Becoming a New Creation Part 3

Turn your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 4 this morning.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter 4, if you got the word of God this morning,

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

that's where we are in Ephesians 4.

Take our reading from there.

Buy those eggs, everything you got, everything we get goes in the building fund.

I told the 9 a.m., thank God for what God's doing and what he's done here in

this building. We're already planning for whatever's next. We want to fill this

place up and then look whatever God's doing next.

Not that we're not thankful for where we are. We're thankful for where we are.

But we also believe that God has a destiny for each and every one of us.

And we believe that it's his will that we win our city and our county and our

region. We believe that.

And so that's what we're going to continue to do. And we believe that we have

a hand to play in that. And he's going to fill this place up.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 22.

Ephesians 4:22

If you've just joined us the last few weeks, you know our theme for this year

is come and see. That's our theme.

And we say that an invitation to come and see is an invitation to transformation.

We believe it. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.

Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things have become new. That's what we believe from the Word of God.

And so kind of in that same vein, I've been preaching a series for the last

three weeks. This week is the third week on becoming a new creation in Christ

Jesus, becoming a new creation.

And if you didn't catch part one and part two of that, it's available on Facebook and YouTube.

All three sermons in the series will be on the podcast by tomorrow morning.

And so you can go back and either watch that or listen to it on the podcast. That will be available.

But we're going to jump right into the third part of this sermon series.

The book of Ephesians chapter 4 says it this way. This is our text today.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life,

that old self, and is corrupt through deceitful desires.

And to be renewed in the spirit of your minds. If you'll remember,

we dug into that a little bit last week about renewing our minds.

We can actually, finally, medical science has caught up with the Word of God,

and they say that we can actually forge new pathways and new neural pathways

in our mind, new habits in our mind. The Bible's telling us that we could do this.

2,000 years ago, the Bible is informing us to be renewed in the spirit of your minds.

We're going to move on this week, and the Bible says, And to put on the new self.

There's a new you that you're expected to put on when you're in Christ Jesus.

There's a new nature that you're expected to put on.

Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Put on the new self. Along that thought today, I want to preach this third part

in this series, Becoming a New Creation.

Living daily as a new creation. Listen, sometimes people put on church clothes.

And you don't know them outside of church clothes don't point nobody in

this room all right don't you be pointing fingers you see

them out somewhere and you see how they act right but

they put on their church clothes on sunday morning because they're acting like

something different on sunday morning that's not what the bible teaches the

bible teaches us there's a new self that we put on every single day right whether

there's church or not that's what we're going to talk about living daily as a new creation.

We're going to talk about this. Let's pray all of this building.

Father, in the name of Jesus, we come before you. We thank you for your Holy Spirit.

Thank you for this newness of life that we can all experience.

And Holy Spirit, we just ask you to help us this morning. Let us understand

your word. Let us understand your truth.

Holy Spirit, only you can speak one word that says so much to every individual.

So Holy Spirit, speak to us this

morning. Speak to every person in this building. In your name we pray.

And the church said? Amen. Amen.

Preaching this morning on the subject, living daily as a new creation.

Living daily as a new creation.

Kind of my theme that I want to carry out throughout this morning while I'm talking to you is this.

God didn't just save you. He gave you a new identity.

Man, this has been with me so strong all week. You can't truly live in your

new identity if you don't know the God who gave it to you.

You can't live in the newness of life, the way that the scripture teaches us,

if you don't know the God that has given us this new life.

Now, as we get started, we'll talk about it more in depth, but I've got personal experience with this.

Some of you have personal experience with this. Me and Vip was talking about

this before between services today, that there was a lot of times in high school

that I tried to live for Christ. I got saved for real on April 17th, 1997.

But in my high school years, I tried to live for Christ back and forth,

in and out. I would do good for a Sunday or two, and I would try hard for a

summer, and then I'm back out again.

And I really do believe the reason why is because I was trying to follow all

the rules of religion, but I really didn't know the God of Christianity.

I want to say that again. I was trying to follow the rules of religion,

but I really didn't know the God of the Bible, the God of Christianity.

And this is really the main point of this message is that if you don't know

Jesus personally, if you don't know Jesus for yourself, then you can't live this life.

Because, man, I would try, because back then we had lots of rules,

all right? How many grew up in the old church and you had lots of rules?

Yeah, we grew up in the old church.

We used to say that we don't smoke or chew or run for those that do.

And, you know, we had all these, I know, I know. We had all these kind of rules

that we kind of followed, and we knew there was rules to it.

And a lot of us tried to live those rules without knowing Jesus.

And it's frustrating when you're trying to live those rules without knowing Jesus.

See, I struggled with my identity. And I think a lot of people can identify

with this as well, because many people struggle with living as a new creation.

They're torn between the old life that they know and the new life that they're

trying to lead their self, walk their self into.

And we've said this for years, that if you are not careful, if you're not pursuing Christ,

if you're not getting growing in your relationship with God,

that when the pressure's on and everybody is criticizing and you're lonely and

you don't know what to do, and the absence of all of the support system,

we tend to gravitate back to what is most familiar.

That's why people that are in recovery, they're trying to replace old habits

with new habits, and that's why it's important that you have partnership,

or you have mentorship, that you have accountability.

There's no different in our walk with God. If we're not careful,

we tend to gravitate back to that old nature, that old desire.

But we read in scripture about becoming a new creation, a new creature.

See, I believe that the reason why people fail to live successfully in this

life, the reason why people walk away from Christianity is because they don't

know the God that gave them their new identity.

I've said this for years. People don't love Jesus because they don't know him.

Amen? Because if you know Jesus, you can't help but love him.

I mean, think about this. Those of you who really know the Lord,

I know maybe somebody walked in, this is a casual encounter with church today,

and you think that Jesus is church. That's not what I'm talking about.

I can walk out of church. If it was all about church, I wouldn't be preaching the gospel today.

If it was all just about a social club to come be a part of,

then I wouldn't be in this thing. but this is about more than a social club.

This is not a country club with a cross out front on the sign.

That's not what this is. This is a relationship with a risen Savior that his

blood purchased my salvation.

And until you know the God of the Bible, you truly can't serve him the way the

Bible has called us to serve him.

See, I liken it to this. I started thinking about this week.

We believe in foster and adoption in this church.

We believe that foster and adoption is the heart of God.

But I started thinking about this. I've known people over the years that they've

been adopted into families, but they still struggled believing that someone

could love them because of the trauma of their past,

because that maybe they had been abused in the past or had been neglected in the past.

Because of the trauma of their past, they couldn't believe that they could come

into a home where someone could truly love me for who I am.

It's not going to use me, not going to abuse me.

And I think that many people, many Christians, many believers are the same way.

We let the trauma of our past cloud the reality of who Jesus Christ has called

us to be. I want to say this right now.

God is a good father. And no matter what you've seen with your earthly natural

fathers and mothers and spouses and whoever else and the siblings in the past, God is a good father.

You may have been traumatized in the past, but God's not here to abuse you.

God's not here to use you.

God is never going to neglect you. As a matter of fact, the scripture teaches

that he will never leave us. He will never forsake us, but He will be with us

even to the end of the world.

That's the God that we're serving today.

But many Christians live the same way. They've been adopted into God's family,

but they don't know His heart.

And I really do believe this, that if you don't trust God, then you will never

trust His plan for your life.

We don't trust Him. Therefore, when He puts something on our heart that may

be difficult, It's hard for us to trust that plan for our lives.

It's hard to believe that he could be a good father and walk us through even difficult situations.

That's why I'm preaching today about this ability to know this God that gave you your new identity.

Know this God that we're coming and serving.

Know this God that we're singing about. There's not enough songs on the radio

to keep you living in Christ.

I know, I'm thankful for Christian music. I'm not anti-music,

except for that one song that says God likes me just so he wouldn't change a.

Thing about me. That one song, I will say I am anti.

But I'm not anti-Christian music. I'm not anti-gospel music.

But I want to say this right now.

You cannot just get to know God through music.

Right? You've got to read the Word of God. You've got to pray.

You've got to study the Scripture. I know I'm striking chords right here.

I saw some people get a little. So just know I'm the kind of preacher that if

I see people getting uncomfortable, that's where I stay. All right. Anyway, here we go.

We talked about this in Ephesians. We talked about Ephesus last week that Paul

is speaking to the church at Ephesus.

And we said that it was a pagan community. I don't think that we realize just

how much of a pagan community that Ephesus was.

As a matter of fact, when we talk about the city of Ephesus,

Ephesus was the largest and the most influential cities in the Roman Empire

during the time. that Paul is preaching this.

When he's writing to the church at Ephesus, it is a cultural,

an economic, a religious hub.

The temple, the great temple of Diana, I think it was one of the seven wonders

of the ancient world, was located in Ephesus.

And so when Paul is writing to the Ephesians church and he's telling them,

you got to put on the new nature, you got to put the new self.

He's writing it to a group of people that knew what it was like to be pressured.

It knew what it was like to be coming out of a sinful past.

Supply ingrained pagan culture. See, sometimes we look at the preacher and say,

Preacher, you don't know what I'm going through.

That wasn't the context that Paul is speaking to the Ephesian church.

Sometimes you tell people what the Bible says. I've done this before.

One time I was telling somebody, they were telling me about the choice that they made.

And I said, yeah, but the scripture said.

And they said, yeah, but you know, when the Bible was written,

it wasn't written with what we're going through today.

Oh, let me go ahead, because I know there's probably people in here right now.

You're saying, well, it's different today than it was. You're right.

It's different, because now, back in Ephesus, you didn't have to get on a computer

and point, click, drag, drop, anything else to get to sin.

It was everywhere in Ephesus. There was prostitution in Ephesus.

There was sorcery in Ephesus. There was all kinds of idolatry and immoral living

on the streets and in the temple of Ephesus. And so when you think about it

this way, what happened in Ephesus didn't stay in Ephesus.

It went into every part of their life. It was a evil culture.

So you can't look at this scripture this morning and say, oh,

yeah, but they don't know what I came out of.

I guarantee you that you didn't come out of what some of these pagan believers

in Ephesus were coming out of.

So don't think that the Bible is not a book that you can relate to.

Paul is speaking not just to Ephesus. He's speaking to us because there's nothing

that we came out of that was more difficult than what these people in Ephesus came out of.

I want to say this morning, you can listen to these words and you can,

you can identify with these words because sometimes we're like that,

you know, a few weeks or a few months ago, actually it was a couple of years

ago. I got preacher fired right there for a second.

A couple of years ago, I went down to Doc Renfro and I said,

Doc, I think I'm having chest pains.

I thought I was having a heart attack and turns out it was acid reflux.

And you know how Doc is. Doc's very, he's very laid back about things.

And so I'm there. I think I'm dying.

And I'd made that spreadsheet again. And so I told Ashley where all the insurance money was.

And so I thought I was dying. And I went in there and Doc said, you know how Doc is.

Doc said, ah, Scott, you'll be all right. Like, she's like, I was having chest pain.

And he's like, ah, Scott. And so, you know, you want to say,

hey, you don't know what this is like. But, you know, Doc was healed of cancer.

And so, you know, Doc just about died. And so I didn't feel like I could look

at Doc and say, yeah, but you don't know what it's like.

Because, you know, that's the way we are with this scripture today.

When we look at it, when Paul said to put on the new self to the church at Ephesus,

you can't look at this and say, yeah, but you don't know what.

No, they knew what it was like in Ephesus. It was a pagan culture.

Not only that, they struggled with their identity.

These people with Ephesus, they knew what their past was. They wrestled with it.

Many of them had accepted Christ, but they were tempted by their old lifestyle.

It was in their face every single day. That's why Paul told them to put off

their old self because a lot of them were trying to dig back into those old

habits that they used to be in.

He told them to be renewed in their thinking because they needed a new perspective on life.

Not only that, he told them put on the new self. And the reason why is because

they had a new identity, but they weren't fully living it.

I'm saying that right now because church, many of us are not living up to the

standard of the identity that Christ has given us.

If people don't look at you and say, believer, then you are not living up to

the identity that Christ, the new self that Christ paid for.

If people identify you with anything else, if they identify you by what you

live in, by what you drive, by the job you do, more than they identify you by

who you are in Christ. I know, Ashley gave me one.

I just saw that face you made right there. I'm going to preach it anyway.

If they identify you by anything other than your relationship with Christ,

then we are not living up to the new self that the Bible tells us to put on. Amen.

I believe it. And then he's fighting. He was fighting against this Roman concept.

Because here's why they could relate to this. Paul said to put on the new self.

In the Roman culture, what your wardrobe was, what you put on,

was indicative of your status in society.

In Roman culture, changing clothes identified changing status.

I love this part right here.

Because slaves wore different garments than free citizens.

So when you became a citizen of Rome, nobody had to go out and walk in front

of you and announce that you are now a citizen of Rome.

You actually, if you look at it, they would change their toga.

And by putting on the new toga, people knew that they were a citizen of Rome.

That people identified them by what they had put on.

I'm not talking about church clothes right now. Now, I'm talking about the new

nature, that people identify us by the new nature in Christ that we put on.

Just like in the Old Testament when priests change their garments,

performing their duties, it symbolized holiness.

There should be something about

a new nature in our lives that symbolizes that we have been with God.

See, that's what the Bible says about the apostles in the New Testament.

The Bible says that people looked at them and they took knowledge that they

had been with Jesus. Amen.

That's how it needs to be in our lives. That people look at us and they hear

our talk and our manner of speech.

They see people need to look at us when the waitress gets our order wrong at

the restaurant and know we've been with God because we're not acting like everybody else.

I'm going to let that marinate, all right? Man, I've seen Christians act downright ugly, like I have.

I've seen believers act ugly, and I know maybe you are paying good money for

that meal, but that meatloaf ain't worth somebody's salvation.

If they get put off with your Christianity, then you could impact their life

in a negative way, and maybe they'll never listen to anybody about Jesus.

All right, my blood sugar must be dropping. I'm being a little mean this morning, ain't I?

Ashley's getting me a piece of candy out right there. No, you know,

when you get good at anointing, there's a fine line between being anointed and mad, right?

I'm mad at the devil this morning, trying to rob us of our joy.

Paul was saying your conversion wasn't just a moment, it's transformation.

See, that's the problem. That's the problem when people say,

I was saved back in 1986, but they've never acted like they've lived saved since 1986.

We said it last week that we are saved and we're being saved.

The Bible says that he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved,

which means that I not only went to an altar on April 17, 1997,

but I've had to get up every day since then, crucify the flesh,

choose Jesus, and walk in righteousness, and it's had to be a choice that I've made.

And listen, sometimes I don't do a good job of it, right?

Sometimes, I hope that was a delayed amen, but sometimes I don't do a good job of it, right?

Sometimes I don't. But you know what you've got to do? The Bible says,

though, a righteous man falls seven times. He gets back up again.

You've got to get back up and start walking in salvation, walking in righteousness.

Once again, I started thinking about the Apostle Peter's transformation.

It's a great example of what Paul's saying to the church at Ephesus because

the Apostle Peter started out with the name Simon.

He was weak. He was emotional.

You didn't know if he was going to stand up and give a word from the Lord or

cut somebody's ear off. That's how it was when you start looking at Simon before his conversion.

But the Bible says that Jesus changed his name to Petra, rock, Peter.

That's what that name means is a rock.

What he was saying was you can't identify with your old nature anymore.

You've got to identify with your new nature.

See, here's where we are. Many believers today, you're saved,

but we're still struggling to step into our new identity. and we cannot stay in our old identity.

There's a new nature. See, here's what I want to say. Can I go ahead and just

say what I want to say? Is that all right right now?

Stop living like who you used to be and start living like who you are in Christ Jesus.

That's what I want to say this morning.

Amen. Thank you for that golf clap. Paul was telling them, you are no longer

divine by your past, but to walk in your new identity, you must fully know and

trust the God who has called you.

To walk in your new identity, you must fully know and trust the God who has called you.

See, what we don't realize is we don't realize we've been adopted into the family of God.

We have been adopted into the family of God.

That's what the Bible teaches us. The Bible teaches us in Galatians chapter

Galatians 4 · chapter mention

4 that we are no longer slaves. We're sons and daughters of God.

The Bible teaches us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 that our old identity is gone,

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

and now we carry Christ's righteousness.

The Bible shows us in Romans chapter 8 that we have a new inheritance with Jesus.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We've been adopted, given a new identity.

See, going back to that example of the apostle Peter, he was a fisherman by trade called Simon.

That was his name. a fisherman called Simon.

He had no, he had a reputation, but no qualifications, right?

Some of us, that's how we feel that we are. We come in Christ.

We give our heart to the Lord.

We identify, we have no qualifications and we identify with our old reputation.

And the Bible shows us clearly that we don't have to live that way anymore.

After his conversion, after Pentecost, the Bible says that Peter,

he shows us that Peter embraced that new identity.

He became a leader in the church.

He, as a matter of fact, he was willing to give his life for Jesus.

Why? Because his past failures didn't define him anymore. He was defined by

his new identity in Christ.

So I at least got to ask the question, what's defining you today?

Where do you get your identity?

Are you still known as that guy that used to do this. I mean,

I hope not. I hope our identity is in Christ Jesus.

So three things, embracing this identity, I need to leave you with today, all right?

Number one is this, relationship always comes before rules in Christ.

Relationship always comes before rules because the reality is before we can

embrace some of the statutes that God has in our lives, we gotta know him first,

cause here's the issue you're never going to fully trust God's ways until you know his heart.

Until you know the heart, that's what I was talking about when I was a teenager trying to live this.

You know, I was trying to act the right way and dress the right way and say

the right things, you know.

We try to teach people, you know, God is good all the time.

You know, you got to get that cheesy televangelist kind of Christianese lingo.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about knowing the God that you're supposed to be serving.

I thought about this this week. So think about this.

Israel, God brings them out of Egypt. Old Testament, God brings them out of Egypt.

He delivers them. On the way out of Egypt, as he's delivering them,

and if you read Exodus chapter 14, he split the Red Sea, did a mighty miracle of nature.

Exodus 14 · chapter mention

In Exodus chapter 16, he rains manna down from heaven.

Exodus 16 · chapter mention

In Exodus chapter 17, he defeats all of their enemies, and he waits all the

Exodus 17 · chapter mention

way to Exodus chapter 20 before he gives them the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

Think about that. He wanted them to know just how much he loved them before

he ever gave them any rules.

We can't relate to that, can we? Hey, I'm a teacher, right?

By trade, I'm a teacher. And so you know what you do first day of school?

You walk in and say, here's the rules, right?

Like, they don't even know my name yet. And I'm like, listen,

teachers, how many teachers do we got in here?

Let me be honest. You don't even care that they know your name first day.

You're just like, here's the rules. Here's what you do.

Right? So we walk in, and we're like, here's the rules. And they don't even know who we are.

And they struggle because they don't even know who we are. God's not that way.

God didn't just, he didn't intend just to lay out a bunch of rules,

and you try to follow those rules without even knowing his heart.

See, the reality is John chapter 10 says it this way.

John 10 · chapter mention

I am the good shepherd. Before you ever know his statutes and read all the laws

and everything else, just know that he is a good shepherd, that he loves you.

He cares about you. He loves your family.

He wishes above all things that we prosper and be in health,

even as our soul prospers.

1 John 5 says this, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,

and his commandments are not burdensome.

You know what it is, that his commandments are not burdensome?

When I know how much he loves me, those commandments, they don't seem burdensome anymore.

They don't seem grievous, and yes, the King James language is grievous.

They don't seem grievous anymore when I know just how much that he loves me.

So I started thinking about this week. I was, we were down in Charleston several years ago.

Our boys were little, and we were out there, and one section of Charleston,

just off the water there, there's a big fountain, and there's kids,

some people running into the fountain. It was hot. Man, it was hot as a firecracker that day.

And right beside of it, not sure which engineer planned this one,

but you know, I hope we had some retraining, but there's a road that's right beside the fountain.

So our boys were little, they had their little swimming trunks on.

And so they ran into that fountain and the fountain, the water in the fountain

was cold compared to the temperature outside.

Lucas runs in there, gets cold and runs straight out of that fountain.

The problem is he started running straight out into the road that had cars coming.

Now, what did I do? What are you thinking? Yes. I was like, stop.

You didn't kill. I'm doing all that kind of stuff.

Now, he was able to listen because, you know what? He's also the same one that

I held and I helped feed and clothe and nurture.

And he knew my love for him. Now, I'll tell you this.

If I were to sit on that sidewalk right beside that fountain and everybody that

started to walk out of the fountain onto the sidewalk and out into the road,

even when nothing was coming, if I sat there and yelled at everybody and said,

right, they're going to call the police because they're going to think because they don't know me.

They don't know if I love them. I've never shown them any love.

See, that's our problem is that some of us live this Christian life just trying

to follow the rules when we don't know the Jesus, the Lord that loves us, who gave himself for us.

And because we don't know him, the rules are grievous.

The commandments are grievous. But when you realize that he loves us so much

that he gave himself for us, then those restrictions are no longer grievous.

Not only that, but when you know how much he loves you, we understand that God's

boundaries are not to restrict us.

God's boundaries lead to freedom.

As a matter of fact, his boundaries are not changed. They're keys to true freedom.

People going to like what I had done.

Okay, I'm going to step out on a limb right here, all right?

I'm going to step out on a limb right here.

Because people have asked me about drinking before, right? They've asked me about alcohol before.

Don't you just love when preachers bring this kind of stuff up?

And so people have asked me about alcohol before.

And I've told them, I tell the same people the same thing over and over and

over and over again, is that I cannot prove to you scripturally where taking

a drink and alcohol will send you to hell.

I can't prove it scripturally. The Bible says that wine is a mocker,

strong drink is raging, he that is deceived by it is unwise.

However, our church stance on it is zero alcohol. And the reason why is because

it has destroyed more lives, more families, and more childhood than any other

substance in human history.

Just so you know where we stand and everything is clear. And so I heard someone

say this, and here's my thing, is that if somebody ever tells me,

if I ever hear, I'll change my mind, if anybody ever comes up to me and says,

hey, you know what, Scott?

My daughter was losing her mind at college. She was skipping class.

She was running the wrong people, but then she started drinking,

man. She started making straight A's. Never heard it.

Never heard it. I've heard the opposite. The first person that ever comes to

me and says, hey, you know what, Scott?

My husband was a mess, and our marriage was a mess, and everything was on the

rocks, but then we started drinking, and man, we just love each other so much.

I've never heard it. I've never heard it a single time.

And so when the Bible says things about wine being a mocker and strong drink

being raging, those are not put in there as chains.

Those are put in there as keys to freedom to where you can live your best life. Amen?

All right. Now, if you're not still my friend, I'm still yours. And so it's all good.

See, because here's what happens. Here's what happens is Genesis chapter two

says it this way. You may,

God is telling them in the garden, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden,

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and you shall not eat it.

Because for in the day that you eat it, you shall surely die.

This is God talking to Adam and Eve, telling them they can't eat of this tree.

We know that Satan comes back, twists that, perverts it, and says,

God's just trying to hold you back from something that could give you some fun,

make you seem like you're God. He perverted the truth.

God gave them a restriction that was a key to freedom. And I'll say this right

now, if it wasn't for them partaking of that tree in the midst of the garden,

we would be living without problems right now.

We would be living worry-free right now.

We wouldn't have to be having elections who have two candidates who are definitely

not the best two people in America right now.

We've had all these great things going on in the world, but the devil perverted

it, and he's still doing the same thing today.

He tries to make God's keys to freedom look like restrictions.

All right. So I feel some people, it's getting a little tired.

So let me go on to the next point.

But if you want to talk to me after service, I'll have a three-hour conversation

with you on it. All right.

The more you know him, the more you trust him. The more you know him, the more you trust him.

See, there's where we are because some people, they come into church and they

have one bad experience after they become a believer.

And they say, well, I just couldn't live this life. No, it's that you didn't

get to know God and you didn't start walking a faithful relationship with Jesus.

That's what it comes down to. You know, a lot of times when Ashley,

the other day we were in a store and Ashley comes up to me and she says something

every time that she buys something or does something, you know,

she walks up to me and she says, don't be mad. And she smiles.

See she she knew where i was going with that she

walks up to me and she goes don't be mad and i

always know that it may have jeopardized our financial future no i don't she

says that and she's bought something or doing something but see i i don't get

mad i usually laugh and say okay what are we what are we buying now what are

we doing now yeah i you because i've walked with her long enough.

See, if I had not known her and I just saw money coming out of the account and

she walked up to me and said, don't be mad, I'd have probably been getting mad

because I'd been nervous about what's going on here.

But I've walked with her long enough to know that she walks in wisdom.

She's not going to, you know, ruin our financial stability. She's not going to put us in a bad spot.

I trust her. You know why? Because I've walked with her for the last 23 years.

I've walked with her. It's the same way with God. Even when people criticize,

I trust him because I walk with him.

Even when my walk in this life gets difficult and it's great,

sometimes it feels a little grievous.

I trust him because I've walked with him. That's what we're looking at.

The more you walk with him, the more you trust him.

Obedience becomes easier when you know and trust the character of God.

The apostle said it this way. The apostle Paul said, indeed,

I count everything is lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

In other words, he said, I'm not afraid to lose all that other stuff because

I've walked with him long enough to realize it's worth losing it all if I'm gaining Christ.

Jesus is more precious than any of them.

So here's kind of what we get to. You can read those scriptures.

I'm not going to go through them. Ashley, if you'll help me out.

A recent Barna study said this, said only 17% of Christians have a biblical worldview.

I didn't say 17% of Americans. You heard me correctly.

Only 17% of Christians have a biblical worldview, which means that most believers

are not even living out what they claim to believe.

Most believers, I'm just telling you what people have self-reported.

Most believers do not have a relationship with the God that they're trying to serve.

And we wonder why for the last 20, 30 years Christianity has declined in America.

It's because we're trying to worship a God that we don't know.

We're trying to, see, that's why there's so much pressure. We got to make a

song catchy enough so that people will sing it and set an atmosphere so people know. You know what?

If we love God enough, we walk in here with no music and lift our hands and

just say glory to God. But we have to try to create gimmicks.

Because we're trying to serve a God we don't even know.

But what we got to do as believers is we got to get to know him.

We got to get to know him. The only way that we'll ever truly serve him is if we get to know him.

The only way that we'll ever put on the new self is if we get to know God. Remember, we said this.

God didn't just save you. He gave you a new identity, but you can't live in

your new identity if you don't know the God who gave it to you. You got to know him.

So this kelly sent out this picture this week in our family chat yeah that's an oldie but goodie,

so just to show you how old i am uh that is ashley in uh puppy dog slippers,

that's sitting to my right she has that helmet on um and then.

Okay okay i'll carry on now to to

the left to the left is alissa so

she's sitting there on my lap playing the

game and she's old enough now to be taking she's

still young alissa but she she's mature enough now to be taking students with

her husband to on a youth ministry trip and then you got um andrews leaning

over the couch who after working at eastman went back has already finished medical

school and is in residency so i so just to tell you how old this picture is,

i gave my heart to jesus in 1997 and even though i was raised in church i still struggled,

you know why i struggled because i had a past that said i tried to live it but

couldn't so I was in and out I struggled because I came from an abusive home,

so my relationships with natural fathers were that's I can't trust them,

I struggled because I had a reputation and I had a hard time getting my reputation

out of my mind so the other day when I was looking at this photo,

you know what I thought,

I thought nobody knows just how much the guy in that picture struggled.

Nobody knows the battles that that guy right there had,

you know I was I was dating Ashley I was in Pastor Rob's home you know how it

is the Foltz household you walk in and there's you know we the manifest presence

of God was there and I had to slaughter a bullock and sprinkle the blood yeah,

like everything was right in the folks house but I didn't have that experience,

I had baggage and so that guy when you look at that guy right there in that picture.

He struggled because he would mess up and he would think, can I even do this?

He struggled because I would read the promises of God and I would think,

could a father really be this good? Because that's not my experience.

I struggled because every time I had something go on that shouldn't go on,

the devil said, see, that reputation, that is who you really are.

You don't have a new nature, a new identity.

But I want to say this, you know what I started doing? I started diving into the Word of God.

See, that's the way you know Jesus. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh.

If you want to know Jesus, you're not going to find Him in a song.

You're not going to find Him in a TV show. You're going to find Him right there in the scripture.

You read the Word of God, you're going to get to know Jesus.

The more I studied the scripture,

the more I started realizing who Jesus was and I realized that

he I could trust him he's not like

an earthly father he's not like an earthly relationship he's

so much more faithful than that not only

that but he could take away my past and give me a

new nature that I could be successful in the closer

I got to him the longer I served him the more I realized I could trust him and

I'd read one of those commandments in the bible and i'd the lord would convict

me over something i'd stop doing something you know and it wasn't grievous you

know why because i just wanted to know that guy i was getting no,

i wanted to be closer to that god that i was getting to know i wanted to do

anything for that god that i was serving because i loved him that much you'll

never truly serve a god that you don't know we got to know him so i'll stand

up all over this building.

The key to being a

new creation every day every day of our lives not

just a sunday church clothes relationship the key is you get to know that god

you're serving you be written relationship with that god that you're serving

hey here's a shameless bible study plug you know one of the first things that

i did i got saved in april 17th 1997 i started coming to monday night bible study,

Me and Ashley, we were the youngest two there For about 30 years,

it didn't matter I wasn't there For a social club, I was there Because I wanted

to hear from the Lord I wanted to know what the scripture said,

I was going to Sunday morning church Sunday night church Monday night Bible

study, Wednesday night church And Thursday night youth meeting Amen,

And now we call three day revival And they're like, they're going to church us to death.

No No No, we're just getting to know him.

Because if you get to know him, you can't help but love him.

And once you know him for who he is, you can't help but want to serve him.

That's where God wants us today. Every head bowed, every eye closed.

I believe the Holy Spirit is speaking to some people today. And I also believe

that the Holy Spirit is healing some hearts of people that maybe you've had a bad experience.

Maybe you've been wounded by a natural father, mother, spouse, sibling.

And now you've got trust issues to the point where you're dragging that.

You're trying to project those issues over onto God. and and

i'm sorry the bible tells us that god is not a man that

he should lie he's not like earthly people he's not

like us he is faithful he is

faithful so i'm speaking to you today telling you

that he's wanting to heal you of all that stuff here's a

question it's very personal i'm not going to drag you to the front of the building i'm not

going to point you out this is very personal very private but if you're here

today and you don't know jesus christ for yourself or maybe maybe you're here

and you're saying i don't know if i ever really knew him for myself maybe i

just got a relationship with church but i want a relationship with jesus if

that's you today and you want you want to know christ for yourself i just want

you to raise your hand and say that's me.

That's me i want to know jesus there's hands going up who else you say

that's me i want to know jesus for myself not just a church relationship

not just a not just i want to know jesus for myself anybody

else you'd say that's me that's me thank you

jesus you can put those hands down here's my main call if

you're here today you say pastor scott i want

to grow in my new identity i want to get to

know jesus i want to serve him and get to know him

so that i can serve him better if that's you i

just want you to raise your head there's hands already going up yep that's me

that's me that's a lot of us that's a lot of us i'm speaking to somebody in

here that you need healing because you got you got trauma from your past that's

hindering your relationship with god there's healing in this room today you

can be healed of that you don't have to live in that any longer There's healing for that.

Here's what I want us to do. I want us to come to this altar.

If you raise your hand on any of those calls, or there's just something you

need to talk to God about.

We say it every week. This altar is

not a place of shame. It's a place of restoration and healing and power.

So I want you to step out on the count of three. One, two, three.

Step on out. Start moving this way. That's right.

That's right. This altar is a place of healing, place of restoration,

place of change, place of empowerment.

If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.

Old things are passed away. behold all things

have become new there's a new self that

we can put on a new nature in christ that we

could put on father in the name of jesus we come before you

we just ask you right now jesus lord to

heal every part of us heal all the trauma heal all the hurt god that's there

because of lies and deceit of men but jesus we want to know you for who you

are father i pray right now jesus that you would just give us an awareness of

who you are, that we would grow in your word.

Music.

When you get to know him, this is the way to know him. This is.

This is the way to know God. It's through his word.

When you get to know him, you learn that his statutes, his ordinances,

is a key to victory. It's not a hindrance.

It's love. It's love. And the more you know him, the more you want to serve him. I believe that.

Remember Bible study today at 6 o'clock. I hope you guys have a great week,

midweek service this Wednesday night. Lots of things going on.

Get a health supplement over in the kitchen before you leave, $2 each.

They got every flavor, she said, whatever that means, every flavor.

God bless you guys. We love you guys.