Life On Purpose | Relationships On Purpose

We've been in a series called Life on Purpose.

And uh we've been talking about what it looks like.

And if you're looking for purpose in your life, the the heart of the series really comes down to this.

To have a life of purpose, you're gonna have to live a life on purpose.

There are gonna be some things that you have to do in order to get your life in alignment with what God wants to do in you.

And here's the core conviction out of all this.

Here's what we believe around here at Dark Church, and that is this that God has a plan and a purpose for your life.

That he's up to even more than sometimes you could imagine in your own mind.

And so our heart and our prayer is this that we would equip ourselves to do the things that he's asking us to do.

It's the idea that he's not gonna leave us where we're at, he's gonna stretch us, he's gonna grow us, he's gonna refine us.

And so this morning I've titled today's message, Relationships on Purpose.

Relationships on Purpose.

We spent a couple weeks, we talked about being stuck in our purpose.

If you've ever been in a season of feeling stuck, you know what it's like.

You don't need anybody to preach on it because you can still feel it.

The idea of being stuck sometimes is really hard.

Maybe you feel like you can't do all the things you were made to do because some stuff has gone hard, or sometimes we struggle to live out our purpose because of the distractions in our life.

But what I've found from time to time is that most of the time, that the relationships in my life can either push me towards God's purposes or they can pull me away from it.

That what I find is that sometimes that the relationships that I'm in, what I can experience is they're either adding life or they're taking life.

They are advancing what God is doing in me or distracting me from what God is doing in me.

And so our heart behind this morning is that your relationships in your life would be blessed.

Our heart and our hope for you that as you leave here today, that we want you to know this, that God can do anything in any of your relationships.

And so, for you this morning, maybe you came in today and you're wondering if God can speak to you.

I just talked to several people after first service who said, How did you know my life?

And I said, I don't know your life.

I just know the God who made your life.

And He can speak to you today about relationships.

And so, for some of you, you're in some serious relationships.

You've been married for a while.

So sometimes what you can find, those serious relationships, they take work, don't they?

But they're worth it.

There are relationships of people that we encounter at work or people that we know in our kids' circles of influence, and we can build relationships with our neighbors.

And I know what the introverts in the room are thinking, oh no, Pastor, I'm doing all fine all by myself.

Anybody?

Listen, my favorite place to be on a Monday is all alone.

I'm with you.

I get it.

But here's what I believe there's no person in the room who God does not have a plan for the relationships in your life to help you live out his greater purposes for your life.

So whether the relationships that come and go, the hard ones, the big ones, or even the small ones, how many ever find in life sometimes it's not the big relationships, sometimes it's the casual ones that get so hard?

Sometimes you don't even know the people, like the last year when your pastor walked into the uh airport.

How many of y'all know uh the airport is one of the most sanctifying places on planet earth?

On the way to my travels, I I went and I got in line and and I hopped in the line and I got all the way to the front.

By the time I got to the front, I showed the guy my boarding pass.

He said, Sir, you're in the wrong line.

I said, No, I'm TSA precheck.

I know I've been for a long time.

I know I'm in the right spot.

He said, sir, you're gonna have to go to that other line way down there and wait your turn.

I said, All right, all right.

So I walked to the other side and I waited in that line.

I got up to the front.

I showed him my boarding pass, which was now registering TSA Precheck, and he said, Sir, you're in the wrong line.

You need to go stand in that line.

How many of y'all know I'm testing my salvation right there on the spot?

It doesn't matter how holy you are, it doesn't matter how much you go to church.

How many of you know relationships can be a struggle?

With a person you know in a long time or a short time, and I'm just gonna be honest, transparent with you.

Uh, on our flight home, we pulled up to the airport, and and when we did, I had traveled with my golf clubs.

I wasn't used to checking a bag, and and uh the the car needed gas and we were running late, and but it was one of those small airports, you know, where you can walk up.

These are blessed airports, these kind of airports we're gonna have in heaven.

You stand at the front gate, you can see your plane right there.

It takes about five seconds to get through the gate.

I walked up and I walked up with my bag, and she said, Sir, you're not getting on this plane.

I said, Well, yeah, I am.

She said, No, you're not, because that bag's not getting on this plane.

I said, What do you mean?

She goes, There is a rule, sir, and she points to the rule.

She says, The rule says, if your bags are not checked in 45 minutes before the flight, you will not be boarding with your bags.

And I looked at the clock and it said 44 minutes and 59 seconds till that my flight took off.

How many of y'all know?

Your pastor was getting real saved right about there.

And some real holy things started coming out of my mouth.

Like, how could you?

And I can't believe.

And how many of y'all know my attitude was getting the best of me right there on the spot?

Saved or unsaved.

You've been anybody else, please put your hand up and say, Thank you.

And uh, and so she said, Well, you're not flying out till tomorrow.

And I said, Ma'am, that's not possible.

I said, My kids are at home, my parents are leaving, we're picking them up from school.

We got this whole plan worked out.

We worked on it for months, how we were gonna get our kids and do the shuffle.

And and I said, I'm I am leaving today.

And she said, No, there's not another flight, you're going out tomorrow.

So we had a few words, I'm getting a little bit more saved.

And I said, I need to talk to your manager, please.

And the manager came over, manager looked down at the screen and said, Why don't you just put them on the flight that leaves in an hour?

And I looked at her with the eyes of Jesus, and she looked right back, and I looked right, my my my wife was saying, Babe, watch your attitude.

Y'all think that worked?

No.

I got on the plane, the Lord really convicted me about that one.

How many of y'all know?

I almost missed what was available to me because of the attitude that was coming out of me.

There was a flight the whole time.

She knew it, and I knew it.

But how many of you know the way we treat people has an impact on the outcome we experience?

The heart behind this morning is this that the Lord wants to do something in the relationships in your life.

And the attitude and the heart that you bring into those relationships are like the throttle that increases the speed or the brakes that stop it in its tracks.

The heartbeat behind this message today is this what does God want to do in your relationships?

Because I hopped on that plane and looked down at my clothes and realized something.

I was wearing an Archchurch hat and an Arch Church shirt, and if we had Archchurch shoes, I would have been wearing them too.

And the Lord is working on my heart in that moment to say, you see what just happened there?

That can't happen again.

Because, see, I I was coming from a place where I went to go help church planners.

You want to plant a church?

Let me Yeah.

Don't do that.

There's this idea of I want to live out my purpose.

What was I doing?

I was there all week to live out my purpose and to help people.

But how many of you know it's easy to help people when you want to help them, and it's hard to help people when it's not working in your favor, when it doesn't feel good, when it's not easy, when they're incredibly complicated.

Don't look at your spouse right now.

As we dive into this, Paul said this in Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

He said this when he said, Set your hearts on things above.

Last week we talked about your thoughts, and I want to encourage you this morning.

The key behind healthier relationships starts with your heart.

Starts with your heart.

He says, Set your heart on things above, where Christ has been raised and he is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Father.

He says, that's where your heart should be.

Because here's what he knows: that if he can get your heart in the right spot, he can get your life in the right spot.

If he can get your heart in the right spot, how many know?

He can get your mouth saying the right things.

It comes down to the idea of this.

Jesus is constantly inviting us to participate with him.

That what's on the inside of you should be reflected on the outside of you.

The Bible's not very nice, I'm just gonna be honest.

Sometimes I read it and I read the line and I think, Jesus, did you did you really mean it that way?

And when you read in 1 John chapter 4, verse 20, it says this.

1 John 4:20

Anybody claim they love God?

But hate your brother, you are a liar.

Welcome to church, everybody.

Got any liars in the house?

I mean, I read that and I think that's not very nice.

What is he saying?

He's saying, if you say that you love God, but you're hating the people in your life, then you don't love God.

That is a strong word.

My kids, when I correct them sometimes, like I will get down and I'll say, okay, now listen, what you just did is not right.

You need to do this.

Do you know what my toddlers can look back at me and say, That wasn't very nice, Dad?

I'm thinking, yeah, that's right, right.

I'm thinking in my heart, uh, I wasn't trying to be nice, I was trying to tell you the truth.

Because how many know sometimes you don't need nice, sometimes you need the truth.

The truth will carry you.

And as I think about this verse, I it's just a conviction to me as I sat on the plank.

Lord, if you really are on the inside of me, then people should see you on the outside of me.

I can come to church, I can worship with the best of them, I can raise my hands, I can pray, I can spend a quiet time.

The hardest ones are when you spent an hour with the Lord in the morning, and then you sit on 1488 and think some things you shouldn't be thinking.

You think maybe I need to go back to my Bible a little bit longer.

John, you think if that's not a very nice way of saying it, John had already said it in the Gospel of John in chapter 13 when he says almost the same thing, but just a little bit nicer way.

He says, Love one another.

Why?

Because by this people will know that you are my disciples.

Your attitude, your heart, your posture with people is a witness.

Uh, a witness that always isn't in line for me.

I don't know about you, but there are times when I think, man, I got this figured out.

And then there are days I wake up and I think this is harder than I thought.

Uh last week we talked about your thoughts.

If you can get your thoughts in the right place, then it'll shape your actions of your life.

I want to put this diagram up on the screen because here's the idea behind this series that if you can change the way you think, you'll change the way you live.

Why?

Because if you change your thoughts, then what's gonna happen?

It will influence your actions.

If you can change your actions, then what happens is habits can begin to form.

Change your thoughts, change your actions.

Habits are sure to follow, and it determines your future.

The life you end up with tomorrow is a result of the choices and the actions you make today, which is a result of the thoughts that you're thinking in your mind right now.

But in Colossians chapter 3, verse 1, Paul sets us back even further.

Colossians 3:1

He said, What goes beyond your thoughts is your heart.

Set your heart in the right places, and it will inform and influence and drive your thoughts.

What's the answer to the relationships in your life?

I'm gonna give you some practical things today, but at the heart of it, I just want you to know the heart.

We can stand up here all day long and give you a step one, a step two, a step three.

But if the heart is in the wrong place, the relationships will be in the wrong place.

What Jesus knows, what Paul knows, is this that when you get your heart directed towards him, every other issue of your life will flow from it.

The overflow of your life, that the things on the inside, when the inside is in the right place, then the outside will start living the right way.

And as we dive into this, it really comes down to this concept or this idea that God wants to do a great work in your relationship.

So I don't know where your relationships are today, but I know this that there is not a relationship too broken that God can't heal.

At the Ark Church, we still believe in the power of God.

We still believe that He can speak to you, that He can take the relationship that has been broken for years and put it back together.

We believe He can bring forgiveness to things that have hurt you more than you could have ever imagined being hurt.

We believe that God's power in your relationships in your life can help you parent your kids, have strong marriages, influence your neighbors, even the crazy ones you don't like.

That the power of God can come to your relationships in these ways.

I want to unpack the way Paul talks about this in Colossians.

We've been going through a couple of weeks, and Paul is really combating some thinking in the church.

And I think the thinking is still the same.

How many of y'all know, right?

The same problems today, the same problems they had.

They just have a different face on them.

And one of the things that he's combating, we talked about last week, is Paul comes to the church and he says this in Colossians chapter 3.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

He says, You gotta put some stuff off.

You gotta take it off.

He says, You got sexual immorality, it's gotta go.

You have these passions and these evil desires, they gotta go.

You gotta take that off.

He says, You got greed, it's gotta come off.

And we went through the list last week.

And some of y'all are thinking, Jesus, is that it?

No, he's got more, but it's just gonna start right there.

And he lists all these things that have to come off.

And what's he doing?

He's combating a lifestyle.

He's saying, there is a group of people that thinks this way: that they will find their fulfillment or happiness in life when they do whatever they want to do.

And what is he combating?

He's saying, Doing whatever you want to do isn't as freeing as you think that it is.

I'm calling this the seesaw.

Y'all remember the seesaw?

You remember the playground and seesaw?

Some of us lived on one side more than the other.

And what can happen is this, and Paul's combating this.

He says this, you got the fulfillment, go ahead, Bobby, you got the fulfillment comes from when I do what I want to do.

It's the idea in our relationships that it's my way or the highway.

Selfishness lives here.

Selfishness is born here.

Selfishness produces offspring here.

And Paul is coming at the church and he's not really talking about relationships, but how many of you know the stuff that you do in your life impacts every person around you?

So everything Paul just listed, sexual immorality has to go.

Somebody might think, well, it doesn't impact anybody else, it just impacts me.

Oh, buddy.

Everybody who lives in your house is impacted by the choices and decisions that you make.

Everybody you interact with on the street, everybody you talk to.

And so what is he saying?

He's saying greed can't live here.

It's this idea.

He's combating the idea that the happiness in your life comes from, quote unquote, the idea that you can just do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, however you want to do it.

And he's coming against this.

Why?

Because it's breeding a lie in you.

The lie that it's teaching you is freedom means doing what you want.

The idea is that behind all of this, that every relationship in your life is destroyed by this kind of thinking.

Did you know that if you do whatever you want to do, it will destroy the relationships in your life?

So some of you say, yeah, I'm on this side of the seesaw because I'm experiencing it right now.

I made some choices, I had some decisions in my life, and the way that I lived my life impacted the people around me.

And now I'm just trying to put the pieces back together because what you feel is like the weighted on the seesaw.

I'm down here, I don't know how to get up.

Then he comes over here because there's one way of life that says, do whatever you want to do, and there's another religious way of life.

I know we don't have any religious people in this room, and this other way of life says, Well, they're doing whatever they want to do, and that's a mess, so we're gonna come over here and we're gonna be religious.

And we're gonna have rules and regulations and control and a hyper-controlled environment.

And it's this idea of this, that fulfillment comes in life.

In your life, you'll experience this.

Go ahead and put it up.

Fulfillment comes in life when I control and manipulate.

It's the idea that if I can control my relationships, if I can control everything around me and manipulate everything around me, then everything will be okay.

Have you ever been in an environment like that?

Don't shake your head too loud.

It's this idea that if I can control the environment around me, then everything will be okay.

What Paul is beginning to combat is these Jewish uh teachers and ways of thinking that were infiltrating the church, and he's saying, hey, listen, God never designed you to live with rules and regulations.

He designed you to live in a relationship with him.

The idea is the first one may break every relationship that you have, but the second one will never build a strong relationship.

Control and manipulation, if you've ever experienced it in a relationship, it doesn't do you very good, does it?

I'll never forget early on in marriage, I uh I couldn't figure out a couple months into marriage why my wife didn't understand how perfect I was.

And I just, I mean, I tried and we talked about it incessantly, and it just really wasn't working for me.

And I worked at a church, and so I decided I need to go talk to the pastor.

And so I walked into the pastor's office on a Monday morning and I sat down across from his desk and told him all the things that she was doing wrong in life.

He listened and he listened and he listened, and then he looked at me and he said, Young man, I want to tell you something you're never gonna forget.

Oh, I never forgot it, all right.

He said, You can have control or you can have a relationship, but you can't have both.

And I got up out of his office and I walked out, and I never went back to that chair again.

But I never forgot what he said.

Because I learned one of the most powerful tools in our marriage has been this.

Clayton, you can control your way through this, but you won't have a relationship on the other side.

Some of the challenge in this is the idea that we think if we have control or manipulate something, that then it's gonna make it all work.

But how many know no relationship is built on that?

So Paul is now contrasting two sides of the equation.

The problem with both of these is this that they are empty and hollow.

It doesn't lead to anything fruitful, it doesn't lead to anything strong.

And so, what is Paul doing in the whole book of Colossians is he's painting a picture.

He's saying the only place you can find real fulfillment, the only place where things are gonna turn around and start working is when you find your fulfillment and satisfaction where?

In Christ alone.

Over and over, he says, you're gonna be established and rooted and built up and mature.

How many of y'all are saying I'm still believing to get mature one day?

One day I'm gonna get and what he's saying is all of that comes in Christ.

And when you can hide your life in Christ, here's what he's saying: you throw away this continuum of the seesaw and you say, no, no, I'm gonna go live my life with Jesus where every area of my life can be filled and satisfied, including my relationships.

So maybe for you this morning, you've been looking for a self-help quick fix on how to fix your marriage.

And I'm here to tell you today there is no such thing except for one person, and his name is Jesus.

And when Jesus is in the center of you, what happens is the inside of you starts to overflow to the outside of you.

So if your marriage isn't working for you, I would start spending some time with Jesus and letting him download in you.

If you got a broken relationship, you're really having a hard time forgiving, I would say the best thing you could do is hide yourself in him.

Why?

Because what eventually is on the inside will come out to the outside.

How do you fix relationships?

How do you get to a healthy relationship?

You have to get to a place where you realize it's in Christ alone.

Colossians chapter 3, verse 12 is our text for today.

Colossians 3:12

It says this.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, he says, clothe yourselves or put on, another translation says, with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Where's the applause?

Nobody's excited yet.

Are you kidding me?

Out of all the words you could say, God, you're telling me I have a part to play in the relationships that are gonna bring purpose for the kingdom of God.

And the Lord says, Yeah, it starts right here with what you put on today.

It starts right here with what you decide to wear and the clothes you put on.

He says, Bear with each other and forgive one another.

He doesn't say forgive the people you like, he says, forgive one another.

If any of you Has a grievance against someone.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds all of them together in perfect unity.

I love what he communicates here because he tells you who you are.

I don't know if you realize this.

Maybe you got distracted by all the things he was asking you to do that you might start thinking, I don't know that I have the power to do that.

Have you met my spouse?

Have you met my kids?

Have you met my boss?

And so sometimes it can feel like a tall order when you're reading the scripture, but you got to know how he started, because how he started is the key to give you everything you need to do what he just asked you to do.

Well, how did he start?

Look at it.

He says, You are dearly loved.

The only way you can have love in a relationship is if you know and experience the love of Jesus Christ.

The only way it's going to work is if you know who you are.

And here's what he says: you are loved.

I'm going to say it again because somebody needs to hear it.

You are loved.

It is not just hearing it and letting it pass through, it's embracing it.

I am a child of God.

I am chosen, it says.

If you know that you're loved, then you're not looking for love from everyone and everything around you.

Why?

Because you already know who you are.

Now the only thing you're looking for is to give away the love that you have.

Do you know how powerful that will be in a marriage?

How powerful that will be in a friendship.

That when you have the security of the love of God in your life, it's going to start shaping and forming the relationships around you.

When you know that you're chosen, it means that you wake up in the morning and you don't just think God has a purpose for my life.

You wake up and realize God chose me for this purpose in my life.

That God is doing something in me and through me.

And some of you in the room, you might start thinking, well, but Clayton, I don't have everything cleaned up and I don't have everything figured out, and I haven't organized my life away, and I'm not perfect yet.

That's not what it says.

It doesn't say that when you got cleaned up, he chose you.

It says he chose you, and now as a result of this, you're gonna live a life different.

How about the word holy, somebody?

Do you see the word holy?

That's a big word.

That's a powerful word.

He says, You are holy.

Now, now I know what you're thinking.

You're like, there's no way he was talking about me.

If you believe in Jesus Christ, yes, he is.

Because he was talking about Jesus.

Because Jesus is holy, now you can be holy.

Now listen, it's a little bit like me taking my kids to the movie.

My wife is out of town, and so I'm doing everything in my power to keep my kids alive and not lose any hair.

And uh I made the decision, um, I told the kids I knew I needed some motivation, a little bit of you know, bribery around my house.

This you want a good relationship?

Don't start with bribery.

And uh I told my kids, I said, I'm gonna take you to the movie tonight.

And all of a sudden, their attitude changed.

Parents, you know what I'm talking about, right?

Now they acted like they loved each other.

They were picking stuff up in the house, they they were being kind, they were good.

What are they doing?

They know that there's popcorn and arcades that will cost you a thousand dollars at the movies, and they think that if they can change their behavior, then it's going to change the outcome of what I give them.

Am I right?

But here's what they don't know.

They don't know the dad's just trying to make it through, and I'm gonna buy them whatever they want anyway.

What am I saying?

I'm not buying them stuff because of their behavior.

I'm buying them stuff because I'm their dad and I love them.

I take care of them, I provide.

It brings me great joy to do that.

Listen, I'm not trying to uh I am trying to do this.

I I don't want you to walk out of here today and think if I try and be holy for God, then it's gonna make all my relationships right.

That's a wrong understanding.

Jesus is holy and because of what he did, he gives you his, he puts his holiness on you.

You're not trying to earn it by your behavior and your actions.

It's actually quite the opposite.

Because you already know who you are, now you make the decision, I'm not doing this to get that.

I'm doing this because of what he's already done for me.

That will shape your relationships.

It will help you be different in your relationships when you realize you are different.

This is the crux of what Paul is getting at.

He's telling the church, you don't need to perform for God.

You should just live your life with God.

There's a big difference.

He says, you're gonna grow up and you're gonna mature and you're gonna walk with God.

The goal is that God says, I just want you to walk with me.

I want a relationship with you, not based off rules and religion and self-man-made selfish things.

He says, I don't want a relationship with you out of over here where you're doing whatever you want to do and not live.

He says, I want to get right in the middle that when you have Jesus Christ in your life, here's what happens.

You say, I wake up today and I just want to do whatever I can because I know that I'm loved.

And I want God to use me, and I want people to see the love of God through me.

There's a big difference, y'all.

It's the idea that He's made you different, so it's time to be different.

In your relationships, God has made you different than the people you interact with, so it's time to be different.

Early on in the church, somebody came and they found me on a Sunday morning.

They say, Pastor, I gotta tell you something.

I'm like, I don't know what's good, what's about to happen?

You know, I said, Pastor, I I really got to tell you something that's really important.

I said, okay.

And he said, um, I said, I was on the way to church this morning, 1488, the best, most blessed day.

Listen, people should be coming to church in droves because traffic in 1488 on a Sunday morning looks good.

He said, I pulled up to a light, I got distracted, I wasn't paying attention, this big old truck rolled up behind me, and he started laying on his horn and he hung out the window.

He said, Hey man, go! And he was yelling at me from the window of his car, and he said, Next thing I know, he whipped out around me, he cut me off and hopped in front of me, and he said, And then I followed him all the way into your church.

How many of y'all know why we don't have bumper stickers for our church?

Somebody said we should get bumper stickers.

I said, I'm not putting it on my car.

Listen.

It's like how many of y'all know that made an impact?

The guy said, I'll keep coming to the church, but I just I just wanted you to know that happens.

What's he saying?

He's saying, something about these don't go together.

Something about this doesn't sit right with me.

Something about this doesn't work.

And listen, we've all been there, right?

We all know.

But then there's another story.

One of my favorite stories in the life of our church is a mom who'd made the decision to come to church.

She rolls into our parking lot, and on her way into the parking lot, she accidentally hits another car with her car right next to her.

On the first day of school, somebody.

First day of church.

She gets out, she talks to the lady.

The lady was incredibly gracious, incredibly compassionate.

She gets, they go and they go their own way, and they come in at separate doors and walk in.

How many of y'all know if you hit somebody at church, you buy the ushers?

It was full on the seats, and so the ushers were helping people find their seat.

And how many know, by the providence and the hand of God, that usher happened to plop her down right next to the woman whose car she hit.

It was Baptism Sunday.

She made a decision to rededicate her life to the Lord.

And in her genes, she walked out there and got baptized.

Compassion.

Love.

What kind of difference could it make in the relationships in our life?

See, sometimes I think I get so much in my head, and the Lord says, get out of your head and get in your heart.

Sometimes I get so in my head, why is this relationship not working?

What if I did this?

What if I tried that?

What if I acted this?

What?

And the Lord says, I need you to get out of your head and I need you to get in your heart.

Because when your heart gets in the right place, your life's gonna get in the right place.

When you see things are above, what's gonna happen is the things that are above, listen to this.

The kingdom of heaven is breaking into our world.

The things that are happening above start happening below.

This isn't a technique.

This is not a strategy, this is not a one-to self-help.

The moment that Jesus Christ entered the world, the kingdom of God showed up.

And the way that Jesus lived with compassion and love and mercy and grace and forgiveness, listen, not to people who deserved it, but to the people who didn't deserve it.

Do you know what happened?

The kingdom of heaven broke into our world.

And Jesus leaves.

And while I said, Jesus, where'd you go?

He says, I'm right there.

In you, and in you, and in you, and in you, and in you.

The kingdom of God, the purpose in your life is that the kingdom of God would flow through you.

And the way that happens is when what God is doing on the inside of you flows to the outside of you, and your wife says, You're not the guy I married.

And you say, Praise God.

Because the guy who nobody thought could get better got better.

To the person who says, Look at your kids.

How did you get kids like that?

And you say, I don't know.

But the grace of God did something in my relationships.

Yes, to the person in the room.

I know.

Maybe your dad didn't do that for you, but you can do it for your kids.

Why?

Because the God on the inside of you is big enough and powerful enough to use, yes, you, the chosen, dearly loved, holy child of God.

Yeah, but I don't like my neighbors, preacher.

They need the compassion of heaven to come to them in their life.

Maybe the reason you don't like them is because they've never experienced what you've experienced.

Maybe you've been praying for God to move you out of your job because you don't like your boss.

And the Lord says, I don't really care what your paycheck is today.

Because that boss that you can't stand has a family at home who's living under the same thing that you hate.

And what if, just what if the reason you're at your job is not for your paycheck.

What if the reason you're at your job is because the kingdom of heaven wants to flow through you to that person.

But it will never come if we don't put on compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience and forgiveness.

And above all, you put on love.

I love a story of a guy in our church.

He said him and his brother were estranged.

In fact, things went so far south, if you've been there, you've been there, that they were actually in a lawsuit against one another.

See, sometimes even in our family, the relationships go to places we could have never imagined.

And he said, one Sunday he was at church and he was taking communion.

And the pastor said, if there's anything in your life that you need to make right, it's a good time to do it before you take of the Lord's table.

And he said he sat there and he remembered the scripture that says, where the Lord says, if you're gonna bring a gift to the altar, he says, make sure you're right with other people.

And if you're not right with other people, the Lord says this, don't give me the gift yet.

I'm sorry, what have you ever had somebody tell you, I know you got a gift for me, but just hold on to it?

And the Lord says, Don't give me the gift yet.

I want you to leave it at the altar, and I want you to get up and I want you to go make it right.

I want you to go have forgiveness, I want you to go show compassion and kindness and humility and mercy.

Why?

Because the Lord wants a gift far greater than anything you could just lay at the altar.

He wants a heart that's surrendered over to Him, loving people and serving other people.

He says, then come together.

Why?

Because it's like a three-legged stool.

Sometimes people will say, it's just me and God.

No, it's not just you and God.

It's you, God, and people.

Like them, love them, hate them, indifferent.

You cut one of the legs of that stool off, that two-legged stool is not gonna stand.

The Lord is saying, Listen, they're my chosen ones too.

The way you love them, the mercy you show them, the compassion they show them, that's a part of your greater purpose.

You can't come to me and say, Clayton, I hate your son.

We're not gonna be good friends if you hate my son.

Why?

Because he's mine.

I love him.

And if you love me, then you're gonna love him too.

I know he's not your kid.

I know you may not like toddlers, but if you're gonna receive me, then you're gonna receive him, and that's what the Lord is saying.

If you don't get your relationships right, it gets messy.

So maybe the Lord is asking you to put a relationship back together by letting his work in you flow out of you.

Would you stand as we close?

I wanna please don't leave just yet.

I these moments are really important at the end of the service.

I know, I know you want to beat the Baptist to the chips, okay?

But people make life, life-altering decisions right here.

People say yes to Jesus right here.

Had someone say last service, they said, All I could think of was my brother the whole service, and I know God was speaking to me.

God wants to speak to someone right now about a relationship that He has the power to put back together again.

And it's kind of like your closet.

Ladies, have you ever stood at your wardrobe for an hour and stared at the same outfit?

And said, Honey, how does it look?

And your husband says, It looks great, and you go back to the closet and you put something else on.

Lord, help us all.

Sometimes I stand in my closet and I look at the clothes and I say, I have nothing to wear.

Here's what Paul says.

Paul says there's some things you gotta put off sexual immorality, greed, passions, evil desires.

Say, those clothes, they don't fit on you.

They don't look good.

You need to let them go.

He says, because when you've hidden your life in Christ, here's what he says: you're new.

The old is gone, the new has come, you're dead.

Why don't you try something else on?

It's gonna look better on you.

But if you've ever gone shopping and you come back with a new piece of clothes and you put it in your closet, what does it make all your other clothes look like?

Old, bad, out of style.

You are fine until what?

You got something new.

And what the Lord is saying, it's time to put something new on.

Because when you do, here's what happens: everything that was old starts to look really old.

Everything you used to wear and thought was okay, the Lord says, You're not gonna want to wear that anymore.

And so if you're anything like me, here's what I do.

I go to my closet numerous times, and I'll clean it out, and I'll throw some things away, give it to goodwill, but then I'll just leave a few that have been the closet for 15, 20 years.

And I think one day God is gonna resurrect you from this place until one day I have to get up the courage to realize something.

I'm never wearing that again.

Why?

It doesn't fit anymore, it's not my style, and quite frankly, it's simply not who I am anymore.

And you make the decision to let it go.

That's exactly what Paul is saying.

What are you gonna put off so that you can put on what you were always made to put on?

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?

Prayer team, would you come down front?

Here's what I'm gonna invite you to do.

You have a relationship that needs prayer, this prayer team is right here for you.