Breakthrough: Truth

It's been a good morning so far.

If you were here last Sunday, we started a series, a new series, called Breakthrough.

And the idea behind this is pretty simple.

We want to experience breakthroughs on the front end of our breakdowns, not the tail end.

Like sometimes you need a breakdown to have a breakthrough.

That that happens.

Sometimes it goes in that order.

Sometimes you've got to hit a wall before you can figure out how to scale the wall.

But God is so good.

It's kind of been a theme of the morning in worship, I've noticed, just picked up on that, that God is so good, He loves us so much, that He wants to give us what we need so that we don't have to break down in order to have the breakthroughs that we need.

We won't have breakthroughs because God has promised us so much.

Jesus in John chapter 10, verse 10, says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.

John 10:10

That's what He offers you is full life.

A life full of joy and peace and purpose and meaning and love and everything that makes it worth getting up in the morning.

That's what he offers us.

But sometimes life doesn't seem like it seems like it didn't get the memo.

You know what I mean?

Like life isn't cooperating with the promises of Jesus.

Have you ever had that experience?

I call it every day that ends in Y, right?

It's like life doesn't cooperate to give us the fullness that we need.

And so sometimes it seems like that full life is out there somewhere, and it's a long way off, or it seems like something is just holding us back.

It's keeping us from that.

And when that's the case, we need a breakthrough.

We need to break through whatever is holding us back, whatever's keeping us from what Jesus has promised us.

And so this season for us as a church is about having breakthroughs.

We need to break through.

And last week we got started by saying, hey, here's where we start.

We ask God.

We ask him for the breakthroughs because God gives us what we need, because God does for us what we can't do for ourselves.

And I know we've already prayed a whole bunch of times this morning, but if you're new here, we we believe in prayer.

Uh and so would you mind praying with me one more time and let's let's ask God for what we need today.

God, as we as we dive into your word, as we talk about you, give us what we need.

Holy Spirit, I ask that you would just speak to everyone's hearts here.

Um, you know, either use my words or bypass them, whatever you want to do.

That's up to you, God.

And I just pray that you would give us the breakthroughs that we need.

I don't know what areas of life everyone in here needs a breakthrough, but I'm sure that we all know that.

You definitely know that.

So, Lord, we're asking that you would help us have those breakthroughs today.

It's in your name, Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

When you have a breakthrough in life, you experience freedom.

It's one of the results of breaking through whatever's holding you back.

You're no longer bound, you're you're no longer tied up, you're free to move forward in life.

And so breakthroughs bring freedom.

Jesus kind of talked about this once when he spoke in John chapter 8, we see this.

John 8 · chapter mention

Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

One of the things that Jesus basically says will bring breakthroughs to us in life is the truth.

That if we know the truth and if we can live our lives in the truth, we're free.

We break through the things that are holding us back.

Last week I got to share about a breakthrough that my seven-year-old son had just a few weeks back.

He's only seven, he's already had a breakthrough.

That's a big deal.

He had this really cool God moment.

I shared about all of that.

My kids are like my joy.

I love them so much, and I'm so proud of all of them.

I'm so proud of Liam for just his heart and who he is.

And the breakthrough that he had, if you weren't here last week, listen to the message, it's really cool.

But as a parent, there's some other breakthroughs I'd like him to have still.

You know?

And any of us that have kids know what that's like, where you're just waiting for your kids to get something.

You're waiting for your kids to grab a hold of something and learn so that they can become the people they're meant to be.

And so one breakthrough I'd love for my son to have would be to learn how to blow his nose.

That would be just huge.

That would be so huge for our lives.

Because at seven years old, Liam, and I mean this, I'm not exaggerating, Liam does not believe in blowing your nose.

Doesn't believe it works.

He says that to me.

He'll say, blowing your nose doesn't work.

And so when Liam gets sick, when he gets a stuffy nose, he refuses to blow his nose.

He refuses to blow his nose and he just he just sniffs.

That's all he does.

He goes, and he's sitting there and his nose is clogged up and he can barely breathe, and he just sniffs over and over again.

And I'm like, son, you've got to blow your nose.

I remember when he was four years old, and he was really sick, and he had a really stopped-up head, and he was crying.

He's four, and he's crying because he just felt so so poor.

And I said, son, I want you to blow your nose.

I went and got a tissue, and I said, I want you to just blow that stuff out of there.

And he said, No.

He said, blowing your nose doesn't work.

And he's he was four, so I'm trying to explain to him as best you can explain something to a four-year-old.

In fact, honestly, if you can't explain something to a four-year-old, it means you don't really understand it.

So it's always challenging when you have kids to go, do I really know what I'm talking about?

And so I'm sitting there trying to explain to him the concept of blowing your nose.

And I basically said this, okay, like Liam, that stuff in your nose, you want it gone, right?

And he said, Yes.

I said, okay, okay, so when you when you sniff it up, is it gone?

And he said, no.

I said, oh, okay, but if you if you like blew it out, would it be gone?

And he said, yes.

I said, okay, so I want you to blow your nose.

And he said, no.

Blowing your nose doesn't work.

And we just had to let bygones be got bygones, and I thought, well, he's four, he's gonna get it.

Eventually he'll grow out of this, and he will, you know, see the light like the rest of us, and he will blow his nose and experience the freedom that Jesus has promised him.

And like, and I'm just saying he's seven now, and still, no, the breakthrough has not come.

He was sick this last week, just allergies, I think.

He had a really full head and would not blow his nose.

And he just kept sniffing and sniffing.

I'm like, son, please stop.

And then he got a headache, you know.

I wonder why.

He had this really bad sinus headache, and and I'm sitting there going, son, you just gotta blow your nose.

And he said no, and he's like, Why do I have this headache?

What'll make it go away?

And I'm like, I have one idea.

Blow your nose.

Just blow.

And he would not.

He would not.

So we gave him sinus medication and we're waiting for the breakthrough.

Just so we have some consensus.

Because there's always a multitude of opinions.

Show of hands, how many of you believe that blowing your nose is more effective than just sucking it back in?

Alright, hold on.

One second.

I'm using this.

I'm gonna get my camera out.

On the count of three, would you just all say blow your nose?

Because the next time this happens, I'm using it.

I'm whipping this out.

Alright, here we go.

One, two, three.

Yeah.

Seriously gonna use that.

Next time, I'm like, hey, blow your nose.

No, it doesn't work.

Well, I beg to differ, and let me show you the entire church.

Thank you guys for that.

Okay.

You know, as amusing as it is right now, I'll be honest, as a dad in the moment, it kind of pains me to watch my son suffering a little bit because he believes something that isn't true.

That's really hard for me, actually.

It's hard for me to watch my son do something that's that's literally causing him a headache.

Things in life cause us headaches.

This is a literal headache.

It's hard for me as his dad to watch him do that, knowing that he's basing his behavior off something that isn't true.

And as hard as that is for me, I can't imagine how hard that must be for God.

Because he is a much better parent than I am.

He's a much better dad.

And he watches us, and he watches us live our lives, and he sees so many of us, so many of his people in this world, so many of his children, deal with headaches in their lives, because their lives are not based on what's true.

And so it's so much easier to base our lives off of our own personal truth, our own perspective of truth, right?

That's a phrase that we actually hear in our culture quite a bit, like my truth, my truth is my perspective, and scientifically speaking, my perspective has been proven wrong many, many times.

My perspective, my own personal truth, it's just not strong enough for me to build my life on, and Jesus says that if I would build my life on the truth, if I would know the truth, then I would be set free.

If we want to have a breakthrough in some part of our life, you want to break through in your marriage, in your career, your job, if you need a breakthrough of clarity in your life, maybe you're stuck in some situation, you don't know what to do, and you need you need clarity, you need to know the direction to go.

If you need a breakthrough the truth, the truth will set you free.

The truth will move you forward.

And so we've got to figure out how our lives can be based on what's true.

How our lives can be based on what's true, because when we know what's true and we do what's true, life just works.

It works so much better.

Romans chapter 12 tells us, starting in verse 2, that we're not to copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but rather let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

And then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

God wants to transform us.

I think it's so important for us to understand that Jesus did not come to improve our lives, he came to transform our lives.

There's a big difference there.

And and he promises to transform us by changing the way we think.

By changing our minds.

In fact, the word repent, you've probably heard that word.

Usually we associate it with some angry person, you know, holding a sign and telling us that we're gonna go to a place that's really, really warm.

And like the word repent literally means, it literally, that was a joke about hell, which is not funny, so I apologize.

But the word repent literally means rethink.

It means rethink.

That the way that we change, the way we become the new person we're meant to be, is to change the way we think, and nothing changes the way you think like the truth.

Like, have you ever had a moment in life where you believed something and you were behaving out of that belief, and then you came face to face with the truth in just a moment, and instantly you're like, oh no, everything has to change now.

Last year, I thought I was gonna get a refund in my taxes, you know?

And when you think that that's coming, when it's tax season, you're like, man, I I I feel like I don't know why I thought this.

I think we'd had one the year before, it was a small refund, but then we had a baby, and I think, well, babies don't the government gives you money when you have babies, right?

That's I don't know.

And so I'm I'm planning on there being a bigger refund.

And because I was planning on that bigger refund, I was thinking of some fun things we might want to do, because you know, it's free money, right?

When the government gives you a refund.

It's not money that you should have had, uh, it's free money that the government is just giving you because the government loves you so much.

And so I'm thinking about all the things that I can do with this money, this free money from the government, and and our budget got a little looser in the month leading up to that, because I was like, we're gonna get some money back, you know.

Sure, let's let's let's eat out here and let's do this, it's fun.

And then I had a conversation with our tax person who informed me that we were gonna actually be giving the government some free money.

That's how it was gonna work.

And uh and because that was the truth of the situation, my thinking changed instantly.

And the the spending became saving, and it was kind of this like moment of panic where I'm going, how in the world we gotta change everything?

We have to adjust our entire budget, we've gotta pay this fast, I'm not letting this linger.

And so the truth changed the way that I thought very quickly.

If we want to change, if we want to break through, we we need the truth.

But most of the truth that we need is somewhat difficult to discern.

Right?

This we're not talking about blowing our nose, we're not talking about something basic.

We live in a world, we we live a life that makes it difficult to discern what is true and what is not.

And there's a lot out there in the world, there's a lot of opinions, there's a lot of beliefs that parade around as if they are true, but but they're not.

And we have to figure out how to navigate our lives so that they're based on truth and not something less than that, but it's not it's not easy.

And so, what I want to do this morning, I just want to leave us with three behaviors that will allow us to live lives based on what's true.

Like three behaviors, in other words, that set us free because the truth sets us free.

And and here's what all three are, and then we're gonna go through them one by one.

Number one, we've got to learn how to recognize truth.

We have to be able to identify what's true, right?

Number two, we've gotta we've gotta reject lies.

And then number three, we have to replace lies with truth.

So let's let's start with that first one.

We've got to recognize truth.

Like, how do you know if something's true or not?

It's hard.

Like, we live in a world that sells us things.

Everyone's always trying to sell us something, there's always some message, there's always some angle, and it's it's difficult sometimes to know what's true and and what's not true.

Just do a basic study on your own time of like the laws regarding how you can advertise food, and what you'll find is that organic doesn't actually have to mean organic, right?

Reduced calorie means nothing.

You know?

It's like, how do you how do you know what's true?

You can't shop at the grocery store and actually trust the labels on food.

How do you know what's true in this world?

You know, think things that are true, they they share some common ground.

Number one, if it's true, it works.

If it's true, it works.

If it's true, it will hold up to scrutiny, if it's true, it will stand the test of time.

So if something works and it and it holds up to scrutiny and it stands the test of time, chances are that it's true.

That's one of the reasons, by the way, that I get so passionate about the Bible, about God's word, because it just checks those boxes.

It works.

Like it works.

If if you would apply scripture to one area of your life for a year, whatever, whatever area of life you want to have the biggest breakthrough in, if you would just spend one year and say, I'm gonna let what scripture says guide me in this area for a year.

Your marriage, your career, your dating life, how you manage your finances, whatever it is, if you would just let scripture be your guide, you would see results that would be immeasurable.

If that was your guiding principle.

Because it works.

Even like crazy stuff, like dietary things, okay?

Back in the Old Testament, before Jesus had come and like freed us completely from the law, people had to eat a certain diet as part of their worship to God.

And they called that the Mosaic diet, and we're free from that, and that's why we can eat bacon.

So praise the Lord.

Um but uh yeah, I that was like as passionate of an amen as I've heard in a while.

That was good.

So but here's what's really crazy.

If you go and you study the diet that God prescribes to the people of Israel, and this is when they're out in the wilderness, this is before they even settle into the promised land, it it's it's an incredibly healthy diet.

You you would actually struggle to find a diet here on this earth that is as healthy as that diet.

If you if you ate that way for a year, you would be you'd be so healthy.

Like there's there's things that God told them not to eat, and he told them not to eat.

This is 3,000 plus years ago.

So this is long before anyone knew anything about nutrition, anything about blood pressure and cholesterol and all those kinds of things.

But God says, hey, don't eat pork and don't eat shellfish.

I have higher cholesterol than than is normal.

And you know, I go to my doctor and he's like, hey, you know what we've really found is that you shouldn't eat a lot of pork.

Um so that's why I eat turkey bacon.

And, you know, because it's still bacon.

And so, and you shouldn't eat, you shouldn't eat shellfish.

And I'm like, oh, I've heard this somewhere before.

And and then there's all these other things, like the way that God told them to prepare food is incredibly sanitary.

Like it's kosher, literally.

That's where that comes from.

And we're talking thousands of years before anyone knew what a germ was.

And God's like, when you prepare food, I want you to do this a very specific way.

And by the way, before you eat, I want you to wash your hands.

And they thought all of it was very like ritualistic and spiritual, but a lot of it was just practical, like just to keep them alive.

And it's just so crazy that that 3,000 years ago, God would prescribe his people a very specific diet that was unlike anything else in the world at that time, and it would still be effective today because it stands the test of time, because it works.

Like God's word, it it holds up to scrutiny.

Because nothing has ever been scrutinized more than the Bible.

I mean, literally, there's there's never been a document in history that's been scrutinized as deeply as scripture, and yet it still stands today, it's still just as revolutionary as it's ever been.

That's why 2 Timothy 3, verse 16, says, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

2 Timothy 3:16

It corrects us when we are wrong, it teaches us to do what is right.

God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

God wants you to be equipped for your life.

And his word does that.

It just is true.

It's true.

It's truth that we can actually build our lives on.

So if you want to learn how to recognize what's true, just know his word.

And the beautiful thing is we live in a world that makes that so much easier than it's ever been.

You may not be a biblical scholar, that's okay.

Because you can Google, hey, what does the Bible say about this?

And you can download the His Hands Mobile app, for example, has tons of resources to help you study the Bible and get more out of it.

It's true.

It helps us recognize what is true and what is not, but it's more than just words on a page.

Because, like, if we stop there, if we said, hey, just know your Bible and you're good, well then we'd have religion.

But religion, religion can actually be right and wrong at the same time.

Like, religion can be right in terms of its moral standing, but wrong in terms of its approach with everything else.

Religion can be right but cold and unfeeling and uncompassionate.

Jesus fought harder against religion than he fought against anything.

And so if we let if we let our lives be dictated by just words on a page, we're missing it.

We need something more.

In fact, we don't just need something, we need someone.

We need we need Jesus.

Because there's a big difference between knowing what someone has said and knowing the someone who said it.

Like I have such a close relationship with Megan.

We've been friends since high school.

And if you showed me something that Megan had written, that maybe you were offended by.

Let's say she wrote something and you're like, I can't, you know, I just can't believe she said this, but you showed it to me, I'd be like, oh, I think you're reading it wrong.

Because I know her so well that I hear the voice behind the words and I understand the way she thinks, and it helps me, you know, understand where she's coming from, and it makes it so much more clear.

2 Peter 1, 3 talks more about God equipping us, and it says, by his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.

We've received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and his excellence.

So it's not just about knowing the words on the pages, it's about knowing the author.

It's about knowing the one who speaks the words on the pages.

To know Jesus and have a personal relationship with Jesus so that you understand what he says and why he says it.

I mean, it's so important.

I I use scripture a ton every single Sunday.

I I love the Bible.

My favorite book to read is the Bible, my second favorite books to read are books about the Bible.

I kind of just get fixated like that.

But you can take scripture, I could take scripture and you could pull things from here and from there, and you can make it say pretty much whatever you want.

And so for me, I have three filters, and this this might help you, this may be useful to you.

Three filters that I use personally to help me understand if I'm interpreting scripture correctly.

Number one, the context of the scripture itself, because it's important to know not only what's said, but who is it being said to and why is it being said?

You know?

That's important.

So I want to know the context.

Number two, I want to know all of Scripture.

Does it line up with not just something here and there, but does it line up with the entire message of the Bible?

Number three, though, and this is huge, does it match the person of Jesus?

Because Hebrews 1.3 says that Jesus is the exact representation of God.

He is the clearest picture we can have of God because he is God.

And so if I interpret something in Scripture in a way that doesn't match Jesus, that doesn't match who he is, my interpretation needs to change.

Like we don't just need to know the words, we need to know the one who inspires the words.

We need someone, not just something.

That helps us recognize the truth because when you have Jesus in your life, the truth becomes more clear.

It just does because he's light.

He's the light of the world.

When you have light, you see things clearly.

He gives us the Holy Spirit.

He gives us his spirit, puts it inside of us so that as we live our lives, we have someone with us guiding us, helping us discern what's true and what's not.

That's a promise that he makes.

In fact, in John chapter 16, Jesus is about to leave, but he's basically saying, no big deal.

John 16 · chapter mention

He says, in fact, it's best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the advocate, that's the Holy Spirit, won't come.

If I do go away, then I will send him to you.

And just a few verses later, he says, When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

So if you want to recognize the truth, if you want to recognize the truth, if you want to have the ability to discern what is true and what is not in this world, you you need you need to know God's word, you need to know God Himself, and you need his spirit in you guiding you and leading you into that truth.

And you can believe that.

Like he will do that.

I know people who have incredible discernment, like supernatural discernment.

Because they've lived their lives saying yes to whatever the Holy Spirit puts on their heart, and because they say yes to him, he just talks to them a lot.

And they have this way of going, you know what?

Something's off here.

Something's not right.

And there's so many people like that that I know and I respect, and and that discernment has been proven true time and time again because the Holy Spirit's real.

It's a promise that He makes you.

He will guide you into all truth.

If you want to recognize the truth among the lies, rely on that.

Recognize the truth.

Number two, though, we've got to do more than just recognize what's true.

We have to reject what's not true.

Like we have to reject lies.

And our world is full of lies.

Like they're everywhere.

We have cultural lies in our world that stand in drastic opposition to what God tells us.

And sometimes that's really hard.

Sometimes that's hard to come to terms with when the world that we live in disagrees with God.

And we have to make a choice of where we stand, that's tough.

And sometimes there's even this brand of Christianity that just sort of takes what's popular in the world and mixes it in with Scripture to try to create something that fits both, and that just doesn't work at all.

Like, for example, something that our culture values very much.

I've used this example before, it's kind of an easy one to use, is the phrase follow your heart.

You know what?

I don't know what to do, I'm not sure what to do.

Well, just follow your heart.

Just follow, you follow your heart, and you're gonna be good.

Right?

But then Jeremiah chapter 17 says this the human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked.

Jeremiah 17 · chapter mention

Who really knows how bad it is?

Sometimes the Bible is a downer.

But then it picks you right back up.

It's like a roller coaster ride.

It's fun.

The human heart is the most deceitful of all things.

Well, that's a pretty big difference from like follow your heart.

Because your heart's gonna lead you in the right direction.

One of those statements makes for a great Disney song.

The other actually lines up with human experience.

Like, how many of us have followed our hearts to regret, to disaster?

How many of the experience do we look back on and go, man, if I could change anything in my life, if I could go back and change one moment in my life, it'd be that moment, and that happens to be a moment where I was following my heart passionately.

Right?

That's a cultural lie.

Just follow your heart, you'll be good.

One of the lies that we hear the most in our culture, it's just kind of subversive, is the lie that you can't.

Like you can't.

That is, that might as well be the battle cry of our culture today.

You can't.

You can't change who you are.

Like you can't you can't change the way you feel.

You can't, you can't change.

You can't help it.

You know, you can't you can't help who you're attracted to.

You can't change.

Like that, that's we hear that in our culture, and we nod our heads sometimes because, like, yeah, you can't change who you are.

Well, God can.

And he does.

Like that's actually his promise that he will transform you and make you into a new person.

He he can do anything, and he tells us, I actually want to change you.

Do you want to change?

Do you want to be made new?

We have to reject cultural lies, we have to reject personal lies.

Because we've all been told things that are not true about ourselves.

It's interesting when Adam and Eve, the like really the first story in the Bible, when they mess up, when they disobey God, everything kind of falls apart.

They realize you know what they've done, they hide from God.

We see this in Genesis chapter 3, verse 8.

Genesis 3:8

When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden.

So they hid from the Lord God among the trees.

And then the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

And he replied, I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid.

I was afraid because I was naked.

Who told you that you were naked?

The Lord God asked.

And it's just so interesting.

The very first question that God asks is, Who told you that?

You know, who told you that?

Because not only are they saying like they're naked in terms of not wearing clothing, which was accurate, but they're expressing shame.

They're like, I'm I'm wrong.

That's really what they're saying.

They're saying, we're naked, we're we're not suitable for you.

We're not suitable to be seen by you.

And God says, Who told you that?

Because I never told you that.

And you know, for every single one of us, there will be things in our lives that we have believed.

That God would look at you and He would say, Who told you that?

Because that that's not that's not true.

That's not the way I see you.

That's not what I believe about you.

And some of us have had have had pretty deep wounds placed in us by lies that people have told us, and maybe they were lies by people who were very close to us, maybe they were lies by people who were supposed to build us up, and people who were supposed to bring us up and put us in a position to succeed in this world, but instead they cut us down and they spoke the opposite of life into us.

And they diminished us and they told us what we could never do, what we could never be, what we would never amount to.

And God would look at you, and if you would repeat that to him, he would just say, Yeah, I never told you that.

And we have to choose who we're gonna believe, and we have to reject the lies that we've been told.

If you recognize the truth, you have the ability to recognize the opposite of truth.

And when you see that, you've got to reject it and reject it completely.

But you can't just stop there.

You can't just stop at rejecting lies because then you would have done a good thing.

You've emptied yourself of lies, but we're not meant to live empty, we're meant to live full.

So you've got to replace lies with the truth.

It kind of comes full circle.

Recognize the truth, reject lies, and then replace whatever lies you've rejected with truth so that you're full, so that you've been filled with something that you can use.

There's a verse, I grew up Southern Baptist, and one of the verses, and that's fine, I actually had a really great experience growing up, so please, I just realized when I said that, someone's gonna take this the wrong way.

But one of the verses that I used to hear a lot was Ephesians 5.18, at least the first part.

Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life.

And that's good advice.

Don't get drunk.

Cool.

Um it what the way I grew up, at least in the particular brand of you know church that I grew up in, that was interpreted as saying alcohol in and of itself is wrong, which which actually isn't that isn't true.

It's not.

Um it for some of us, it's definitely a really, really bad idea, and for all of us, moderation.

But it says, don't get drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life.

I heard the first part of that verse so many times.

But the second part says, instead be filled with the Holy Spirit.

I didn't hear that as often.

And that's that's because the point of this verse is not God denying us.

The point of this verse and these statements from God is not God saying, like, hey, I want you to go without.

I want you to have less, I want you to be empty.

I just want to make sure your life is just you know empty of anything that maybe you would enjoy and is good.

No, that's not what it's saying.

It's saying you need to be filled.

You just need to be filled with what actually fills you.

You need to be filled with what actually is good for you and is useful to you, and that is God's spirit.

So it's not enough just to reject lies, we've got to be filled with truth.

Like filled with it so that we're full and we have what we need.

We have the sustenance that we need to go about our lives.

There's a really, really interesting story that Jesus told once to a group of people he was speaking to that were basically rejecting him.

And he tells a story, it's an illustration about demon possession, you know, real light subject matter.

And here's what he actually says.

It's very interesting.

You may have read this, maybe not.

He says, When an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert, seeking rest but finding none.

I don't think this is Jesus scientifically describing what demons do.

I think it's an illustration.

And then it says, I will return to the person I came from.

So it returns and it finds its former home empty, swept, and in order.

And then the spirit finds seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter the person and live there, and so that person is worse off than before.

What Jesus is saying is it's not just enough to empty yourself of what isn't good.

You need to fill yourself with what is good.

And when you're full, there's not room for the stuff that's garbage.

There's not room for that.

And that's an experience, by the way, that I have seen it so many times in this role where people have a moment and they realize that something in their life is not right and it's not healthy and it's not good.

And in a moment of strength, they rid themselves of that.

But they stop there.

And they don't fill themselves with what they need, and it doesn't take long for them to go right back to where they were.

And maybe even worse off because you're not meant to live empty.

You're meant to live full.

And God wants to fill you.

And he wants to fill you with his presence.

Like the Bible says that we are the temples of God.

Like, think about, think about that.

That you would be the temple of God.

The idea of a temple to the people that the Bible was written directly to was the dwelling place of God.

So a temple was as holy of a place as there was on this planet.

So the presence of God dwelled.

And God looks at you and He says, I want you to be my temple.

I want you to be the most holy place in this world.

Your life.

I want to fill your life with my presence.

That is powerful.

So you've got to recognize truth, reject lies, and then replace lies with the truth.

And when you do that, you will break through.

When you do that, you will be you'll be set free.

And I I said this earlier when we prayed.

I don't know what you need to be set free from this morning.

I don't know what breakthrough you need.

I can think of four or five that I could use right now.

You know, this last few weeks, I've needed breakthroughs in patience.

I've needed breakthroughs in anger management.

You know, I it's been like three or four times in the last couple of weeks where I found out that my fuse is much shorter than I thought that it was.

I need breakthroughs in love and compassion.

I need a breakthrough in my ability to see things from other people's perspective.

I'm praying this morning.

And that's why I'm so excited for more coming up on September 6th.

I need more of God.

I need a breakthrough.

Because it doesn't matter how close I get to God, it doesn't matter what experiences I have with God.

I just I just want more.

And I need more.

And I always come to this point where it's like, God, you know, what you've done is amazing.

I'm not taking anything away from that, but I need you to do something else.

I need you to do something new in me.

I need a breakthrough.

God wants to give you one this morning.

He wants to give you a breakthrough in your life.

And if you will, if you'll make it your passion to do what is true, I'm telling you, you're gonna have a breakthrough.

If you'll make it your passion to say, whatever decisions I make, whatever I choose to do, I want that to line up with the truth.

If that is the way you live your life, I'm telling you, breakthroughs are going to happen.

But it's hard.

It's hard to live by the truth.

It's so difficult sometimes.

Because sometimes living for the truth means rejecting things that maybe we're used to, rejecting things that we love.

I spent over ten years battling an addiction.

And I both I both loved and hated it at the same time.

I hated it because I knew it was wrong, I hated it because of what it did to me, I hated it because of the way it affected my life and the fact that it made me hide things and be less than genuine.

Made me be a liar, to be honest.

But at the same time, I loved it because it was comfortable, because I I was used to it, and it's just kind of how I coped.

See, that was a lie.

Because, like, when life got hard, my addiction wasn't actually there for me.

My addiction didn't help me, my addiction didn't free me, my addiction was a lie that I had believed I needed, but I didn't.

And it was when it was when that got rejected in my life completely, when I when I shut that door and said, No, you're a liar.

You do not offer anything to me, and I'm done with you.

And I turned to God and I said, God, you're gonna have to fill me.

Because I'll be honest, as horrible as that was, it it made me feel full in certain moments.

But I need you to fill me now with all of you.

I need you to fill me with what's good and what's true.

And I'm telling you, God was faithful with that.

And even as a person who loves Jesus, like there's a lot of us in the room who love Jesus very much, we've been following Jesus for years, sometimes we feel empty, right?

That's hard because sometimes we say, hey, God, I'm doing everything that you tell me to do, I'm living for you.

I'm at church at the early service.

You know?

Like I'm I'm one of the good ones, God.

What gives?

Well, what I found in my life when I'm having those holdups, I have to stop and ask myself, what do I believe?

And it's not that uncommon for me to find that my thinking has been distorted by something that just isn't true.

And I've believed something that's not true about myself, I believe something that's not true about God, I believe something that's not true about the world around me, about the people around me.

And it's it's so easy to get in that in that rut because you know, if you think something long enough, you'll end up believing it.

And if you believe something for long enough, it becomes like a deeply held truth in your life.

And and there have been lies that I've believed to that level of intensity.

And so I say all this, and worship team, you guys can come back up, we'll wrap up.

I say all this this morning.

I want to challenge you to examine your life and ask yourself what's true.

What area of life do you need a breakthrough in?

Like what one aspect of life would you like to see things change the most?

Whatever that is, ask yourself: is what I believe about this part of my life true?

Is the way I'm behaving in this aspect of life, does it line up with the truth?

Does it line up with the truth of God's word?

Does it line up with the truth of Jesus?

Does it line up with the truth that the Holy Spirit speaks into my life?

Is it true?

And if it's not, look at that part of life and say, okay, well, what is true?

What does God say about it?

And dedicate yourself to that truth.

And reject whatever whatever lies you've been believing and replace those lies with that truth.

And if you live that way, you're gonna have a breakthrough.

And you're gonna have another one and another one after that because breakthroughs happen.

We become set free when we live our lives based on the truth.

And we have a God who is the truth.

And he's there for us and he loves us.

And I want to say one final thing as we close.

If any of you, if any of you don't know Jesus, he's a really good guy.

He's awesome.

He's the least judgmental, the most understanding, the most compassionate, the most powerful, the most wise, the most amazing.

Like Jesus.

He's it.

Like he's everything.

There's a reason.

You can clap for that.

You can clap.

Heck yeah.

And Jesus himself said said this about himself.

He said, I am the way, I am the truth.

I'm the life.

Usually when people say things like that, you know, they're they're being braggadocious and they're they're they're claiming something about themselves.

Usually when people say things like that, you know, they're they're on a stage and they're they're trying to hype themselves up to sell themselves, but that's not what Jesus was doing.

He was telling us the truth.

What he was saying is, hey, do you need a way?

Like, do you need a way through?

Do you need do you need to know where to go, what to do?

I'm the way.

And he was saying, hey, are you confused?

Are you struggling with knowing what's true and what's not?

I'm the truth.

He said, are you living something that's less than life?

Are you settling for existence?

Are you just you know going through and getting by and taking one day at a time and just hanging on?

You know, that that's that's not what we're meant for.

Jesus says, I'm the life.

I am life itself.

So if you if you need truth in your life, he is the truth.

And he loves you and he wants to know you.

And if if you need that, if you're here this morning and you're saying, Look, I I don't understand it all, you don't have to, by the way.

But I know that something is missing in my life, and I know that it's it's I know that it's him.

I just I urge you to give your life to him today.

To just say in your heart, I'm all in with you, Jesus.

I believe in you.

I need you, I need some truth to set me free.

And I'm telling you, if that's the cry of your heart, he will be faithful and for all of us here this morning, for all of us.

Let's live our lives based on what's true.

Let's live in the truth.

Let's get set free.

Amen?

All right, let's pray together.

Jesus, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you so much for this church.

And God, I'm gonna thank you again for the 30 extra minutes because I'm maybe it's just me, but I think it's changed my life.

Lord, we uh we all love you very much.

And God, life is so hard.

You know that though, because you came and you lived our life.

And I know that in this room right now, I know that there are those of us who are going through all kinds of things.

Some of us are coming out of addictions in our lives.

Some of us, you know, are dealing with new change.

We have a new baby, we have a new job, we have a new home, we have just something new, something unfamiliar, and we're having to readjust and we're having to figure everything else out.

Some of us, God, life hasn't changed circumstantially, maybe in years.

But we feel like something has changed in us, and we're not sure why we're feeling the way we're feeling, why we have the outlook that we have.

And Lord, no matter where we're at this morning, we need your truth.

Because sometimes, God, we cannot see the forest from the trees.

Sometimes, God, we can't we can't discern between the truth and the lie.

Sometimes, Lord, we can't tell with what we believe, whether it's just our truth or real truth.

And so, God, we're asking you this morning that you would do that for us, that you would be our truth.

That you would give us the courage to do what really few people do, God, is to base our behaviors and the way we live our lives off something greater than ourselves.

That you would give us the courage to base what we say and what we do and how we live and how we think.

That we would base those things on you and what you say is true, and what you say is right, and what you say is good, no matter if the world agrees or not.

Lord Jesus, set us free.

Set us free with with your truth and with the truth that you love us all.

Be with us this week.

Bless us this week.

God help us be a blessing to the people around us.

We ask all this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.