Activate Spirit Growth Pt. 7 | 09/20/2026

All right, everybody.

Thank you, Jesus.

Hey, we're talking about brotherly affection, and that's what we were just doing here.

Right?

Give yourselves a hand.

Nailed it.

Thank you, Jesus.

Father, I asked for your help today.

I'm gonna keep this short because the Holy Spirit has done a lot of really good stuff.

So let me do this.

I was gonna try to go over some things.

Let's let's just focus on, I want to focus on the main verse that I was gonna preach from today is 1 Peter 3, 8.

And uh actually gotta read it.

It says, Finally, all of you should be of one mind and sympathize with each other, love each other as brothers and sisters, and be tenderhearted and keep a humble attitude.

Well, we're we've been talking about this whole thing of the virtues that Peter talks about in 2 Peter chapter 1.

2 Peter 1 · chapter mention

And there's a working that's going on in every single one of us.

And I think we would all agree with that.

That God's working on us, you know, we're not we haven't got everything perfect, and he's working on us when we're pursuing him, like the Bible says, seek after me, you'll find me, draw close to me, I'll draw close to you.

I would say that it kind of starts from a self-motivation of hey, I want, I want this, I want to encounter you, I want to be righteous, I want to know about you, I want to choose your way, I want to be able to not quit when things get hard.

These are all things that we aspire to, and God works on our heart.

It's an individual thing.

And there's something that happens that we can't create it, we can't make it happen, but it will naturally happen as we apply ourselves to what the word of God shows us, okay?

That we're going to encounter Him.

Does that make sense?

You're there, and I like I can't tell you how many seasons that have been really hard, and I feel like God wasn't there, not there, doesn't care.

Like it feels like that, and it's not until I get out of the season and I look back and I'm like, oh my gosh, you were there the whole time.

That's what I mean by beholding.

I realize, whoa.

It's that whole saying of you know, like the whole footsteps in the sand, there's only one footstep, but it was God carrying you.

Yeah, and we're saying, uh but we behold him, and what happens afterward is is our response to what we beheld.

The idea is is that if I behold the eyes of mercy, I'm so impacted by that.

Lord, you are so merciful to me that it causes a motivation.

I want to be merciful.

Okay?

It's not us just like, hey, just really determined to be merciful, and then you'll do it.

You know, go do it.

It's it's like, Lord, you've impacted me.

I'm never gonna be the same.

And so the next step after beholding him is love for the church, the church family, the people.

Okay, and this is what we talked about the week before last.

Church life can I be a little let me just be a little bit real transparent.

Church life can be very difficult.

Church church church life outside apart from like marriage and immediate family, getting hurt in church is one of the worst ways to get hurt.

Okay?

I mean, it's like your spouse can hurt you worse than anyone else can, your immediate family, you know, best friend.

But the church is a place, it's a very sensitive thing here.

Okay?

And I'm imagining I'm looking out and I'm seeing tons of people that you've you've been with this for a while.

You know the stuff.

You've you know, you've ministered, you've been part of churches, but we've been hurt.

And those kind of hurts don't just go away overnight.

Okay?

I mean, it's real.

I can't tell you how many people I've talked to.

It's like, well, tell me your story.

Well, I was hurt.

Well, I was hurt, and you know, like legitimate things.

And so this topic of love for brotherly love and brotherly affection, it sounds good, but it can be a tender spot.

And this is where the next thing that Jesus that God leads us to.

He doesn't just say, I'm gonna teach you how to love everybody, he he calls us into love of his family.

So let me go back and I want to show you this little chart.

That when we're doing this, you can look at these scenes over here, and I know this is probably the 20th time I've done this, but repetition helps.

These first five things is more like inward focus on us individually.

And the the idea is that if I'm faithful to these things of giving my best effort, that doesn't mean you're gonna be perfect, but I'll just go ahead and tell you that you're gonna mess up a lot, you just keep going back to God when you do.

This is individual, this is gonna cause a beholding of God.

I see a side of him I've never seen before, or like something that I knew logically becomes something that's a revelation, it's applicational revelation where I've experienced his love.

I just can't, I just everyone knows that God loves them, but experiencing his love, do you ever have those revelations where it's a very simple phrase like God is good, but you see it for like what it is, and you're like, Oh my gosh, God is good.

God, you know, that's what I'm talking about.

You behold him.

It's encountering that thing of value that changes you.

So godliness is the thing formed in you from what you encountered.

And so, what God does though, he says, now that I've shown you, I've I've started to show you my face, if that makes sense.

I want you to take what you're getting from this, and I want you to focus it now in loving my family.

Okay.

Like if we think about God, what's important to you, He tells us.

He makes it very clear.

And this trip from godliness to brotherly affection, which is love for the church, by the way, this little part arrow right here, this is where we get in trouble.

And we fill that journey with expectations.

I already went over this a couple weeks ago, but I'm gonna re go over it again.

We fill it with expectations of what's expected of me and what do I expect to experience.

It's like a job.

I need to know what you expected me to do, but I also need to know what am I gonna get paid?

What am I gonna experience?

What's the what's the what's the work life gonna be like, okay?

And I'm not gonna say this across the board because it's not true across the board, but more times than not, church hurt the things that wound us the most is because we had the wrong expectations for ourselves and what we were gonna experience.

When I've gone to church, I thought that, hey, Christians, we're at church, we've you know, everyone should have this figured out.

The problem is they don't.

So we have good days and then we have bad days.

We have bad days where we're just stressed and fearful, and maybe we just don't treat our brother and sister in our church the way we should have.

And for some, little things like that can really hurt, and we would never expect that they would have done that, and we get church hurt.

But another thing is that we pursue church, and this is not your fault, this is the fault of the day we live in and the culture.

Everything in your life around you, okay, if I could just say it simply, has trained you to be a consumer.

So this is not like I'm saying you had evil intentions and you're just like, oh, I don't want to do this.

Everything around you in your culture, okay.

In Romans, it says, you know, that don't let be conformed by the culture of this world, but be changed, renew your thinking, understand, hey, just because this is the way it works, that doesn't mean that's the way God works.

Everything in our culture is trained us to be consumer.

What does a consumer do?

They're basing all their decisions on what am I gonna receive from this?

Okay, so we go to church, and instead of seeing church as a calling from God, I want you to go to that location with that people.

We make it, we pick church the same way we pick where we're gonna shop for clothes, where we're gonna get food.

Okay, some of us, you know, we hop churches like we hop restaurants.

I'm in the mood for this flavor today.

Let me go there.

I'm in the mood for this flavor.

God calls you to a body, a local body, okay.

I understand we're part of the global body of Christ, but we're not having global church.

Can you imagine that?

It's very impractical, it would not work.

We're called geographically locally, okay?

And so it's a calling.

Even if you don't, even like for some of us, we might be like, Well, I can't even tell if God's calling me somewhere, and that's fine.

Learning to discern and hear the voice of the Lord takes time, it takes time walking with him.

And so many times, even I still today I'm like, wait, is that me or is that you?

I don't really know.

I'll just jump, anyways.

You know, but but it's a calling because God knows what he's doing, he's orchestrating his body, he's putting us different parts, you know, but one body, he's putting us where he wants us, okay?

And the idea of this is that church is meant to be seen as family, not family-like, not brother-like, but brother.

Y'all with me?

That's God's intention.

Jesus, you know, they're like, he says a whole verse, like, who's my mother, who's my brothers, sisters, the people obey my father.

Those that's my legitimate family.

Okay, and so we have expectations coming into this that I'm not gonna get hurt and that the church is gonna do everything right.

And that's a wrong expectation.

If you look at a lot a majority of the virtues that God develops in us and calls us to do in the body, it requires things to be off and wrong in order for us to exercise them.

Like, I wasn't gonna I wasn't really gonna share this, but this is a great moment to do this.

Think about this.

Y'all know the Beatitudes in the you know, Matthew 5, okay?

If think of it like this: if I am never, if I have always have what I want, I am robbed of the blessing of being poor and not recognizing my need for God.

God blesses those who are poor.

I want that blessing.

Well, what's it required?

Sometimes, you know, I need to like not have what I want.

Okay.

We get frustrated because I want to be fully righteous.

Well, you know what?

God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Don't be don't rob yourself of the blessing.

Lord, I always want to be happy.

Well, if you're always happy, then you're gonna miss the blessing for those who mourn.

You're gonna get to miss being able to connect with God, who's the comforter.

I've gone through seasons of mourning where I can't even make sounds.

You know when you cry so hard, you're so sad you can't even make a sound, you're just I counter the comforter.

When I really cry, it's very ugly sounding.

Like high speed squeals, and I'm like, this sounds so ugly.

I guess some people, you know, you cry cute, but not me.

God blesses those who are merciful.

If if no one ever hurts you, you're gonna be robbed of the blessing of being able to be merciful.

You're blessed when people say lies about you and accuse you because you follow me.

We've been hurt because we've been misunderstood.

Like we're a charismatic church, we attract some of the wild people that other churches booted you out.

You've been misunderstood.

You've been hurt.

Jesus says you're blessed.

What if you never went through that?

You're missing out on some blessing.

I I used to get very offended when I hear people talking bad about me, and I heard Derek Prince, is that right?

Deliverance dude.

He said, I don't try to stop people who talk bad about me because the Bible says that it's putting rewards for me in heaven.

So now I'm like, keep it coming.

All that gossip and slander, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, fill my bank account.

We're gonna write a worship song on that.

We'll call it cha-ching.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

Keep on talking.

Boom, boom, boom.

Keep on talking.

My company's calling me.

I'll call them back later.

I'm on call.

I'm actually I'm not on call, but they call sometimes.

I'll call back.

It's alright.

I work for the utilities during the week.

There might be some lights out somewhere.

Lord, just help them.

I've heard people say, I just want to go to a church where there's peace.

Well, if you do, you're gonna miss the blessing that comes for those who work for peace.

In order to work for peace, you have to be placed in chaotic environments.

Wow.

I'm like, yeah, okay.

Miss your blessing.

Listen, if you want to get that blessing, this is the church for you.

New members class, come on, sign up.

I think the last time I did it, I said it, I was like, listen, expect to be hurt and expect chaos.

That's what's beautiful about family, though, isn't it?

Family's chaotic, family's messy, but there's something at the heart of this that, hey, it's it's there's a devotion to you, and it and the devotion is not based on perfection.

I naturally, I am someone that has phenomenal grace and mercy with myself.

And I have little patience and grace with other people's issues.

I'm still working on it, Miss Kathy.

I'm not gonna lie, you would not believe it, but thank you.

You are so kind to me.

Yeah.

But that's that's my natural inclination.

I have very little patience with people.

And I used to not always be like that, but just time hardens you a little bit, and I think it does it to all of us.

Especially if you get called and you're you care about people and you try, you're gonna get hurt.

That's kind of how God does it.

It's like the whole thing of rejection.

The Lord loves to have us be rejected right into purpose.

I mean, does he not?

Joseph, you're called to a great thing.

How am I gonna do it?

Your own family's gonna betray you and sell you into slavery.

Oh, David, you're gonna be called into the kingdom.

All right, how's that gonna work out?

Well, the king right now is gonna try to kill you for like years.

You're gonna be on the run from your homeland.

You're gonna be an outlaw.

That's how I'm going to make it work.

We don't think in terms like that.

We think it's all gonna be bliss.

God's bringing revival.

Do we think that's gonna be clean?

No.

The thing is with the church is that God doesn't, the expectation is not that God calls you into an imperfect environment, he calls you into chaos so that he can train and develop his love in us because we're gonna need that development in-house in order to bring in that which is in the world.

If you think you have hard moments with these brothers and sisters in Christ, wait till we start to go get those addicts.

That's right.

You think we have little issues, you know, offenses, wait till we get the the dark the people that are bound in darkness.

And the darkness doesn't leave overnight.

They get saved, that doesn't mean that everything's fine.

Some of this stuff takes years.

You're gonna get the homosexual.

Hey, there's homosexuals coming, you know, they're gonna get saved, but it might be years until all of a sudden those temptations, those desires are broken off.

Are we ready for that?

So it's not we're not promised like everything being great.

We're we're called into this and we're called with with an opportunity to work these muscles.

And so one of the other expectations that really hurts us in church is that we're expecting to receive the whole thing that God shows that we could go verse by verse, is that we're called to give.

Because what happens at this point at godliness is that we behold that which was given to us, and that's everything.

And I think the question is when it comes to church, it's not about what can the church do for you, it's the question of, hey, can I give because I've already been given to.

I mean, isn't that the great commission?

Go and give as freely as you've been given.

That's the heart of godliness.

Church is not about you, it's not about me, it's not about what I can receive, and a lot of the storms in our life and chaos is because we don't have the right expectations of church.

It's very freeing to come and say, I'm gonna give all and I'm not expecting reciprocation.

I'm coming to give everything and I'm not expecting to be noticed.

I'm not even expecting it's I I don't have that expectation because my heart is to simply give and please the one I love.

This is very freeing.

Because what happens, and it's very natural, and I get this too, when I do nice stuff and pour out my life, I expect some type of acknowledgement.

Even if I don't say it out loud, you know when people say, you know, hey, you know, I'm not expecting things in return, and then their feelings are hurt when you don't acknowledge it?

That's me.

I'm not expecting in return.

But did you like that?

But when I call you for a favor, but no strings attached.

But we we set ourselves up to get hurt because we miss the point of why we're doing this.

It's about giving, it's about like your spiritual gift.

People take it very personal, like this is my calling, and when people don't let you do what you want to do, you think you're rejected.

That's not your calling.

The whole point of it is for service to another.

And God is the one who opens the door, and God opens the door in the timing he wants and the way he wants.

And sometimes we struggle, we feel offended and leave.

No one received me because you're trying to control the narrative.

What about just giving in the opportunities that God's given you to give?

What about serving because it doesn't matter?

It's all about giving and pleasing him, right?

It's very freeing.

But we're waiting to receive.

Let me find a church.

Do they have all the programs I want?

Check, check, check, check, check.

Instead of how about Jesus, where do you want me to go?

Okay, you know, in the way military works is like you have people at different stations, and there could be certain branches and certain like posts that they have everything they need.

They don't need 20,000 gunners, and then there's other branches over here, they don't have anyone running the guns.

Because maybe the gunner is called to that post.

But no, you want to be in this church because it's more comfortable and it's more peaceful, and you want peace, and you want quiet, you just want to enjoy your church experience, and the Lord is calling you to the battlefield.

And he says, I've gifted you, I've anointed you, I'm I'm I'm setting up an end-time army, but you're too busy just being coddled.

I'm gonna go to the very last verse.

Don't look at any of this.

Save it for next week.

Um, Miss Kathy, you were praying and you prayed this verse.

You didn't know I was gonna have this.

And I wasn't even planning on having this.

I was just finishing up my message prep, and the Lord kept putting this verse on my mind.

It says, Take my this is Jesus, Jesus says, Take my yoke, take my work.

Like our calling to the body of Christ is an assignment.

It will help us to realize that this is your assignment.

There's gonna be seasons that being with family is gonna be hard.

There's gonna be seasons that you're gonna be hurt, there's gonna be seasons that you're gonna feel overlooked, there's gonna be seasons you're gonna want to do stuff that you're just not gonna be able to do.

That's part of the process.

And I could I could go on all I could sit down with you all day and tell you about the fun joy I had in my process to being brought in as a pastor.

Ten years overlooked, serving behind the scenes, feeling rejected, the Lord working out the why in my heart.

That could be the that could be the theme of my life being overlooked and rejected.

God prunes our hearts, He puts us in those moments to expose this stuff.

He goes, Listen, if I'm your source, that would.

Those people can't bother you.

Their acceptance or rejection shouldn't bother you if I'm your source.

Take my yoke upon you and let me teach you.

Jesus is calling us because he wants to teach us the keys to life.

This is the key to church.

Let me teach you because I am humble and gentle at heart.

And he says, and you will find rest for your souls.

I looked up this word souls.

I've never really thought about this.

I always just thought, oh, that spirit, like I'll go to heaven one day if I just let him teach me.

He's all this also, this term souls is the innermost seat of emotion.

This is our life.

This is the innermost aspect of who we are in this life.

And some of us we haven't had rest because our expectations, I'm there's always a storm because I'm not receiving something I wanted to receive.

And then also I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing because I didn't understand it was already expected.

He says, Let me teach you, and you're gonna find rest for your souls.

I'm seeing something, and that when I remove all these expectations out of my relationships, it frees me to love.

Because what I do is that I try to calculate it and I try to control the situation.

I try to do something or say something to get the outcome from you that I want.

You know that thing?

Like I'm really afraid of going and bringing reconciliation with this relationship because I don't know if they'll hear me.

I don't know if they'll want reconciliation.

And we make other people's proposed responses determine whether we do something or don't do it.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I'm trying to control the scenario instead of just being free.

It doesn't matter how they respond to me.

I'm going to love them.

It doesn't matter.

I'm going to show them mercy.

When we get our eyes on him and you see what he's done for us, that's enough.

It really is.

That's enough.

This is what's helping me because I don't do the brotherly affection stuff as good as you might think.

And I see what and I look at what he did for me, and it causes me to take a step back and say, wait a second.

Instead of trying to control everybody, and try to instead of trying to make these imperfect people live to my perfect perfect standards, which I can't even reach myself.

To legitimately care.

Because brotherly affection is both an outward action of devotion and it's an inward posture of affection.

A familial, actual, I love you like family.

I don't just show up and shake your hand and do the whole shallow smile.

How you doing?

I'm blessed.

Praise God.

See you later.

Call it family.

It's not just a marketing scheme on our website.

We're family.

God said this is meant to be real.

But family, sometimes things get messy.

And the idea of family is that when things are hard, I know that you're gonna still be there.

Yeah, yeah, right.

That's right.

So y'all please stand up.

We're gonna close out.

Thank you, Jesus, for your faithfulness.

Lord, I just thank you for this wonderful family here and what you're doing in my heart and what you're doing in our hearts, Lord.

And I pray that this would become real.

And I ask, Lord, that we all could just find the rest that you promise us from simply doing this your way.

Lord, forgive us for just having the wrong motives or expectations.

Forgive me for that.

And I ask that you give us revelation, Lord, to truly love and to give of ourselves the way that Christ did, Lord.

And I pray if there's anyone here who's just been hurt through life, their heart has been hardened because of disappointment.

Lord, I ask that you would heal them.

Um right when I said that, some of you, you've just been hurt too much and you don't know how to like bring yourself back to life.

If that makes sense.

It's like you feel dead inside.

You don't, you're numb.

I get that.

It's I can't, it's not a light switch.

I can't make myself feel it.

Um, but God is supernaturally bringing life back to my heart.

Like I'm legitimately caring.

Can I read a verse to you?

Ezekiel 36, 26.

This is a prophecy for the times we live in right now.

It says, um, and this is God talking.

He says, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you.

I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.

There's a tenderness that God desires to restore to you.

And it's gonna be tenderness towards your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Even your enemies, there you can have enemies in the church, you can have people that have betrayed you, and there is a posture in God where you can have legitimate love for them.

Come on up here, Miss Tammy.

You got something you'd like to share?

I thought it was just for you, and I was gonna give it to you after, but the Lord said it's for you, but it's for this body too, because you are a pastor.

And when your phone went off and you were telling us about you work for a power company, the Lord said that's by design, because he can trust you with the authority of governing his power, not just in the natural, but in the spiritual, and that he is using you in this season.

That job is not by accident, it's by design, and it's for the offensiveness of us being properly linked to the source and the proper um fuel connections and power connections and electric, you know, all of it, the structures, the architecture in place for that flow, but it's also defensive because just like the enemy wants to attack our power grids and our power systems, he has people in place in the natural and in the spiritual realm with the discernment and the humility and the experience and the blueprints of heaven to be able to release the right government for both offensive and defensive.

And as far as what you're talking about with the church hurts, he has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind.

Power is the flow, love is the source, a sound mind is the discernment, and we have a pastor that we can submit to and trust because God has given us that word.

Miss Tammy, you are such a powerful woman of God, she's a seer and gives a lot of prophetic insight.

And um, Miss Tammy, we love you in your heart and your passion and also boldness.

It's funny, Miss Pastor Sharon.

Y'all know Pastor Sharon?

She's like a little tiny thing, she's like this warrior, fireball.

Tammy's like that.

Yeah, oh yeah, um, Pastor Sharon's preaching.

They're up in North Carolina at some friends of ours' churches, they're pastors up there, um, lifelong friends, and she's bringing the word today, so just I know it's gonna be fire.

She's bringing revival up there to them.

Um, Pastor Catherine and little my little son are sick.

They've got a little cold.

I've been taking care of them, but they're at home, probably watching online or watching Winnie the Pooh, whatever.

Um, we love you.

Um, if you want to come to the new members' class and you're like, oh man, I didn't sign up, you're still welcome to come.

We have enough food if you if you want some food.

I mean, if y'all show up, we don't, but we'll figure something out.

But we would love for you if you're considering this to be like your church where you want to plant yourself and just want to learn some more in depth things about us, we would love to have you.

So have a good week, church.

We love you.

See you later.

We love you too.