Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] You about summer serve in Village Kids. So we have all of these faithful men and women and students who serve in Village Kids nine months out of the. So in the summer, all of those who need a break, we give them an opportunity to take some time off. And so we have about 200 open spots for people to serve. So far, 76 of them have been filled, which means we have how many left?
[00:00:50] 124. Now, here's what I just want to encourage you. Okay?
[00:00:55] This can be every single week. You can do that. You could serve two weeks in the summer in one service.
[00:01:03] You can. Here's what you could do. You can give five completely random dates to our Village Kids scheduling team, and they will schedule you on those completely random dates. You might be here one time in August and one time in June. It does not matter. We have the ability to put you into the system to get you what you need. You're going to get a background check, all that fun stuff. But we would love for you to jump in and serve. So it's a great opportunity. You're going to hear about this at the end of the service, but if you want more on this, you can click the QR code. There'll be somebody in a table out front. There'll be a table out back.
[00:01:41] And so lots of opportunities for you to sign up.
[00:01:44] We would just love the opportunity to give all of these men, women, and students who have been so faithful to serve just kind of a break for the summer. If you got more questions, we'd love to answer them for you. But here's what I know. There is something for everyone and every level of skill set and ability. Can you walk, talk, and smile? You're ready. Here we go. All right, so what number two now? So what number two, you're like, it's over already.
[00:02:10] Shoot.
[00:02:11] The next announcement is. So tomorrow, if you haven't figured it out, is Memorial Day. And so every year, the village of Bartlett, they have a Memorial Day walk. We meet at the gazebo park. Then we walk to the Bartlett cemetery, and there is a service in memory of all of the fallen Bartlett servicemen throughout the time that Bartlett has been a village. And so it's a really special service, and I want to invite you to it. I'm going to be praying at that service, and I've had the privilege to do that most years over the last 15 years.
[00:02:44] Also, Pastor Alex, who is from Renovation Church in Bartlett, he's gonna be praying there as well. And if you don't know Pastor Alex, you should get to Know him because he is a part of our preaching team. We are both preaching through Galatians. We preach together, prep together every Monday. And he used to be on staff at village church as our next gen director. And he married one of the daughters of one of our elders. So Pastor Alex is near and dear. So him and I are gonna be praying tomorrow. We meet at 11am at the bottom Bartlett Gazebo Park. It's about a 10 minute walk. The whole thing will last about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. There will be a bunch of people from the village of Bartlett as well as a bunch of us from the village church of Bartlett. So I invite you to come out with us tomorrow. The walk starts at 11am, capis? Good. Awesome. I'm not Italian. It's close.
[00:03:37] Galatians 5:13. If you have a Bible, open up to the Book of gladiators. Galatians, Chapter 5. Here's what the Apostle Paul says to the Christians, the true Christians in Galatia, he says, for you were called to freedom.
[00:03:53] And what is this freedom that Christians have? This is true moral freedom. It means that when you trusted in Christ and you received the gift of the Holy Spirit, here's what you now have.
[00:04:07] You have the freedom to say no to the Holy Spirit and the freedom to say yes to the flesh. But you also have the freedom to say yes to the Holy Spirit and the freedom to say no to the flesh. You are no longer, when you were in Christ, a slave to the flesh. You have been set free from the flesh. So last week, what I did is I shared with you a simple principle. Eight words that summarizes the message from last week. I think it summarizes the message from this week. What you feed grows.
[00:04:46] What you starve dies. And if you've trusted in Jesus, you have the opportunity, the privilege to feed the Holy Spirit and to starve your flesh a painful death.
[00:05:01] Whatever you choose, you and I, we will reap what we sow. And my prayer for us is that we reap a harvest of righteousness because we are consistently sowing to the Holy Spirit. All right, so as you read the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul identifies that every Christian is on one of two trajectories.
[00:05:25] First is walking in the trajectory of the Spirit. This means that your life, you are fulfilled feeding the Spirit. And of course, there are gonna be some struggles and some setbacks. I don't know about y', all, but I've never met a perfect Christian. It doesn't matter how great your life is going spiritually, you're gonna have struggles and setbacks. The other trajectory is walking in the trajectory of the flesh. This looks like you're feeding the flesh and there are going to be some good decisions here and there. I've never met a Christian who is all bad all the time.
[00:05:54] So what we do is that we use a word to describe those who are in the trajectory of the flesh and the word that is self.
[00:06:03] You might be in the trajectory of the flesh if you are self centered. More and more you are self obsessed. You want what you want, when you want it, how you want it, and when you don't get what you want, you are just not good on the inside. And you have relational conflict revolving around you not getting what you want. The word is self. We also use a different word to describe those who are on the trajectory of the spirit. And, and when somebody is in the trajectory of the spirit, the word is life. There is flourishing and living, flourishing things. They grow and they bear fruit. It's not perfect, but it's a trajectory.
[00:06:42] So when you and I open up the book of Galatians and we get to chapter five and there's this list of the works of the flesh, and then there's this list of the fruit of the spirit, the list is intended to make you and I step back and ask a really brutally honest question about our own trajectory.
[00:06:59] Based on my current trajectory.
[00:07:02] What spirit is in the driver's seat of my life in this season?
[00:07:08] So I am less concerned about how bad of a morning you had. Everybody has bad days. I'm even less concerned about how hard of a week this has been for you. Spiritually. People have bad weeks.
[00:07:20] But I want you to step back and I want you to look at the last season of your life.
[00:07:24] And I want you to ask whether or not it's primarily described by flesh down into the right trajectory or by spiritual flourishing up into the right. And you're starting to grow and you're starting to see spiritual fruit. So Galatians 5, let's start. And I want to just identify what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. It starts in verse 22. He says this. The fruit of the spirit, it is love, it is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. And then he says this. Against such things, against this fruit, there is no law.
[00:08:07] So I want to show you just a brief summary of what all of these words mean.
[00:08:13] We did like a 12 or 13 week series back in 2012, 20 on the fruit of the spirit. So if there's like one of These or two of these that you're like, I really want to go deeper on. Holler at me. We'll find the old YouTube videos, we'll send them to you.
[00:08:29] But I want to just kind of give you a big picture, look at what each of these words mean.
[00:08:35] Love. This is a unique kind of love. It's not just your regular everyday love. It's the Greek word agape and it's self sacrificing, a affection for others.
[00:08:46] We have joy, which is deep seated optimism. Despite hardship or challenges.
[00:08:54] We have peace.
[00:08:56] This is inner calm and quiet despite you fill in the blank with the difficulties, patience. This is calm. Under enduring hardship. The hardship keeps getting at you and going after you and this weird supernatural thing that like you couldn't have created inside of yourself where you're like, I feel at rest in my soul that the Lord has this.
[00:09:22] We have kindness, which is benevolence and graciousness.
[00:09:27] We have goodness, which is God glorifying inner morality. It's not just the person has the ability to control their behavior. And look at on the outside, it's actually a disposition in your heart to goodness.
[00:09:39] We have faithfulness, which is reliability and trustworthiness, gentleness, strength under control, and finally self control, which is the ability to master oneself. So when I look at this list, I see, I don't know about y', all, a discrepancy between my heart and that list. Anyone else?
[00:09:59] Maybe there's like three of you who are like, no. Pretty much sums up my heart, my life, I got it. I'm like, good for you. For the rest of us in the room, like, you look at that and there's a temptation to feel kind of like defeated when you look at this. There are two big things I want you to know about the fruit of the spirit. The first is this.
[00:10:17] You cannot command fruit to grow by law. There's a line in verse 22 and it's confusing for a lot of people. He says this. Against such things, all this fruit, there is no law. And here's what Paul is essentially saying. So these Judaizers who have infiltrated the Galatian churches with their false gospel and their false teaching, their false living, they want the Galatians to earn their salvation by following and obeying Old Testament law.
[00:10:44] So essentially, you wanna go to heaven, here's what you gotta do. You gotta get circumcised, dudes. Then you have to become Jewish. Then you have to follow all the Old covenant laws and you have to celebrate all the feasts and festivals. Then you need to believe in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. And if you do all of that, then you can be saved. And the apostle Paul is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down for a minute.
[00:11:06] All the laws in the world can't create produce, can they?
[00:11:11] And they also, all the laws in the world can't fill somebody with the Holy Spirit.
[00:11:17] Following the law, or if you want to put it in modern day language, being a good boy or good girl or being better than your neighbor can't change your heart or make God look at you and save you. They don't have the power to do that.
[00:11:29] But the Judaizers looked at their bad behavior and said, here's the solution.
[00:11:34] Let's make laws to control the outside behavior. And the apostle Paul is like, listen, our primary concern is actually about who you're becoming on the inside.
[00:11:45] Let me give you an illustration of the limits that laws have. I want you to try looking at your children and requiring them to be more joyful from the heart.
[00:11:54] Be kind to your brother.
[00:11:57] Well, I'm so sorry, but like, they can act kind.
[00:12:01] But to have an inner kindness with a heart of affection and love for someone who's really annoying you, that is a supernatural quality. Yes, don't be a jerk. But you can't legislate inner heart issues.
[00:12:19] Laws can force behavior, they can force sin or expose sin, but they're never going to essentially change the core of who a person is. Why Paul says against such things, there is no law. The second thing you need to know about fruit, and by the way, this I think also applies if you're talking about like, like farming fruit is a symptom, it is not a cause.
[00:12:42] Pop quiz. Do you guys know where Jesus or just gave you the answer? Shoot. Do you guys know where Paul got this idea and this metaphor of food From Jesus? There we go. Here's what Jesus says in John 15:4, says the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides or is connected to the vine. And he says, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in me or unless you are connected to Jesus. And for Jesus and Paul, the secret to growing healthy spiritual fruit is always and will always be the same thing.
[00:13:18] It is staying connected to Jesus relationally. So if you want more of the qualities of the fruit of the spirit, but you're not interested in more of Jesus, all you're gonna get at the best is some behavior modification because the only way the fruit grows is if you, the branch, are connected to the source. Who is Jesus? Now here's something I just, I gotta say at this point. Do not confuse your personality with with the fruit of the spirit.
[00:13:49] Some of you are by nature calm and kind, but when you double click on that kindness, there is often inner resentment and hatred to the people you're being kind to. That is a personality disposition. The fruit of the spirit is kindness in your heart to the person who is bothering you immensely.
[00:14:13] Now, verse 17, Paul does not mince words about how hard this is going to be to stay connected to Jesus and to walk in the trajectory of the Spirit. He says, for the desires of the flesh are what against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. A couple things you need to see in this verse. The first is I want you to notice the very strong language against opposed to keep you. I want you to think about this for a moment in your own life. I want you to think about a person, a place, a thing, an institution that you are all caps opposed to.
[00:14:57] You got it? Just for you got in your head like you hate this thing, this person, this idea, this institution, you with all of your heart and might you want to stand opposed to.
[00:15:09] I'm going to give you a couple examples in my life. You don't have to agree with these to be my friend. But here we are.
[00:15:17] With all of my might I stand all caps opposed to false preachers who preach a false gospel because they are giving people the illusion of Jesus with the actual reality of damnation in hell. Like I will stand opposed.
[00:15:33] Personally I am opposed all caps opposed to socialism and communism because they offer false promises. In the end, all they do is steal, kill and destroy. Adamantly opposed, hate it with all of my might.
[00:15:46] I am adamantly all caps opposed to wet cat food.
[00:15:53] If you are in the industry, I stand against you. I oppose you. We are not for each other. I have one unresolved issue from my childhood. My mom and dad are here and. And it is the use of wet cat food to feed our cats.
[00:16:07] She's looking at me like you're dead meat, but I think it was my dad.
[00:16:14] But it's interesting. I get near it and I just have an automatic gag reflux. But verse 17, the language is so unbelievably strong.
[00:16:24] It's as strong as the Greek language can get. I want you to notice the second thing. He says this to keep you. They're opposed to each other. They're fighting against each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do. And I read this and I was like, I'm kind of confused because sometimes I want the things of the flesh. Anybody else. And sometimes I want the things of the spirit. So in this verse, who's keeping who from doing what?
[00:16:47] Let me summarize what Paul's saying here.
[00:16:50] When you're feeding the spirit, the flesh gets real hangry.
[00:16:55] Have you noticed when you try to, like, quench the spirit, he's, like, not happy about it. It's like. And when you are feeding the flesh, the spirit gets real uneasy.
[00:17:07] Whichever spirit is in control of you in this season of your life, the other one is right there as a counterbalance pulling you in the opposite direction. Let me illustrate this, like, with a real life example. This, of course, doesn't apply to anybody in this room or myself. It's about other people at different churches. But. But your kids are out of line and disrespectful. You can't seem to get them under control, and they won't stop fighting.
[00:17:37] And when you're walking in the flesh, you yell at your kids. And the apostle Paul calls this a fit of anger. But in the back of your mind, you hate it, don't you? You're just like, I know I shouldn't do it, but it feels like I can't stop. And now I'm in too deep to this yelling to change course.
[00:18:01] But when you're walking in the spirit, you're like, I don't know why, but I'm remarkably calm and controlled in this moment. And in fact, when you're controlled, you're a little bit surprised. You're like, given their terrible behavior, I'm actually shocked at how, like, under control I am. I think I deserve a reward. I am an inspiration to these children. They should. They're going to remember this moment forever.
[00:18:25] But even in those good moments, you kind of know deep in your bones that you're, like, one impulsive decision away from calling them that name with that really specific vocabulary term that perfectly encapsulates who they're being right now. You guys know what I'm talking about? Just me. Okay, good.
[00:18:44] But wherever you're at, no matter what spirit you're walking in, the other, it's right there fighting against you to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
[00:18:54] I want to just encourage you for a moment.
[00:18:57] We have a tendency to beat ourselves up for having, like, dark desires and fleshly passions and this, like, pull, as if, like, maturity is getting to a place where I no longer have a pull to sin.
[00:19:13] I've met some really mature Christians who've walked with the Lord for decades, and they will still tell me the pull to the flesh is strong.
[00:19:23] I have, personally, my opinion. The fact that you have a wrestling match going on between your flesh and the Holy Spirit is actually a great indicator that your salvation is true and you have the Holy Spirit. Like, have you ever seen people, they just sin and, like, maybe their conscience is violated for a moment, but then they just get over it. They just go on and keep doing it, and it's like there's nothing pulling them in the direction of righteousness. Except, I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to go to jail. And I kind of have this conscience in me because when I grew up, I went to a Sunday school class and they told me I shouldn't be doing this thing. And somebody might look at me and say, pastor Michael, how do I know that my conscience.
[00:20:05] It's not just my conscience fighting back. How do I know that I'm wrestling with the Holy Spirit? How do I know? What if I'm a fake Christian with a strong conscience?
[00:20:14] I'm so glad you asked. Let me answer this question. When the conscience is violated, we feel bad for a bit.
[00:20:20] The conscience is easily quenched. It is easily stifled. But when the Holy Spirit is violated, we feel persistent guilt in our soul until we deal with it. You know the difference? Like, you feel this wrestling match, and so there's, like, so many people I want to look at, and they're just beating themselves up over the wrestling match. And I'm like, if you're in the flesh, do you know who you're wrestling with? The spirit. And if you're in the spirit, do you know who you're wrestling with? The flesh. Choose your heart.
[00:20:49] Because no matter which place you're in, you're in a wrestling match. Welcome to the Christian life until the day you're dead.
[00:20:57] Now you can. The more you quench the flesh, it does lose its power over time, but it will never go away as long as you're in this body of flesh.
[00:21:09] I want to share with you two. So what's. And I want to get really just practical and give you some next steps, because there's nothing more than what I want for each one of us than to stay connected to Jesus so that the fruit of the spirit can begin to grow in our inner person. So, number one, learn how to feed the Holy Spirit by staying connected to Jesus.
[00:21:32] You ever look at those people and they just seem to be like, spiritually growing on a regular basis. Did you know that they weren't born that way and they weren't born again that way?
[00:21:42] That there are people, I don't have a better word for it at this point, who succeed spiritually? You look at them and you're like, how do I do this?
[00:21:49] Those who consistently succeed spiritually, who are in the trajectory of the Spirit, they have been built the muscle of their will through discipline in prayer and fasting.
[00:22:02] Now, I want to make this as bottom shelf, as practical and accessible for everyone. No matter who you are and where you're at, when you see someone who is spiritually alive, they have made probably a series of decisions in their life and they have learned to tame the flesh. And they do two things consistently.
[00:22:29] Number one, those who consistently stay connected to Jesus, they practice two kinds of prayer.
[00:22:34] Number one is disciplined prayer at set times.
[00:22:38] And one of the challenges I think that we have is that, like, you're told that you need to be up three hours before the rest of your family, and then you need to have a personal devotional life, whatever. And that really does work for some people. But, like, when a mom has a baby, I've not found that that system works really well. You find free time whenever you can get it, and every season of life pulls you in different directions. And so what I just try to do with myself and with other people is just be as gracious as humanly possible. Jesus was up to something. Jesus got away on a regular basis, if not a daily basis, to isolated places to spend time with the Father. And so you might only have three minutes a day of isolation.
[00:23:16] You might have hours a day. And so I'll share with you, like where mine is at.
[00:23:21] I drive a lot, and my car is the place where I can have consistent daily time to talk to the Lord. Some people, y' all are morning people. I am not. I hate the mornings with all my heart. I want to be up until 2 in the morning, right? But, like, in the morning, it is the least productive time for me to pray. But when I get in my car and I'm alone, I have space. And then I found there are multiple spaces throughout my week that it is. I'm alone. And I can redeem these spaces every day I have one of these. And I've chosen to spend that time building my relationship with Jesus and talking to him. And you can find a space or a place throughout your day that is semi consistent. Here's my consistent part of my life. I Drive a lot, every day alone. And so I take those moments and I redeem those.
[00:24:10] The second way that people stay consistently connected to Jesus in prayer is conversational prayer throughout the day. And I remember when I was a senior in high school, our youth pastor taught us this and it changed the way I think about daily prayer.
[00:24:25] And so most of you have thoughts, right? Good. Some of you are like, most of you have thoughts, some of you think out of your mouth, most of you think in your head.
[00:24:37] And what I've learned is that for most people, our thoughts were talking to ourselves.
[00:24:44] And so what our youth pastor taught us was, well, shift the way you think.
[00:24:48] Why don't you just use your thoughts and have an ongoing conversation with the Lord throughout the day.
[00:24:53] So I changed my thoughts when I was in high school to just having a conversation with the Lord instead of self talking to myself.
[00:25:02] And so what it allowed me to do is to step back and just say like, listen. It's like throughout the day as I'm having thoughts and as I'm reflecting on things, I just do it in a way that is conversational with the Lord as opposed to conversational with myself. And it absolutely shifts the way that the Lord and I interact on a day to day basis. It was a subtle shift and sometimes I forget and I talk to myself and then I kind of remind myself, no, talk to the Lord with your thoughts. But what I have learned is that people who consistently stay connected to Jesus, they have spaces and places where they are alone in a day and they talk to him and they learn how to redeem moments, their thoughts throughout the day to redirect them into conversation with the Lord.
[00:25:41] Those who consistently stay connected to Jesus also practice two kinds of fasting.
[00:25:46] The first is that they intentionally fast from good things.
[00:25:51] So as a Christian, I am saying no to good, good things on a regular basis while I'm in peacetime. I am learning how to control my body and my mind. And I'm not great at it sometimes, but I do this so that when I am in wartime and I'm having a battle with the flesh, I have built the muscle and I've trained myself to be able to say no to good things.
[00:26:15] John Piper, who's the pastor, and a long time ago I heard him say this. It's not a direct quote, but it's the way I wrote it down so that this is me quoting what I felt like he said, but it was great.
[00:26:25] He said, my body doesn't tell me what to do, I tell it what to do.
[00:26:32] My body doesn't tell me when to eat. I listen to it, but I tell it what and when to eat. And I remember when I heard that, I was like, that is not the way I live my life. Like, my body tells me to eat, I'm like, I'm gonna eat. My body says I'm not hungry. I'm like, I'm still gonna eat. But like, like I heard this and I was like, I am not a slave to my body and I'm going to listen to it. But I want to make good, wise decisions and especially around good things.
[00:27:02] It's okay to learn how to say no to something good so you can build the muscle of saying no to the flesh. But those who consistently stay connected to Jesus, they also intentionally fast from required things. And for 2000 years of Christian history, and before that Jewish history, we have done this with food.
[00:27:20] Now you do not have to fast from food for an entire day or for an Entire week or 40 days and nights like Jesus. Some of your bodies can't handle different things. And so what we learn to do though is we find these required things in life and we just say, I am going to say no to this for a little bit so that I can build the muscle of telling my flesh, my desires, even the good ones. No, I tell you what to do, you don't tell me what to do. And so by the way, when you see anyone with discipline or self control, you are watching someone who probably has a semi consistent prayer life and they have a semi consistent fasting life. Maybe not food, but other things where they have practiced the art of saying no to the good and the required things in peace time. So they build the muscle so that when they're in wartime, they're ready to say no. I think there are a lot of Christians who we just say, I feel it, I want it, I do it.
[00:28:22] But it would be really good for us to step back and say, you know what? I am not a slave to my desires and to my feelings. I will no longer master them and I will begin to take mastery back so that I can say no to the flesh and to say yes to Jesus.
[00:28:40] Prayer keeps you connected to Jesus. Fasting kills all the things that want to create disconnection. So in prayer I am increasing connection and in fasting I am building the muscles to say no to all the things that want to disconnect me for my last. So what I want to share with you, something that I pray really helps you be more gracious with other Christians.
[00:29:10] Everyone's Pace.
[00:29:12] And everyone's maturity is different because everyone's baseline is different. Here's what I mean by baseline.
[00:29:20] Your baseline is the impact of all the forces at work in your life to destroy you before you trusted in Christ. And I would add to this, or while you were young, for example, divorce, sexual violations, bad church experience, absent father and or mother, negligent father and or mother, no knowledge of God's word, drug or alcohol addiction, false religion, bad friends, early porn addiction, stupid choices you made before your brain developed.
[00:29:52] All of these things, most of which you did not choose, all have a profound impact, impact on the soul of a person. And just for a moment, I'd love to say this. Never take for granted all of the good gifts God give you that you didn't choose. For example, were your parents Christians?
[00:30:13] Did your parents like each other?
[00:30:16] Did you grow up in a good church?
[00:30:19] Were you protected from being physically or sexually harmed by someone else?
[00:30:24] Or how about this? Did you suffer a major, major loss at an early age?
[00:30:30] Did you experience like, pretty early and severe mental health struggles? Did you grow up in poverty? All of these, you put them together and they deeply impact the soul of someone who is not a Christian, especially if they happen to them when they were a child.
[00:30:46] And so, like, I'm very grateful. Like, my baseline was high because my mom and dad protected me from a lot of stuff.
[00:30:56] But, like, I get to meet so many people. I'm like, you are starting at such a deficit and you feel unworthy to walk into church or unworthy for Jesus. So I want to just tell you two quick stories about a guy named Billy Bob and a girl named Susie Q. These are not real names. I picked them because I don't know a Billy Bob and I don't know a Susie Q. So. So if you're here for the first time and this is your name, I am not picking on you.
[00:31:22] Billy Bob grew up in the occult, experiencing dark things, dabbled with demons, was taught in his most formative years to feed his flesh, to look out for number one. He was taught that Jesus was fake. Christians are stupid.
[00:31:36] Then after Billy Bob's marriage fell apart, his children hated him, he was broke, and he realized the occult practices were simply a lie designed to destroy him. Slowly, he came to Christ.
[00:31:48] And now he has to not just learn about Jesus, but he has to unlearn countless lies, dismantle countless objectively evil habits, repent of the evil things that he did because he thought they were good. And now he realizes they are against God and himself and others.
[00:32:13] He now has to reconcile with the people who hate him. He has to undo the relational habits and patterns that he accrued over years and decades. And then he has to unwind his mental and emotional processes. Could we agree it's gonna take Billy Bob a few more years to maybe catch up with the kid who came to Christ at 4, had Christian parents, didn't have any early traumas or losses, and God protected them. Would you just say that it's gonna take a of lot little more time for Billy Bob to, like, mature?
[00:32:45] And you would look at that person, you would say, it's really okay, your baseline is lower and there's a lot more work we gotta do here. Or then there's Susie Q. She grows up in the foster system, never knew her birth parents, moved from home to home, had never read the Bible, gone to vbs, attended Awana. Can you believe this? Never stepped into church. When she was 17, a new friend at a new school shared the gospel with her. That God made her, loves her. It was her heavenly Father. She broke and believed in Jesus and received the Holy Spirit. But if she was being honest, she had no idea how much in those 17 years the Holy Spirit would have to dismantle before he could put her back together. She now has to not just learn about Jesus, of which she knows nothing, but now has to also unlearn countless lies, dismantle countless fleshly habits, repent of the sinful things that she thought was good but are actually evil in sin, undo her very broken relational habits and patterns, unwind her emotional processes, heal her wounds so that her heart can be tender and soft to the Lord. Can we just agree that the Lord can handle Billy Bob and Suzy Q.
[00:34:05] There is no baseline too low for Jesus.
[00:34:10] And yet these are the very things that cause people to step back and go, I'm not worthy, by the way, who is?
[00:34:18] No one. And I just have great news. Whatever your baseline is, whatever all the things, like all the deficits that you're starting from, from wherever they are, Jesus has the power to begin the process of healing and transforming you from the inside out. You're not too much for Jesus, Praise God.
[00:34:41] And so, like, here's the deal.
[00:34:44] Jesus would love to begin this transformation process in your life, but it requires you connecting to him.
[00:34:52] It requires you coming to him and saying, jesus, I don't feel worthy of you. And then he might look at you and say, nobody's worthy of me.
[00:35:01] Will you forgive me?
[00:35:03] Like, you're all I have. I've tried with all my behavior Modification I've tried with my personality, I've tried with therapy, I've tried all these things to become the person on the inside, not just the behavior modification on the inside, but like, this is apparently something no therapists and no law and no rule can create. So, Jesus, will you forgive me and save me? I believe in you. You died for me and rose from my sin. I believe now I just, I need you. And what I just love is that any person, no matter how low their baseline is, who comes to him and says, in Jesus name, will you forgive me? The answer is going to be in Jesus name, absolutely.
[00:35:37] And so if you're here and you have never trusted in Christ, I just want to encourage you. You're not too much for him and he is standing, ready, willing and able to begin, hear me the slow but awesome process of transformation. Amenville Church. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I want to just thank you for the fact that you don't mince words, you don't lower the standard, but you are also filled with unbelievable kindness and grace and you give us the Holy Spirit to help us.
[00:36:13] Lord, we want to be connected to Jesus. I just thank you that even those who are here and they're like, listen, I'm not connected. I've trusted in Christ, but my trajectory is self and not life. And Lord, I just thank you that you have given each one of us the ability to disconnect from the trajectory of self and to reconnect to the trajectory of Jesus and life. I pray, God, that you would give us the that courage and that strength and the ability to do that. I just thank you, God, that you are a God of second chances and third chances. And this is just the nature of the Christian life. It is. Sometimes it feels like four steps forward and three steps back and six steps forward, 100 steps back. But you are so gracious and patient.
[00:36:53] And God, I thank you that no matter how low someone's baseline is, Holy Spirit, you have the power of transformation in Jesus name. And there's no person that is too far gone or too difficult for you to redeem. Lord, we love you and we thank you and we pray all of this in Jesus name. Amenville Church. Amen.
