Heart Check

Say that again. Good morning.

My name is Jason Moore. I'm the student pastor here.

If you're visiting with us here in person or online, our pastor,

Kyle Walker, he is leading a revival down in Carrollton this

week. So he's preaching this morning

and tonight and the next three nights.

I believe so if y'all could be praying for Kyle, he would much

appreciate it and and we look forward to him coming back next

week. This morning we get a chance as

I was speaking to get a chance to highlight a few of my

students. So during prayer time and I was

super excited for our three that came up and did the welcome.

When you say, hey, I need some volunteers to to do the welcome

in front of everyone. You don't expect 3 introverts to

say, yeah, I want to do that. And I was so pumped.

So thank you all so much for doing that.

That that was that was exciting. So and then, yeah, give my hand.

And so my friend Sam James is going to read our passage that

we're going, we're continuing in first John, we're in chapter 3.

We start in verse 19. So if you want to find that in

your in your in your copy of God's word.

And then Sam is this is this is Stephen, this is Pastor

Stephen's son. Sam is going to read our passage

for us this morning. So go ahead, Sam.

First, John 319 through 24 says, By this we shall know that we

are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him.

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our

heart, and He knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not

condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask

we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do

what pleases Him. And this is His commandment,

that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love

one another just as He has commanded us.

Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God, and God in him,

and by this we know that He abides in us by the Spirit whom

He has given us. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Sam. So just a little trivia

knowledge for y'all. Sam feels called to the ministry

and oh, that's yours. I'm sorry.

Yeah, take yours. And so Sam, Phil's called to the

ministry and so he's a senior this year and he is, they're

figuring out exactly where he's going to land for college.

But y'all can be praying for him and all that God has in store

for him. I'm sure that deep voice he has,

it's going to be it's going to be resonating and doing some

awesome things for the Kingdom. So excited to see what's coming

there. So there's a, if you were paying

attention, I hope you were. There's a lot of heart talk in

that passage. And so we're going to talk this,

I'm titled this sermon Heart Check, which really goes along

with our theme for first John. And I want to start with telling

you about a movie. So in the, in the 90s, in the

early 90s, a cinematic wonder piece was, was launched and, and

it's a, it's a juggernaut in the film industry, one of the ones

that I've seen many times. In fact, when I was a teacher, I

would find excuses to play this movie in my classroom and we'd,

we'd probably watch, I'd probably watch it 6-7 times a

year. So the, the movie has this one

scene though, where what he's not the main character, but he

might as well because it's kind of his story.

He is in a pickle and he's really struggling with something

and he has a dream and Babe Ruth comes and visits him in his room

and he basically says because this is it's a Sandlot because

that's the that's the movie. So Benny the jet Rodriguez is

having this dream and because him and his buddies have messed

up with some baseball shenanigans and he has a stream

that Babe Ruth comes and visits him, the great Bambino, the king

of Crash and his dream and tells him what to do.

And he he wraps up with this tagline.

Follow your heart, kid, and you'll never go wrong.

Don't that sound good? And then they did the whole

thing with the dog. And if you've seen the movie,

you know what's going on. If you haven't seen the movie,

it's a good one. So this this the sentiment of

follow your heart and you'll never go wrong.

We hear that so much. And and I know when you hear a

preacher say something like this in church, you may roll your

eyes like, yeah, I've heard this before, but it's true.

We just we hear this. We are inundated with this.

If every children's show and children's movie just about will

say that at some point, sometimes advice that were given

to our kids, just follow your heart.

Just follow your heart. It won't steer you wrong.

And that sounds so good. And then I was like, yeah, I

want to do that. That sounds really good.

Then I read Jeremiah, Jeremiah 17 nine says the heart is

deceitful above all things. Desperately sick.

Who can understand it? Well, let goes all in Babe

Ruth's face, doesn't it? Right there.

I mean, good grief, what? And you know, the Bible is

actually the one I should listen to.

It is tricky. The heart of man.

We are fickle. We change.

Our heart is it goes with the whims and flows of society.

If you don't believe me, let me tell you about the walls I've

lived through. I've lived through wood paneling

and I've lived through wallpaper and I've lived through faux

painting and I've lived through all different types of taupe,

whatever that is. So like our, and you know, when

those times came to redecorate the house, your heart was set on

that. And then it changes and you're

like, I can't stand these walls anymore.

Some of you may have just elbowed someone.

I'm sorry if, if that was you, but our heart can be fickle and

it can be very selfish. Like God said through Jeremiah,

it can be deceitful, desperately sick.

And so we need to do a heart check today because our our sick

heart, a sick heart can really, really hinder our, our

involvement with Christ, our growth as a believer, our our

punch in this whole world, like the impact that we have here.

And so we want to look at what the scripture says here.

It begins with, by this we shall know.

And we have to figure out what by this is.

And, and one of the you can look at it both ways.

You can look backwards and see that by this is referring to the

passage before Kyle talked last week about the one word that

defines a Christian. That word is what you might

remember love very good. He'll be glad to know so that

one word that defines Christians is love and we are supposed to

be loving one another. It should be a characteristic of

all that we do and and so by this and it wraps up that

section wraps up by this little children.

Let us not love and word or talk, but in deed and truth.

And so there's action to our our love.

There is truth to our love it there's an integrity to it.

So by this we know that we are of the truth, but also by this

to look forward at, at this heart issue that's going on

here. So it says again, by this we

shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts

before him for whenever your heart, our heart condemns us.

God is greater than our heart and he knows everything.

Often times we can have some heart issues that go on.

I've seen, you've probably know many people who have had had to

deal with things regarding their heart.

Maybe they've had to wear a little friend, a little heart

monitor for a few weeks to see what was going on with their

heart. Maybe they were getting short of

breath when they shouldn't be. Maybe they were just kind of out

of shape and their heart would race way often too often than it

should. Something like that.

When our heart, when our heart is in trouble, the rest of us

are too. The rest of who we are gets in

trouble too. And so I want to look at some

conditions that we may have to we, we, we go through just to

check them out. So let's do a heart check.

We're here real here. If you're having chest pains, a

spiritual in a spiritual sense, if you're having a physical

chest pain, then you need to get that dealt with right now.

Not me, not, not, not with with what I'm going to give you here.

But if you're having spiritual chest pains, then we need to, we

need to correct and deal with that right now because it's,

it's, it is urgent. And so the first thing I want to

talk about is a heart that's heavy, a heavy hearted person,

11, who has a weight on their heart and this weight maybe look

like this. Maybe you're a believer, you

know, Christ as Lord and Savior, you're confident in that

relationship. But you, you are burdened with

sin. God has, has, has revealed sin

in your life. You, it may even be habitual.

You have a sin that you just keep going back to, and the

shame and the guilt of that, it's sitting heavy on your

heart. And while that's there, it has

your attention and you feel ineffective.

You feel like I can't because of this.

I can't because this is pressing on me.

Or it may be even a sin from the past.

It may be I can't because I used to be this way.

Well, let me remind you that there's power in the blood.

And if you are a believer, then Christ's blood has washed away

all of your sins. And I love to explain this

because even adults sometimes get hung up on this.

Oftentimes when we come to Christ, maybe you were a child,

maybe you're a teenager, maybe you're in your 20s, maybe it was

yesterday, I don't know. But whenever we come to Christ,

oftentimes we think, Lord Jesus, please forgive me of my sin.

And we think that like all the sins from birth till now, that's

kind of oftentimes how we're approaching this.

That's the ones you're aware of. And you're like, God, please

forgive me my sins. And he does.

He is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins, He

removes it far from you. But you got to understand.

He's like, yeah, you're asking me something that you don't know

what you're asking me. You're thinking it's just to

hear. But I see all of it.

Like from now until you die too. I know I am aware of the sins

that will come after this moment.

And I am forgiving you of all of it.

It is an awesome deal. Like God, Jesus, like I hear

your terms. I'm going to one up you and and

I'm going to give you something even greater.

So when he, he gives us salvation, we are saved from

sin, period. All of them.

And so now we have this flesh, this old self that keeps rising

up and ramping up. And we have these tendencies to

fall back into bad habits. And Jesus was aware of that.

So what we have to do as believers is to confess.

We have to go to Christ. We have to confess even we, we

go to him, we ask him, we repent, we ask him for

forgiveness. And he's like, yeah, all you did

was just like, I'm, I'm just wiping it clean again.

Like there's you're, you're good.

I'm just going to wipe the surface off again.

You're just seeing the surface. I'm seeing what's inside and

inside you're beautiful. You're forgiven, You're pure.

Let me wipe that off. You come to me asking for

forgiveness. You come to me for repentance

again. Let let's, let's get that out of

here. Let's remove that weight.

Let's lighten your load. Know that you are forgiven.

Know that you are are are empowered to move beyond those

sins and that weight. And so he does.

We confess to him. James tells us and returns us to

confess to one another says, therefore confess your sins to

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

And so we want we want this weight of sin gone, this heavy

heartedness, then turn to Jesus heavy heartedness.

Help get a brother or sister to help you confess.

This is what's going on. I need some accountability in

this. I don't want to be weighed down

by this anymore. I want to be free to move and

not think about this weight again.

And so if you're heavy hearted, then then you should repent.

You should come and confess and and be be removed from that

again and free and accept the freedom that God has given you.

Or perhaps you're half hearted someone who's half hearted as

someone who they've been doing OK for a while.

Maybe you're a believer. You've been a believer for a

while. You've done things like you've

been in church, you've been a participant in things, you've

LED in things. Leaders get get half hearted in

this too, but you get to a point that at some point you start

thinking, is it worth it? Am I making a difference?

Is, is, is anything that I've done having any kind of impact?

And so you get to this point where you really start losing

the vision. You start getting disillusioned

of the mission that God has given you the the passion he has

given you. And it starts to wane because

you really just start where I'm not seeing the connection here.

And what happens when we get that way is that we start, we

take our eyes off Christ and we start looking at us, We start

kind of having a little bit of a pity party.

And like, well, I've done so much this way.

And they still, I mean, I, I prepare and I teach and, and,

and I, I listen to the things that, that they're saying and,

and I bring food to them. And middle schoolers still make

fun of me and they still call me bald and they still do all this

stuff to me all the time. And so, I mean, it's easy to get

in that trap, right? It can get it can get to where

we, we are very disillusioned and our our efforts, our our

ability to really be impactful as Kingdom workers, as as fellow

missionaries for the gospel and as fellow bodies of members of

the body of Christ. It just becomes half hearted,

less effective because we're really focusing ourselves.

We're focused on what our feelings are.

We're focusing on, on what's going on with just me.

And we lose focus on that. That is Christ.

And so Jesus know that this was going to happen.

And when we're asking questions of does it matter?

What can I do? And Jesus is like, yeah, it does

matter. And So what he says is to not

grow weary and doing good. We find this in Galatians.

It says don't grow weary and doing good, but keep it up.

And so then it says, and let us not grow weary for doing good,

for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.

So if you are doing a heart check, if you're heavy hearted,

then you need to ask for forgiveness and confess sin.

If you're half hearted, then you need to really confess the sin

of selfishness. And just don't be weary.

Like find someone else that's in in the same service as you.

Find someone else that's in in the walk with Christ as you

build each other up. Encourage one another.

If you're encouraging someone else, most likely you're going

to start getting the encouragement you need.

Ask God. I think this is OK Ask God for a

God wink. Ask God every now and then say

God is it. If it's if it would be your

will. I would love to see some fruit

from this. I don't think that's that's

still looking at him. That's still talking to him

first and that's still giving him the option because sometimes

we do and sometimes we don't. Jeremiah another, another

reference to him. He had a very successful

ministry that we know of. But in his day and age, he was a

failure. No converts, no one listened to

him. They, in fact, they threw him in

a in a mud hole and left him there hoping he'd die.

I mean, he, he would have seen as a failure.

And yet we know that he was a great success for the Lord and a

champion for the Lord. So ask God to be involved, look

to him, not yourself. Remember why you started serving

to begin with. Remember why you started

following the Lord to begin with.

Remember why you sought him out in quiet times.

Why you why you pray Remember that it's he is the reason and

not you. And it will it will lighten your

heart and you will not grow weary and doing those good

things now. So if we're heavy hearted, we

need to confess. If we're, if we're half hearted,

we just need to reengage and not grow grow weary to, to get

pumped up for, for the service the Lord has for us.

Well, what if we're heart aching?

What if we have a heartache now a heartache is someone who

perhaps you've done well, yet it seems to all go back in your

face again, a reference to Jeremiah, someone who was doing

exactly what God wanted them to do.

But the the reaction was not a great revival.

The reaction was not aha moments from people.

The reaction was like, what are you talking about?

Mockery, things like this. You know, I realized that when I

asked my teenagers to be a witness in their schools and I

asked them to show the light of Christ in the hallways, in the

classrooms of their schools. I know that they are, and they

know that there are some people who would be against that.

There are people who would irrationally or try to be

rational, speak against their faith, try to squash them.

Sometimes that's other students, sometimes it's adults.

But there are people in their lives that would try to dissuade

them from living the life that the Lord has for them.

You and your workplaces, you and your, sometimes even in your

family circles, there are people that if you are shining the

light of Price, then then there's going to be an attack

come your way. And it hurts like you know

you're doing the right thing. You know, you're all in, you

know, you're engaged and yet still there's some hurt that

comes that way. And it it will, it will happen.

And but God does not want us to not be discouraged by that.

He doesn't want us to stop doing good.

There are times and seasons where there's a there's a plan

and it involves some kickback. And he said, look, when those

people, when there, when there's heartache from other people and

what they've said and their words sing, then love them.

I mean, Jesus said, love your enemy.

He's definitely going to say to to love those who you're

serving. And this whole book is about

love one another, love one another.

Love is mentioned over and over and over again in first John and

it is and it is mentioned in a way of command.

Often, even in this passage we're looking at, we're reminded

again, it is a command to love. And so Jesus is like, Yep, that

happened to love them. Don't talk about them.

Don't be passive aggressive on Facebook saying what you what

you wish had happened. Don't don't just ignore them.

Like love them. Well, how do I do that?

That doesn't seem fair. It doesn't feel good right now.

It it doesn't. But this is one of those passes.

It tells us, tells us that if we were practicing love, stuff

starts to happen. Like there is a growing

confidence that comes in practicing love.

First Corinthians 13 reminds us how to do that.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

That's that first one. There are times that you just

have to be patient with people. They're not where you want them

to be yet. And it may take a while, but be

patient with them and continue to love.

Love is patient. Love is kind.

Love does not envy your bows. It does not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with

the truth. Love bears all things, believes

all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. And so when you're experiencing

heartache in this heart check and you feel like you're just

stuck, then, then just love them.

I know that sounds easy to say, but you trust the Lord God, How

can I be patient with them? How, how do I be kind to them?

What is something I can do to show kindness to them?

Lord, I don't want to be irritable with them.

Lord, I want to be better. I want to be, I want to treat

them the way you see them and treat them.

I, I want to embrace them the way you would.

And so he will, he will guide you and, and strengthen you for

that. And then there's another,

there's heartbroken and heartbroken is, is a hard one.

That is where there's been loss. That is where there has been a

great bill deal of sorrow. Something has been removed from

your life, something that, that your heart was very attached to

and, and it's been broken. And I, I, I, I understood this

when, when my daughter passed away, that's the first time I

understood heartbreaking. I I I I had experienced ache.

I'd experienced heavy hearted, I'd expense experience some some

of these other things, but heartbroken.

That's when you just don't know if things will ever be right

again. And I love that the Lord loves

us. And there's a one, one verse

that has helped me and I hope will help many of you if you're

ever in that spot, as the Lord is near to the broken hearted

and saves the crust and spirit. God has not given up on you.

And you can hand him that broken heart as many times as you need

to and he will fix it. Just keep handing it to him.

Do not hold that hold the pieces and and be still with it.

Just keep handing it to him. And every time he fixes it,

you'll gain a little bit more strength.

You'll give me a little bit better for it.

So do a heart check. How are you right now?

What does it look like in your life?

Because this is this is, this is what it may look like.

Often times if we're sick, we may not know we're sick.

And what happens is we sit in it.

And if you sit in the sick, then you're stuck.

So check yourself right now. Is there a sin that is weighing

you down that is telling you, you're telling yourself, I'm not

capable of doing what God wants me to do because I did this or

I'm in the middle of this. If it's something you're in the

middle of, repent, confess, move on.

If it's something that God's already forgiven you about

something that you already gave to him, then then don't let

Satan keep bringing that up. You are you are the victory in

this situation. Now you have victory over it.

Walk that way, but do not let your heart be heavy.

If you are, if you are a heavy hearted, I mean, if you are have

half hearted, I mean, then and and you're just like it doesn't

matter anymore. Well, pep up buddy, like it's

OK, Get back in the game. You know, you, you started this,

you started following the Lord for the right reasons.

Remember those reasons. Come back to Christ.

Come back to the to the bare essentials, back to

fundamentals. That's what we always hear

around sports and activities. Come back to the fundamentals of

what it means to be a follower of Christ and keep going.

You've got this. Put your whole heart back into

it again and see what God does. If your heart aching, then love

the people who who threw those darts at you.

Love the people who were throwing those stones at you.

Keep stay in there and show love.

And it's going to drive them nuts because that is not the

reaction that they're expecting. And you were going to see some

awesome fruit from that. And if you are heartbroken, then

continue to hand that heart to the Lord.

He is there to heal and to save you.

You are not you are not at the end of your life and he is He is

there to repair and keep you moving on now so if we have our

heart fixed, which is really the point of this whole passage.

Let's look at the the word again beloved, if our heart this is

verse 21 if our heart does not condemn us.

So if we're if our hearts good and we're and we're in this with

the Lord, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence

before God. This changes things like I can

come to God knowing that he is here, knowing that he is hearing

me. I am actively involved in the

deeds and truths that show love that God has led me to do.

If we come to the Lord with confidence, then that changes

the whole ball game when we come to the Lord with confidence.

One of the things that, and it's like I put in your in your

program, that's like cardio. It's healthy for your heart.

It's something to get your heart stronger and stronger.

And one of the things you do is you pray.

Like if you are confident in in your ability to approach God,

then you will approach God and you will pray.

And we want prayers that are potent.

We want prayers that have punched that, that that move and

do things. And in order to do that, we have

to pray. William Faulkner is a author,

and one of the things he's quoted as saying is that read

everything. He was encouraging about

children reading, like read everything, read junk, read good

things, but read everything. And his, his point was to to get

them reading and things like this.

When it comes to prayer, especially with kids, I'm like,

pray, pray about whatever comes to mind.

Just pray. Even even if it's simple

prayers, even if it's prayers that are just just an exercise,

What you're doing is you're exercising faith.

And so just pray. And, but as you grow in your, in

your walk with Christ, and as you mature in your walk with

Christ, as that heart gets healthier and as you're praying

more and more and more, that heart is getting stronger and

stronger. And your prayers not weighed

down by, by, by heart issues, those prayers driven by a

healthy heart that's growing in its faith and understanding with

Christ become potent, They become powerful.

And so don't, if you're a sick heart, don't, don't sit in the

sick or you'll be stuck, but move, get moving with the Lord.

And one of the ways you move is to pray.

How is your prayer life? We are praying more at our

church now than we did when I first got here and I love it.

And tonight we're going to pray some more.

How many of you are like, yes, let's pray together.

How many of you are like, Nah, I'm not coming that like, I

don't want to pray. Like where is prayer in your

life? Are you exercising this amazing

privilege we have? Because it's a privilege that we

get to come to God's presence and he hears us.

Are you exercising this privilege?

If your heart is healthy when you come to him and you are

following the command to love, your prayer is becoming more and

more powerful. Your prayer is the kind of

prayer that you're not wondering if it's just bouncing off the

ceiling. You know you have an audience

with your Creator. You know you have an audience

with your Savior and you know that this conversation is not

futile. This conversation is not a waste

of time. This conversation is something

that I have to I've got to go God like I got to.

We'll keep talking in the car like this is something that you

want to stay engaged in throughout your day.

In fact, we're supposed to do that.

Thessalonians says that we're supposed to pray without

ceasing. This conversation with the Lord

should always be happening. And there's a sometimes used to

be more more focused, but your prayers will be more powerful

when your heart is good and you know your heart's good before

the Lord. You will feel empowered and

confident to approach him and in that you will feel power and

confident to approach what he has for you as you move forward

because your prayers are potent and have impact.

The other part of this cardio is to to is to in practicing your

faith is is to be a a champion Lord.

Lord wants us to, to champion his causes to champion what he

has for us. And what he has for us is to is

to champion this love for one another.

Like to show the world that there's a group of people that

come from all walks of life that God brings together and it

becomes this family that's amazing.

And we're in and we're accepting applications.

We're accepting other people to come in.

We want people to come and know our Savior.

We want people to be a part of who we are.

And we we practice and live out our faith by following his

commandment. And that commandment again is

given to us here. And this is the commandment,

verse 23 that we believe in the name of of his Son Jesus Christ

and love one another as he has commanded us.

And so as we believe in the Lord, believing in the in the

Lord Jesus Christ that is accepting all of who he is.

That is knowing that he is not some Jesus that I get control

over. He is not some Jesus that I get

control. He is not like, OK, Lord, please

do this for me. This Jesus that we we call on

to, to just satisfy needs and things like this.

This is the Lord. This is the Lord we stand in awe

of. This is the Lord that we sing

and know that all of glory worships and adores and we

believe in the name of Jesus Christ and we get to approach

his throne. Our prayers are powerful. 11

scholar said it this way about prayer and approaching God so on

believing in the name of the Lord Jesus.

He said not because keeping his commandments earns answers to

prayer, but because prayer is designed to give power in the

path of obedience. Prayer is God's way of making

Himself available for us when we are pouring ourselves out in

love for others. Prayer is the power to love.

Therefore we do not aim to love. If we do not aim to love, we

pray in vain. Prayer is not designed to

compound hoarded pleasures, and so we were supposed to have

potent prayer that reflects our practicing faith.

That practicing faith is is trusting and knowing that the

Lord Jesus is who he is the Son of God.

We're supposed to live victoriously as champion,

championing the idea of loving one another, championing the

idea that God is here to to raise us up as a people to do

mighty, mighty things. You see, John is talking to a

people who were desperate for some encouragement, who were

desperate to know that God was still with them because their

lives have been turned upside down because of things that the

government had done, because of things within the church, people

backbiting and and false teachers.

There have been a lot of attacks on these people and John is

coming in and he is loving. They say you can, We know that

you were gods because of all these tests.

And one of these tests is, are you practicing the faith?

Are you practicing potent prayer?

Are you lifting up things to Lord?

Are you aiming at love when you pray or are you just trying to

get stuff from God? You see, recognizing Jesus

Christ, then we follow His commandments and when we follow

His commandments and that is important to us, our prayer

requests will be on track with what He is all about.

And he is going to be granting those prayer requests because we

are, we are praying about the exact same thing that he's

thinking about. We are praying about the exact

same thing that he is wanting us to be all about.

South for your cardio, pray, see Jesus for who he is, the Lord of

all and talk to him. Aim at love for one another.

Pray about what it means to follow the commandment, to love

one another and see what he does with that.

And then he, he wraps up with more confidence for us about

abiding as, as whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and

God in him. And by this we know that he

abides in us by the Spirit whom he has given us.

This is the first time in this letter that John explicitly

mentions the Holy Spirit. And so I think it's really a

great time. Now this is John who told us

some characteristics of the Spirit that he's the helper,

he's the comforter, he's there. He he he was the one coming that

got that Jesus was sending in his absence.

And so the the Holy Spirit, God living within us.

This is something that John definitely is is aware of and

knows and this is the first time he's mentioning it and I think

it's awesome. And he's like, you know what do

the things God has you for you to do work that love.

There should be a working of this.

There should be a following commandment.

There should be an exercise going on like I God told me to

love others. God help me to love others and

then do it. That is the truth and that is

the deeds. That is the working out.

And the more you do that, the more confident you are of the

presence of God working in your life.

You're all of a sudden you're like, I'm not the person I was a

while ago. I am not the person who was

stuck woe was me. I'm not the person who was

blaming past sins. I'm not the person who was was

blaming others for not being. I am just following the Lord.

I'm seeking him out. Stuff happens, but you know

what, He's still in charge. I know I'm aiming at love.

I'm asking him to help me love and he's doing it.

I have affection for people that I would not have before.

I have affections for people that that it doesn't matter what

they do. I'm committed to love them

because God has given me this and you start seeing the power

of the Spirit working through your life and you were amazed.

You're not, it's not a brag on yourself thing.

You were like, wow, God, I didn't know that could come out

of my mouth. God, I did not know I could be

that loving. I did not know I could have this

much joy no matter the circumstances.

I did not know that peace was something that I can embrace

despite the circumstances of life.

God, I did not know this. And it's all the fruit of the

Spirit coming out because you are committed to see in Christ

who He is, checking your heart, making sure you're not sitting

in the sick and you're moving. There's a progression, there's a

movement to it, and you are loving His people and it's

awesome. By this, you know that you abide

in us. So if you go in the sun,

summer's waning and it's gone now it's actually falling out.

But if you go into the sun and you stand there in the sun, the

light is there, but and by the light you can move and see and

do a lot of things, but also the warmth is there.

If you stand and bask in the sun, you can feel the warmth

hitting you. Often times as Christians, what

we do, we know that we're supposed to shine the light of

love, that God has given us a commandment to love one another.

And, and, and, and in that there's this effectual light

that happens that the world sees like what is going on with those

people that have such affection for one another.

They come from all walks of life.

There's teenagers and there's, and there's professionals and

there's, there's all these different walks of life

intermingled together and they love one another.

What is that? It shines the light of love.

And with that, it really highlights Christ, but as as an

individual, if we're in the light, we're feet, we're we're

seeing the light, we're experiencing the light, we're

feeling the warmth of it. That would be the kind of like

the spirit just warming us in the sunlight.

But if we get out of the light, if we, if we take a break, if

we, you know, take it, take some time off, not be as engaged as

as we start looking at more excuses like, well, I don't have

to show love to everyone all the time.

I mean, that's a Sunday thing, maybe a Wednesday thing.

Or if I go on a church trip, then I need to be up my game

there, something like that. And we start making excuses for

not following the command to love.

We start making excuses for, for, for.

Well, what we're doing is we're starting to go back to sit in

the sick and we're going to find ourselves stuck in what we step

out of the light and for a little bit we still feel the

warmth that was there, but we get cold real quick.

We get cold real quick and we know about the light and we can

even see what's going on in the light, but we have abandoned we

have abandoned our part in it. What's cool is that God's like

just come back. Just come right back.

Come right back and and get back involved.

Don't be hard hearted over and over again.

The Bible warns against the hard heartedness.

Hard A hard heart is one that that is rejected the Lord A hard

heart is one who has turned everything off to God.

They've stopped seeking It's it's it's stone dead and Jesus

is like don't get there. Stay with me.

Check your heart. Are you heavy hearted?

Are you half hearted? Are you heart aching?

Are you heartbroken? Don't be hard hearted.

Turn to the Lord and see what he has for you.

I'm going to here's our invitation today.

Perhaps you have a dead heart in a way that you've never known

the Lord so spiritually, there's no vitality there at all.

You you don't have a relationship with Christ and but

he wants the relationship with you.

Today's your your time to come and have a relationship with

him. And that the way you do that is

you just ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins, be your Lord

forever and commit your life to him.

It's a free, it's a free prayer with a forever salvation.

I invite you to do that. Perhaps you need to do a heart

check if if any of those things hits you, but that's where you

are, then I would ask you to take the steps necessary to

repent and get back on track with the Lord.

Will you stand as we worship and pray?

God, we love you. Thank you so much for today.

Lord, check our hearts. Help them to beat for you.

I pray God that we do not sit in the sick and stay stuck.

The God that you will heal our hearts and help us to move and

have our being in you. God, if there's anyone here who

needs to to deal with you Lord, that needs their heart

corrected, who needs to find salvation for the first time.

Lord, I pray you'll convict them and that they will do their do

business with you and we will celebrate with them.

We love you in Jesus name, Amen.