldn't it?

But but when God made us, He took dust from the ground and breathed into man, and man became a living soul.

And that's why I tell people all the time that's why dust should never get the big head.

It really doesn't matter how you dress it up, it can be doching gabbana, it can be mica course, it can be payless, no less, or hopeless.

No matter what you put on it, it's still just dust.

And that's why I say to our people, sometimes don't get the big head.

You need to go sit yourself somewhere somewhere down with your little dust and stuff.

That's what I tell them.

Will you do me a favor?

Just look at your neighbor if they're just not too bougie and just say, neighbor, say sit down with your little dust itself if they don't get mad.

God can choose to use them however he wants to use them.

Can I preach it to you?

Like I feel it.

So for John and the gospel, says in the beginning was the word, the word was God, the word was with God.

All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and that life was the light of man, and the light shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man that was sent from God whose name was John.

John was not that light, but John came to bear witness of that light.

Can I preach to y'all off in there?

Toever, however, as many as received him, them he gave power to become the sons of God.

Can I talk to you?

Verse 14 says, And the word became flesh, and we beheld his that when God came to the earth, he did not choose a body that from an external perspective would look the best.

But when he came, there was not even room enough in the end.

Can I preach to you here?

Because at the end of the day, it's really all about his glory.

Somebody say his glory.

And so in this text, the apostle Paul begins to tell us how can how God can get the glory out of our lives.

That regardless of whatever you're doing today, ultimately everything that we do is really all about his glory.

When we preach, it's about his glory.

When we teach, it's about his glory.

When we sing, it's about his glory.

It's not so that we can be seen, but literally we do what we do because we want Christ to be seen.

No matter how many of us show up in this building on this morning, if the Lord doesn't show up, demons don't tremble because you show up, demons tremble because the Lord can I preach it.

And so he writes what some people call in AD 57 the gateway to the Bible.

Some people talk about the doctrinal aspect of Romans, that whenever you look at Romans, you see these different um things that stick out to us like justification, sanctification, election.

Paul begins to lay down for us some groundwork on how you and I are to live in the midst of a paganistic society.

He tells us that if you want God to get the glory, there are three things that you have to do.

Can I give them to you?

Do y'all mind if I give them to you?

I'll be done.

I'm almost preaching already.

Three things that he says that you and I need to do if we're going to give God the glory.

The first thing he says that we need is an upward presentation.

Somebody say upward presentation.

He says, I beseech ye therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable worship.

In other words, he says that when you consider how good God has been to us, I'm gonna come over here.

When you really think about the fact that God gave his life for us, even when we didn't deserve it, we ought to all be able to give him worship.

I tell people sometimes that worship is more than a song, just lifting your hands and closing your eyes and getting goosebumps when the song is just right.

Worship is a lifestyle.

Worship is what you do on a day-to-day basis.

It's in how you treat people, it is an expression of the heart.

In other words, whenever I'm around quiet people in worship, I wonder sometimes it's okay for you to be yourself, but if I lift my hands, don't let it bother you.

I just think about how good God has been to me.

And sometimes it makes me lift my hands, it makes me want to sing, it makes me want to give God some glory.

Do I have any worshippers off in here?

It says I have to give him an upward presentation.

So there is a story in Matthew chapter 26 of a woman who comes into the room.

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

She comes into the room, Dr.

Lovett, with an alabaster box, an ointment.

Some people call it spike knort, some calls it perfume.

If you know the story, it was worth a year's wages.

She comes into the room and begins to open up the box and it permeates the whole room.

Can I talk to you?

What she had in her hand was so valuable that somebody said, Why would she waste all of this on him when it should have been given to the poor?

But here's what you got to understand about that ointment.

That ointment costs something.

I heard one writer says, You don't know the cost of this alabaster box.

That what was in the box meant something.

Now, here's what blessed me about it.

Some calls it perfume.

Somebody say perfume.

So for the longest, I thought that what I was wearing cost something.

Okay.

So I would go to the store and I would buy some doce and gabbana, and it would be worth$60 or$50, and I would think that I was smelling good.

And some people say, hey, you're smelling real nice today.

You know, some of y'all got your Elizabeth Taylor, some of you got different kinds of perfumes on that you like, right?

You got your good smelling stuff on.

But if you look at the inscription on the bottom of your bottle, what it has on the bottom is old de toilet.

If you look at Can I talk to you?

Etymology, if you go back and you look at it from an etymological perspective, what it really meant is toilet water.

So okay, okay, okay.

So all of us that while you think you smell nice, you're really just walking around with toilet water on.

And sometimes when we don't give God the proper worship that we ought to be giving him, what we're really giving him is just toilet water.

But when you give God authentic worship, can I talk to y'all off in here?

You give God something that permeates the whole room.

My upward presentation.

And that's why I lift my hand because I want my worship to be something that is alive.

Can I talk to you?

Will you do me a favor?

Will you touch your neighbor and say, neighbor, are you alive?

I ask him, say, if you're alive, the Bible says, let everything that have breath praise the Lord.

Will y'all take about five seconds and just give God a praise all over presentation?

But after you give him an upward presentation, there must be an inward transformation.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and accessible unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed.

In other words, don't be shaken and molded by the spirit of the age.

Just because it's right politically.

It doesn't mean that it's right from a Bible.

I say this often because when Paul wrote this, there was a problem.

The problem that was going on in the text was that the church had begun to look like the world so much that you couldn't tell the difference between which one or the other.

And so he says, church, we must not conform or be molded or be shaped according to the standards of the world.

And so what really blessed me is that you see all this stuff going on.

And of course, I'm not knocking anybody.

I'm just I'm just expressing my heart.

Can I can I talk to you?

We have to be very careful, church, that we don't conform to the standards of the world.

And so much so that we fight over an elephant or a donkey when what the world really needs is the lamb.

Can I talk to somebody?

If we understand that's what we need.

And so he says, you have to have an inward transformation.

That means I gotta get something new on my mind if I'm gonna have something new in my life.

Einstein says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

That word transformation is a word in the Greek that means metamorphosis.

It gives the picture of an old abandoned house.

That when you think about an old abandoned house, um, bugs can take residence in that house.

Can I talk to you here?

Um, trees begin to grow up in that house.

But what he says is that if the house is gonna be different, then it has to be renovated.

That means it has to be regened.

Can I ask y'all something?

Has God come into your heart and regened you?

Like, do you look different on the inside?

Uh can I help y'all?

Because if you're different on the inside, then it's gonna show on the outside.

Whatever, what what whatever controls your mind controls your life, the question becomes, and I'm almost done, is what are we under the influence of?

Ephesians tells us to be drunk, not with wine, but with the spirit.

Okay, okay, okay.

Okay.

Because here's what often happens whatever you're under the influence of is yours.

This is why I tell a lot of people you gotta be careful about stopping by the ABC store.

Because if you look at the name on the ABC store, it has spirits.

You don't know what type of spirit you're gonna get if you go off in there.

Can we be honest?

Whenever somebody is under the influence of that juice, they turn into a whole nother person.

You'll have a quiet person normally talking more because they got the juice in them.

Can I talk to y'all?

When they get it in them enough, it starts affecting the way they walk.

Can I talk to you?

It starts affecting the way they talk.

Well, the problem is that they're drinking on that spirit.

But if they drunk on this spirit, it would affect the way they walk.

It would affect the way they take it.

Can I preach to somebody off in here?

Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, are you under the influence of the Holy Spirit?

Because that's what we need, an inward transformation.

But then after we giving up with presentation, is this all right?

And we have an inward transformation, that must be an outward demonstration.

And I'm closing, that she may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Well, that word proof in the Greek is a word dokumizo.

It means literally that we become proof.

It's a legalistic term that you and I become proof that God is who he says he is.

That means that if the world is looking for evidence that God is real, look no fart.

Because I am a living testimony that God is real.

And so I thought about it, Pastor, how could we drive this point home?

And then it hit me.

I thought about a story of a young man who said he had gone to seminary, had gone to the school.

And while he was in there, there was one guy who was his roommate who was studying philosophy.

Here he was studying theology.

He said, The man that was studying philosophy came to him and he said, Man, brother, let me ask you a question.

As smart as you are, as As bright as you are, why out of all the stuff you could be studying, why did you choose theology?

He said, Man, the basis, and I'm a man of scientific reasoning.

He said, The basis of your argument is not um, it's false.

It doesn't have a leg to stand on because you say that there's a God.

Well, if that is a God, how do you know?

He said, Where's your proof?

He looked at him and he says, If God is real, he said, Can you see him?

He said, No.

He said, Okay.

He said, if God is real, can you touch him?

He said, No.

He said, Well, how do you know then that God is real?

And many of you are sitting there now in your mind, because I often tell people that good theologians ask good questions.

Some of you now are dealing with this idea in your mind, well, what's the conclusion of the matter?

And he said, He went home that night frustrated because here he was, as smart as he was, he felt like he didn't have an answer.

The man said that if God is real, can you touch him?

He said, No, can you see him?

Well, no.

He said, Went home that night baffled and and frustrated in his mind because he didn't have an answer to give him.

The Bible says, always be ready to give a reason for the hope that you have.

He couldn't give him one.

And he said, About three o'clock in the morning, God provided a realm in the bush.

He said he heard it, he heard a knock at the door.

He said, The man he opens the door, and it's that brother.

He said, Hey, can you please take me to the doctor?

And he said, Well, what's wrong with you?

He said, Man, I got a toothache.

He said, about that time he had an epiphany.

Boom! He said, he said, Oh.

Do you?

He said, Well, how do you know you got a toothache?

He said, Can you see it?

He said, No.

He said, Can you touch it?

He said, No.

He said, Well, how do you know you got a toothache?

He said, because I can feel it.

And I wonder, is there anybody in this house that can testify that I know that God is real?

Because I can feel him in my heart.

I can feel him in my soul.

I can feel him all over me.

In other words, we become proof that God is real.

And as I prepare to close, um I think about how God can get the glory out of broken things.

Um my father committed suicide when I was nine.

I tell people that sometimes your greatest ministry can come out of your greatest misery.

God is the type of God that can use people who have a bad past, who have frustrated periods in their life, God can still use them.

That God would use that to birth the house of hope ministry.

Because I too myself would get in a place where I felt hopeless, but God was in the business of putting us back together again.

And so, Dr.

Lovett, many people think that ministry in and of itself is glamorous, and which at the end of the day, you love the outcome.

But sometimes the frustration that comes with walking in ministry can be so heavy.

It can be such a burden.

But you realize that when Jesus came, he loved us enough to give his life for us so that we can be put back together again.

There was a story of a father that was sitting down at the dinner table with his son.

And when they were sitting down, the father took a picture of the world and he tore it into shreds.

And he told his son, he said, Son, I'll give you$20 if you can put that picture of the world back together again.

And then the father left out the room, came back 15 minutes later, the son had to put the picture of the world back together again.

And the father said, Son, how were you able to put that picture back together so fast?

He said, Because dad, what you didn't know is that on the other side of that picture, there was a man that had a head, had legs, had arms, had a nose.

And I knew that if I could put him back together again, I could put the world back together again.

And that's what he's saying to us.

That he's in the business of putting broken lives back together again.

And I don't care who you are, where you came from, what your background is, God can use you for his glory.

That people that have wrote you off, people have said that you would amount to nothing.

God can take nothing and make something out of it.

He took two fish, five loaves that others had called nothing.

In fact, it was hard out there for pimps and preachers, and he took two fish, five loaves, and he put them back together again.

Can I talk to you?

How did he do it?

By his love.

Jesus gave his life on cavalry so that you and I might be put back together again.

Dr.

Levin, I don't know how you often do the invitation, but what I want to do is I want to ask everyone to stand and join hands with somebody beside you.

There are some broken people in this room.

There are people who've had to cry sometimes.

They smile on the outside, but a lot of times they're broken on the inside.

Even as Christians, we get tired.

We carry more than we talk about.

You smile more for other people than you do for your own self.

I want to pray with you.

God, there's something real about being able to be transparent in a room full of people who look just like me.

God, who come from painful past, who dealt with the heartache of life.

God, many of them, oh God, have had to deal with just living with just a little bit.

Some of us were not wealthy, some of us did not come from rich families, but God, we're here this morning because we need your son Jesus Christ to touch us, oh Lord.

Touch us in this moment, breathe on us afresh, oh God.

We need your love, we need your hand.

We can't make it without you, Father.

We can't do it without you.

And so here we are laying down our lives this morning as a living sacrifice, and we're asking you to cleanse us from the inside, out of God, so that we might give you an upward presentation, that we might have an inward transformation, and that we might go out and be an outward demonstration to tell somebody else about a dead, buried, and resurrected Savior.

This is our prayer in your son Jesus' name.

And we all said together Amen and Amen.