Living Legacy | Part Two | Pastor Ed Berk

Thank you for listening to the Kelowna Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KCC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.net.

I hear that Moana is in the house.

That's awesome.

That's that was almost like the coming of Jesus or something, okay?

I don't know where she is.

Where are you, Moana?

Stand up.

Show your face.

Where is that girl?

She just stepped up.

Oh, look at that.

I know we serve an invisible God too.

Oh, it's so good to be here today.

Do you love the Lord?

Come on, you love him.

There's nothing better than loving Jesus.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

You know, it was I was actually amazed miracles do happen because I saw the camera guy behind the keyboard.

That's pretty, that's pretty awesome, James.

That's a neat trick.

Hallelujah.

Thank you, Lord.

I love the word of God, and this morning we're going to take a look at the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Are you ready?

Yeah?

Do you know this is not just script?

This is not just writings.

It's his word, and there's power behind his word.

And when you read it and believe it and apply it, you get all of heaven behind the word.

Come on.

It's powerful.

Thank you, Lord.

Brody started a series last week.

It was called Living Living Legacy.

Right?

Why wait till you're dead to uh to grab a hold of what's available to you?

Right?

Why not grab it while you're living here?

Come on.

You want to grab something today?

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

So uh he talked about here and there.

Everybody say here.

Here.

We all know what's going on here.

You know, we get tired of here.

We sometimes we celebrate here.

Today was awesome here, right?

But there.

But there.

Right?

So this is only, you know, babies.

How many of you are glad you came out of the womb?

How many of you glad?

How many mamas are glad that we weren't stuck there?

Right?

So there's a hallelujah.

There's a transition that takes place, right?

And we're also in a process, like we were in the womb and we came out, and we get 90, 80 years here.

There's also a there.

Amen.

And uh man, oh man, oh man, we gotta live with that hope.

Praise the Lord.

So living legacy, legacy is uh something that's handed down from the past.

Have you ever had something handed down to you from the past, from an ancestor or family or a person?

Right?

How many of you uh love some of the things that were handed down to you?

Not just money, right?

How many of you love the legacy of your mom and dad's face that was handed down to you?

Come on.

You know, uh I love things handed down.

When I was a little boy growing up, my mom, I'm from Dutch descent, so a wooden head, wooden shoes, wouldn't listen.

And uh but my mom always made me this cake when I was a kid.

It was called a tart.

Everybody say tart.

And it was my favorite.

It was a white, fluffy cake where she'd cut it in half this way and put cherry pie filling in it, put the other half on top, and then she'd put pineapple on top of that, and she'd pour the pineapple juice on the cake so it was nice and moist, and then she put whipping cream on it, and then whipping cream on it, and whipping cream on it, you know, and it was just it was just one of my favorites.

And I love that this came down from my heritage, right?

And uh, every time it was my birthday, my mom would say, What do you want?

And I'd say, Tart.

And so she would bake me this tart.

And I don't know, many of you don't know my mom today.

She's in Red Deer, she's in a home, she's had a stroke, and she doesn't remember a lot of things, and she has a really hard time communicating.

And so last week Lisa and I were out in Red Deer, and uh I said, Let's bake her a tart and see what she does, right?

And so we walk into her uh into her uh room uh not into a common area in the home that she was staying in, and we sat at the table with this tart while my sister went to her room and and wheeled her out.

And when she came out, she looked at us, she goes, Oh, and then she looks at the cake and she goes, Oh, who did that?

Where did that come from?

And do you remember that, mom?

Yeah, I remember that, right?

And it was so neat to watch the expression, the memory of this cake that was in the family, right?

From passed down from her her mom to her, right?

It was just an awesome moment.

And then we went to cut the cake, and you know, I put a piece on my plate, and I put a piece on her plate, and I put a piece on Lisa's plate, and she looks at it and she goes, Yours is bigger.

She wanted my piece.

You know, things that are passed down are so awesome.

Today I want to talk to you about light and darkness, and I find it really cool that we were singing some songs here about he is light, right?

And uh light invades the darkness that breaks the chains of darkness.

Amen.

There's just this fascinating theme throughout scripture about light and darkness, and I want to take a look at that theme today.

Um, you know, when when we look at Christmas lights, how many of you like lights?

How many of you like Christmas lights?

How many of you drive around the city looking at the lights?

Yeah, you see the lights, and I know Daphne doesn't have to ride or drive around the city, she can just look out her window and see all the lights, right?

So, what what's really important to understand is that at Christmas time there's a whole string of lights, and it's not just an individual light.

Right?

There's there's something that that shines bright together, and we like the multitude of lights, right?

We're all parts.

You're part of something bigger than what you really think, right?

Brody talked about here and there, and yeah, we all want to go to there, right?

That's very personal.

We also want the world to go there, right?

We also want to see a great corporate collaboration of the kingdom of God invading all of humanity, right?

When your chains have been broken and set free, when you have when you've been healed and restored, you want that for all of humanity.

It's not an individual thing.

Amen?

It's a corporate thing.

We're part of something much bigger than ourselves.

So I want to take a look in scripture today at this whole theme of light and what light represents and who light is and what's going on in there, because uh, number one, uh, we're part of that.

Number two, God's got an incredible large plan for all of us, and I think it's absolutely exciting.

Praise the Lord.

So, Father, we thank you.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for you, we thank you for your narrative.

We thank you for your plan.

We thank you for your vision for for us and the world and humanity.

We thank you that you have have uh illuminated our hearts.

And this morning, by your Holy Spirit, we believe that you are going to illuminate our minds and uh uh just help us, Lord, as we unpackage this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So Brody said it a number of times.

Genesis is one of my favorite, uh, that's my wheelhouse, Genesis.

And uh I love the book of Genesis because it's the book of seeds, right?

The book of beginnings, it's where things start, right?

And we're gonna start on page one, chapter one, verse one, and it says, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right?

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the face of the deep.

And the spirit of the Lord was hovering in that place.

Okay, we see God very active in that place, all right?

And the spirit of the Lord hovered over the face of the waters.

God was hovering over the face of the waters, and then God said, Let there be light.

Everybody say, Let there be light.

And there was light.

And God saw the light that it was good.

Everybody say, It was good.

And God divided the light from the darkness.

There's there's this incredible um environment in the beginning.

And in the very first couple verses of this scripture, we see that the earth was without form and it was void.

We see that the Spirit of God was in this place and there was darkness.

Everybody say darkness.

Now, I don't know why there was darkness.

Because wherever there is the presence of the Lord, there's light.

The end of the book tells us that when man and God dwell together in the temple, it has no need for a sun because the light of his presence is there.

Amen.

So I don't know why there was darkness here, but I read in scripture too that Satan was cast down to the earth.

And so whether it was Satan's domain, whether it was unfinished business, whether it was whatever, the earth was in darkness.

And what fascinates me is that the earth belongs to God.

It says in verse 1, he says, God created the heavens and the earth.

He made them, they belong to him.

So he allowed this condition to exist.

It existed, he didn't like the way it existed, and so he said, I got a plan.

I want to put light where there's darkness.

I want to invade that space and change the condition of that place.

Are you with me?

I don't know what darkness is in your life.

I don't know what darkness looks like in the world.

We hear it on the news, we see it all the time.

But it's a word that's synonymous with brokenness, it's a word that's synonymous with pain and poverty, it's a word that's synonymous with hurt, with death, sickness.

Right?

It's a void, it's a barren place.

Nothing is fertile and nothing is growing there.

But in the presence of the Lord, there's not infertility, there's fertility.

There's life.

Something grows there, there's a cause and effect, there has got to be a response.

And so God wants to invade this dark place with light.

He wasn't talking about the sun or the moon at that point, because that comes a little bit later.

1 John 5 4 says that God is light, and in him there is no darkness.

So he's talking about, I am light and I want there to be a revelation of me.

So the solution we see in Genesis 1, 26 to 28, is that God says, Let us make man in our likeness an image, let's place him on the earth and insert somebody like me in the middle of darkness to change the condition of darkness.

Come on.

It goes on to say that in verse 26, 27, 28, we're in his likeness.

We are his exact representation.

We have his stuff.

You know, when a light bulb is turned on, it needs electricity, unless you have a gas light or a candle, but it still needs fuel.

When God inserts you into darkness and you turn on the light, he's your fuel.

It's not limited to your power.

You're just the glass, you're just the wick.

You're just the but you he's the fuel.

He doesn't leave the light to diminish or to dim down.

He is actually at work fueling that light.

So you got the creator of heaven and earth, you got the designer, the architect that's made the universe, that's made space, and he's very interested in wherever there's a light bulb.

We're it.

We're it.

It's fascinating.

It's absolutely fascinating.

So that's the solution to the darkness was that God inserted man into a hostile environment that was broken in need of repair.

Fantastic.

How's that make us feel?

It's amazing because you know, Adam and Eve's first battle wasn't with weapons.

Their first battle wasn't hostility.

Jesus, when he came to earth and he went into the wilderness for 40 days, his war wasn't with weapons.

Satan was trying to derail him from God's idea and God's plan and God's ways.

And all Jesus ever did in the wilderness said, Hey, buddy, you're not my buddy.

God said, God said.

You know, being a light is not that hard.

God said.

God is.

God does.

All he did was he didn't, I think the hardest part is he didn't eat.

He didn't get my mom's cake.

So in that piece of scripture, Genesis 1, 26 to 28, there's this other concept that says, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

In other words, fill the earth.

Everybody say fill the earth.

God will not be satisfied until the whole earth is filled with his glory.

I got quiet in here.

Come on.

He is not trying to rescue you out, he's trying to get you to be part of shining a light till the whole earth is filled with his glory.

We're not escaping from anything, we're going through it.

Come on.

Habakkuk 2, 14 says, For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Psalm 72, 19 says, Let the whole earth be filled with his glory.

Daniel 2, when you read about the stone and the image, the image of gold, silver, bronze, clay, right?

And a stone comes down the mountain.

And that stone crushes that image.

It crushes every kingdom.

Those layers of clay, gold, silver were kingdoms.

And this stone comes down.

And it says in scripture that the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

Everybody say, fill the whole earth.

See, we're part of something absolutely fantastic.

Right?

Where God owns, He created the heavens and the earth, He designed it, He made it, it belongs to Him, and He's not going to let a devil squat on His property.

Come on.

He's not going to let somebody that isn't allowed to be there be there forever.

Okay?

Now He could have arrived in Home Backyard and fixed it.

He didn't want to.

He wanted to invite us in to participate with him.

Come on, he wanted to invite us in to allow us to be part of this journey of kicking butt in enemy territory.

That'll give us reason to get up in the morning.

The problem with this story, I'm going over the big picture, and I don't know how far I'll get.

The problem with this is that Adam and Eve sinned.

And sin has a consequence.

And it opens the door to darkness.

Darkness all of a sudden becomes our legacy.

Not the legacy of God, but the legacy of sin and darkness is what comes from sin, from Adam.

So we inherit, we get passed down.

This thing gets passed down to us.

That's brokenness, pain, insecurity, you know, sickness, disease, you know, working our butts off and sweating.

And instead of looking up to God, we look to the earth to provide for us.

It's a byproduct.

It's not our legacy.

But God.

A Savior comes.

He comes and he paid the penalty for our disobedience.

He sets us free from sin and death.

He changed it.

Colossians 1, 13 and 14 says, He has delivered us from the power of darkness, right?

And conveyed us into the kingdom of his son, of his love, in whom we have redemption through the blood.

He translated us, he takes us out of darkness and fills us up with himself.

This is what our Savior.

So our legacy in him is eternal life, it's righteousness.

It's a new way of living.

It's an inheritance.

I could go on about the inheritance, the glorified body that we are going to receive.

Man, you want to see magic?

You think Jesus walking on water is cool?

Wait till your arrival.

Right?

What he has in store for us is so amazing.

Why am I talking about this?

We need to have a vision of our inheritance.

We need to know what's coming down the line, that's our possession.

We need to know what he's made available to us.

We need to know that this is temporary, but he's got something in the future for us that's that this body cannot contain.

It has to shed off the body of weakness and put on a body of immortality.

It is glorious, it is fantastic, it is amazing.

And the devil is shaking in his boots because he knows your arrival is near.

Come on.

It's a living legacy, it's alive, it's full, it has power, it has might in it, it's it's glorious.

If we actually for a moment watch that video and contemplate that video in our own heart and mind, the troubles of today grow sadly dim.

We can endure a whole lot in our 60, 70, 80 years because we know that something coming down the track.

I think Brody alluded to it last week.

We're not going to be floating around on a cloud, playing a harp, eating Philadelphia cream cheese.

We're going to actually be bringing in and ushering in the potency and the power of the kingdom of God to this world that desperately needs to see righteousness held high so that the whole earth is filled with his glory.

Come on.

Our final inheritance.

That's the story.

This is the story, my friends.

That's the great story.

That we're in the middle of this thing.

And yeah, have you ever watched uh that that crab show where the waves are higher than the boat?

Like, holy smokes, you know, sometimes we're in this world where darkness seems so dark.

But you know what?

We like to amplify the darkness by talking about how dark it is.

Rather than turn on the light and amplify how great God is.

Come on.

He's awesome, he's worthy of praise.

We see light throughout scripture.

We see this calling of God to mankind.

First, he called us in Genesis.

126.

Then he calls this guy Abraham, this friend, and he makes a promise to Abraham, and out of Abraham comes a whole nation of people that the blessing and the light of God flows through this nation.

We see this glorious nation rise up up until David and Solomon.

And then everything seems to go to hell in a handbasket.

But there's a promise.

And we sang about the promise.

We gotta have a promise.

You gotta have a promise.

You gotta know what he's promised you.

I remember my mom when I was a little boy, she wanted to reward me.

She said she said, What would you like?

I said, I'd love to have a bag of tacos.

This is when taco chips first came out.

And and I did what she told me, and I never got this bag of taco chips for five years, and I was just like so disappointed.

You know, we never forget the promise.

Come on, we'll forget a whole bunch of things, but I promised you, you know, we need to hang on to the promise of God because it's not like a bag of potato chips.

He's giving us the promise.

It is just it's your blessed hope, it's your assurance.

You're gonna get it.

Come on.

Don't lose sight.

You know, the promise brings hope.

The promise is the gas in our tank that carries us through.

So Israel is this promised nation.

And this is what he says about Israel in Isaiah 42, verse 5 to 8.

Isaiah 42:5–8

Thus says the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth that comes forth from it, that which comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk on it.

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness.

I will hold your hand, I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the peoples, a light to the Gentiles, to open up blind eyes.

This is fantastic.

The light that he's giving us is not just so that we shine brightly.

The light that he's giving us is actually going to release people from prison.

It's actually going to convert blind people to seeing people.

It's powerful to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.

I am the Lord, that is my name and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images.

He is not going to pour out his glory on big business that has nothing to do with God.

He's going to pour out his glory on us in a church that all we want to do is receive from him and anticipate his coming and lift him up and praise him and bless him for who he is.

He's just longing.

He's got these little lights all over the world in darkness, and he's just longing to put his power into those little light bulbs to shine bright in the middle of darkness.

That's who we are.

This is our living legacy.

We're alive because of what he's given us and what he's done for us.

So Israel was this promised receiver of the things of heaven, which I think is fantastic.

Another example of light in Scripture is Christ at Christmas.

And I don't care if you celebrate his birthday on December 25th or September or whatever day.

That doesn't matter to me.

What matters to me is that we lift him high, that we have an opportunity in the world to lift up the name of Jesus.

Where everywhere else that's being shut down and interpreted in all kinds of different ways, we have a celebration.

Jesus came to mankind as a baby.

But he came here to pay for the price of our sin and show us the way.

The most vulnerable thing that God could have ever done is to take the creator of the universe, the God that holds things together by the power of his word, and strip them bare and reduce him down to a baby and put him in a poor family.

That's the most vulnerable thing he could have ever done.

And then allowed mankind to beat the pulp out of him, hang them on a tree.

He did it for love.

He did it so that we could have what he has.

He did it so that we could come alive and see the goodness of his grace and mercy.

And when we're going through conflict and when we're going through rejection, and when we're suffering, it's him that shows us the way to victory.

It's him that allows us to see how good it is to be vulnerable and how good it is to believe in his power.

Light in darkness.

Christ at Christmas, the people, Isaiah 9, 2 says, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined.

Are you dwelling in the valley of the shadow of death?

Is there darkness around you?

On you a great light has shined.

He's got you there on purpose.

He's got you there on mission.

Believing who you are and his light in you is there for a reason.

Because darkness cannot snuff out the light.

There is no competition.

Just shine.

Just shine.

Don't get angry.

Don't pick up a gun.

Just shine.

Come on.

John walked with him and understood this.

And he said, In him was life.

And the life was the light of man.

He was the true light, which gives light to every man who comes into the world.

Amen.

This is a fantastic scripture here.

Get this one, John 9, 5.

This is Jesus talking.

He says, As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

See, right now he's not the light of the world.

He's not in the world.

He is in the world, but he's in you.

Can you imagine?

You know, we we have what, how many years do you have to go to Bible school to get a doctorate or a master's or you know, you gotta get all this training?

Jesus had 12 Bible school students for three years.

He says, I'm out of here.

You do it.

Come on.

He says, you do it.

You do it.

Right?

He left us a legacy.

He gave us something.

The ability to shine.

Matthew 5, 14 says, you are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

It's so imperative that we know who we are.

It's so imperative that we know where our marching orders come from.

It's so imperative that we understand the mission.

It's so imperative that we understand the purpose of our existence in this journey of transformation.

We're part of something fantastic.

And I know that when we have spaceships that are flying to Mars and trying to burrow holes into the planet, and we got people trying to land on the moon, and we got machines going up to comets, and I get it.

It's a dark, barren place.

But he's got us here on Earth, full of light, bringing light to darkness.

Right?

You look at the earth from outer space, it's the most beautiful, living, live, vibrant planet in the universe.

Come on.

It's full of light bearers.

And I can just imagine sitting in heaven and looking down at the earth.

You ever see those night shots of the earth from the satellite?

And there's these cities of light everywhere.

Right?

When God looks down on the earth and he sees the darkness, he says, I want to insert a church over here.

I want to insert a family over here.

I want to insert the kingdom of God here.

I know they're going to hurt.

I know that they're going to come under attack.

I know that they're going to be misunderstood.

And I know that they're going to suffer pain.

But I want that area, I want that region to experience how good it is in the kingdom of God.

And I'll help them thrive.

I'll help them come alive to be light in a dark place.

We are the light of the world.

You know, it's interesting because we're talking about legacy.

And in the Hebrew, when you look at the word son, the Bible calls us sons.

Everybody say, I'm a son.

You gotta say it too, even though you're daughter.

I'm a son, right?

A son in the Hebrew is a builder of the family name.

In other words, what the family has, I'm going to give you, and you're going to carry that on and keep on building.

That is what a son is.

That is what a son does.

Son in the Hebrew implies builder of the family.

It implies anointing, and it implies appointing.

You are appointed to advance the kingdom of God in darkness, and I will anoint you to do it.

We're always waiting for the anointing to help us do what we're supposed to do, but when we do what we're supposed to do, the anointing is already there.

Because he will not leave his word unattended to.

Come on.

Come on.

The scripture says in Isaiah 60, verse 1 to 3, Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

Isaiah 60:1–3

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people, but the Lord will arise over you, and his glory will be seen upon you, and the Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Arise, shine, for your light has come.

Come on.

It doesn't matter how dark things are around you.

Lift up your head.

Arise.

Lift up your head.

Look at him.

Say, Lord, I'm here because of you.

I'm here on mission.

Help me to shine bright.

Help me to speak what you want me to speak.

Help me to do what you want me to do.

He'll look after the rest.

Amen.

I believe that the church is a light in a city.

You know, people drive up and down the road and look at Christmas lights, but they don't drive up down the road and look at your house and go, oh, Christ is there.

It's not typical.

Right?

People don't drive up my road and see my nice tree in the front yard and go, oh, Christ is there.

Right?

Because I'm inside the house and I'm not really talking to the cars that are driving by.

But people driving down the road see the church there.

And the church is an outward icon or symbol to the world that Christ is there.

And we've made mistakes as a church.

And we've given the world the wrong idea of what church is all about at times.

Just because we're broken too and we're in process and we're learning, and God actually loves to restore broken people.

He's not looking for a perfect person, he's not looking for somebody without problems.

He's not looking for the best church, he's looking at every church to be a representation to the world that there's hope.

And when they drive by and see the cross on the top or they see the door, I can get something there.

I could go there and get help.

I can go there and be healed.

I can be, and that ought to be our story.

How many of us have been touched by the presence of the Lord in church?

The world needs to know that I went to that place and I was touched by the presence of the Lord because He was there.

He was there.

I would not be here today standing on this pulpit if it wasn't for our church in a city that opened its doors and was welcoming to a guy that was broken and doing things that men were never designed to do.

But God comes to this place.

You are powerful.

Ephesians talks about God's love for the church.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church.

Come on, folks.

This is the most amazing thing that we have in Kelowna.

Ten, fifteen thousand worshipers gathering on a Sunday morning, going to church.

That's more than the hockey game in this town.

Right?

The church is an outward symbol.

Don't criticize the church.

Love it.

Don't belittle the church.

Support it.

Don't withhold your labor of love from the church.

Support it.

Get involved because you're part of God's plan, advancing his kingdom in darkness.

Yeah, you can do it in your home, and yeah, you can do it in your business, but do it with a corporate assembly where we can actually get together and cheer and praise and do something wonderful and great that actually brings healing and life to people that walk in the door.

When people walk in the door as a newcomer and they're hurting them, they're broken, they won't want to know how bad the pastor is.

They want to know how good God is.

They want to know how good his power is and his ability to heal.

Don't withhold your money from something great.

Don't withhold.

Don't restrain yourself from advancing the kingdom of God in a dark, broken world.

We desperately need to see the life of God.

Advance through hearts that are generous and that applaud.

We're not part of an idealistic club where we're part of the kingdom of God, where his power and his greatness, he loves broken people.

Come on, the church is full of broken people.

We have to love one another and show our love with our passion and our heart and our support and our finances.

Come on.

Sometimes we get so small in our thinking.

Do you know what was amazing?

I watched, Lisa and I watched a movie uh a little while ago.

It was called White House Down.

It was it was a shoot 'em up action attack on the White House.

And there's a guy named Channing Tatum who played John Cale.

Huh?

Tatum.

You know him.

I I imagine many of you have met him, you seem to know him, right?

Great, great guy in this movie.

He's applying for a job with the Secret Service to protect the president.

And he hopes to impress his daughter Emily, who's politically obsessed with the president, but loves the president, right?

By inviting her to go to the White House during this job interview.

And then he gets rejected but goes on this tour of the White House with his daughter.

His daughter seems to know all about the secret chambers and all this stuff that goes on in the White House because she's engaged.

The White House comes under attack.

And there's an attack on not only the White House, but on freedom and liberty in the world as a result of this attack.

And you know the story, the guy becomes a hero, and uh Kale, he actually protects the president, and after he's been rejected, he actually becomes the top-notch gunman to protect the president and takes him through this thing.

And his daughter is held captive by the enemy, and she's helping the people on the outside to bring freedom.

And they point a gun at this girl's head, and she's like, I don't care who you are, the president is gonna win.

And he's you know.

I watched this movie and it was all Hollywood, and it was like I got my adrenaline rush for two hours.

But then I thought, you know, the president of the United States is a pretty powerful guy in this movie.

And I thought, I wonder how God would feel looking down on earth in the middle of all the darkness and in the middle of all of the attacks that go on in the church, how he would feel listening to a little girl protecting his kingdom, standing up for righteousness.

I just think that there would be something that would overwhelm his heart in value and appreciation for somebody that in the middle of all of the odds would stand up and say, I believe.

Would stand up and say, I am going to fight for a cause.

Would stand up and make a difference.

Think about us as a congregation, how God has invited us in to participate in this great, great plan of his kingdom covering the whole earth.

He's taken a broken person like me, he's taken a broken person like you, and he's put nobility, he's put dreams, he's put vision, he's put potency inside of us.

And sometimes when we're in the spirit and we're enlarged, we're illuminated in our heart and our mind, what we see is much bigger than what comes out of us.

We feel limited, we feel restrained, we feel the pressure.

Hold that dear, worship God, celebrate that greatness, get into that space because it will enlarge you.

It'll shift your focus away from brokenness to glory and light.

It'll fill your heart with compassion so that you'll want to go back into brokenness and restore and heal and bring life to a dark place.

I don't know where you are this morning if you know God.

Maybe you're visiting here and you're like, what the heck is this guy talking about?

What I'm talking about is that the earth belongs to God and he's inviting us to participate in advancing his love.

He invites us to participate in the goodness of his kingdom.

He doesn't, Adam through sin has left us broken with guilt and shame.

Christ has come and he says, I don't want you to feel guilty.

I don't want you to be ashamed.

I'll take that here.

You live.

I'll fill your heart with peace, I'll fill your heart with hope.

I'll give you the greatest opportunity that you've ever experienced in your life.

Just give your heart to me.

Allow me to do a work in you.

If you don't know how to shine your light, I've been there.

God knows how.

Just fill yourself up with him and it will just come out of you.

When you poke a sponge, something comes out, unless it's dry.

Fill yourself up with him, and what will come out is his glory and his goodness.

Amen.

Would you close your eyes with me this morning?

Would you say this prayer with me?

Everybody across the room.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your son Jesus.

We thank you that you have this world under control.

I thank you that you're inviting me to be part of bringing life to a broken world.

I thank you that you want to heal me.

I thank you that you have forgiven me.

And I want to receive what you have for me today.

I want to leave this place different.

I thank you for the life of God that's available to me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.