Deeper Still | Pastor Loren Covarrubias

Now, the prophet Ezekiel was a man of God that at age 30, the

children of Israel were taken into captivity by a country

called Babylon. When the children of Israel came

out of Egypt and were LED into the Promised Land, Moses warned

them and said, you're going in the Promised land, you're going

to take possession of it. But if you're not careful, God

will allow the enemy to come in and dispossess you from that

land if you're not willing to do what I tell you.

And unfortunately in history, that's what happened.

The Babylonians came in. They first of all took captive

many people, Ezekiel being one of them.

And with a short period of time after that, they literally

destroyed the holy city. They destroyed the temple and

everything that was contained there.

Now, Ezekiel was of the lineage of the priesthood.

The sons of Aaron, of the tribe of Leboi were especially set

apart for the purposes of ministering as priests in the

temple. Now, this was a very prestigious

position to have in those days. But unfortunately for Ezekiel,

just as he's reaching the age of 30, when he would have started

his job, the Babylonian armies come in and dispossessed him.

And of course, when he's in captivity, also finds out about

the fact that the temple and city eventually become

destroyed. What do you do if you're a

priest and there is no temple? Because the temple was the place

where God dwelt in the midst of his people.

Many of you remember the stories about how in the Old Testament

Moses led the children of Israel and there was a Tabernacle that

he had constructed. Later on, they built the temple,

but the centerpiece of furniture in that place was what was

called the Ark of the Covenant. And on the Ark of the Covenant

was a mercy seat, and that was the throne of God, that God

would come down and speak to Moses in the times of the

Tabernacle. But yet everything in the days

of the temple were built around the fact that three times a year

everybody had to come to the temple, offer their sacrifices,

and worship God because that was the place in their mind where

God would dwell. What do you do when you have a

temple and an ark and God has dwelled there and all the sudden

the temple in the city and everything is gone?

Well, Ezekiel got a revelation that, well, God doesn't just

live in one place. God sits on a throne that is

over all of the earth. How many glad today our God sits

on a throne that's over all the earth?

Amen. So this was going to be a time

of transition and change because Ezekiel as a prophet had to

paint this picture for the children of Israel in captivity.

And you can imagine how everybody felt and what

everybody thought and how hard it would have been to encourage

them. But God said to the prophets,

now I want you to speak my word and I want you to give to the

people a spiritual reality. Now the spiritual reality would

be very important because the Ark of the Covenant, where the

presence of the Lord reside in those days, would never come

back on the scene. Many years later, 70 years later

to be exact, they would reconstruct the temple and it

would last for several 100 years until the time of Jesus Christ

going through all kinds of remodeling or whatever.

But there never was a time after that where they knew anything

about where is the Ark of the Covenant.

And people today, this day, are still saying, where's the Ark of

the Covenant? There's been movies made about

it and people have speculated about it, but I don't believe

anybody's going to ever find it because God's like, OK, that was

an old piece of furniture. We don't need it anymore because

my people need to know I'm the God who sits on the throne of

the heavens. Amen, Church.

So in the book of Ezekiel, God begins to tell his people that

wherever you are scattered, I'm going to be there if you open up

your life to me. And of course, that's true even

to this day. But as this scene opens, this is

the picture that he sees. And if you look in the

background, that is a picture of the temple.

And so I want to start by reading scriptures in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 47 · chapter mention

chapter 47, beginning with verses 1 and 2.

So then he brought me to the back door of the temple, and

there was water flowing from under the threshold of the

temple towards the east, for the front of the temple faced E.

The water was flowing from under the right side of the temple,

South of the altar, dropped me out by the way of the Northgate,

led me around on the outside to the outer gateway that faces

east, and there was water running out of the right side.

I put over this to the source and it doesn't talk a lot about

it, but he's talking first of all about the temple.

And like I said, it's important to understand to them that was

the place of God's throne. Now when you read the Scriptures

and I talk about this in my book, the Descending New

Jerusalem, and you go the very last chapter of the Bible in the

Book of Revelation 22, it shows the same picture which literally

becomes a picture of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's why I'm sharing it with you today because I want

you to see how we as a local church have endeavoured to fully

be obedient to all things. God speaks concerning his

Church. Jesus said concerning his

church. I will build my church, and the

gates of hell will not prevail against it.

And when God spoke to Abraham, who is the father of our faith,

he said something to him very, very important.

He said that through your seed every nation of the earth is

going to be blessed. Now we know that's not happened

to the natural seed. It happens to the spiritual

seed, which is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, also called

the sons of God in the earth. We have been called to be that

place of blessing for our community.

And as you know, as we talk about it, we reach out to our

communities and also to the world.

But it's important to understand where the source of life comes.

In Revelation 22, he specifically talks about the

throne, and it's important for us to see that everything that

pertains to life comes from the throne of God.

True life comes only from God. In church, we need to understand

that if you want to be alive, God is going to be the source of

that. Amen.

And it's always come from Him. And it's very important that

I've shared a lot about this recently because God said to me,

my people have to know that I sit on the throne of heaven and

that no matter what you see happening, I'm always on the

throne. And God does allow things that

happen going all the way back to the Garden of Eden, because God

gives mankind choice and sometimes that choice has some

consequences that aren't too good.

But God always sets over all these things as a manager in

order that in the end, all things can work together for

good to those who love God and are what called according to his

purpose. And that includes every single

one of us church that's so important for us to know.

And so the temple or the throne, how everyone to look at it, that

becomes the source of everything.

Now going to the description now of the river, it says, And that

shall be that every living thing that moves wherever the river

goes, I will live. There would be a very great

multitude of fish because of these waters.

Go there, for they will be healed and everything will live.

Wherever the river goes, it should be that fisherman will

stand by it. From Engadi to Angleium there

will be places for spreading their Nets.

Their fish shall be of the same kinds as the fish of the great

sea, Exceedingly many. But it's swamps and marshes will

not be healed. They will be given over to salt.

Now, it's important for us to understand that this river, and

we'll talk more about it as it unfolds in the Scriptures here,

represents the moving of the Holy Spirit because from the

throne, God sends forth his Spirit to do his bidding in the

air. And so when we think about this

river, we think about the power of the Holy Spirit, and it says

wherever you allow this river to go, there's going to be life.

Things are going to come to light.

But it also says that in the marshy places, and if you're

familiar at all with wetlands, where the marsh is, it's where

the water's there, but it's stagnant because it can't move.

It's being held back. It says wherever the marshy

places are, there's not going to be any life there.

But wherever the river goes, even when it goes to, he calls

it the Great Sea, and he's talking about the Dead Sea is

what we call it today. It was a salty sea.

But according to the prophet, even this salty sea will be

transformed into a life giving see no longer dead.

When the spirit of the living God flows, everything that's

alive shall live. But I wanted to point out here

that God wasn't just happy with people coming alive.

He wants his people to be made well.

If you notice in that scripture, when we first come to the Lord,

the Bible says that we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

But then God does what? He makes us alive.

Anybody out there alive today? Let me hear you Fear alive today

may give him praise. It is so good to be alive, but

Jesus said I didn't come just to make you alive.

I have give come to give you life and that more abundantly.

So a lot of people are happy just to be made alive, but they

don't realize there's so much more that God wants to do for

us. He also wants to make us well.

He wants the river. He's refreshing to wash in every

part of our being so we can truly experience the abundant

life. That's why I often talk about

the fact that so many times people have a mistaken

understanding of the gospel because to them, the gospel is,

I'm going to believe this, I'm going to receive this, and one

of these days, I'm going to go to heaven.

And then with that mindset, people all decide how much of

God they want in their life. Well, the gospel was not

preached to give people access to heaven.

It was preached to give people access to God.

And when we received God, he comes and lives inside of our

life. And this is so important for us

to understand. I'm glad I have eternal life and

I'm glad when I have a funeral for somebody, as we did this

past week. I could say, you know what?

They didn't die. They just transitioned to

another dimension. Amen.

But I also want people to understand how important it is

that we can experience the Kingdom of God in a present

tense reality and that we can also experience God's life in a

present tense reality. And when we see this picture the

God was presenting to the prophet Ezekiel and wants us to

understand, He wants you to know He wants to make you alive and

well. And that's what the river of God

is going to do as it goes forward.

It says that when the man went out to the east with the line in

his hand, he measured 1000 cubits.

He brought me through the waters and the water came up to my

ankle. Again he measured 1000 and

brought me through the waters of the water, came up to my knees.

Again he measured 1000 and brought me through the water,

came up to my waist. Again he measured 1000.

It was a river that I could not cross, for the water was too

deep. Water in which one must swim, a

river that could not be crossed. So I talked about how God wants

to make us alive and well, and I put over this well.

How well does He want to make us?

Well? He wants to make us well.

How deep we get is how well we can become come if you would,

because he talks about this and this was a common scripture I

heard growing up in the Pentecostal charismatic

movement. And I references because it's

important for people to understand that as God began to

give life to the church during the time of the Reformation,

there was a people that believed in getting saved or receiving

Christ as their savior. But then in American history,

there came a time when there was what was called the holiness

movement. People again to realize, hey,

there's more to this than just getting saved.

They called it the second work of grace, which led to the

Pentecostal movement, which led to the charismatic movement.

And they often talked about the river again, because that

represents the power of the Holy Spirit.

And when we think about the power of the Holy Spirit, God

says, well, how deep are you willing to go?

And he talks about the fact that he goes in and after he goes in

1000 cubits, it's only up to his ankles.

Now, cubit in those days basically is from your elbow to

the end of your fingers. It's not an exact measurement by

any means, but it gets you an idea how far you would have to

go in order for that water just even get up to your ankles.

But if you notice, he didn't stop at the ankles.

He kept on going till it went up to his knees, kept on going till

it went up to his waist. And all of a sudden he realized,

wait, this is getting so deep, I'm going to have to swim.

And then he said, wait a minute, I can't swim enough because I

can't even get to the other side.

There's so much water here. Church, we have to understand

that God's saying to us today, just need to get deeper into the

well. Amen.

If you're missing something, go deeper into the well.

Give him a praise on that Church because we need to understand we

can stop whenever we want. That's why I often say to

people, don't have your stopping point.

Some people say I'm saved and I know that I am.

Other people say, well, I've been saved and sanctified and

filled with the Holy Ghost. Don't let that be your stopping

point. Say I want to go on to maturity.

I want to go into my fullness. I want to be made completely

whole. I want God to do everything in

me that he said he was willing to do Amen Church.

So we should say to ourselves, where am I going to stop?

Well, I'm not going to stop because I'm going to go and tell

I can treat swimming and when I'm swimming, I'm just going to

enjoy these waters because there's life in the river of God

and there's always more that He can do for us.

I've been serving the Lord all these years in full time

ministry. Before that, just serving the

Lord as a little kid in Sunday school.

And guess what, Church, I found out there's always something new

and refreshing that God has for me.

Don't live in yesterday's experience.

God says it's a new day. There's something He has for

you. You've never tasted something

you've never experienced. Don't live on yesterday's

experience. Go deeper.

Can I hear any men on that? How deep?

Well, keep on going till you have to swim in this thing

because that's what's necessary for us to experience the

fullness of what God has for us. Now having said that, I want to

share this scripture. And this is on the day of

Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit came.

The people said, well, how can we get this Holy Spirit that we

see all these people have? And Peter said, repent, let

everyone of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the

remission of your sin, and you shall receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit for the promises to you, to your children, and all

who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

Now this is important to understand because for Ezekiel

and all the people, the Old Testament, which covers 2000

years of history, they never talked about getting saved.

What did they talk about? They talked about going to the

place where God's presence was in the day when the Holy Spirit

came. And they said, well, what must

we do? They weren't saying, what must I

do to go to heaven. They were saying, what must I do

to get the Holy Spirit? These people are getting because

they understood something as the juice of the old covenant.

It's the presence of God that makes the difference.

Amen. And so he told them, well, you

need to go to the waters of baptism after you've submitted

to the throne, if you would. Then you go to the waters of

baptism and then you need another baptism, which is the

Holy Spirit baptism. Why do we call it the Holy

Spirit Spirit baptism? Well, it's scriptural.

When Jesus Christ himself went to be baptized, John the

Baptist, who was his cousin, had this ministry where he was

preaching everybody. You need to repent and be

baptized. Jesus Christ shows up on the

scene and John the Baptist is like, I'm not baptizing you.

This should be the other way around.

He said, no, I'm going to fulfill all righteousness.

This is what the gospel says, and I'm going to do that too.

I'm going to follow the plan of action that God has for me.

How many? You know, we should be willing

to follow the plan of action. But when John saw him afar off,

he said, well, I baptize you in water, but Yonder comes a man

who will baptize you in the Holy Ghost and with fire.

And so that was the minister of Jesus Christ.

So when we see the water, we see our first experience is the

natural water. Just like we saw someone today,

they said, well, goodbye old life going down.

I'm going to bear the old and I'm going to come up and rise to

walk in newness life. Everybody who gets water

baptism, Mount Zion, after they leave the baptismal tank, we

take them to another room and we pray over him and say it's time

to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and be filled with

that river, if you would, because this is such a powerful

experience for us to have. But I've been sharing for a few

years now that this is a time of transition in the body of

Christ. And this image that I'm sharing

with you here, it is a good demonstration of what this third

day is about. If you hear we talk about a new

day, 1/3 day, well, what exactly does that mean?

Well, that's why I'm sharing with you this visual today.

It said that on the Bank of the river and on this side and that

will grow all kinds of trees used for food.

Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail.

They will bear fruit every month because their water flows from

the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and

their leaves for medicine. You see, there's a transition in

this picture. As much as we love the river,

want to swim in the river, the source of life is so that we can

become trees that God will be able to use as a source of life

to the world. You see, God wants to give you

life, but he wants you to give life to other people.

He said to Abraham, who is the father of our faith, he said,

I'm going to bless you. Not only am I going to bless

you, I'm going to bless those who bless you.

I'm going to curse those who curse you.

And through your seed, every nation of the earth is going to

be blessed. So we're on the Threshold Church

right now of God doing something worldwide.

This quite amazing. We always think of things from

our local level and even as Americans we think about America

today. But I've been watching the the

news and CBN has a lot of real good news about what's happening

in the world. And they talk about this

regularly, how just like we go, we have went to El Salvador and

have a church there. 50 years ago, there wasn't hardly

evangelical Christian, somebody who was even a Protestant in the

country in those days. And now it's a majority in many

of Central American countries. Brazil, which is one of the

biggest countries of the world, they're moving to the point of

50% of the people being charismatic Christians.

Can you imagine that church what God is doing?

You need to understand it's so far reaching, but now about

saying to the church, I don't want you just get excited about

the river. I want you to begin to realize

that I want you to be in the life of that river, but I want

you to become a tree because from your branch is going to

come food and medicine for the world.

Our world is becoming more bankrupt, more and more falling

into things like anxiety and depression and all these things

that, well, you would think in a modern world where all the

scientific things that have been discovered and created,

especially all the affluence that is being experienced in our

country and throughout the nation, the world, you think

somebody would say, wow, I'm happy now.

No, the world does not make you happy.

Church, there is a satisfaction that's temporary, but you need

something deep inside of your spirit.

And God wants us to have food and medicine so the world can

know what he wants to use us for.

Now, I wanted to emphasize the fact that he says there's all

kinds of trees because how many, you know with the God's work, it

takes all kinds. How many you know that we're all

different kinds. How many know you're different?

Most of you didn't say Amen to that.

You're different. We don't want to be different.

In psychology, they call the affiliation needs.

We like to feel like we belong to something and in a

superficial way, our sense of belonging is we're around people

that are like us. And that's why even on Sunday

morning, the body of Christ is divided up into people go to the

same economic, same, ethnic, same, same, same.

Because they don't realize God doesn't want us to be the same

in the natural because he wants us to be able to reach all kinds

of people. But he wants us to be same in

that we are all the children of the most high God becoming sons

of God. And every single one of us has

something that God wants us to give to our world.

So we find it certainly our affiliation because God created

us and he wants us to feel ourselves as part of the body of

Christ, as members in particular the Bible says.

But he also wants us to feel comfortable.

And this is something the church has to feel comfortable with,

that we're all different and it's our unique differences that

give us the capacity to reach the World in which we live.

That's why when he talks about us becoming those trees that are

next to the river, he says it takes all kinds of trees and

it's their fruit that's going to be food and medicine for the

world in which we live. Now from our picture that we

drew up had someone and in our El Salvador ministry, I'll pull

this together for me today. It looks like all the fruits the

same. As a matter of fact, it looks

like grapes coming off the tree. That's a little different.

But anyway, it's all different kinds of trees, all different

kinds of fruit and all of us are a little bit fruity.

Can you say Amen, God's going to give us the right kind of fruit

that's going to be life to the world in which we live.

Now. Having understood that, I want

to share a little bit about our church vision.

When I was a kid, I heard the word of God in Sunday school and

I'm like, I want to be a Christian.

I want to be everything Christian's supposed to be.

When I became a pastor, I was like, Lord, I want to be

everything your word says the pastor is supposed to be.

And Lord, if we're going to have a church, I want to be

everything that you said church is supposed to be.

And so he's been giving us this vision.

So everything we do as a local church is built not on just a

random ideas or thinking, wow, this would be cool to do this.

It's like fulfilling the vision that God has given to us.

Now, if you think in terms of this picture, you realize why we

have Oasis Ministry, Life Enrichment, and also we have

what we call our healthy living center at one of our community

centers. The reason for that is because

these are ways we can become healing and food for the people

that are around us. And so it's important for us

also to see that it's for us, our Oasis ministry is a support

ministry, partly that's for people that have perhaps

problems with alcohol or drug addiction or whatever, because

it's been proven that support group ministries is very helpful

in people getting with other people to support each other and

finding success. But our wasteless ministry also

is deal with issues of emotions that people go through because

sometimes we go through very intense situations and we just

need somebody to talk about it with and also people who can

support us. Important it's in the right

direction. Might be because I'm going

through something. It might be because somebody I

love is going through something. But Oasis is a means by support,

first of all to the church, second of all to the world.

Life Enrichment classes are written by my sister, Jeannie

Cagle, because she went and got her degree.

And I always joke about that because there was a time she had

two years of college. She says, well, what should I do

now for college? And I go, we'll get your degree,

become a teacher, we're going to start a school.

And she said, well, it's time for me to get a master's degree.

What should I do? Well, get 1 so that we can have

a social interaction, psychology.

So she went and got her psychology and her master's

degree. Then she eventually got her

doctors agree, and I've kept her very busy over the years.

But we have our counseling ministry that is a part of our

counselor training program, a two year program that people can

go through that is very helpful to people in their individual

lives. But also from that group we have

people that are a part of our life enrichment classes.

If you have any questions about that, go to our information

counter after the service. We want to tell you about them

or go to our website because when I talk about becoming alive

and being made well, sometimes we need a course that we can

take. And so we have boundaries of

relationship. We have a marriage class for

people that need marriage help. We have classes about anxiety

and different life controlling emotions, whatever you can see,

all kinds of things. But the purpose of that is

number one, life enrichment. How can I get to that place of

being totally well? Well, sometimes it requires

that. And I put in here the healthy

living center at our Community Center, we have Momma Jean

healthy living center that we dedicated for the purpose of

giving people opportunity to take nutrition classes and also

to learn about healthy living through exercise and lifting

weights. And I, I've shared that many

times that my mom and dad both exercise my whole life.

My mom used to watch a guy named Jacqueline on TV and she'd get

her chair out and do all these exercises.

They lived till they were eight, just to have 88, both of them,

which is about pretty normal life span these days it seems.

But the important thing that I like to point out is I have a

video of my mom a month before she passed away on the bowling

league. And Papa Bill was the same.

He's still active till the very end.

And so we like to teach some of the practical things as well.

Because when God created, how many know he created his body,

soul and spirit. And I've lived long enough to

know that. Well, if you take care of your

body and if you follow the right path of nutrition stuff, it can

be very helpful. Either way, these are things

that we have available, but again, we have them in our

outreaches so that we can reach our community.

This is a picture of our coffee house ministry, Mount Zion

Community House. The older looking building is

really a historical building from our area.

It used to be a school, proper school.

We still have the sign up there and we have a place where you

can take Bible classes, just meet with somebody because

affiliation needs and spending time with other people is very

important. And so we like to have that.

But if you notice on the right it says the Oasis because we

have life enrichment classes there, Bible classes, Oasis

ministry. And again, if you could see this

as the river where we come on Sunday and we get our source of

life, then you look at our community centers.

These are trees that we do in reaching out to the community

because well, this is what the word of God teaches us.

Most of you have never been to our Community Center.

And so we've had it since 1994 and I still meet people who've

never been there before. But we have there are gym or

healthy living center. We have a skate Park Place for

basketball, pickleball, skate park, all kinds of physical

activities. But again, all of what we do

reach out to the community as well.

Mount Zion has never been a church that just did things for

ourselves. We've always been a church that

reached out to our community. And as you know, of course as

well, we've reached out to the world and that we have a church

in Havana, church in San Salvador, and a church in

Maravatia, Mexico. Having said that, this is the

proclamation and the ministry of Jesus Christ.

He said the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord

has united me to preach good tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the broken hearted, to proclaim

liberty to the captives, the open end of prison to them that

are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,

that they have vengeance of our God, and ultimately to comfort

all who mourn. Those are the ministries that we

have here at Mount Zion. But I want you to understand

this is a prophecy given to Isaiah.

That's why it's in Isaiah 61. But in the New Testament, Jesus

in the beginning of his ministry was in the synagogue or the

temple, and he opened the Bible and read this and said this day,

this Scripture is fulfilled. The ministry of Jesus Christ is

a ministry to give people fullness of life.

He comes to heal. He comes to give liberty.

He comes to release you. Hallelujah.

Thank you, Jesus, for all that you're willing to do for us.

So the message is much bigger than just getting people to

heaven, this message and some people say, oh, why do you need

all that? Isn't it?

I heard somebody say this, isn't it enough that Jesus died for

you to go to heaven? Well, not if he didn't say it

was enough. He said, I have a ministry and

that's to proclaim liberty to the captives to open the prison

to them that are bound to proclaim the acceptable year of

my God, The Avengers of my God. He pronounced judgement upon

everything that that holds us back.

He wants you to have the abundant life.

Amen. And he wants you to experience

the fullness of everything that God said He wants to do for all

of us. How do you become a planted

tree? And this is where it is more

than just the flow of the Holy Spirit.

It says Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the

ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat

of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and

his law he meditates day and night.

What's going to happen that person?

Well, he's going to be like a tree planted by rivers of water

that bring forth this fruit in season, whose leave also shall

not wither. And church, whatever he does,

shall what prosper the poor? Prosper in the Scripture doesn't

just mean make you rich. It means to make you outperform

your natural abilities that you can go into the supernatural

abilities. So if you want to be one of

those trees, you can't sit in the council of the ungodly.

We live in a time when there's all kinds of information through

social media, YouTube and all the television programs.

There's a whole lot of opinions out there and you can listen to

any opinion you want, but just remember, if they're not a

Christian and they're not basing that message on the word of God,

you need to stand back and say, now I'm going to only listen to

as much of this. Come on, that is not contrary to

the word of God, because God's Word should be the direction for

our life. And that's why I like to share

this. I've been a Christian long

enough to say what I preach to you isn't just experimental

information. I have lived it and I know it to

be true. Amen.

And we have a multitudes of elders in our church who can say

Amen 'cause they can say the same thing.

He opens the prison doors. He heals the sick.

My God can do all things. Give him a praise church.

Make sure the council that you're listening to is the right

council. And we have counsel.

That's why we have our counselors training program

here, because we believe in following Christian counsel.

Amen. That's so important.

Now, a scornful person is somebody who mocks other people,

has contempt, and there's a whole lot of people out there

who might even agree with you in what your philosophy is

concerning politics or whatever is going on in the world.

But be very careful that you're not mocking like them and

picking up the spirit of the age because the spirit of the ages,

anger, hostility, and God says I've called you to be a people

of peace. I've called my house to be a

House of rest. And I want you to know your

power comes from the power of the Word of God, anointed by the

Holy Spirit. Everything is possible through

the Word of God. This is why the apostle Paul

said I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is

God's power of salvation. And again, the word salvation

means to rescue. It means to open the prison

doors, it means to set the captives free.

He says this is the power of this gospel.

I preach for everyone who believes it, for the Jew first,

also to the Greek, for it is in it the righteousness of God is

revealed from faith to faith. As is written, the Josh shall

live by faith. And again, salvation that Paul

had was a complete deliverance. He was a man who was so bound in

his religion he thought it was okay for people to kill other

people who didn't agree with him.

And one day he had a revelation of grace and he realized I

should have been that person. And he realized he was a Sinner.

But he found out God can forgive every sin.

Aren't you glad the Lord can forgive us of every sin and

cleanse us from all unrighteousness?

And he said, when you walk in this gospel, you go from faith

to faith. You got this much, but you need

to go deeper. But you need faith.

By grace you have been saved through faith.

That's not from you. It's a gift from God.

Let God give you more faith in this hour.

Second of all, as a part of this, he says to console those

who mourn in Zion, to give them what beauty for ashes, what the

joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of

heaviness, why, that we might be called the trees of

righteousness, the plan of the Lord that he may be glorified.

God wants to comfort you if you're mourning.

God wants to take away your ashes.

If you're carrying things from the past and you just have not

let go of them. He wants you to have joy.

He doesn't want you mourning, and He wants you to have that

praise that you can say, wow, this is a good day because this

is the day that the Lord hath made, and I will rejoice and be

exceedingly glad in it. Amen.

Can we all please bow our heads and close our eyes for just a

moment? Church, I tell you, this is the

beginning of a whole new season in God.

Don't stay where you are, move with God.

Thus, saith the Lord, it's time to move.

And the Old Testament, when God got ready to move, he just

started moving. They had to pull up camp and say

I'm going with the cloud, I'm going with the presence.

I'm following God because wherever the presence was, there

was life. I was the Lord gave this to me

and they gave me that last verse to put on there.

He said, tell my people, be sure that they'll give up the old.

Sometimes we get so comfortable with our sadness, comfortable

with talking about the past, comfortable with our bondage

that we just say, well, this is me.

God says that's not you whom the sun sets.

Free is free indeed. Today make a choice.

I'm letting go of yesterday to walk in the new day that God has

for me. For God so loved the world that

he gave his only begotten Son. Church.

We got to love the world. God did, and he gave his only

begotten Son. But if he loved the world, how

much more his people that he has called and set his love upon for

His purpose. Father, in the name of Jesus,

today give us the strength to take a step into a deeper level,

a new day, a new experience in Jesus mighty name, Amen.

This is Pastor Lorne Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.

We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect

with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and

following us on social media. God bless you.