Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. And that's reality. We are going to see Jesus face to face. Pause and think about that. Selah. Wow. We are excited to see you face to face, Lord Jesus, to worship you when you are right there. Not only just in our imaginations, but you are right there before the throne, joining the saints and the angels, worshiping our savior. Thank you. Thank you. Help us keep that so clear in our mind's eye and in our hearts. That's our goal.
Brian: Amen.
Jacque: Thank you, God. Thank you.
Brian: Well, I feel like I can go home right now. Man. But I’ve got a message I want to share with you. I don't know if you want to hear it, but I want to give it. But first I want to welcome Sandy and her new gift from the Lord to her. Yep. And we welcome you here.
Jacque: Carlos. Carlos.
Brian: And many of you know it was a little over a year ago where our dear friend John, Sandy's husband. Oh.
Jacque: Oh.
Brian: Let's.
Jacque: Jesus.
Brian: Are you okay there, Don? Why don't you—
Jacque: He is not sure.
Brian: Not sure. Why don’t you— we’ll get— Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Robert, for looking at that for him. But let's pray for Don. Jesus, I pray that everything is okay for Don. For those of you who are watching by livestream, one of our camera guys just took a tumble off of our camera mounts here. And so we just ask that God you be with him at this time in Jesus’ name. Our good friend, John passed away a little over a year ago. How many know when life goes on, God goes with us? And he will bring others into our lives. Carlos was right there for Sandy. And we are so thankful. Carlos is an evangelist. He travels all over. We are administering the word of God. Evangelism has been something that's really been on Sandy's heart for many years.
Jacque: Missions.
Brian: Missions. Yep. Missions. And so we just want to bless you and your future together. God bless you guys. It's good to have you here visiting today.
Jacque: Brian, I have my scriptures today.
Brian: You have them?
Jacque: Yeah. I taped it to the—
Brian: Good.
Jacque: I came here and taped it early, so.
Brian: Good for you.
Jacque: Yeah. Yeah.
Brian: We all need systems, don't we? To help us in life.
Jacque: Yes.
Brian: My system is you.
Jacque: Oh, well that's nice.
Brian: You are my system. Yeah.
Jacque: I had this. Can I say something?
Brian: You can say whatever you want.
Jacque: Okay, because I was thinking about you this running when Pastor Robert was giving that word from the Lord and I was just wanting to say that I just feel it's such a privilege to be married to you, Brian.
Brian: Thank you.
Jacque: And to have you be my leader in life.
Brian: Thank you.
Jacque: And it's such a privilege to be a part of this church and have you be our leader.
Brian: Thank you. Thank you.
Jacque: It is a privilege.
Brian: Thank you.
Jacque: Yeah.
Brian: Thank you.
Jacque: I wanted to say that. And I trust you.
Brian: Thank you.
Jacque: I don't always understand what you are doing.
Brian: Yep.
Brian: Most people don't understand me.
Jacque: I know. And sometimes I just go, come on, but I just learned that I can trust you.
Brian: Thank you. Thank you.
Jacque: I'm very grateful.
Brian: Thank you. Well, it's something I don't take lightly either, being in a position to lead and to shepherd. I believe in my heart— so many times the success of a church is often measured by how many people attend. Obviously, COVID kind of undermined a lot of that over the last couple years. We are grateful that our online community has really grown dramatically in the last two years or so, two and a half years. And that we have an influence now that's greater than we ever had prior to COVID, which I'm thankful for. But there is nothing quite like people in the house too.
There is an energy and there is a camaraderie and there is a community that happens this way. And so, I'm looking forward to having a house full of people that are modeled after the mighty men and women of David. David's army, believe it or not, were not the elite Navy seals of the Israel military. They were basically a bunch of castoffs, marginalized people, people misfits. Yeah, that's another good word, a bunch of misfits. Not that I'm calling all you misfits. Don't be offended by that. But people who had failures in their lives. People who had to have maybe multiple do-overs just to get it right.
God put something magnificent together that in the history of Israel, they never repeated it. They never repeated it. I just feel like Hope is a place for people that maybe have been marginalized in other places, maybe haven't always been received even in other churches, in other places of faith. Maybe even in life, you've been rejected, and I believe Hope is a place for you. Hope is a place for you. You know what? Let's lock arms and let's do something great for God.
Jacque: Yes. Yes.
Brian: Let's just lock arms.
Jacque: Amen. Amen. I love our mission statement. Now that I said that, I can't remember the whole thing.
Brian: Changing the world one person at a time.
Jacque: Yes. Yes. Bringing hope, wholeness.
Brian: And love.
Jacque: And love and the good news of Jesus to the entire world, one person at a time. Amen.
Brian: Amen.
Jacque: We got it.
Brian: We got it. It's more important we live our mission than we know it. Then we can articulate it. Hallelujah. A couple weeks ago, I shared on this wonderful, wonderful story of Jesus encountering the woman at the well. And all of the religious and cultural things that in that one single encounter that Jesus was coming really against, there were five, what I would call, external identity markers. That's a term I wanted to use intentionally today because in our culture today, people are identifying as fill-in-the-blank. I heard the other day a person that we knew was in school. I think they are 14, and one of his classmates is identifying as a cat. And so this guy, this kid, barked at this girl, and obviously, got in trouble for it. I just think to myself, there has never been a time more important that Jesus shows up than now.
I'm not demeaning. I don't want to come across as demeaning of anybody who is, shall we say, searching for an identity, because we actually have the right identity available for these people in the name of Jesus. All of the things that are happening in the world in that arena of what you identify as, and et cetera, et cetera, is nothing but an exposé on where our world is at and the huge need for Jesus. So I don't want to be critical or even demeaning in any way, shape or form. What I see this as is a confession of where their hearts are at and it's like, hey, it's like an open door for us to help these people. It's an open door.
So there were five identity markers that were really held near and dear to the people of Israel, the Jewish people. One of them was the Torah. One was the tradition of the elders, which really came down to the oral traditions of the scriptures. Another one was tribalism, which was an ethnic or cultural purity. We are going to keep our culture pure. We are not going to intermarry with other races, all of this sort of thing. Territorially, Israel was declared, or they thought of themselves as the holy land. And then of course the temple, which was where people went to meet God.
Jesus, actually, in this encounter with the woman at the well, really comes against many of these things. This woman was living with a man who wasn't her husband, and she had been married five times. We don't know the background about that, but we just know that the man she was living with wasn't her husband and Jesus didn't take the Torah and stone her. He brought something different to her.
She started to try to divert the conversation and say, well, we worship God on this mountain, and I know you guys, you Jews worship over at the temple in Jerusalem on that mountain. Jesus actually says, no, there is coming a day, and maybe it's even arriving right now because he could see what was happening on her face with this encounter, where people will just worship God in Spirit and in truth. It won't be in a specific location. It won't be in a building. It won't be in a certain city. He went through all of this, and the one thing that I think really stands out with Jesus’s encounter with this woman and stands out to me about these, I guess what I call, identity markers that the Jewish people had, was all of them engendered a nature of exclusivity.
They were exclusive. They were excluding other people. They propped up a huge us-versus-them mentality. And you know what my friends? We've done that in the church too. It's us versus them. Those sinners, those abortionists, those murderers, those thieves, those politicians, right? And it created an us-versus-them between Israel and the rest of the world. It is true that I really do believe God had granted Israel, a very special status, but that status wasn't because of how great they were or how wonderful they were. That status wasn't really an end in itself. That status was a means to an end. And that means to an end was the call that they had for a mission. And that mission was to bring the Messiah into the whole world. That's what Israel was supposed to do. And that's what we, as the church are supposed to do, bring them aside to the whole world.
God had entrusted his message of love to Israel, so that they might carry this message to all of the people of the world. Remember the first promise to Abraham: Through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed. Israel, instead of taking this wonderful message, this gift from God to the whole world, Israel was using the word that they had received from God, kind of as a religious and cultural blockade from other people coming in. It became an us-versus-them. They started keeping everybody separate from themselves, from the world around them, preventing them from actually fulfilling their mission and not really bringing the light of God's love to the whole world.
When I think about that, I thought to myself, well, how can we bring the light of God's love to others? Not how can we get people to join our group?
There is a difference. How can we bring the light of God's love to the world? Because oftentimes— we all have experienced this. When somebody judges us, it kind of turns off our hearing to them, doesn't it? So when we are judging those who need Jesus, rather than bringing the love of Christ to them, we've already turned them off to hearing the good news. And that's why today, 24% of people in America, mostly millennials want to have nothing to do with God, because they think church and God are one and the same thing. Their experiences with the church historically have been really, really bad.
When Jesus arrives on the scene, he completely blows apart this self-serving façade that the religious leaders had. What they were doing was very self-serving and he reprimands them for having forgotten what their message was, what their mission, in a sense, was, the very purpose for what they were entrusted with this Levitical priesthood for. He exposed the ways that they had replaced their mission to bring the light of the world. They've exchanged that mission with high walls that kept everybody out and all sinners away. That's what they did. They kept all sinners away. They didn't want to be defiled. Even though Jesus came against so many things that we might call Jewish identifiers, the fact is Jesus was Jewish, and so were all of his disciples. Virtually, all of the marginalized people. Almost all of them that he ministered to, they were all Jewish.
Eventually, this incredible growing Jesus movement, which really impacted the Gentiles largely due to the apostle Paul and to some lesser degree, Peter, when he understood that what God has cleans, he was cleansing it for the Gentiles. But eventually, this growing Jesus movement became flooded with Gentiles as well as Jews. Unfortunately, years later, these Gentiles turned on the Jews because of their rejection of Jesus. They took the rejection of the Jews of Jesus, and they use is as an excuse to persecute Jews in the name of Jesus.
Can you imagine how twisted Satan can take things? But the name of Jesus was now used to persecute Jews in the crusades, in the Spanish inquisition, and of course, culminated probably the Zenith of all of that persecution with the Nazis in World War II. But Jesus was not anti-Jewish, make no mistake about it. He was no more anti-Jewish than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Micah the prophet, or Amos, or any other Hebrew prophet who was critical of Israel for missing the mark. They were just missing the mark.
We have to look at ourselves and say how or where are we missing the mark? Jesus criticizes these Jewish leaders not because they were Jewish, but because they were religious. Not because they were Jewish, but because they were religious and they were creating all of these obstacles to keep people away from God, rather than opening the door for people to come to God. The agenda of Jesus, when he came, was to bypass the salvation system of his day in order to connect people directly to God.
I was thinking about this this past week, and I thought, I wonder how many of us have had this experience? You get a notification in the mail about, maybe you need to make a doctor's appointment, or you have to call your bank, or you have to call something of importance, and the number is listed there, call this number and someone will help you. So you call that number and what happens?
Jacque: Recording.
Brian: You get a recording. If you are calling to make a doctor's appointment, they wait until 90 seconds in to say, and if this is an emergency call 911. But what Jesus did was basically this: He made available the ability to call the number and a person actually answer the phone. That's what he did. He removed all those obstacles. You didn't have to go through a menu. You didn't have to go through all of this and then get disconnected, and then have to call again, and now you are back in the bottom of the waiting list. What Jesus did was he removed all of that and allowed us to have direct access to God. I want to just share two scriptures today. The first is found in John 18:36. This is where Jesus is brought before Pilate and Pilate is questioning him. He answers this question of Pilate, John 18:36 in the New Living Translation.
Jacque: Jesus answered. My kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders, but my kingdom is not of this world.
Brian: My kingdom is not of this world. Sometimes people have thought that that meant that the kingdom of God wasn't to come to the world, but that's not what he meant. What he meant was the nature of the kingdom of God is entirely different than the kingdoms of this world. It's to be in this world, but the way it comes into this world is not at all the way earthly kingdoms are established. Earthly governments are pretty limited in how they govern by simply passing more laws. That's what governments do, they make laws. Even with good governments, when evil and hatred become manifested more and more, the only option an earthly government has is to pass more laws to curb this evil or bad behavior.
The more laws that are passed, what happens to our freedoms? They become more and more limited, don't they? A perfect example of that is obviously, all of the gun violence that's happening in our nation today. The solution that our government has is we need more laws. We need more laws because there are more people dying from gun deaths today than car accidents in America. That's a lot of people. The only way that an earthly government has to deal with problems is they just pass more laws. There is the kingdom of God and we have kingdoms on this earth.
It's interesting if I were to ask this question: What is the opposite of law? If you are a Christian, you would say grace. The opposite of law is grace. But what is the opposite of law in an earthly kingdom? Lawlessness, right? Lawlessness. So you see, just by the answer of that question. When we talk about law with the kingdom, what we are actually doing is we are actually encroaching upon freedoms even in the kingdom of God.
When we read the Old Testament laws of God, most of the laws seem sensible, even respectful. But then right in the middle of some of the chapters that deal with the laws of God, one of which is Leviticus 19, there is some of the most outlandish things in the middle of some of those things. Believe it or not, there are laws about how you are supposed to maintain your beards. Not wearing clothes out of mixed fabrics. There are actually laws about who can attend a worship service. There are restrictions on that regarding the posture you are supposed to have in a worship service. If you are too short, you can't participate in that worship service, and if you are blind, you can't participate in that worship service. There are also laws about tattoos and also not harvesting to the edges of your fields. They are all lumped together. There are also laws about honoring your moms and dads. And you know what we end up doing? We end up playing a game of follow-or-forget. That's what we end up doing. I just want to read a few of these laws from Leviticus 19. You don't have to yell it out, but in your mind, ask yourself the question, is this something I follow? Or is this something I forget?
Verse three says we are to respect our parents. Well, I really appreciate it when my sons follow that one. Don't you? Don't worship idols. I follow that one. Verse five through eight has proper protocols when sacrificing a fellowship offering. I'm not even sure I know what a fellowship offering is. So how do I follow that one? At harvest time we are not to reap all the way to the edges of the fields. How many farmers do that anymore? I had a garden at times in my life, and I'll be honest with you. I picked every single piece of fruit and vegetable out of that garden. I didn't leave any. I didn't leave any. Though shall not steal. Well, I really appreciate that, when others follow that, especially when it comes to my possessions. Not lie. Not curse a person who is deaf or trip a person who's blind. I think those are good things to follow, don't you? Don't spread slander, love your neighbor, and don't wear clothing woven of two different kinds of material. I wonder how many of us are violating that one this morning? There are prohibitions on cutting your hair and trimming your beard. There is also the admonition to not get a tattoo.
It also instructs us to not make our children into prostitutes. I think we would follow that, don't you? But there is another one that says you are to stand in the presence of an elder. It's not an elder, like a church elder, but like an elderly person. If an elderly person walks in the room, you are supposed to stand up and give them honor. How many of you follow that? And the question that ends up happening is we start playing this game of follow-or-forget, don't we? We follow some of them and we forget others. We also do this. And what ended up happening with me is I got tired of reading all of those laws, and I thought I'm going to go to the big ones, the Ten Commandments. I'm just going to focus on the Ten Commandments and not these other less commandments. But I found myself playing follow-or-forget with the Ten Commandments. Well, what do you mean Brian? Well, the way God gave instruction to observe the Sabbath I wasn't doing.
Jacque: Sabbath is our biggest workday.
Brian: Yeah. And the Sabbath is actually Saturday. How many really actually practice the Sabbath as instructed by God in Exodus and through Deuteronomy and Leviticus?
Jacque: Well, that's the day to get everything done for Sunday.
Brian: That's the day we get everything done. Then there was the commandment about not making a graven image or any likeness of God. Well, there were just flat too many nice pictures of Jesus that I like to give that one up. I'll be honest with you. There are some really good artists out there that painted some really nice images of Jesus in heaven and what they thought God might be like. At the end of the day, even when I looked at the Ten Commandments, how Jesus looked at them, that he actually said, if you have hatred in your heart towards someone, you've actually committed murder, if you look upon a woman to lust, you've committed adultery. If you are actually not honest on your tax returns, you are stealing. Woo. All I needed was a boat ride on Lake Minnetonka to covet my neighbor's house.
I'll be honest with you. The more I focused even on the Ten Commandments, the more I started to feel condemned. And then I came across this really, really interesting verse that kind of jumped out at me. It's amazing I hadn't seen this for years. In 2nd Corinthians 3: 6-9, we see this really revealing portion of scripture. Let's read that.
Jacque: He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
Brian: Let me just stop there for a second. It doesn't say that we went to this training institute, this seminary, this I got this degree and now I'm a competent minister of the New Covenant. It says he has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant. It's not a covenant of the letter of the law, but of the spirit. Now go on. This next phrase is very important.
Jacque: Now, if the ministry that brought death—
Brian: Ooh, wonder what that is. This ministry that brought death—
Jacque: Which was engraved in letters on stone.
Brian: So what was engraved on letters in stone? The Ten Commandments. So here is the apostle Paul describing this incredible engagement of God with the nation of Israel, where God takes his finger and writes the Ten Commandments on stone. And I've thought about that day, many times in my life. And I've come to this conclusion. That was one of the saddest days in human history. And I'll tell you why. Because his people that he had called to bring the love of God to the rest of the world had become so out of it, so not with God's agenda, so disconnected, great word, from what God wanted, that he actually had to write down, don't kill each other. Don't sleep with your neighbor's wife. If your neighbor has a nice wagon, don't steal it. That's how lowly the nation of Israel had become that they actually needed the Ten Commandments to be written on stone for them to look at, so they would know how to behave.
Jacque: I like the illustration you give about marriage.
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: Yes. That if I had to write down every way that you needed to treat me all the time and you needed to keep checking the laws, but that it didn't come out of your heart of love for me.
Brian: That's right. And God had a whole different plan. He had a plan that it's not that he doesn't care if we kill each other. Obviously, he cares about that, but he wants our response to him to come from our hearts, from a transformed heart. Let's go on.
Jacque: I'll start at that part.
Brian: Now, if the ministry—
Jacque: Now, if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was—
Brian: Okay. Let's pause there. So God gives the Ten Commandments. Paul calls the Ten Commandments the ministry of death. And yet it was such an incredible event. Moses' face shines so brightly that he has put a veil on it. He also describes it as a transitory glory because it wasn't the ultimate. Let's go on.
Jacque: Will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?
Brian: Yes.
Jacque: If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness?
Brian: So here in this last verse. If the ministry, which was the Ten Commandments and the law of God, if the ministry that brought condemnation. Because when I look at the Ten Commandments, oftentimes I look at— golly, I'm just not doing all this. I do covet some of those homes out on Lake Minnetonka. I try to guard my eyes, but in our culture today it's everywhere. The opportunity for lust is everywhere. I try my best to cover my eyes, to not look on things that I shouldn't be looking at, but sometimes there is no alternative where you are going.
Jacque: You just have to shut your eyes.
Brian: You’ve got to shut my eyes. I need a white cane to walk around. I understand why David said, oh, how I loved thy law. It's my meditation day and night. David had a clue. David actually had a New Testament experience in the Old Testament, because he was saying take not thy Spirit from me. He understood. The ways of God are good. Don't get me wrong. But when you are lost, the only thing the law does is condemn you. It's all it does. The only thing the law does is condemn you. There is nothing in the law that can save you. Once you've broken the law, there is nothing that you can do to unbreak that law. If the wages of sin is death and we've all broken the law, then we all are under this curse of death. So then the question I ask is, why would any of us want to heap more laws on us and think that somehow that's going to bring freedom? Freedom doesn't come from having more rules and more regulations and more laws whether we believe they are from God or whomever. Freedom comes from releasing ourselves into the hands of Jesus and coming with his mercy and his grace.
And so he says here, if this ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, and there was glory that came with it because God was part of it, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness? What is that ministry that brings righteousness? Gritting your teeth harder and trying harder? No, it's getting closer to Jesus. We need more Jesus. Even in our worship this morning, you started, and I thought, well, I'm going to camp on this for a little bit. We need more and more and more of you, Jesus. We need more of you, Jesus. We need more of Jesus.
Jacque: His Spirit at work in us, cleansing us, healing us, leading us, guiding us.
Brian: So even as wonderful as the Ten Commandments are and Cecil B. DeMille's movie was as wonderful as it was, Paul still defines the Ten Commandments as the ministry that brought death. And I tell you what, I'm tired of death. I want life. I want life. I want life. And so Jesus ushered in this new covenant. And he ushered in what we can call the age of the spirit. The spirit bringeth life. The letter bringeth death; the spirit bringeth life. But the problem with us and our habits is that the new covenant has become contaminated because we've dragged so much of the old covenant with us. We keep saying, we’ve got to do that, we’ve got to obey that law, obey that, obey that law. And here's the thing my friends. If you think you have to obey the laws of God, then you have to obey them all. You have to obey them all.
Jacque: If you live by that.
Brian: If you live by that. If that's how we are going to live, if that's how we are going to treat people, well, you got to do this, you got to do that — it's like churches have become country club0,s where you qualify for membership. But membership in the kingdom is, Jesus gives us a place to belong. And then we just come to him, and we start walking with him and we follow him. We just follow wherever he takes us. It's not about the laws. It's not about all of the rules. It's just following him and loving him and wanting to be with him. Sometimes he will lead you to a place where you might have thought you'd be contaminated by going there. That's what happened with Jesus and the woman at the well. The disciples came later, they were shocked. He was talking to a woman, and not only a woman, that Samaritan woman who was going to defile him. Don't we have a lot to unlearn? Don't we? Don't we have a lot to unlearn? And here's the thing. Did any of the commandments ever bring life with them?
Did they? No. One of things they brought, they brought death. That's why Paul calls it the ministry of death, because the commandments exposed where we were.
So on this weekend, where we celebrate and give honor to those who've made it possible for us to live in freedom. That very, very few people around the world really understand. I want to focus on a different kind of freedom today. It's not a freedom that comes from going to war. It's not a freedom that comes from actually passing more laws. It's a freedom that comes from grace, from receiving something we didn't deserve.
A freedom that comes from being able to break free of the bondages that Shawn was talking about earlier, because the love of God compels us. It's the love of God. We are not trying to earn our freedom by attempting to live up to a standard that quite frankly, nobody can live up to. It should have dawned on us when Paul says that all have sin and fallen short of these laws, these standards of God's glory. It should have dawned on us that trying to come up with more rules and more regulations for church membership and everything else just isn't God's way. It's not God's way. But actually, doing the one thing Jesus said: we are to do that's to love one another
Jacque: Love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength.
Brian: That's right.
Jacque: And love your neighbor as yourself.
Brian: I couldn't have said it better.
Jacque: I got that one right. And Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And I always would go back and think of all those books in the Old Testament. Okay, I’ve got to keep all those commandments.
Brian: How do I keep all those commandments?
Jacque: He didn't give us those commandments.
Brian: He says to love him and love your neighbors as yourself. And then Paul later on just comes up with one word. He says love. And they will know.
Jacque: We are Christians.
Brian: By.
Jacque: Our love.
Brian: By our love. I wonder why the world doesn't think at times we are very nice. It's because we actually haven't taken the light of Jesus. What we've done is we've taken a religion. That borrowed parts of Jesus to the world. What we tried to do is get those people to be like us. And those people have looked at us and said, “You look really ugly. And I don't want to be like that.” So what they do is they open themselves up to all sorts of things in the desire to be tolerant and kind and loving, and with Satan working in all of that they fall hook, line, and sinker for all sorts of things that ultimately destroy themselves, but Jesus has a better way.
Jacque: I think sometimes it's hard for Christians to trust Jesus.
Brian: It is.
Jacque: To trust, we think, no, we’ve got to tell them they can't do that. We can't. We got to try to control.
Brian: Their behavior.
Jacque: Yeah, talk about that.
Brian: That's a whole other sermon.
Jacque: God is big enough. God doesn't want any to perish. He loves everyone.
Brian: I can say in one quick synopsis though, what the message would be. It would be this: when Jesus ascended into heaven, he said, I'm going to send the promise of my father, which is Holy Spirit. And we do know that one of the functions of Holy Spirit is the comforter. He is a comforter; we have his presence. But one of the main functions of Holy Spirit today is he will convict the world of sin. The partnership we have with God is that we are to love and encourage people, to tell them that they have value because they've been made and created in the image of God, and that there is freedom waiting for them and Holy Spirit will come and bring conviction to their hearts, whether it's about their behavior, how they think, whatever it might be, what they believe. But when Holy Spirit brings conviction, it's not to pound a person into oblivion; it's to restore them to a place of righteousness.
Jacque: And he seems so much more patient than we are.
Brian: He is a lot more patient than we are. We want to [sound] with people.
Jacque: Okay. You haven't changed yet.
Brian: Yeah. I prayed last night and they are still the same tomorrow. What's going on? But there is a ministry and I'll finish with this. There is a ministry that brings righteousness, and that ministry is the work of the spirit that comes when we yield to Jesus. So I pray, Jesus, that we would be free from religion and that we would be filled with the love of Christ. Lord, help me to see in my life when I'm being loving and when I'm being religious. Help me, Lord, to lay aside and unlearn a lot of that religiosity, that Jesus you came against, and help me, Lord, to have your heart, your compassion, your mercy, that Lord, I would be free from religion. So I could be filled with the love of Christ. Hallelujah. Pastor Robert, would you come, please?
Robert: Praise the Lord. Here you go, Jacque. Galatians 3, one of my favorite segments from Paul. It says old foolish Galatians. We can insert our names in there. Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ's death was made as clear to you, as you have seen a picture of his death on the cross. Let me ask you this one question. Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the Law of Moses? Of course not. You received the Spirit because you believe the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be after starting your new lives in the spirit? Why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it? I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not. It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
Brian: It's pretty clear.
Robert: Pretty clear to me.
Brian: Hallelujah,
Robert: Lord, let us draw closer to Jesus. Lord, as we draw closer to you, the more we become like you, the more we hear from you, the more we are able to be cleansed. Lord, we commit our hearts to you right now, anything that's not like you, Lord. We want you to come and clean it up. Holy Spirit convict our hearts for everything that doesn't line up with your expectation for our lives. We thank you, Lord, that we are able to humbly, but boldly come before you because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross. We don't have to go through rituals or steps or obstacles. We can come running to you and lay at your feet. And you can make us white as snow.
Lord, we don't always get it right. But we thank you that we have an opportunity to turn around, to seek your face and have you put us on the right direction. Lord, we ask you to forgive us for trying to do it our way. We surrender to you, to follow your way. Help us to see you and help us help others to see you. Father, let us be in a place where people see Christ in us, which will compel them to seek out whom we look like. Father, draw near your church once again, your true church that loves you, that follows you, that obeys you, that is a witness in this earth for you, and circumcise our hearts so that we can walk worthy of the calling that you've given us in Christ Jesus, thank you Lord as we place our tender hearts in your hands. We thank you for your molding. We thank you for your healing. We thank you for your cleansing. We thank you for your Liberty and your freedom that comes with Holy Spirit. And we thank you and pray just as David pray, that your Spirit would not leave us. Your spirit would not leave us. Make us more like you, so that we can be a help for others, and in true ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Not that people would be the same, but through you, they would be changed. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Brian: Thank you, Pastor Robert. The greatest place of peace that I find myself in is when I say to the Lord, I give everyone and everything to you and just release my cares and release my concerns whether they be about the church, my life, our family, whatever it might be. I give everyone and everything to you. In doing that, there is a trust that comes with that statement. That he can do a better job of things than I can. I've been praying lately that— I said, Lord, I really don't want to play this follow-or-forget game anymore. I just want to follow you, just want to follow you Jesus. Wherever you lead me, I will follow. Wherever you lead me, Lord, I will follow, to really believe that and say that. You do have to give your heart, don't you? And then you have to trust. But it's so much better than trying to get life from the ministry of death. It's so much better. Hallelujah. Let's lift our hands. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for all of you who are watching on Livestream. We bless you. Don, glad you are among the land of the living. God bless you. Hallelujah. I think we might need to improve our safety around here a little bit. So we'll figure out how to do that.
So God bless you. Thank you for all your work. God be with you Don in the next two months while you travel with Shayna and all of the performances she is going to be doing in different places. And we just bless you as well, Shayna, in your high-flying acts that you do. Hallelujah. So let's raise our hands together. Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you may the Lord make his faces shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may the only thing you follow be the person of Jesus Christ. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thanks for being here today. Jim and Brenda will be serving communion for those of you who want to have communion over here. We will also have people at the altar to pray for you if you have any prayer needs. God bless you. Thanks for being here today.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 7-3-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.