Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: Well, it's so good to be here. I love all of you. And I feel like the Lord has really given me a message kind of spring boarded off of Pastor Roberts’s message last week. I'm going to kind of do the, and part of it today. And then next Sunday, Pastor Jeff is going to be speaking, and then I'm going to conclude this message on the 21st and then on the 28th of this month, the last Sunday of the month, Pastor Robert is going to be speaking again. So we are just going to give you like three barrels full of gun powder from heaven. How does that sound? Hallelujah.
I want to talk today about, I believe a condition that historically has been happening in the church throughout church history. The scripture says that Satan has come as an angel of light. Meaning he oftentimes comes through what we believe is a source or a place of truth, but in reality, he's getting us to buy into lies. That has happened also throughout church history. I want to talk today about a title that I've called spiritual asphyxiation. I would like to begin by reading from Matthew chapter 9 versus 9through 13. I'm going to read this both in the NIV and the Message Bible. So let's just go ahead and read that, Jacque.
Jacque: As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth, "Follow me, "he told him and Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him in his disciples. The Pharisees saw this; they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" On hearing this, Jesus said "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, but go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Brian: So here we have this scene. Matthew is probably an outcast in his own culture because he's a tax collector. I think The Chosen series really portrays that really, really well. If you haven't seen it, watch this wonderful series called The Chosen, but Jesus calls Matthew to be a follower of him, and Matthew has observed Jesus. I don't believe Jesus was simply a stranger to him. I believe Matthew had had some kind of encounter seen Jesus in some way, shape or form, some of the things that he had done and his heart was being drawn to this man of mercy. Being this outcast, he probably wasn't very well accepted among some of the other disciples at the time because of the position and or the job that he had. Yet he called Matthew and one of the first things that Matthew does is he has this incredible evangelism outreach. It's called having someone over for dinner.
He has this dinner and he invites all the people who are his friends. That's who you normally invite to dinner. Who were his friends? Other tax collectors, people with not very good reputations. Who really needed to hear the story and the message of Jesus? These tax collectors and these people that were probably not had a very good reputation in the community. And so the religious leaders had developed this way of thinking that they were superior morally in all sorts of other ways to what we might call the riff raft of culture in society. They began to stand off and criticize Matthew and Jesus for having dinner and having fellowship with these people who were less than stellar in their reputation.
Jesus fires kind of a shot over the bow or the Pharisees boat and he says, "Go learn what this means." He quotes a book or quotes, a scripture from Hosea. Hosea is this incredible story of the prophet who God tells to go marry a prostitute, and he does. He marries her and provides a great home for her and takes her off the streets and gives her all of these things, and what does she end up doing? She leaves him, goes back to her ways of the world, in a sense, and is get, has gotten so far down that she has now become a slave and she's being sold on the slave market. God tells to go to that slave a market and buy back your wife. So he does.
This is an incredible story because in the book of God has said something to this effect: I'm really tired of all of your sacrifices. I'm tired of all of your feast. I'm tired of all the different ways that you say, you honor me. He said, "What I really want from you is I want mercy not sacrifice." So now let's read this in the Message.
Jacque: Passing along. Jesus saw a man at his work collecting taxes. His name was Matthew. Jesus said, "Come along with me." Matthew stood up and followed him later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters, came and joined them. When and the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit and lit into Jesus's followers. "What kind of example is this from your teacher acting cozy with crooks and riff raffs?" Jesus overhearing shot back, "Who needs a doctor, the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this scripture means. I'm after mercy, not religion. I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."
Brian: Jesus said, "I am desiring of mercy. I'm really not desirous at all for religion." And there has existed throughout history, a misrepresentation of the message of Jesus. Throughout that history, our spiritual oxygen levels are dropping because we have exchanged the freedom found in God's grace and mercy with the slow suffocation that religion brings. Let me say that one more time. We are finding that our spiritual oxygen levels are dropping because we have exchanged the freedom that we have in God's grace and mercy with the slow suffocation of religion.
Jacque: Pastor Robert was just saying that earlier, talking about relationship.
Brian: That's right. The more the church has forced the rituals of religion on people. The deeper the wounding has been in those people to the point where more and more and more people today have written the church off as irrelevant or unnecessary in today's world. More and more and more people today have written the church off as irrelevant.
The reason that is the knee of religion has been placed on the necks of people and their oxygen levels are depleting. I would actually argue today that the teachings of Jesus are really needed more today than at any other time in history. I really believe that the teachings of Jesus are more needed and more relevant today than at any other time in the history of mankind and that the death of religion happened at the cross. My opinion is it should stay dead for the good and wellbeing of all humanity.
Religion often embodies the idea of sacrifice. The reason in religion sacrifices are made is to either get the attention of a deity or to procure the blessing of a deity or somehow remove the wrath of that deity. In the time of Christ ritual sacrifice was everywhere. It wasn't just in Israel. It was in every neighboring culture nation around them. In fact, it was very difficult to go to any culture that didn't have some kind of form of sacrifice in order to appease the anger of whatever God they believed in. In Israel, of course, the idea of sacrifice thoroughly embedded the culture of Israel as well. This idea was that we can somehow manipulate cosmic powers for the benefit of humanity if we just simply make these sacrifices. As a result, religion became about sacrifices rather than relationship with God.
I think we need to return to the letters in red. We need to return to our first love. We need to start seeing what Jesus had to say about it. In a very, probably his most aggressive encounter with the religious leaders of his time, we see in Matthew 23, where Jesus really has a toe to toe or a head-to-head confrontation with the religious leaders. I'm just going to pick a few verses from Matthew 23 to read, but Jesus was addressing the difference between religion and relationship with God. And so the first verse I want to read is found in Matthew 23 versus 23 and 24
Jacque: From the NIV: woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees you hypocrites.
Brian: That should get their attention, wouldn't you say?
Jacque: You hypocrites. You give a 10th of your spices, mints and cumin.
Brian: So they not only tithe on whatever monetary income they made, they made sure they tithe on every carrot that grew in their garden, every mint, every spice, every whatever. They were sure to make sure that they tithe on all of that.
Jacque: But you have neglected the more important matters of law, justice, mercy and faithfulness.
Brian: I was thinking about this the other day: we connect justice with the law, don't we? We connect law, the enforcement of the law with justice, but how many of us connect law with mercy? How many of us connect law with faith? And yet Jesus said, you do these things, you tithe them all of this stuff from your gardens, which he didn't say you shouldn't do that, he said it's good to do that, but he said, "you neglect the weightier matters, the more important matters of the law, which is not only justice or treating people fairly, but extending mercy and being faithful.
We don't often connect mercy and faithfulness with the law, do we? So we need to kind of revisit this whole concept of the law. I submit to you that when David said, "Oh, how I loved thy law," he wasn't talking about all of laws that the rabbis had added to what God was saying. I think he was really talking about the principles that God has designed you and I to live by so that we can have a fulfilling life.
The scriptures say that the way of the transgressor is hard. It's hard because— well, it sure is hard not being a Christian. It's hard on us, isn't it? it's hard on us. We find ourselves living in such a way that all sorts of trouble finds us when we don't live according to God's ways, God's principle. But as Pastor Jeff said, and as he has kind of quoted me on this, because I've said it a few times, "It sure is hard not being a Christian." In other words, the way of the transgressor is hard, but it sure is hard to be a Christian when you are not one, isn't it?
What God is after is not more external rules and laws on us to somehow get us to go down the shoot properly. What he wants to do is change our hearts so that everything I have is God, so that my life will reflect what it really means to be full of mercy and full of faithfulness. And so we see that Jesus was saying here, my principles, my law, my principles have much more to do with mercy and faithfulness and these kind of things than it has to do with paint tides on the herbs from your garden. Why don't you finish it?
Jacque: I'm going to back up a sentence. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former. You blind guides. You strain out a gnat, but swallow camel.
Brian: What a visual, isn't it? What a visual, you know, oh, look at that little bug in my tea and you take it out. I remember watching a program once and this person said, "There is a fly in my soup." And the waiter said, "Shh, don't tell anybody; everybody will want one." We strain out this gnat out of our soup. And yet we swallow a whole camel. It's quite the picture, isn't it? Let's read verse 15 of the same chapter.
Jacque: Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. There, he said it again. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeed, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
Brian: It's pretty powerful. Isn't it? They were out evangelizing. They were out getting people to conform to their religion and after the end of the day, the people that they had converted were twice the children of hell that they were. That's how Jesus put it, because his heart wasn't to get people to embrace a religion. In fact, some people think Jesus came to start a new religion. He didn't at all. He came so that people could, for once in their lives, have a real relationship with their father in heaven. That's what it was about. Let's look at verses 25 to 28.
Jacque: He said it again. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside there full of greed and self-indulgence
Brian: Well, listen to that. You clean the outside of the cup. I mean, Jacque likes to have her cup of coffee and other things like that. Sometimes she will make a cup of coffee, then come up upstairs to where our bedroom and bathroom are. And then she'll drink her cup of coffee and then put it on the counter. And then she'll go about her day. That night, the empty cup of coffee is on the counter in the bathroom. So I'll look at it and you know what? I look at it and it looks just like this. It's a nice clean cup. And then I peer over the edge and there is all sorts of junk in there, so I run it under the tap and dump it out. It's still there.
Jacque: You've got to rub to get it out.
Brian: You've got to clean it really good. Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, you are just all about this exterior stuff and the insides of you are full of dead men's bones. It's all dead. It all needs to be cleaned. You are focusing on the wrong stuff here. You are focusing on the wrong things. Keep going.
Jacque: I'm going to go back. Blind Pharisee for clean the inside of the cup and dish. And then the outside will also be clean woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees. You hypocrites, you are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way on the outside, you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness
Brian: Notice he didn't say on the outside, you are righteous. He said on the outside, you appear to people as though you are righteous, but you are not. You are not. In fact, Jesus went on to say to his disciples, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees you are condemned." And so we see this, in a sense, demarcation happening between what Jesus wanted and what the Pharisees and the religious leaders were all about. Let's read one more verse and it's found in the same in chapter, but verse 38.
Jacque: Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Brian: Here is what Jesus is saying. The result of where you guys are going is going to leave your house desolate. I don't want our house here to be desolate. I want our house here to be full of life and full of grace and full of the spirit and the presence of God. Traditions that have lost their meaning and rituals that have lost their relevance and rules that have lost their love, all contribute to our spiritual asphyxiation. They do. And we find ourselves saying the same words that George Floyd said just a year and, and a half or so ago, and it's this: "I can't breathe." What poignant words; I can't breathe. The knee of this religion on my neck is cutting off my oxygen. I can't breathe. Dr. Egeretts who put together probably one of the most wonderful counseling, series for marriage called love and respect. He talks about stepping on each other's oxygen hose.
Jacque: Air hose.
Brian: Yeah, air hose. I just got this picture of this man in this really diving bell suit and he's 200 feet below the surface and, and he's working down and hard all this weight on him. It's a lot of work. And then all of a sudden, some knucklehead up on the boat starts stepping on his air hose. You are stepping on my air hose. I can't breathe. You see religion ignores the teachings of Jesus that says the best way to love Jesus and the best way to love God is for us to love each other. Religion ignores that. Religion looks down. Religion judges. Religion tries to put you in a box. Religion tries to tell you that I'm superior to where you are at, but all people are to be loved and all people are to be extended mercy because all people are created in the image of God.
I was talking to an elderly gentleman just recently and as people get older, how many know that sometimes they have to make some very hard choices in life and life isn't what it always was at one time. This gentleman was facing some decisions that has to be made that are going to affect his life. That's what happens when you are in your nineties. Everybody wants to grow old— everybody wants live long, but nobody wants to grow old. But when you live long, you grow old and you can't do the things you did when you were young.
This person that I was talking to, I said, you know, you need to make this decision, this decision, this decision, and he was struggling because he has to give up some of the things that he's had his whole life. I was able to say to him, you know what, your value isn't in the house that you own. Your value isn't in the possessions you have, your value is in who you are, and the fact that God loves you because you've been made in the image of God. And he went like this.
He had never heard that before in his life. He never knew that his value wasn't in the things he had. I was able to say to him, this is why you are supposed to love people and use things, not love things and use people use the things that God has given to you. Be good stewards over it all, but use it to love people. Don't use it to somehow attribute value to yourself in the things that you have because you can lose everything and still will be more valuable than most of the rest of the world thinks about themselves because you have Jesus. Wouldn't you agree that it's better to die for the love of God than to kill in the name of God?
Should I say that again? Isn't it better? Wouldn't you agree that it better to die for the love of God? Die for God because you love him so much. Isn't it better to die for the love of God than to kill in the name of God, which so many people in our world are doing today?
Jacque: And all throughout history.
Brian: All throughout history. Jesus was this new kind of king in a new type of kingdom. And his crown of course was a crown of thorns and his throne was the cross. But the strangest thing of all is that his kingdom would in advance by loving his enemies. We should write a song about such a strange kingdom. Shouldn't we? Jesus destroyed the myth that this universe is run by coercive power. He destroyed that myth.
There are a lot of people today that buy into that myth. Many people around the world, most people, in fact, in the world live by that myth that they advance in their lives by coercive power. But he proved that the world runs most efficiently by humble love and mercy, humble love and mercy. When Jesus said to the Pharisees go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not religion, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, he was in reality saying this, I don't need your stuff. He doesn't need our stuff. But what he was saying is I want your heart, because frankly, if he has our heart, what else does he have? He has our stuff. Not that he's necessarily after it. I want your love. I want your partnership. I want your heart.
Our father in heaven wants a real ongoing relationship with us more than he desires the petitioning and pleading rituals of religion. You know how many people think today in like impoverished countries, if I just bring my God this banana, I will get what I want. I can win his approval. If I can just bring enough fruit, a bowl of fruit and lay it at the altar. He will know that I'm serious about my love for him or whatever and he will no longer be mad at me.
Jacque: When I finally realized that God loved me a hundred percent all the time in my worst time and my best time, I couldn't make him love me more.
Brian: Isn't that a good revelation?
Jacque: Talk about freedom.
Brian: You can't do one thing to make God love you any more than loves you right now.
Jacque: And you can't do anything to make him love you less. I spent a lot of things, not checking my list of the week. Oh, you think he might be a little frustrated with me this week.
Brian: I mean, how many times have we thought to ourselves, I'm going to love you to the end and this is the end.
Jacque: That's not God.
Brian: That's not God.
Jacque: He is for us.
Brian: That's right. As a matter of fact, I think where there already exists, love and trust, where love and trust relationship already exists, ritual sacrifice actually gets in the way. It gets in the way, because it really does suggest that God is far away or that he has to be appeased or that he somehow must be persuaded to bless us. That's what religion does. I'm telling you, I bounce back and forth between a relationship and a religion all the time. I'll be honest with you. So if something goes bad, I wondered what I did wrong. Are you like that? Will all you honest people nod your heads like this?
I'm not saying that once we kind of grasp this, that we are on the wake and we never have to worry about anything anymore. I think it's a continuous struggle. This is where the enemy always is working in believers. He is to try to get us to go from relationship back to functioning in religion.
Jacque: And Brian, the thing about sacrifice is sometimes when we've sacrificed a lot, we start to get proud. We start looking at us.
Brian: Yes. And then our faith and trust becomes in what we've done rather than the nature and character of God and who we are serving. Having to implement religious rituals is not a step towards relationship with God. It's actually a step away from relationship with God because it gets God all wrong. It gets God all wrong. Jesus didn't say I want mercy along with sacrifice or I want mercy along with religion. He said, "I want mercy and not religion." I don't want religion. I don't want that stuff. He wants one and not the other. He wants relationship. He doesn't want religion.
He says to all of us, come up to me, all who are weary and heavy laden. Are you tired of religion today? Those of you who are watching by livestream, maybe you are still want you kind of connect with God, but you want to have nothing to do with church. Because every time you came to church, you felt like there was a knee on your neck and your oxygen was being depleted. And all you could think of is I can't breathe.
He says, "Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden." I'll be honest with you. I don't always know how to give mercy. I don't always know how to do it, but I do know when I'm not giving it. I do know when I'm not giving it. That's clear. I don't always know how to give mercy to somebody who needs mercy, but I certainly can reflect back upon times when someone needed mercy and I gave them judgment. God wants me to be merciful. You know what the definition of merciful is? Full of mercy. I read that in Websters. There is a great verse in Micah, chapter six, verse eight. Why don't you read that, sweetie?
Jacque: I love this verse. We named our son, Micah. I love this. This is one of my favorite verses. He has shown you, oh mortal, what is good. And what does he require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Brian: Here is what God is asking of us: to be fair and merciful to all people, to be fair and merciful to all people. There was a time in my life where I felt like I was supposed to be convicting everybody of their sin. Then I realized that I was taking Holy Spirit's job away from him, and that God never gave me the task of convicting people of sin. But there were times where I do believe there were sin issues in people's lives. One of the things that happened to me over time was that when I encountered someone, I needed to ask myself this question: does this person need religion and sacrifice or does this person need mercy from me? Does person need religion and sacrifice or does this person need mercy from me?
Without the spirit of Christ structure that is helpful, actually gets in the way. Structures can be good in relationships. Jacque and I, mostly me, like to watch Andy Griffith. I hope you don't mind.
Jacque: I like Andy Griffith, not over and over and over.
Brian: and you know, one of my— how should I say it? There are lessons to learn in Mayberry. Let me just put it that way. There are lessons to learn in Mayberry. One of the premier teachers of those lessons is Barney Fife. He doesn't know he's being a teacher, but if you just look at his life and do the opposite, then you can learn. There was this one episode, and of course, you know, that he really liked Thelma Lou, but then he liked Juanita down at the diner and on and on and on, right. One night, Thelma Lou, it was a Tuesday, when Thelma Lou decided that she was going to do something different. Barney was just in a twit because she knows that every Tuesday I buy fudge and we go over to her house and watch television.
What Barney didn't really realize was the structure became what was important and not the relationship. And eventually when he put so much focus on the structure and not the relationship, he actually lost the relationship with Thelma Lou. Structure is good. It's good to have date nights. It's good to plan things. It's good to have some of the structure that we even have in the household of faith. It's good to of all of that, but not as a substitute for our relationship with God and religion creates all of this structure that puts weights on our neck and we can't breathe anymore. It takes away the relationship. That's why without the spirit, the law our structure will suffocate, absolutely suffocate us.
Jesus always gave people a place to belong. That's what I believe Hope Community Church is to be: a place for people to belong, because that is what Jesus does. If we become that place where people feel as though they belong here, we will be like Jesus. If we provide a place for people to belong and a place where people can receive mercy, we will become like Jesus. Because Jesus says you are made to be with me in friendship. You were made to be with me in relationship. He doesn't want our things. He wants our hearts. He doesn't want our things. He wants our hearts. He wants our devotions because we were made to belong in the presence of perfect love. I'd like to read one more verse. It's found in James chapter 5, verse 11.
Jacque: As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.
Brian: Countless people throughout history have been wounded and then disillusioned with the church. First of all, the wounding happens, and then the disillusionment happens with the church because they, instead of receiving mercy received religious judgment, and what they did was they fled the scene in order to breathe. That's what they've done. They fled the scene in order to breathe.
But I believe today, my friends that the follower of Jesus, the church are relevant for today's culture because everyone needs mercy. And more than anybody, we should be in a position to give it. We, the church, should be in a position to give it, to give it freely, to get at abundantly just like this says here, the Lord is full of compassion and mercy. And he wants us to be just like him. That's what he wants. Don't you think the last couple of years, would've been a lot easier on all of us if people on both sides of the spectrum would've been full of mercy and compassion instead of opinions and judgment? Don't you think we would've been a lot better off if the body of Christ would've modeled mercy and compassion the last two years? What an opportunity we had, what an opportunity we had, and I hesitate to say, but sometimes I think we blew it.
Instead of being full of mercy and compassion, we simply tried to convince each other and the other camp, how wrong they were and how right we were. So let's do this: we can't change our past. That's one of the things that is very sinister about our pasts. We can't change it nor does God expect us to change it. But one of the things we can do is we can resolve that our tomorrows will be full of mercy. We can resolve that our tomorrows will be different than our past, and that we can make a commitment that tomorrow will be full of mercy because there are countless hurting hearts today that need the healing touch of mercy that we can give.
We can be a healing center. When we first started Hope Community Church, 24 years ago, Jacque and I were at a large prophetic conference. We were just a little fish in a big pond, and this national prophet called us out among this crowd. In fact, when he pointed to our direction said, "You there," I was looking around to see who he was pointing to. He was pointing to us. He said, "Come here. I have a word for you." He didn't know who we were. We had just started the church. He knew nothing about us. He didn't know where we lived. He didn't know if we had flown in from another state. He brought us up in the platform and he said, "You are shepherding a church in the northwest part of the city, and God has called you and your church to be a healing center, a healing center where people can come and get their wounds bound up and get whole."
The way that Hope will be a healing center is to be a place of mercy, a place of compassion, where people with a limp can walk in and not feel as though they don't matter. People can be broken in their hearts and know that there is an answer for their hurts. Pastor. Jeff, why don't you come?
Jeff: Thanks, Pastor Brian. Maybe you are here this morning, maybe you are watching by live stream and right now you are in need of mercy. That's where we want to start this morning. You could be someone who loves Jesus and you just had some type of major failure in your life and you don't feel worthy of God as you are standing here, as you are sitting here. You maybe have never given your life to Jesus and you know that you need as mercy because of the way your life has been. Whether you've never ever set your foot in a church, you've never trusted Jesus, or whether you've known him for 50 years at the point that you fail and you need mercy, guess what? It's there for you. And that's where we want to start this morning. So if you've never asked Jesus in your heart, or if you are estranged from Jesus right now in your life, even if it's just because you don't feel worthy of him, then I just want you to lift your eyes to the Lord and just say, Jesus, forgive me. I need your mercy. Holy Spirit, please come and make me new.
I expect that if you just prayed that prayer that is happening right now. The Holy Spirit is present. With love and mercy, he's washing you. He's embracing you and he's assuring you that you belong to him. Regardless of your failure, regardless of your deficiency, regardless of all the things that you carried that our regrets. Right now, his mercy is here and he loves you.
If you can receive his love, just open your heart, let it fill you; let it come. And as the love comes, just say, thank you, Jesus. I trust you. From this day forward, I give you my life. It's all you need to give him. It doesn't matter the quality of your life. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are. It doesn't matter how skilled or capable you are. None of that matters. All he wants is your life. He'll take you just the way you are. And there is no better place to be than in his arms. If you need his arms around you, just lift your hand up and say, Jesus, I need you right now. Because when he comes to us with mercy; he actually comes with more than mercy. He comes to help us in our time of need.
And many of us who feel very close to Jesus still have a lot of aches in our hearts. We have needs in our life. There are things that are troubling us. There are things we can't control. There are things that are out of control and we are anywhere on the spectrum from frustrated to desperate. Jesus, thank you for coming right now and being our help in time of need. Thank you for healing us. Thank you for walking with us. Thank you for strengthening us. Thank you for guiding us. Thank you for speaking to us. Thank you for saving us.
If you need healing to lift your hand to the Lord. Thank you for healing us, father. Thank you for looking and seeing each person who needs your touch right now. I just released the touch of the Holy Spirit into the lives of those who are listening, who need your healing. Maybe you need healing in a relationship. Lord, come now and heal in my heart and heal this relationship. Change my heart. Teach me how to get off the air hose of the person that I care about.
Isn't it good? Wherever we are, he's here with us. Wherever we are, whatever we need, he's here with us. He'll help us. He'll help us. The best news is really, he doesn't help you by changing the other people. He helps you by changing you. That's the best news of all. We get to become a different people because he's always working in our hearts. Thank you, Lord. It's good to be together. It's great to just be together with Jesus. Pastor Brian. Thank you.
Brian: It's good to have been with you today. Thank you for being here. I want to welcome Paula and Brad's son, Michael. God bless you. Great to have you here today, my friend and who knows, maybe God has got you to go back east, at least stopping in Minnesota. We would love to have you in this part of the country, but we know you have great stuff to do out there. God bless you.
Let's raise our hands together. Shall we? Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. And may the Lord make his faces shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may your hearts be full of mercy. This we pray in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful, wonderful day. Thank you for being here today.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 11-7-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.