Pastors Robert and TaQuaris Smith
Robert: Praise the Lord, such a sweet presence of the Lord this morning. Thank you, Justin and team for inviting Holy Spirit to stay. Hallelujah. Well, I'm not greeting you from the front, but good morning, Hope. It is good to be here again with my life partner, my beautiful bride. We are here ministering again. So, it is good. We want to dismiss the children right now to go to children's church. Let's give them a hand clap. Hallelujah. We are thankful for Cindy and all of the workers and the children's ministry, and she could use more help. So, we are looking for you to sign up, volunteer even if it is once a month in the children's ministry. We need to do that. I may sneak back there on occasion too to be with the kids. Hallelujah.
I have a couple of things. If you want communion after service today, Pastor Jeff will be over there for communion. Maybe Cheryl can join them. Pastor Jeff and Cheryl will serve communion after service. Also, to remind you, next week, this coming week on Friday is our family comedy night with the amazing Mr. Norm and also Micah Lother, ministering to us in music that night. So, remember we are inviting all our family and friends and neighbors to come out. We still have posters left. So, at the back table, if you want to grab a poster to hand out, please do so. And again, that's next Friday, May 20th at 7:00 PM. We also have some extra postcards at the back table. Now reminder, these are postcards and postal regulations say we have to put postage on here to use it. I don't know if you've ever dealt with the post office. Sorry, Robin. I have. I was in bulk mailing for, for many, many years and let's just say, they will slap your hand if you don't do it right, but also you have to follow the rules. If you have some people, you know, that need to get this mailed to, you can grab a couple of these and mail them out. Otherwise, you can grab the flyers or the posters and hand them out as well.
It is good to have all of our visitors. So welcome to our new visitors. Even those joining us on the online community for the first time, it is good to have you with us. It is good to have so many of my family and friends here this morning. You guys are making me nervous. I appreciate many, many, many people and faces I've known and seen and fellowship with over the years. It is good to have you with us. Praise God. Remember when Pastor Brian and Jacque get back, give Jackie a big hug. She celebrated her birthday yesterday. They may be watching. Hi, pastor. Hi, Jackie.
I have a question for you and for me as well this morning. Are you sure of your identity? In other words, who are you? What defines you? Too often many people base their identities on what they do. They base it upon their jobs or their roles in relationships, their roles in society. All these different outside and various factors people use to determine, or even try to find an identity. There is a working theory I've had for the last several years. In society, people try to come up to the root problem of society. They try to figure out what's wrong. Why are certain areas of society on a decline and so on and so on. I have a working theory that it all comes down to identity issues, really, people searching, striving for an identity. That's a sermon for another day. But the reason why I bring that up is because when we try to define who we are, when we try to find an identity in things like relationships and jobs and money and people and things like that, we are really limiting who you are and how the creator created you. The truth is that God intends us for all people to find our identity through Jesus Christ.
But sadly, many people, many believers, or, I like the term Christ follower. I like to call myself a Christ follower because I first believed then I began to follow and I'm still following Christ. It is amazing that many people, many Christ followers, have come to a point in their lives where the question of their identity is a difficult question to answer. You may even say that some may seem to be in an identity crisis. On a personal level, you can say that an identity crisis is defined as a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person's sense of identity becomes insecure typically, due to a change in their expected aims or role in society. You might say, well, whether this puts me as a believer? How can I, as a believer, be in an identity crisis? Well, just take a look at the pressure that Christians Christ followers are having right now in society.
Thank God we don't have coliseums and we are not being fed to the lions, but there are some external pressures as to being a Christian today. Let me put it this way: to be a true Christ follower, there is a lot of pressure today. I believe that there is a lot of pressure today to conform to the world, but the Bible tells us that as Christians, we are not to conform to the world. I think that we are at a crossroads as a people trying to figure out our place in society. It seems like it is everyone against us. Maybe I'm just talking to myself. I don't know if you felt that or not. But the world is really hostile towards Christians today. If you don't realize that, keep living, or I should say keep representing Jesus and you'll find out in a big way. It is not always easy to be who we are. Some people may start to question who they are even in Christ, but today we have good news, right, honey?
TaQuaris: Yes, we have good news.
Robert: We have good news because there is a way for us to solidify who we are. We have good news to show us what defines us. As I said before, God intends all of us to be identified through Jesus Christ. For us to do that in times like this, especially when we are pressing in, we are really trying to solidify who we are and whose we are. The only way that I know to successfully do that is to grow more intimate with the Lord and growing more intimate with the Lord through his word, through the scriptures. To be quite frank, we live in a church society today, we've forgotten about the scriptures. We preach, we teach, we sing all these different fads and trends and theories and ideas and nice things and bad things and social things, but what does the word say?
I think there is a time for us as we are in this identity crisis, it is all laid out for us by a loving savior through his word. We can't do it on our own. As we are going to see in the scriptures today, we can't do this by ourselves. We can't do it in and of ourselves. We need help. Thank God for Jesus. Help has come. Saints, we can't forget about the word of the Lord. I know we have these nice cliches and instruction books and whatever, all these little fancy little terms that we have, but the truth remains that it is the key to life and the key to knowing him more. So instead of giving my opinion or fancy ideas, let's see what the word says. So, 2 Corinthians, we are going to start there. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
TaQuaris: This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone. A new life has begun.
Robert: Our identity in Christ is first and foremost, one of newness. We are new creations in Christ. Those that have been a part of my Bible studies over the years know that we've broken that down about what it means to be a new creation. It is exactly what it says. It is not like a new pair of shoes that you go and buy at the store because that shoe may be new to you, but it was already manufactured and designed. There are multiples of them. What Christ did for us is something that never existed before. If you study it in Greek, and I decided not to have a Greek study this morning, we'll save that for the classes, but as a teacher, I have to blend it in there a little bit. When the scriptures talk about you having become a new creation, the Greek that is used signifies something that has never been before. So what you are is a new creation and that new creation is new because it is something that the holy spirit now indwells into this new creation. So your body, as the scripture says, is the temple of the holy spirit. So no longer do we need to have a physical temple for the presence of the Lord to be housed. This new creation in Christ Jesus now housed that spirit and has become a new creation.
You should get excited about that. Because of what Christ did for us, we are regenerated. We are renewed. We are born again. That's what Christ was trying to get Nicodemus to understand; you are now born again. This new creation is spiritually minded whereas the old nature that old creation is carnally minded. This new nature fellowships with God. And in that fellowship, he obeys his will and he is devoted to his service. We are made alive in Christ. Remember, we are talking about who we are, our identity, what defines us first is newness; we are something entirely different than what we were before. There are some things that we can do now that we couldn't do before Christ. The old nature was incapable of doing certain things or even desiring certain things because the old nature is dead to the spirit. And the thing is the old nature couldn't do anything about it on its own. It is dead. It couldn't revive itself. The scriptures, especially in Ephesians, talks about being dead in trespasses and sins
TaQuaris: Ephesians chapter 2:3-8, all of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God's grace that you have been saved. He raised us from the dead, along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavy realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages, as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us as shown in all he has done for us, who are United with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace. When you believe and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God.
Robert: You can't take credit for it because it wasn't in you. It was something that God gifted to you as you became a part of Christ. A few years ago, I kept having this phrase come to my mind and heart "in Christ, in Christ, in Christ". And so I started doing scripture studies and after everything that it talked about that was brought on us and the life that we could now live because of Christ. The phrase was "in Christ". And that's the key; in Christ. That's why our identity is in Christ. It is in Christ that we are loved. It is in Christ that we are forgiven. It is in Christ that we are secure. If you just think about that, doesn't that take the pressure off of you? When you come to the realization of who you are and what defines you is no longer by you, but Christ in you, Christ in you.
Let's back up for a minute. Let's have this conversation because we are always talking about this ongoing conversation about between law and grace. It seems like in church camps, there are some camps that you are just not going to please. You are not going to please the law folks. You are not going to please the grace folks, but the truth is somewhere in the middle. And the truth is that the law could never save you. That's the truth. But grace tells you that when you can't fulfill the law, there is something, another law that you are drawn to. And that's the law of Christ. Meaning that as you grow more and more intimate with Christ, when you are transformed into the image of Christ, I said in Christ, you please God not because of your efforts; Christ you please God, because you are— come on, church, in Christ.
The law was there to show you sin, what sin was. It was never meant to save you. It couldn't because it didn't have the law of the spirit. The law showed you how sinful you were in your flesh. Jesus came to unshackle you from the law. So now I don't strive to keep the law to save me. Now I do the things of God because of my love for Christ in me.
TaQuaris: Exactly. It is a relationship. Love to me is a choice. It is not just an emotion. So you choose to love daily. Every day, you try to put Christ first. It is about a relationship because God, he's a perfect gentleman. He's not going to force you to do anything. It is not going to force you to live the lifestyle he ordained you to live. He's not going to force you to spend quality, intimate time with him. It is about a relationship. We are not robots. Because God gave us free will, we have to choose. Because we love him, I'm going to obey.
Robert: In Christ, we are loved. In Christ, we are forgiven. In Christ, we are secure. In Christ, we are adopted. We become the family of God, the children of God. We are justified. We are redeemed. Christ paid the price for us. We are reconciled. Christ was that point of reconciliation, that bridge of reconciliation between us and God and we are chosen. And because of that, also in Christ, we are victorious, filled with joy and peace and granted true meaning in life. Remember I said the struggle sometimes for people in trying to find their identity is connected with all these outside social, economic, demographic things. It is through those things that people try to find their place and their true meaning in life. Reality is that it is only in Christ that we find the true meaning of life. It is only in Christ that we walk victorious in this life. It is only in Christ that we are righteous. In and of ourselves, we can do nothing to be deemed righteous. Did you get that? But it is in Christ that we are deemed righteous because of who he is.
But here is kind of a conundrum that we face: All these things sound wonderful, the things that are afforded to us in Christ, that identifies us, that signifies us in Christ. We are redeemed. We are reconciled. We are victorious. We have a life full of peace and joy and reconciliation. We are secure. We are loved. We are forgiven for all these things. So why don't we always look like what we've become? We might wonder why we so often do not live in the manner described even though we have given our lives to Christ and we are assured of salvation. Is anybody sure of his salvation? But can you say that you sometimes don't look like it? You don't have to raise your hand.
It is because it doesn't nullify the fact of who we are. It is because of this new nature, we are still housed in this tent, this body. Let me take a step further because I think we sometimes cut it short. Because we are in these decaying bodies, which won't be our bodies forever in Christ, but for now we are temporarily housed. So we have this new spiritual nature that's housed in this fleshly body and there is tension there, but not only is there tension in our natural physical body; there is tension in our mind. Because our fight to renew our mind is to be, as my wife said, daily. And so there is a tension there. The scripture teaches us that our new nature is at war with the old nature. The old nature is dead, but I like to say it sometimes, Cheryl; you have to remind it that it is dead.
TaQuaris: Or kill it. Crucify it like Paul says, daily.
Robert: Evil and sin are still present. We still have to contend with it. But the difference is— and here is where I want you to pay attention. The difference is that we have a new influence. We have a new perspective and that sin, evil doing, however you want to say it no longer has control over the believer in Christ than it did in its old nature. In other words, outside of Christ, sin and evil controlled you; you are a slave. As the scriptures teach, you were a slave. You were in bondage. But now as the scripture says, we can do something about it. Let's go back to what the word says in Romans 8.
TaQuaris: Romans 8:1, so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. That's from the New Living Translation, but I like the King James version. It says, there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them, which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.
Robert: So the key, again, is in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus, you are spiritually minded. You are not fleshly minded. Sometimes, we like to focus, and I understand why we like to focus on the external things that people do, because it is easy to point out the things that are not right, because we can visually see that. So yes, in Christ, those things are mortified. Those things have changed. They are challenged. Like Pastor Jeff said earlier, change is not always easy, but praise God, we don't contend with these things by ourselves. It is in Christ. But here is another thing that please hear me, saints of God. What has to be continually renewed and checked in Christ is our mindset, also the things that necessarily people don't see right away, that's not readily visible, but it dictates what you will do.
TaQuaris: It reminds me of the word that says, so a man thinketh, so is he.
Robert: There is a scene in The Passion of Christ that most people probably wouldn't think of it this way, but it is a perfect picture to me about our mindset changing. Therefore, as our mindset changes, our actions change as well in Christ. Outside of Christ, we are led to our own emotions, our own feelings, our own fleshly thoughts, and we react to things instead of responding to Peter in the garden of Gethsemane, Peter's life was about to be shattered. The soldiers come to arrest Jesus, and what does Peter do? Peter wants to defend the savior that he loves, and he draws his knife or his sword to cut off the ear of this soldier right now. In our natural way of thinking, that seems to be the right thing to do. They are coming and attacking our Lord and savior. I'm going to show my love for him and defend him.
But what does Jesus do? Jesus tells him to put it away. Jesus goes and reworks his way of thinking. Peter, I can tell you, in the garden, didn't understand why Jesus is rebuking him, so to speak, when he's defending Jesus. But even at that moment, Jesus is changing the relationship that we have. When we become new creatures in Christ, not only is our relationship with God changed, but our relationship with mankind has changed as well because we have a new way of thinking about things that's rooted in the law of Christ, not in the law of the flesh. Does that make sense? Romans 8:5-8.
TaQuaris: Those who are dominated by the sinful nature, think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the holy spirit, think about things that please the spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws and it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
Robert: Here's something new that I want you to think about. In Christ, we can now choose to resist sin whereas the old nature cannot. It is the power of Christ that allows us to choose to yield to the spirit or yield to the flesh. Notice I say yield to the spirit. I didn't say yield to the 10 commandments, which is our example model of law. I said to be led by the spirit, because as you are in Christ, it is no longer the law that controls you or guides you. It is the spirit of Christ that guides you. It is that spirit of Christ that will prompt you, that will urge you, that will warn you, that will convict you. That's why it is only through intimacy with the Lord, growing closer with him, that we are able to model our lives and do what's pleasing to God. It is not by you just listening to me, the preacher. It is not by somebody pointing a finger out at you. It is through your walk with the Lord. It is through your intimate times with the Lord as you sit down. We call these things spiritual practices.
Let's change the spiritual practices to our spiritual lifestyle where it becomes not something that's regimented, but it becomes part of our everyday life where we check in with the Lord. And we say, Lord, how am I doing? Not looking at a list on our own to say, see how we are doing, but ask the Lord. What does he have to say? Because there are many examples throughout the Bible where men and women thought they were doing the right thing, but they never asked the Lord if they were doing the right thing. The Lord had to correct them and then say, I was never a part of what you were doing in the first place.
A famous scripture, "Obedience is better than sacrifice”. And what does that really mean? It means that these systems that we put in place that seem good to please God, God is saying just do what I ask you to do. Very simply, as if you love me, you will obey me. If you love me, you will obey me. You see God expects when we hear him, obedience is automatic. As a matter of fact, if I'm not mistaken, the Hebrew term for hearing also connotes obeying because the concept is, if you hear the voice of the Lord, why would you do something contrary?
So to hear him is to obey him. As a matter of fact, I think insight into that is this: when the Lord was giving out the commandments on Mount Sinai, there came a point where the people said, we don't want to hear you because hearing would obligate them to obey. They said, just tell Moses. Let Moses speak to us so we can disobey Moses because we know if we hear from you, we can't disobey you. But we have a choice. We have a choice because in Christ, your identity is not anymore of as a slave. You are free. He took the shackles off of you, of sin and death. So now you have a choice. I think Romans 12 talks about that a little more too. 8:12, sorry.
TaQuaris: Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do, for if you live by it dictates you will die. But if through the power of the spirit you put to death, the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God.
Robert: Now we have the choice to either feed the new nature through the word, through prayer and obedience, or we can neglect those things and feed the flesh. Because I don't know about you, but in my walk with the Lord, any time that I've gone off the course of how things should be and I come to the Lord, it is the same conversation. Do you know that it is the same conversation? How much time have you spent with me? Because when we are outside of his presence, when we are not feeding our spiritual man, there is only one other course of action. We are going to feed the flesh, especially in our thinking.
I want us to grow a little bit. Yes, we have the external deeds that we do. If you've been walking with the Lord for any amount of time, you understand those things. I'm not sugarcoating those things, but I want us to grow beyond just looking at the external things, because it is those internal things that are getting people off course. It is those internal battles, those mental battles, those thought battles that people are losing out and causing them to be in a crisis right now. I had to counsel someone as I'm driving in the car the other day, and it is all a mental battle. Because if you are not feeding that inner man with the word, with prayer, with following the spirit, then you are going to default back to those, especially carnal ways. There is no other way about it. If you are not spending time in prayer, in fellowship, in the word, what's the alternative?
You are either watching too much TV. You are either listening to the wrong things. And I'm not saying— I like to watch TV, but there is a time and a place for everything. There is a time and a season to turn the TV off. It is those times, what is it time to do? All it is, you will be led by the spirit. I'm not telling you to have a preacher tell you this week to go turn the TV off. What I'm telling you is, if the spirit says to turn the TV off, then there is a reason that the spirit is telling you to turn the TV off. Holy Spirit is saying, I'm trying to talk to you. I'm trying to get close to you, not with distraction. I want your undivided attention. It is not to condemn you.
I see people who sometimes say they are going to get off social media and they are going to get off TV, but it is such a condemning tone. No, it could be just as simple as the Lord saying, I have something important to tell you right now and I want your undivided attention and those other things are distracting from what I want to say. He's not rebuking you for being on social media or TV or the different entertainment, but he's saying, hey. It is just like, sometimes with my wife. If I have something important that I want to tell my wife, I say, put the tablet down. I need to talk to you.
And if it is like, oh, okay, in a minute. No, give me the tablet. Put it down. I have something I want to talk to you about right now. She has a tablet. She likes to be on her tablet. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is in those moments when you are searching and desiring for that intimacy, you just remove the distractions so that you can have that intimacy. That's what the Lord wants sometimes. Robert, no basketball tonight. No football tonight. No fishing. Well, I don't know if that's the Lord or not, but—
Why? Because if my identity is in Christ, which also means that I am to not only be like him, I am to also look like him, sound like him, act like him, then I have to spend more time with him. Amen. I can't expect to carry the identity of the Lord and savior Jesus Christ if I never have any time with him, because whatever you spend time with, that's what you are going to look like, be like. What do I mean by that? When I don't need to verbalize out of my mouth, that I'm either a pastor or a Christian. As a matter of fact, my wife will tell you when I'm out and about, I don't say I'm Pastor Robert. I just open my mouth and allow the spirit to flow through me. Most of the time. I'm human too. Sometimes I miss the mark. But in that vein, I'm not announcing a declaration. Hi, this is Pastor Robert speaking to you. You better listen to me now. No. I'm allowing Holy Spirit to work through me and use me.
That's how my identifying mark is. It is how I am. It is the expression of my heart towards people. That's kind. That's warm. That's loving. That's forgiving. That's not judging. That's not condemning. Even if I have to "correct" something, or someone, there still should be an identifying mark that this correction is coming from a follower of Christ and not a Pharisee. I don't want to be identified as a Pharisee. I want to be identified as a Christ follower. Because if I see a brother or sister going the wrong way, my love for them, not my condemnation towards them, but my love for them will say, hey, I think there is a better way. Well, why do you think that? Not because of my standards because of Christ's standards.
Invite them into fellowship through his word. I remember I started a Bible fellowship a couple of years ago. I always did this disclaimer. It kind of went something like this: The following words are not my opinion. but it is directly from the word of God. That's why I don't get into arguments with people about things. Let's just go to the word that's right. If you want to wrestle with the word, you can wrestle with the word. You are not going to argue with me. I don't need to argue with people because it is not my righteousness. It is not my word. It is Christ's. Christ is the word and he's perfect. He's the word in flesh. So we follow his way and that's what we try to get people to do: to follow the way of Christ, but that comes through intimacy.
Ideally, we would like to have everything perfect, everything to go right all the time with our lives. But how many of you know it does not? Sometimes, I don't say the right thing all the time. Sometimes, it comes out the wrong way and God forbid, sometimes Paul, I act in my flesh. Can you believe that? Pastor Robert has fleshly moments? Oh, yeah. Ask my wife. But one of the greatest blessings that we have in Christ is the grace that we have to walk this thing out. Every day is a walk towards maturity in our identity. We are at different stages in that identity formation. We have different expressions of it sometimes.
But in order to grow, we have to have that grace that comes from Christ. Because as we contend with this flesh, as we try to mortify or crucify it daily, sometimes we mess up. That's why the Lord had to deliver us from the bondage of the law, because the law was impossible to keep. It was impossible to keep because number one, it wasn't meant to save you in the first place. It was meant to show you that you had the great need of having a savior, that you could do nothing outside of Christ. And so we needed something other than us to get us out of us and that was Jesus and his grace that allows us if we mess up today, to go forward again tomorrow.
TaQuaris: The Bible says a righteous man falleth seven times and he gets back up. It didn't say an unrighteous man, because the righteousness is in Christ, but it is in the getting back up.
Robert: Two more sets of scriptures: Colossians 2:6-7.
TaQuaris: And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down unto him and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness.
Robert: The key in that verse to me is to continue to follow him. One of the most powerful words that Christ said was "follow me". I heard a preacher say earlier that we are not just to have a conversion experience; we are to have a transformation experience. Conversion is when you say that I'm a sinner and I need a savior and I believe that you are that savior. Transformation takes place when we continue to follow him and to follow him is like we are doing now. We are in the setting, a church. We have Bible studies, we have prayer groups and we have times of studying and being intimate with the Lord. Those are all a part of those things that allow us to continue to grow. Follow him. He says that when we fall down, we allow his hand of grace to be there, to pick us up. When he wants to point us in a different path than where we are going, that we willfully submit to that redirection.
When we recognize that he obviously knows better than me and we understand his character and that's why it is important to understand Christ, get closer to him in scriptures. Because in that time you will understand the character of your savior. As you grow more in understanding the character of your savior, you'll begin to trust the savior more. Philippians 1:6 and then 9-11.
TaQuaris: And I am certain that God who began the good work within you will continue his work until he is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. I pray that your love will overflow more and more and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding, for I want you to understand what really matters so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ returns. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ, for this will bring much glory and praise to God.
Robert: Your righteous character that's produced in your life by Jesus Christ. It is your fellowship in Jesus Christ that allows you to be more like him. Doesn't that make sense? To be more like him, you allow him to produce the fruit in you. What a loving God that we have that knew we would mess things up and so he gave up a lot for us to show us the way, but provide the way, a gift. I want to say this, but I want to make sure you understand the heart of what I'm saying. Stop striving to please God by trying to get it right all the time. Instead increase your intimacy with Christ and let him show you the way. Because when you strive to please people's set of standards and your expectations, you are always going to fail. The reason why you are going to fail is because you have this finite mind, a mind that's limited to time and space.
Your idea of failure is because you didn't get it right at this particular time and so that's the end. But God knows your beginning from your end and God has patience for you. His patience is not for you to stay the same. His patience is allowing you time to get it right. Many times people have an expectation that you should have it all together right here, right now. But God says, continue to come to me. Because what happens is, inevitably, as you spend more time with the Lord, the less time you have to do things that are contrary to the Lord. That's just the way it is. So spend more time with them, intimate time.
They often say that as married couples or married for years and years and years, they begin to look like one another. Well, that's good for me. I don't know about my wife. But there is a reason for that. The Bible talks about when a man and woman come together, the two shall become one flesh. There is a thing we were counseled in marriage about becoming oneness, so that the two, as they become one, they walk in that oneness. Our desire as a married couple is that when you see Robert and TaQuaris, whether they are separated physically, you know that they are unified in oneness.
So it is to be our walk with Christ, that you and Christ are one. I see that as our journey so that we no longer have to wear wrist bands, "What Would Jesus Do, WWJD?" It would already be in our hearts. That's how close I want to be with the Lord, that I don't have to have an external reminder of what he would do. I spent enough time with him to already know what he would do. My thing is I just have to choose it. Thank God that because of Christ's sacrifice, I now have the power to choose it and I don't have to yield to sin or a fleshly mind. Let's pray.
Heavenly father, I thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and through his shed blood And his resurrection, I've become a new creation, one that has been restored to the right fellowship with you. Lord, in this walk, I don't always get it right. Thank you for not kicking me out of your family. Thank you that you are able to convict the depths of my heart, that you are a loving father that shows me the air of my ways, but not only just showing the area of my ways, but pointing and directing me to the right path, so that when I acknowledge you are working me, I can continue to be molded into the image of your son. And so that my identity now is not one of the world or fleshly dictates, but a child of the spirit that's guarded by the spirit of Christ. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your direction. Thank you for your guidance. Thank you for the hope that I have that I may not all get it today, but there is room to grow as I grow closer to you in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.
Do you have any parting thoughts? Let's all stand together. I pray that God will bless you today. And that even as the sun shines outside, that his presence will always shine upon your heart. I pray for not only a blessed day, but also a blessed week and that you would have blessed conversations, fruitful encounters and intimacy with the savior. I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. God bless you. There will be those that are here to pray. If you need prayer, want prayer, we'll be glad to pray with you and also if you want communion served.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 5-15-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.