Freedom | God's Word

Well, good morning.

Welcome.

Welcome to Freedom Church.

Glad that you're here.

We're always glad that you're here.

Especially if it's your first time.

We're grateful you'd spend some time here with us, carve out some time on your Sunday.

If I haven't had a chance to meet you yet, my name is Jason.

I get the privilege of being pastor here.

And um, like I said, we're always honored that you would come and again check out Freedom Church.

Can we be the best welcoming committee we can possibly be?

Put our hands together, just welcome everyone here for the first time.

Listen, um Freedom Church is um, you know, we're we're a church.

We like to say that we're we're living on a mission.

We we believe we're a church that has really clear purpose.

I love I love seeing new faces joining teams here.

I don't know what your church history is.

I don't know.

Maybe maybe you've never been to church before.

Maybe this is your the first church you've ever been a part of.

I I don't I don't know.

Uh um but but we have our own culture.

We kind of have our own, we have a we have a set of values.

We we're committed to to Jesus' mission, and his mission is reaching people for Jesus, building our lives on Jesus, and and we're committed to that.

And so I just, you know, even this morning I'm kind of walking around as downstairs in the kid space for a little bit and um you know, walking through the front doors earlier today.

I just see I see faces on teams, I see new faces up here on the platform, I see, I see people taking steps.

And I think you need to know this.

For those of you that are maybe checking Freedom Church out, and for those of you that this is your home church, and maybe, maybe you you're not, maybe you you haven't given figured this out yet.

Um, we don't we don't like the phrase help out.

That's not really in our culture here.

That's not really in our DNA.

I call it help out culture.

It's like, hey, I'd love to help you out if you need some help.

And it's like, yeah, I don't know.

See, when you see people take a step here at our church, when you see people get on a team, classroom, a door up here with worship, whatever that means, here's what that tells you.

That is somebody who said yes to purpose.

That's a next step in a faith journey.

That's a next step in spiritual growth, relational growth.

That's what that is.

And I know that sounds a little bit dramatic.

It's like, well, that's how Jesus thinks about it, okay?

And that's our culture.

That's the way we we talk about it.

And I love seeing that.

I love seeing the steps that people are taking.

And and uh I'm so grateful for you.

I'm so grateful for the culture that's developing here within our church, our teams.

I can just tell you, just pass from my heart to yours.

Can I just be honest with you?

I love coming to church here.

That you that might surprise, and maybe that doesn't surprise you.

You're like, well, you're the pastor, you're supposed to love it.

Believe it or not, I know some pastors that don't like their churches.

That's a thing.

They're like, why?

Why, God?

Why?

You know, I don't feel that way.

I love you.

I love coming here, I love seeing you, and I love the steps that you're taking as you commit to follow Jesus and commit to allowing him to kind of form you.

And so, anyway, I'm super proud of you.

Aren't you aren't you grateful?

Are you grateful as well?

Put our hands, let's tell Jesus thank you.

Just tell him thank you right now.

Jesus, thank you.

Well, we're gonna take communion at the end of service.

It's gonna kind of be at the at the very end.

I don't, and I'm I don't want that moment to kind of be disrupted.

So we're gonna do this.

If you did not get communion elements on your way through the doors, would you raise your hand right now?

Our host team is ready to hand those out.

Anybody not get these when you came in the door?

Going what there we go.

Thank you.

Going once, going twice.

Very good.

Okay.

You can save that.

We'll come back to that at the end.

Well, we are we're several weeks now into our series on freedom.

And this has been one of those series where we're just kind of going at the hard stuff.

Like we're not, we're really not shying away.

In fact, it's one of those series where we're just saying this as a as a church, we're going, we're all committed to going on a spiritual journey together.

And so we're addressing topics that, you know, nobody's walking out of here unscathed, you know.

It's like one of those things.

You're like, oh man, it's like we, yeah, we're we're hitting the big topics that that all of us as just as people, as Christians, as people desiring to follow Jesus, as people who are trying to figure out and understand what this faith journey with Jesus even means.

Like these are these are topics that all of us have to navigate and and work through.

And and I and I love the steps I'm hearing people take.

I really am.

A couple of weeks we talked about a couple of weeks ago, we talked about forgiveness.

And just to hear some of the steps that the people are taking inside their groups, I'm super proud of you.

I mean, there's just something about that.

You know, that's a part of life.

Bitterness, disappointment, you know, wounds, people hurting us.

It's just everybody has to deal with that.

But there is something, there's a unique freedom that's available to us when we've realized we can forgive because we've been forgiven, independent of what that other person does.

And there's a freedom to that.

I'm just so grateful to hear some of the steps that some of you are taking in that area.

Last week we talked about words, the power of our words.

And uh we just we went to scripture.

What did scripture say about our words?

You've heard that verse before.

We said, you know, the power of life and death reside in the tongue.

And, you know, it's just like that's that's it doesn't get any more high stakes than that.

Like that's as that's about as that's as high stakes as it can possibly get.

Life and death.

That's not hyperbole.

Like it's in the that's the power that resides in in your mouth, in your words.

And and that's what scripture says.

That's how scripture describes our words, which makes sense because we start thinking about some words that have been said to us.

We start thinking about there's there's conversations that you had 20 plus years ago, and and in your brain, you can you can recall that conversation like it was yesterday, because that's the power of words.

It's amazing how powerful they are.

And and I love it because last week, I know through our groups this last week, we spent some intentional time trying to go, Holy Spirit, bring it to the light.

Are there words that I've that I've received, that people have spoken over me, right?

That that I need to like let go of and I need to allow you to heal in my life.

Are there words and then we even went a step further?

We said, are there words I've been speaking over my family, over my home, over myself, that I need to, I need to stop.

I just need to stop.

Why?

Because words are powerful today.

We're we're we're we're going another step with that.

And as powerful as our words are, this morning we're talking about God's word.

And I assure you, his word is infinitely more powerful than any word that's coming out of my mouth or anybody else's mouth for that matter.

Amen?

Yeah.

So we're gonna talk about this.

God's God's word, his primary way he's revealed his himself to us and has spoken to us is through scripture.

It's through his through the Bible.

Through the Bible.

Now, the Bible, we like to say this, I like to normalize this in our church because uh can I be honest with you?

I hate religion.

No, I mean it.

I hate it.

I absolutely hate it.

Now, let me clarify that because if you're new to faith, or maybe you're you're you're new to this, maybe you're you're you're here because you're interested, you're kind of seeking, you're trying to get some understanding.

When Christians, when Jesus followers talk about the word religion, I know sometimes that word gets kind of inner, we kind of interplay that with Christianity and faith.

And so if you're new to faith, that that might be even be confusing to hear the pastor say he hates religion.

That just almost doesn't make sense.

So here's what that means.

When Christians use the word religion, what we're talking about is we're talking about the traditions and the and the ideas and sort of like kind of kind of kind of communal agreements around how to live out your faith, and then and then religion elevates those practices to to a scriptural level, like that, you know, God said kind of level, and it's not there.

And what those become is those become the barriers that actually keep us from growing in a sincere and genuine relationship with Jesus.

That's what we mean by religion, and that's the religion I hate.

Okay.

And so one of the things that a religious spirit will do to you is you know religious spirit insists that you can't look like an idiot ever.

Don't look dumb.

First of all, nobody likes to look dumb, right?

Nobody wants to be that person, right?

So you get a bunch of religious people, and it's like, let's talk about our Bibles.

You know, if you're in a religious setting, you can't just admit, I don't know a Bible's hard for me.

Bible's hard.

Anyone can feel that way?

This is a hard book to understand.

Religious spirit won't let you say that, though, right?

Religious spirit says you got to be the smartest person in the room.

So you got to come around like, well, I'm you know, I'm learning, I'm I've got those figured out.

It's like, really?

I mean, it's 66 books written by 40 different authors over a span of 1,600 years, is written in three different languages on three different continents.

It's got seven different genres that are at least agreed upon, big ones, not to mention all the subgenres, the litany of subgenres that are contained in it.

But we know we just kind of like open it up and boom, I got a sermon.

It's a hard book.

It's not even a book, it's a library.

And this is hard to understand.

There's a lot going on in here.

And wouldn't that make sense, though?

I mean, the the living God is is attempting to reveal Himself to us.

It makes sense.

Maybe, maybe it wouldn't just be that elementary.

There's a lot, there's a lot to that.

And by the way, it's not impossible to understand.

I mean, I've committed my life to trying to understand it so I could teach you, and and there's many of you in here.

You do, you you understand.

It doesn't mean that you can't understand it.

It just means, it just means that we we do got to be honest because the truth is that we we want to understand it.

You ought to understand it.

In fact, that's part of the invitation to following Jesus is to know him better.

And you can know him better, you can know him better through his written word.

And there's there's something on the other side of it when you can understand that this isn't some academic exercise.

When you can finally understand that under that reading your Bible isn't just becoming a scholar, it's about a person, it's about a person who came back from the dead.

We're talking about the incarnate God who gave his life for you and me, rose again on the third day, sent at the right hand of the Father, sent his spirit to indwell us, and he's got his hands firmly on the grip of the steering wheel of the church, and like he's he came after you, and he came after me.

And it's like that's who this is about.

Boy, when you get a hold of that, that's life.

In fact, that's what John 6 says.

The spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing.

The words I have spoken to you, here it is, are full of the spirit and life.

Like that's in there.

The power, the spirit, life.

Is that your experience?

Here's another one because here's the truth spirit, life.

God says so much, so many promises, so many things in here for you and me.

I'm telling you, this has the when you get the word inside of you, when you get the word of God inside of you, it not only does it have the moment, the ability to change how you feel about the moment you're in, has the ability to shift the entire trajectory of your life.

Power, life, spirit.

Look how Isaiah 55 describes it.

Verse 10 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth.

It will not return to me empty.

Meaning this, that there's promises and there's things that God says, and independent of how you feel, and independent of what you see, he's saying, My word is so powerful, it will accomplish, eventually, it will accomplish everything that I've sent it out to do.

And that's what he says, I will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

It's powerful.

You know, I remember getting my undergraduate degree, and it was a Christian university.

I remember I had one professor in particular, and this guy was smart.

Like he knew the Bible really well.

Like I remember doing a little project, and I had to present, and I'm presenting, and I started, I was presenting on a particular verse in Matthew, and I start saying it.

And this guy comes over to the whiteboard in mid-sentence.

He's not even he's not even he's doing this without even thinking.

I'm over here just trying to read from the book of Matthew.

This guy's over here by memory, just writing out the rest of that verse, but not in Matthew, it what it is in Mark and what it is in Luke as well, and references.

He just doing both of them at the same time.

Unbelievable.

Just you know, I I've met very few people who know the scripture like that.

There's only a few out there.

But I would describe that individual as pretty nominal in his faith.

Not really, just sort of indifferent about Jesus, indifferent about a life of faith, indifferent with the church, indifferent with say, what is that?

Because he knows it, and yet he's not tapping into the spirit and life that are available in it.

It's possible, it's possible to know this, to read this, to have it memorized, and not actually be tapping into the spirit and the life that are actually available to you and me.

That's possible.

What's the gap?

Look at this.

By the way, that's not a new problem.

This has been a problem for 2,000 years.

People have been doing this for a long time.

In fact, Jesus addresses a whole crowd who had the exact same problem.

Here it is, John 5, verse 36.

John 5:36

Jesus says, I have testimony weightier than that of John.

John was a prophet sent ahead of him.

He's that's who he's referencing.

He says, What I'm saying is actually greater than that.

The works that the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I am doing, testify that the Father has sent me.

And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.

You've never heard his voice, nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not.

By the way, he's talking to people who have their Bibles memorized.

Keep that in mind.

You don't have it in you, is what he says.

They got it memorized.

He says, that doesn't dwell, for you do not what's the what's the key?

You do not believe the one he sent.

You study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.

There are these are the very scriptures that testify about me.

See, that that's the that's the that's that's the tipping point right there.

That's it.

It's about Jesus.

Like it's about the one who came back to life.

It's about him.

You want to know what's the source?

Like the the words of that provide life and spirit, they're in here, they're in your word.

You can know him, you can know his word, you can know Jesus here, but you're knowing Jesus.

You want to tap into spirit and life.

He gives it to us, it's right here.

I don't know about you, but that's how I want to live my life.

Like I want that, I want access to that kind of spirit and life to live to live a spirit-empowered kind of life.

I mean, if you ever met, that's a different kind of way of living.

That's a different way of living.

That's not a way that's that's just reserved for the professional staff kind of Christians and the pastors and the people who no, no, no, no.

This is for you.

You can live, you can live a spirit-empowered life today, tomorrow.

You get up, you go to work, you can work differently, you can lead differently, you can lead your home differently.

A spirit-empowered kind of life.

But the sad truth is that for a lot of us, it's not really alive to us, is it?

I want it to be alive, but it's but it's not.

And maybe you never even thought about it like that.

Maybe you've never thought about is is it actually alive to me?

That's probably a question worth asking ourselves.

Is it alive to me?

Well, let's let's ask that.

Do I make it a priority?

That's a legitimate question.

Is it alive to me?

Well, do I prioritize it?

How about this?

Do I think about it regularly?

Do I meditate on it?

Do I run my life through a filter of scripture?

It's like, well, they said that and I heard this and I watched that.

At some point, does my experiences get filtered through his word?

Do I think about it?

How about this one?

This one might surprise you.

This is a big one.

Do I even believe what I'm reading?

Do I even believe it?

Believe it.

You know, we live in a cultural moment where reason and faith have sort of been juxtaposed with one another.

As if you have to choose between one or the other.

And I'm just here to tell you that that's not that's not accurate.

Like faith is not opposed to to reason.

It's a it's a reasonable response to the evidence that you've been that we've been given.

That's how that's how our faith works.

Evidence is what gives us a reason to believe.

And in fact, rational faith, there seems to be this idea that in order to be like rational, and like if you want to be rational, you can't have faith.

If you're a faith person, you're not a rational person.

But the truth is that we're assuming that things require something like absolute certainty.

Like I have to be absolutely certain that this is true.

It's like, hold on a second.

First of all, there is absolutely nothing you do in your life that involves absolute certainty.

Nothing.

You married?

Am I married?

Yeah.

You committed your life to somebody without absolute certainty.

That's gonna go the way you hope it goes.

I'm just saying.

Like that's not, there's nothing, there's nothing out there that involves that.

You go you go based on the evidence, it's a reasonable, it's a reasonable idea, it's a rational idea to put my faith into this based on based on the evidence.

I'll give you an example.

My my daughter, she's four.

We call her charchar.

Everybody calls her char Char.

Her real name is Charlotte, if you didn't know that.

People call her Char.

I'm like, you do know her name is Charlotte, right?

Anyway, I love it.

We'll call her it's one of those dad things, you know, you need to give your kids nicknames.

So I call her char char.

And um, and uh, you know, she prays at night.

So I when I tuck her in, it's it's time to pray.

So we're praying one night, and and her her her older sibling comes in there, she's about to pray, and she's like, No, char char, you're gonna pray.

You know, you can ask God for anything.

I'm still working on the like God is not Santa Claus thing.

I'm still working on that, you know, at that age, you know, but uh sure, you know, and so she's like, I can't.

Char Charles so excited, I can.

She's like, Yeah, you could even pray for a horse.

Dear Jesus.

I'm asking for a rainbow horse with a horn coming at the top of its head.

And everybody goes, Oh, childlike faith.

That's not faith.

That's not faith.

I don't know.

That's not what that faith is.

That's delusional, right?

That's so that's a four-year-old.

They don't know nothing, you know.

That's not faith.

Tell you another story.

So then, so then all my kids were were Bethany wasn't there that evening, and so it was just me and me and the kids, let's have dessert.

Let's let's have dessert.

And all the other kids, they all go get their dessert.

Well, we ran out of dessert, and so charchar's over here with no dessert.

She's losing it.

Woo!

I'm just like, my goodness, is the house on fire?

What's happening?

Because that's the age she's at.

And so I'm just like, because finally trying to calm her down, calm her down.

There's no dessert, you know.

I don't know if it was ice cream or popsicles, I don't remember.

I just know she's losing her mind.

And so I'm just like, oh listen, Char Char, get a hold of yourself.

Listen, listen, listen.

Later tonight, I'm gonna make it up to you.

Okay, I'm gonna make it up to you.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna make it up to you.

I don't know.

Maybe we'll go get something.

I don't know.

We'll we'll we'll do something, you know.

She's four, it's not that hard to you know, figure something out, you know.

So I'm like, I'm gonna make it up to you.

And she, okay, I believe you.

I believe you.

Now, this is childlike faith.

You know why?

Because there's absolutely nothing in that house right now that indicates she's gonna get some dessert that night.

There are no popsicles in the freezer, there's no ice cream in the freezer, there's no, there's no candy that's waiting for her.

She has no idea when I'm gonna leave.

She has no idea if I'm gonna leave.

She has no idea whether I'm just trying to pull her leg and whether I now now she doesn't believe that, does she?

She doesn't see it, she doesn't, she's not looking around.

Well, show me the evidence, Father.

There isn't.

I'll tell you the evidence.

The evidence is that she's got a dad that doesn't lie to her.

She's got a dad who's told her these things before and it's come through for her over and over and over again.

She has somebody in her life who's built trust with her.

That's called faith.

And it's based on the evidence of her experience to the short four years in her life.

That's what faith is.

And you go, Well, I'm struggling with that kind of faith.

This is Romans 10, 17.

It says faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

You want to, you wanna, you wanna, you wanna go, I I I don't have that.

I want that kind of faith.

I want to believe like that, I want to trust like that.

I want to give Jesus that kind of allegiance in my life.

Let me tell you how you how you build that, how that grows.

Time and proximity.

Time and proximity.

It's amazing.

You know what?

Why does my daughter trust me?

Because she's been around.

She's been around me, she's heard me.

She knows that when I say what I'm gonna do, she knows I follow through with that for her.

Right?

Time and proximity has this way of increasing and building our trust with one another.

That works for people and that works with the living God.

You get some time and proximity with Him, and you might be surprised the amount of trust that begins to build.

Your faith begins to rise, increase.

You're just like, oh, I know.

I don't know how it's gonna work out, but I know this.

I've been there, I've done that, I've seen that, and I got no reason to believe that God ain't gonna come through for me one more time.

That's called faith.

So, how do we do that?

Because that's a little easier said than done, isn't it?

So that's great.

Everybody just leave and go do that.

Okay, thanks.

For nothing.

Okay, so how do so how can we do this?

For God's word to come alive, because that's what we're answering the question is his word alive?

No, you want it to be more alive?

Okay, what do we do?

How does God's word come alive?

Well, first of all, I need better routines.

Well, that doesn't sound very spiritual.

Oh, it's more spiritual than you might realize.

We're talking about stewarding the time that you have, stewarding a resource that God has given you.

This is Psalm 1, verse 1 through 3.

Psalms 1:1–3

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers.

So that's who's not blessed, right?

Who's or who is blessed and who's not blessed.

We can't who who's blessed?

Well, the one who whose delight is in the law of the Lord.

How do you know who's who's the one whose delight is in the Lord?

Well, those are the ones who meditate on his law day and night.

There's a routine to that.

It's it's this capture all throughout my day at the at the beginning and the end.

There's this like there's this like understanding that those whose delight is in the word of God have this routine of putting their attention, turning their attention toward toward his word.

Because that person becomes like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither, but whatever they do prospers.

I want that.

That sounds pretty good.

That's pretty good.

You know, I know that can be hard to do.

All of us are in different seasons of our life.

We have a lot of young families.

I mean, we're a church that's primarily made up of young families.

So that's a demanding season.

In fact, it's arguably it is the most demanding season of your entire life.

You're in this season of your life where you have to, you're trying to build a career and a family all at the same time.

It's like, couldn't we just like done one and then the other?

It's like, no, that's not how life works, is it?

We do them at the same time.

It's amazing.

And that's a very demanding life.

It's a very, it's honestly it's crushing.

I don't think we're honest enough about that.

It's a crushing season of your life.

And and I think that there's a lot of, there's a lot of formation if we allow it.

There's a lot of formation that can happen in the season of your life.

But it also means this.

It means that not every season looks the same.

I could look out here and I see a few of you who are empty nesters, uh, a few of you that are, you know, you don't have kids yet, you know, which you plan to.

I see some single people, see, and then I see some people like me, right?

You you're in the throes of family life, right?

Well, we run the gambit in here.

Not all of our seasons look the same, which means that not all of our routines and our habits look the same.

The way, the way you get to spend time in scripture is probably not gonna look the same when you got young kids as it will when one day when those kids leave your house.

It's gonna look different, and that's okay.

One of the things that we try to do to help you out is we do what's called the slow read.

Slow read scripture.

Slow, slow read the scripture.

If you got it on the paper, there was a there's some notes as you came in the door today.

If you're on the app, you can find that on the on the bottom of the of the message notes in the app every weekend.

And it's just a handful of scriptures.

The main scriptures that we taught on from the weekend, and we encourage everybody to do this.

Like, read that.

Read it every day.

Well, that's the same thing every day.

I know.

That's the idea.

It's the same thing every day.

Read that.

There you go.

Um, as a at a at our home, we've begun to get into this habit.

It's fairly recent, but we're we're kind of we're keeping up with it right now.

Our kids are using or doing the slow read before they go to school in the morning.

In fact, we've even gotten in the habit of it's like, oh, you're about to leave.

Hey, have you done the slow read?

Oh, yeah, I did.

Most of the time they're like, yeah, I did.

Every now and then, like, oh no, I didn't.

They go grab their Bibles before they go to school.

Boom, they're over there reading the slow read.

It's not long.

It's not long.

But you want to know what happened.

My daughter came back from students the other night, and on a Wednesday night, she comes home and they're telling me all about what happened at students and how, when, what they learn.

And Pastor Logan happened to be teaching at some of the same verses we talked about on Sunday.

And so he they mentioned the verse, and then my daughter's over there just rattling off by memory.

Just rattling off.

How that how'd that happen?

Slow reading.

She'd been slow reading that thing.

And there it is.

It just got it just got in her.

You know what?

I'd rather my kids do it.

I'd rather my kids doing that slow read every single day, getting that word of God in them, than I would even them just reading the whole book of Matthew through the week.

I'd rather them be chewing it on it in bite-sized pieces and getting it on the inside of them.

I'm encouraging you.

So let's start adapting that some of that.

Let's start doing the slow read together.

You go, well, that's not enough.

You might be surprised.

52 weeks out of the year, you will be surprised, one, how much scripture you've actually digested, two, how much of it stays in you.

Anyway, there you go.

We gotta get we got to get our our routines kind of wrapped up a little bit.

We've got to get some better routines.

Here's the second thing we need to start doing.

We've got to confess.

We want word of the word of God to come alive, we gotta confess God's word.

You gotta get you're gonna need to confess his word.

Confess.

That word confess, part of the it's it's what its meaning, what that word really means.

I know we think we know what it means.

What it means, and its original meaning, it actually means to to repeat.

That's actually where the word comes from in its meanings.

It means to repeat.

To confess, which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense until you understand how we use it.

What does it mean to confess then?

Well, it it's like this confession means to align what I think, what I've done, what I've believed, what I see, and then I and then I confess, repeat what God says about those things.

Do you see this?

So you can confess promise, because this is what God says.

This is why you can also confess sin.

Because you can go, I did that, I thought that, this happened to me, and then you go, and this is what God says about that thing.

That's called confession.

Repeating what God says about those very things.

When I was in the Navy, um I was hadn't been in the Navy for very long, wasn't even married yet, and had um there's a guy kind of in what about classes, and the community I was in, you know, the being a Christian meant you were like uh in an endangered species, you know.

You know, you know, it's just like you saw what today?

Wow, where?

You know, it's kind of one of those things.

I'm not saying that's everywhere in the military, but you know, that's was my experience.

So and so there I am, and and so and I found another friend of mine, he's like, Oh, he's a Christian too.

Great, you know, let's let's let's hang out, you know.

So we hang out.

And he calls you one day and he's like, Hey, hey, uh you you freed in that?

Yeah, let's get together.

It sounds good.

We're hanging out.

He goes, Hey, I got some things I gotta I gotta confess to you.

I gotta get this off my chest.

I'm like, oh, okay, you know, sounds sounds good.

Never had anybody like just say that to me like that, you know, but okay, that sounds good.

So he starts telling me some stuff.

I'm like, okay, he's got some, he's been doing some stuff, he's got some girls that he likes, you know.

He's just kind of like, oh man, I'm trying not to, but I'm I'm struggling.

I'm just like, okay, you know, okay.

I got you.

I'm glad you confessed.

Glad you got that off your chest.

You know, we're kind of moving forward, different pathway forward, you know.

Calls me like two weeks later.

He's like, hey, hey, want to get together again?

Yeah, it sounds good.

He says, Hey, man, I'm sorry, I I gotta confess again.

I gotta, I got more confession to do.

I was like, oh, okay.

I thought we did that a couple weeks ago, you know, but okay, sounds you know, sounds good.

That's what you're supposed to do, right?

You're supposed to confess to one another.

That sounds good.

He says, he starts confessing like the same exact thing.

I was like, bro, this is like deja vu, you know.

It's like I'm this is like exactly what you said two weeks ago, you know.

And I was like, hey, you know what?

Hey, nobody's perfect.

Come on, nobody's perfect.

I was like, oh, you know what?

I'm just glad you're coming clean, all good, you know, and that's great.

I kid you not.

It's like two or three weeks later, he calls me again.

Same story.

I'm sitting there, I just gotta get this off my chest.

I was like, okay, what are we where are we going with this?

I was like, brother, I looked, I was like, this is the exact same thing.

I didn't now then I didn't even know what to say to him.

I didn't now I wouldn't know what to say.

Then I had no idea what to say to him.

And I'm looking at him, I'm just like, What are you?

I said, This is the exact same thing.

So he gets done telling me what he's doing, and I'm like, okay, you know, yeah, you're right.

I mean, you confess, you know, be forgiven.

I get all that.

And he goes, Hey, I gotta get going.

I was like, Oh, okay, where are you headed?

And he's like, Oh, I got some girls I gotta go hang out with.

I was like, wait, what?

You mean the same girl you've been hanging out with?

He's like, he's like, yeah.

I was like, don't you think that that's probably a bad decision?

He's like, Well, I'm listening man, I'm I'm struggling, you know, I'm trying, you know, but you know, I'm I'm doing this.

I I confessed.

Brother, you didn't confess anything.

You admitted.

That's not confession, that's admission.

Oh, don't miss this.

This is important.

There's a big difference.

It's one thing to get around.

You get a group, you get a group of people together, and it's like, I'm really struggling with this.

And the other guy goes, Wait a second, you too?

I'm struggling.

I got this going on.

Everybody just goes, Oh man, let's band together, let's band together in our struggles.

All right, Lord blessing keep you.

Go about your day.

Sound good.

That's not confession, that's admission.

Confession is when you go, I did this, I thought this, this happened to me, and this is what God's word says about it.

He says, That's the path, that's not brokenness.

My sin isn't reframed, it's brokenness.

It's not reframed as struggle, it's sin, and it's the pathway that leads to death, and it nailed Jesus to a cross.

That's a confession.

This is what this is what put my savior in the grave.

This is what this is what did it right here.

And I confess that.

And I go, and and because because that's what I did, here's what else is true.

He saved me.

He changed me, he gave me a new purpose and a new way of living.

So guess what?

I'm gonna do I'm not just gonna admit what I did, I'm gonna confess it and align it with his word, and then I'm gonna turn and I'm gonna go the other way.

I'm gonna do something different, I'm gonna keep moving on.

That's a confession.

Admission just keeps us wallowing in our stuff.

Confession can be a catalyst to set you free, to set your family free.

And I'm just telling you, you start getting in the habit of confessing the word of God in your life, the word of God will start to come alive in you.

It comes alive.

You gotta start, you gotta get it in you though.

You gotta know it, you gotta get it in you.

If you want to start confessing it off your mouth, you're gonna have to know it.

I'm telling you, you want to know this because make no mistake, you have an enemy.

You have an enemy that wants to speak things over your life.

You have an enemy that is actively speaking things over your life, actively speaking things over your marriage, over you as an individual, over your kids.

You don't think you don't think there's an enemy speaking things over your kids.

Parents, moms, and dads, we need to pull our heads out of the sand and wake up.

There is an enemy that is actively wanting to fill the vacuum of God's word that needs to be spoken over your home.

We gotta get on it.

We gotta get on that.

Gotta start speaking his word.

I get it, you got challenges.

That is life, isn't it?

Life has challenges.

Life doesn't always go the way we want it to.

We got some disappointments.

We've all got, there's all, we all have had words spoken over us.

We've all been the we've been the ones who have spoken those words.

Some for good, a lot for bad.

Life's full of challenges.

Lots of stuff coming our way, financial issues coming our way, kids' issues, health issues, marriage issues, career issues, fulfillment issues, just general happiness issues.

You name it, that's life.

It's challenging.

And you got options.

Believe it or not, you got options with the challenges that are existing in your life.

You got a couple options.

You can keep being passive and be on standby and allow an enemy to keep speaking things over you and allowing him to beat you up.

You can sort of contemplate it.

You can begin to say things like, listen, listen, it is what it is.

Listen, listen, God helps those who help themselves.

You can you can take this sort of attitude, and that's just life, or you can do something different, you could fight.

I'm serious, you could fight.

You could start confessing what is actually true.

You can stop letting the enemy get the say, the final say over your life, your kids' life, your marriage, the people that you care about, your friendships, your church.

You could stop allowing the enemy to get the final say, and we can start confessing some things.

Confessing what's true, confess his word.

I spent this week preparing a whole list of confessions.

I wrote this this week.

And it's if you got on the app, if you go to the message notes on the app, you can scroll to the bottom.

You can, this page is down there.

And so for some of you, you need to print this off this week, and you need to make this part of your life.

You need to make this part of your routine.

I'm just gonna read this to you just as I'm reading.

This is scripture.

I'm pulling all this from scripture.

I'm just gonna speak it over all of us.

My family, your family, in Jesus.

I and through my faith in Jesus, I can approach God with freedom and confidence.

That's Ephesians 3.

I don't need to be anxious about anything.

I can go to God with everything.

God's peace will guard my heart and my mind in Jesus.

That's Philippians 4.

Money may be tight, and I may not know what's next, but I trust you no matter what.

All the land belongs to you, Lord.

All the silver and gold belongs to you.

The earth and everything in it is yours.

I can trust you.

I do trust you to make a way for me and my family.

I will raise my kids according to your ways.

I trust that when they're older, they'll follow you.

Father, you're able to do more than anything I could ask or think.

Nothing is impossible with you, God.

Life is full of challenges, but you deliver me from all of them.

You redeem your people.

In you, I don't have to suffer for my guilt.

Some of you need to hear that.

You got your sin that you did 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years ago rattling around in your brain.

You think that that has disqualified you from ever being used by God, being impacted, having a life of freedom, and you're wrong.

He redeemed you from that.

He redeemed you not only from the sin, he redeemed you from the curse that comes along with that sin.

You don't have to anymore.

You can live differently.

And you need to start speaking this.

I'm strong and immovable.

I'll work enthusiastically for the Lord because I know that nothing I do for the Lord is ever useless.

There is more to my struggles than I realize.

It's spiritual.

In Jesus, I can overcome and I will overcome.

Come on.

We gotta start speaking this.

Adjust the routines, start confessing his word.

But what's the other, what's the next step, right?

We confess it, but then we gotta do what it says.

That's where the rubber meets the road, isn't it?

Then we gotta do what it says.

That's called obedience.

This is not our favorite word, is it?

Because it kind of implies I'm not in charge.

I don't really like that very much.

Obedience, though.

We gotta do what it says.

You start meditating on his word, you get it in you, you start reading it, you start thinking about it.

I'll just tell you the process that happens.

You ready?

You start thinking about it, you start meditating on it.

You do that long enough, here's what you'll end up getting.

It'll get from your head into your heart.

In the Bible, we call it in the Christian world, we call that a revelation.

It's when it goes from just something that you know about to something that you know from the inside.

You're like, whoa, that's for me, that's in me, that's a part of me.

That's what he says about me.

That's what that's what I know about him now.

That's called a revelation.

You get from meditation to revelation, and then you get that revelation.

That revelation wields faith.

That's what builds faith.

And you want to know when your faith is growing?

Because you start doing things you didn't do before.

That's how you know faith is growing.

It isn't because you know the Bible better.

No, no, no.

Faith, you know, faith is growing because you start living differently.

This is what happens.

It produces faith has this way of producing works on the inside of us.

They come out of us.

You start taking steps you didn't take before.

Some of us you don't want to serve.

Some of you you're on the fence about about joining the church.

I get it.

That's okay.

You know what my job is every weekend?

I want to build your faith.

I'm gonna build your faith.

Because as faith grows, your faith grows, I'm confident this.

As your faith grows, you'll start taking steps.

And here's what happens when you start taking those steps.

It's the promise we make to people whenever they take those steps in our church.

And it's the same, it's just what happens.

You'll start growing spiritually, you'll start growing relationally.

And those are those moments when your family members and your friends and your coworkers and they go, There's something different about you.

What's going on here?

What is this?

You're changing, you're becoming you're not who you used to be.

You're becoming like Jesus.

This is the process.

It requires obedience, though.

Jesus' mom.

We don't really talk about her very much.

The Catholics do.

And I'm not over here condoning the veneration of saints or something like that, but I'm gonna tell you right now that there's a reason they talk about her a lot.

It's not unwarranted.

Look at think about it for a second.

Teenage girl is visited by the archangel Michael.

I'm sorry, Gabriel.

That right there, somebody says that to you immediately, or you're just like, really?

I mean the archangel Gabriel showed up and spoke to you, really, and says, the spirit of the living God is going to impregnate you with the savior of the world.

We institutionalize people like that.

That's what we do, right?

That's that is bonkers.

You know, I I still try to wrap my head around that.

You know what the the most astonishing part of the whole story is her response.

That's the astonishing part.

Luke 138.

She says, I am the Lord's servant.

May your word to me be fulfilled.

She she literally takes a step of obedience.

She just, it's not just a meant, it's not just a verbal thing.

No, no, no.

She's I'm I'm all in.

I'm following that.

I receive it, I follow it.

I'm just telling you, an incredible woman of faith.

That is faith.

That is a faith step.

That's not just faith, that's obedience.

That's a my hands are open.

God, whatever you say, I'll do it.

You want to you think that made sense to her?

Come on, she's not an idiot.

You think that made sense to her?

You think you think she's really she's heard that and she's going, oh, it all just came clear to me.

I I I get it now.

Nope.

I think about how many times, and I've heard it so many people tell me over the years, it's like, Pastor, I'm doing the Bible thing.

It's just not working for me.

It's just not working.

I don't know.

You said it does this, you said it would produce something, it's just not working for me.

I it's not it's not, it just doesn't.

I'm just not sure it's really, I'm just not sure it's really working.

And you know, I kind of dig a little bit, and it's just like I just you know trying to understand it, and it's still kind of hard to read.

I I don't know.

I'm trying, it's just not, it's just not working.

Listen to me real real closely, and I mean this with love.

He ain't after your understanding, he's after your obedience.

You think you think Mary understood?

She don't understand.

I still try to understand that.

No, but he but he got her heart.

God's got her heart, and God wants your heart, wants your obedience.

I'm telling you, listen, that's the part we go, what what am I?

Oh, so you want my blind obedience?

No, no, no, no.

His word does not come back fruitless, it produces fruit.

That's what we're trusting.

And just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it ain't gonna happen.

This is what listen, we know this rationally.

If he's God, he's God.

I mean, we would know this rationally.

If it's the living God saying these things, we know that.

The problem is that everything in us, our flesh, our minds, the culture, friends, family, everything's kind of pulling against us.

And this is what he wants your allegiance.

That's your faith.

He wants your trust.

How do we live that out?

We're obedient.

We do what he says, we follow his word.

This is when when I'm when I'm in a situation where I have an idea and I have an opinion, and I've got some ideas about my life, about the culture, about my country, about the world, whatever it might be, my neighbors.

And then I go to the word, and it's like, but that says something a little bit different.

Do you know what happens?

I change.

I go to the I change.

I don't adjust.

I don't no, no, no, no.

I change.

And I think it's worth asking ourselves, especially this morning as we wrap up.

I think it's worth asking ourselves, is Is there anything holding me back from obeying God's word?

Like completely?

Is there anything holding me back from completely obeying his word?

There might be, there might be some real things that are holding us back.

But I think I think we need this, I think we need to kind of contemplate that for a moment.

Let's just do it together right now.

Let's just close our eyes and let's just let's just ask.

Let's just ask the Lord by your Spirit, Holy Spirit, reveal that to us right now.

For all of us, are there parts of my life that I'm not completely following your word in?

And would you make that known to me right now?

To all of us by your spirit, would you bring that to our mind?

I would imagine right now we got a lot of us have things coming to our mind.

Some of us it's it's just we just got some bad, we're just making bad decisions and we're just going, I know the way forward.

I've just in my in my stubbornness, I've just been choosing my own way.

Now you know, now you know the pathway forward.

Some of us, it's it's deep pain that we've experienced over the course of years.

Some of us, it was years ago, and it's just been the roadblock, it's been the hurdle.

And we're just struggling.

How do I get over that?

How do I reconcile what happened with the fact that you're telling me that God loves me?

Listen to me.

If you could be honest about that moment, if you can be honest about what that is, and just be just be just be quick to bring it into the light and be be honest about it.

I'm gonna tell you, God can work with that.

He'll work with that.

Bring that into the light.

This is where it is, right here.

Let's not just keep it in the dark.

Let's bring it into the light and let's get healed from it.

Let's get some answers.

Let's get it, let's get a pathway forward.

What is that thing?

Jesus, we need your help.

As we're thinking about those things, we just make a decision right now to put it before you.

We lay it down.

Whatever those hurdles are, whatever's keeping us from being obedient.

If it's pain, Jesus, we invite you.

Would you heal that in us?

If it's a if it's a lack of answers, we got some answers to tough questions.

Jesus, would you bring us answers?

Would you give us some insight that would allow us to maybe get a maybe to like see this differently, to, to, to honestly, to know you.

A time in proximity.

Maybe that's what we need.

We say time in proximity with you.

And so we just commit right now to be obedient.

Whatever those hurdles are, thank you for making a way.

Thank you for healing us.

We commit, commit our lives.

I'm talking about for all of us who are in Jesus right now, we just commit our lives to be all in with you.

For those of you that are not in Jesus, and you've yet to make an entire decision with your entire life a decision to be all in with Jesus.

You've never done that, this is your moment to do that.

You need you need to do that right now.

You need to you need to take a moment.

In fact, in your own way, you just need to you need to have a moment of confession.

Jesus, right now, I just confess.

We confess.

I've sinned, I am a sinner, I've done these things, I've done things in the past, I've thought things, I've just been doing honestly, I just didn't live in my life my own way.

How about that?

I've just been trying to do my life my own way, and I'm realizing right now, Jesus, I need to do life your way, that you died for me.

And I confess what's true.

You died for my sin, which caused your death.

That's the reason that you died.

You you died because of my sin.

And you took that on yourself voluntarily.

And I confess that.

And I believe that you rose again.

You said that if I that if that if I believe in you and I put my trust in you, that you would raise me to new life with you.

So I'm all in with you, Jesus.

Thank you for saving me.

I believe that you ascended to the right hand of the Father.

I thank you that you sent your Holy Spirit to indwell me, to empower me, to enable me to live my life on purpose.

And I receive that.

Receive your spirit, and I believe you, and I trust you, Jesus.

I'm all in with you.

I'm committed to following you for the rest of my life.

For the rest of my life.

We're gonna do this.

We're gonna we're gonna take communion together.

Just kind of stay in an attitude of prayer and worship right now.

You can go ahead and get your communion elements out.

There's something, there's something very spiritual about a meal.

And I know this ain't much of a meal, but this is what it represents.

This is what we're pointing to.

It's called communion, and there's something deeply spiritual about this because, and I think this is really appropriate, especially for those of you in the room who may have just made a decision to follow Jesus, or maybe you've just made that decision in recent weeks.

But for those that made the decision this morning, especially, I I think it's I think it's very appropriate that maybe one of the very first things that you do as a new follower of Jesus is to pull your feet under the proverbial table of Jesus and have a meal with him, with him and his people.

That's what this is meant to represent.

Because guess who gets invited to the table?

Family.

Like people who are who are in.

And when you're with Jesus, that's what it's gonna look like.

In fact, that's what it says it's gonna look like at the very end.

When he comes back and he makes all things new, he says, you know how he describes it?

It's gonna be a great feast.

We're all gonna be sitting at the table together.

And that's what we're gonna do.

Now you know what I believe we're gonna do at that table?

We're gonna do exactly what we're gonna do right here.

It says there's gonna be way better food.

Come on, somebody.

But we're gonna be remembering.

We'll remember.

We won't forget.

We're gonna do that right now.

We're gonna sit at the table, and we're gonna take the bread together right now.

Take the bread with me.

Jesus, we remember your body broken for us.

And we're gonna take the cup and we're gonna remember his blood shed for the forgiveness of our sins.

He made a way for us to be in the family, to sit at the table with him.

That's what he did for us.

Let's remember.

Jesus, we're grateful for you.

We're so grateful for what you did.

We're so grateful that you call us your own.

We're so grateful that you would invite us at your table to your table.

We're so grateful that you not only have set us free, but you are continually setting us free as well.

And we're so grateful that you would love us that much.

We love you.

And it's in your name we pray.

Everybody said, Amen.

Amen.

Come on, like you mean at church, put our hands together, tell Jesus thank you.