Pastor Robert and TaQuaris Smith
Jacque: That was beautiful. Thank you. I've learned to enjoy it to the last strain of music leaves. Yes. Okay. Just a couple of announcements: Next Saturday is the Ribfest. Are you coming? Okay. He keeps telling me to stand in the middle. I don't like to stand in the middle. Okay.
Brian: Do you know why I'm on the level?
Jacque: Why?
Brian: Because my bubble is in the middle.
Jacque: Okay. Okay. We'll just keep moving on. Okay.
Brian: You didn't know that.
Jacque: I have the mic; you don't. Okay. Rib Fest is this Saturday. It's going to be so much fun. All the details are on our website. I think there’re some handouts here too in the back. Right, Pastor Robert? We are excited. Good food, good fellowship. Bring friends. We are working to have a car show and just... This is going to be a good time to hang out together for a few hours. It's going to be fun. Pastor Robert’s class has gotten so big that it's on livestream now. It's every other week. Yes. So you can go back. If you missed the first week, you can catch it up by going to our livestream on the website, and then it's every other week. So it's this Wednesday night. So excited about that. Afterward, there is going to be communion. I get to serve communion. So come have communion with me after church, and then we always have people praying. That's everything. Kids, you can be dismissed. Pardon me? Oh. Oh, thank you, Linda. That wasn't written here. Okay. Yes.
Brian: Most announcements are not necessarily our announcements.
Jacque: Okay. Very good. If you are going to be a part of the taco night or the Night to Unite, make sure you are signed up with Pastor Robert for the taco serving night and with us for the Night to Unite.
Brian: Tuesday night we have, I think around—I'm not sure how many countries this is a part of, but this Tuesday night we have in Corcoran, Night to Unite, so some of us are volunteering to help with the city. If you would like to join Jacque and I and Pastor Jeff, and a few others, feel free to talk to us after service. You can do that. Then, of course, Pastor Robert is going to be taking a bunch of volunteers to Maple Hill Estate's Mobile Home Park. They do a Taco Tuesday and we are going to be serving tacos there on Tuesday night. So if you would like to get involved with that, we'd love to have you come. It was just about a year ago that Jacque's mom had passed and A.J. came up for Ruby's funeral. Through our dear friend A.J. we got to meet Pastor Robert. It was right about this time that Pastor Robert and I started to meet and discuss his future and our future. I guess sometimes you can just say and the rest is history.
One of the things that Pastor Robert had said to me when we were talking to him is how he loves to teach the word of God. Robert is a very good teacher and we are so excited about the opportunity for him to teach the Building Blocks of the Faith class. Like we said, we were going to zoom it and have people meet here, but they got too many people for that class. So we are live streaming instead. I just got word the other day that people who know people who know people are inviting more people to come to the livestream to watch the class, who aren't actually part of Hope Community Church. But who knows? Maybe they wll become part of our online community. That's why we do this. So our online community keeps growing. We are so thankful for that. We welcome all of you who are watching today by Livestream. We have a special message today from Pastor Robert and TaQuaris. So let's give them another Hope Community Church welcome. We love you guys. We are so thankful for your ministry here. I'm so thankful for the day that God brought me you. Hallelujah. That sounds like a romantic song, right? Well, I love Robert. That's okay. God bless you, girl.
Robert: Praise the Lord. Love you too. It was love at first sight. How about that? Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. I do want to do just one housekeeping thing. We still have room for signup for help at the Ribfest for volunteers. So Pat, my fateful friend, staff member, colleague, fishing partner, all of the above. He has some clipboards that he wants to pass around. Because we want to make sure we have adequate volunteers for this Saturday, because we will be working to make sure it's good for you, and we want everyone involved as much as possible. So thank you. Thanks, Pat, for that. Praise the Lord. Well, I'm excited again... Always excited for sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and sharing insights from scripture. I'm very excited because I have my life partner with me, my beautiful bride who inspires me every day, not just with her beauty because I tell her every day she is beautiful. But she inspires my spirit.
She inspires me to be who I am, all that I am in God. With the many challenges and transitions I've gone through over the last few years, I wouldn't pick a better partner than her. So I'm glad and excited to bring forth the word again with her. As I always say, we got work to do. Amen. If we reflect on where we are today, meaning our individual lives, or better yet if we assess the summation of our lives, we will realize that we are where we are because of the choices we made. If we take a look at those choices, then we'll determine or reflect upon the motivation for those choices because every choice has a motivation. We don't just do something just to do it. There is a reason why we make the choices that we make. If we look at the motivations and we look at the choices that we made, then we will see the reality is we now live in the consequences of those choices.
A major thing that we were blessed with from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the ability to now choose to live a life that's pleasing to God, or we have the choice to live a life that's dominated by our sinful desires. Yes, if you are in Christ, you now can choose to live this life to live right before God or not. Again, the choices that we make are motivated by something though. Outside of Christ, our choices are motivated by unrestrained sinful desires that aim to please and comfort our flesh. I'm going to talk about flesh a little bit later. However, to be in Christ is to be led by the Spirit. That's what we want to talk about today. To be in Christ is to be led by the Spirit. Now that I'm in Christ, the things that I do are no longer motivated by the comforts of this flesh. I like the way the word puts it. I always love the way the words put it. I can't put it any better than the words. So let's take a look at Romans 8:5-6.
TaQuaris: Those who are dominated by the simple 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.
Robert: Life and peace. That's what Jesus came to give us, life and peace. Remember Jesus said, "I came to give you life and life more abundantly. The peace of God that surpasses all understanding should guard your heart and your mind." This is what Christ died for you and I to have an abundant life, a peaceful life. But there is one thing that gets in the way--it can get in the way of having this abundant life and this peace of mind. It's what I like to call the flesh. I want to give just a brief definition of the flesh. So we hear this term quite a bit. Adam and Eve sinned against God and got corrupted. This act of sinning and rebelling against God corrupted what God created to be good. So we talk about the fall of Adam. If anybody was in the first class and the Building Blocks of Faith, we laid this foundation about the fall of mankind through Adam. The end result of sin is a nature often referred to as the flesh in scripture. This is describing something that its nature opposes God and seeks sinful gratification. Galatians 5:19-21 says this.
TaQuaris: When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your results are very clear. Sexual morality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Robert: Galatians chapter five is one of my favorite passages in the New Testament, especially in Galatians. I always get a kick out of it because whether we speak about the works of the flesh or we read about the fruits of the Spirit, which are in the same chapter. This is nothing with my wife. We read these lists so fast. We get through these, especially when it comes to the ones on the flesh, we read these things so fast. What I want is for us to slow down a bit, because there’re some very keywords in this passage. It says that--it didn't say we are going to have to seek and search and find and try to find when someone that's acting in their carnal fleshly nature. It said it is what? Very clear. In other words, it's very obvious. It's very clear. King James says, "They are made manifest."
That means it is visual for our eyes to see very clearly when we or someone else is acting fleshly. Then it gives the list... Partial list. Well, Apostle Paul probably knew this was about as much as we can stomach at one time. It's very clear when we act according to our sinful nature to gratify this flesh. As I was praying about it, we were talking about this message, praying about it, it's like, why would we… This is a great community of believers. Why would we bring a message talking about the flesh in such a great community of believers? Because as a shepherd, I have a heart for people and the states of where the body is. Lately, I have seen the struggles in such a community like this with people who are in dire straits, who are dying physically and spiritually, whose lives are broken, marriages are broken, quite simply because they have heated to the comfort of their flesh and not led by the Spirit of God.
As the Apostle Paul was giving a warning to the church at Galatia, Pastor Robert and TaQuaris are giving a warning to this church that we love, Hope Community Church. If you give into your sinful nature, your fleshly desires to comfort this flesh, the Bible is very clear about what happens to you. There is nothing good that comes from it. There is death of all kinds. Metaphorically and literally there is death. There is only death that comes from it. There is destruction. I often have counseled people over the years, "Do not take lightly your flesh."
TaQuaris: Amen. That's right.
Robert: Do not trust your flesh. It has very strong desires and cravings. One of the missteps that we've made as a church. We all have, every church, every community, and every believer has their pet sins. Don't get quiet on me. We all have our pet sins that we like to put banners up about our pet sins, and we focus on our pet sins. But as Pastor Brian alluded to early, this list of the fleshly works is a long exhaustive list. There are many sins outside of our pet ones that get us in a whole lot of trouble when it becomes unrestraint when it becomes unchecked. If I, in my relationship with my wife, would not check my sinful nature, this flesh, I might talk to her in a way that's not very kind and pleasing. But some people make the mistake of putting that on the scale versus some other sin and saying, that's a lesser sin than let's say if I committed adultery to her. But I say, it's still a grave sin against her because as her husband I am supposed to represent Jesus Christ.
As the head of the church, I'm supposed to be that representation in this marriage, which the Bible tells me to wash her and to cleanse her with the word of God. If I'm yelling and screaming and demeaning to her, I don't think I'm doing my job as God has called me to do as a husband that's in the Spirit. In the flesh, I cannot care about the things that come out of my mouth toward my wife or any other person in a relationship. We have to be careful what the motivation is and how we act with people, and how we treat people. So the scripture says when you follow. The keyword here is ‘follow.’ That means you have a choice. You'll hear other terms later on like: lead, if you allow, if you let, if you do. These words indicate a choice. So you have a choice.
People often ask me as I teach classes when we talk about sin and the sinful nature, "What's the difference between someone that is saved and unsaved? If you say that we all sin, we all fall short, we still sin. Then what's the difference between us a saved one, and a sinner?" I've come to the revelation, it’s choice. As a sinner, they don't have... As someone that is outside of Christ, they don't have the Spirit of God in them. They are what the scripture talks about, being a slave to sin. They are dominated by sin. They don't have the choice but to obey that sinful nature.
TaQuaris: They don't even have a conviction.
Robert: That's the key right there. Because we as believers, those who follow Christ, we have the Holy Spirit. Who's one of the jobs is to convict us of sin so that we can repent and we are sorrowful for the things that we do wrong or that we sin against God and against our fellow man. If we sin as a believer, then that means we made the choice to sin. We made the choice because we have this gift of God that lets us know that's not the way that he wants us to go. He is given us an outline in his word as to how we should now live. As the Apostle Paul talks about walking worthy of this calling, this great calling, because as pastor talked about earlier, it was God who reached out to us. As Jacque talked about, it was God who reached out to us. When we were yet sinners, God came to us, he still pursued us. So, if we owe anything to God, it’s to walk according to how he would want us to do and he gave us the model that was Jesus, who we talked about in our class. Students that were there, you remember.
We had a first example that missed the mark and that was Adam. So we've been translated from sons of Adam to the sons of God by way of Jesus Christ, who we call the second Adam. He showed us the way, how to have this reciprocal, loving relationship with our creator. He gives us the way to go. Pastor Jeff and Cheryl are talking about the ways of Jesus, the way of Jesus. He showed us the way. He is our model. He is our plum line. He is our measure. If we have any doubt about how we should be, how we should act, or how we should treat, look at the life of Jesus. Look at the words that are spoken through him, for him, on behalf of him. He is the word. He is the living manifestation of God in our lives. He is the example and he is the way to go, and he has given us the way to go, choices. We have choices. I can choose whether to yell and scream at my wife or not. If I choose to do that, that's gratifying me, my flesh, which I should not do.
TaQuaris: Our choices are motivated by our love for God. It's all about a relationship. You love God, so you want to transform and be transformed into his image. You love God. So you want to like Jacque said, be in his presence and let him sing over you because you love him that much. So it doesn't mean that we are not going to make mistakes. Right? Thank God that we are not condemned now. Therefore, there is no condemnation to what? Those who are, keyword 'in Christ Jesus.' Though, you have to be in Christ Jesus, which means that speaks of relationship. When I was going over this with my husband, what came to mind was the fact that God didn't make us robots. One of the blessings that we have is free choice, free will. Do you know why?
Because he wants to know that we love him. That's the thing because it's about relationship. He doesn’t want to force us to do his will. He wants us to do his will because we love him. But like I said, we are going to make some mistakes. A righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up. It didn't say unrighteous. So we are righteous through Christ. So we are going to make mistakes, but we going to... We love God, so we are going to be repentive, asking God to forgive us daily, even for things that we don't know, just because we just want to be right with God. So that's our motivation. It's love.
Robert: So the Bible tells us what the flesh looks like. It said it's very clear. We won't be scratching our heads to know if Pastor Robert is in the flesh today. The Bible says it's very evident. It's very clear. But beyond it, beyond those giving into that sinful nature or those fleshly desires, there are some big consequences of giving into that fleshly nature. Galatians 6: 7 and 8.
TaQuaris: Don't be misled. You cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.
Robert: We thank God for his grace and mercy. We thank him--we should thank him every day for his grace and mercy. In that grace and mercy comes redemption and forgiveness of our sins. But there is one principle that we cannot get around and that's sewing and reaping. We can't get around sewing and reaping. We can be forgiven, but we reap the consequences of our choices. Thank God he can even take those bad consequences and work them out for our good. The scripture tells us that's good. So even though we are giving you a warning, there is still good news. That's what I love about an authentic representation of the word. It's not just telling us that we did wrong. God doesn't say, "You did wrong, I'm punishing you now.” You are condemned and you are thrown away. He says, "No, you are condemned, you were wrong. Here is the consequences if you are wrong. Now, what are we going to do going forward?" That's the beauty, especially in our new covenant relationship with God. Thank God we are not under the law because a lot of times breaking the law the immediate consequence was immediate death or losing a limb or some kind of loss. You definitely had to walk around and look at the consequences of your mistakes or people witnessed your demise.
But there are consequences that should motivate us, which gets back to the law of love, so to speak. That if we love our neighbor as ourselves, then we have a motivation for restraint because our sinful nature will be tested every single day. What's keeping you from being on the news as the one that pulled the trigger, because someone cut you off at the stoplight? What's keeping you from being that headline? Because the one that is in the headline either didn't have the restraint or bypassed that restraint and manifested a work of the flesh. I like to give you real-world examples when we apply the word because we get so spiritual that this word is applicable to our everyday living--should be. If it's not, let's start today to bring the application of this word to where we live every day. Because it's these things that where we live every day that are destroying people. It's destroying people's lives because of the lack of care of attention to these fleshly deeds that mount up. I always tell people the more you sew in the flesh, the more you are going to reap in the flesh. The more you sow in the Spirit, the more you reap spiritual things; life, liberty, and all those things that we want to have. You can't sew in the flesh and think you are going to reap in the Spirit.
TaQuaris: That's right. Amen.
Robert: It doesn't work that way and vice versa. It doesn't work that way. So thank God there is a way that we can overcome this flesh. There is an overcoming of this flesh. An authentic relationship with God and Christ is one that continues to recognize the need for repentance in our lives. One of the things that I don't want us to miss in our messages. We have this tension in the church between law and grace, and it probably will be there for some while until we get it right. We can either fall on the super law ditch or the super grace ditch. I think the truth is somewhere there in the middle because if we have a complete understanding of what Jesus taught, Jesus didn't come to do away with the law. He didn't say, "I came to do away with it." He came to what? Fulfill. Sadly though, I don't think we as a church, as a whole understand what that means. Keep coming to Building Blocks of Faith. We'll get there. We will expand that out.
But in the context of what we are talking about today, that... God is not pleased, whether God has grace for you or not. God is not pleased with you being in idolatry or sorcery or quarreling or jealousy or adultery or impurity or lustful, and the list goes on. Right? But he gives you the example of Jesus Christ and how to deal with it, right? So it's not okay to do those things, but thank God in Jesus, that's not the end of the story. So because of Jesus Christ, because of his sacrifice, we have the ability to recognize the wrongs that we do and we something about it. We have the ability to repent in our hearts so that we have the proper heart exercise so that we don't repeat the same things over and over again. I always like to tell people there is a difference between committing an act and living a lifestyle.
TaQuaris: That's right.
Robert: As long as we live in this flesh, we are prone to certain things from time to time. But as believers, we need to grow into maturity so that that does not describe our lifestyle, that our lifestyle is not given over to pleasing the comforts of our flesh. Don't make the mistake either to say that because you are a believer you don't have to worry about that. 1st John says it better.
TaQuaris: If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
Robert: I don't think God is a liar. I think he knows the wickedness of our hearts and I think he has given us the way to overcome it. If you mess up, repent. Be repentant. Well, let me put it this way. When you mess up--
TaQuaris: Because we all are going to.
Robert: --repent and let God do some heart surgery on you to change your heart so you don't make the same mess up. Does that sound like a plan? Let's face it. I don't care who you are. We all face this same battle. There is a battle that rages on because we are still in this earthly vessel that likes to be comforted and it's many ways that it likes to be pleased. But thank God in Christ, we have the Spirit that gives us the power to overcome the flesh. An authentic, and I keep saying the authentic because we want to drive home the idea of being transparent before God and having a relationship with him that's raw and real. You can hide from some of us, but you can't hide from God.
TaQuaris: That's right.
Robert: He knows your inner thoughts. He knows your inner working. So you can't out-maneuver and out slick God, he knows you. So just be real with him. Just be real with him. Well, pastor, how does that look? Okay. “God, I have a problem with pride, but I don't want it. So help me when I have those tendencies and those setups for pride to rear up its ugly head, help me.” Not saying, "Oh, I don't have no pride." I think pride just manifested there. God, you are so...
TaQuaris: The beauty of this and the gift is the Spirit of God. The Bible says that we can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength. Sometimes even myself, sometimes people can take you there, right? I don't know if any of you guys ever experienced that, but I'm going to keep it 100. I have. My flesh wants to rise up. Sometimes you just have to take a pause. If you are part of the women's planning committee, you know about the pause. So sometimes really you have to take a pause and meditate on the word of God, so your flesh won't rise. The beauty of it is the Spirit of God, that dominating, that dunamis power that lives inside of us, we all have it, will give us the strength to do it because that's what the word says. We are going to fall short, but really it's in the motivation of wanting to do better really. God, as I said, he is not going to force us. He is just not. It doesn't please him to force us to be obedient. Like you love your parents and your children, your best friend, and people that are close to you, God wants you to love him more. He wants us to conform to his image because we are heirs of the kingdom. We are his children.
Robert: So an authentic discipleship in Christ involves continual repentance of missteps and sin and to live a daily life of drawing closer to Jesus so that we are molded into his image. Galatians 2:20.
TaQuaris: My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
Robert: I think that was the last song we sang. It said, "I don't want to go back to my old life. I don't want to go back to my old life." So there is a daily that says, "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It has been nailed to the cross so that I no longer live, but it's Christ who lives in me." The only way that we can stay true to that verse is that there is a deliberate daily, intentional putting to death the deeds of the flesh and allowing our lives to be led by the Spirit. The Spirit is always there to draw you into the things of God to lead you in the right path. He is always having a beacon of light, a pathway of light, a pathway of righteousness so that we can make the right choices. But we have to make the choice to listen to that voice, to listen to the Spirit, to tell our flesh to die. Because sometimes that flesh can rise up with a loud voice and it's like, forgive me for the secular example, but it just came to me. "Feed me Seymour. Feed me." Right. Does anybody know that reference?
TaQuaris: Little Shop of Horror.
Robert: "Feed me, Seymour. Feed me." Those who get it, you get it. But that's what your flesh says to you all the time, "Feed me, feed me, feed me," and you have to say, "No." More than say, "No," you got to kill it. It doesn't understand a slap on the wrist. You got to kill that thing. You got to crucify it daily. Daily, because sometimes, a lot of times it's a slow death. You think you are getting away for a while, but it's just building up to destroy you. To destroy your relationships. Kill that thing right as soon as you see it. That's why I said authentic, we got to be honest with ourselves. I just took a little glance. The little glance is not going to hurt me. Then that glance turns into a thought. Then that thought turns into a series of thoughts, and those series of thoughts turn into pondering and wondering, "What if?" and fantasy. Then all of a sudden, the situation is conducive to giving into that fantasy. Then you fall and you say, "How did I get here?" Because you didn't kill that thing when it first showed its head. We all have those little foxes that come up, but we got to kill it as soon as we see it. We can't let it fester. Go ahead.
TaQuaris: When you were saying it, I was thinking of a person driving a car and Satan is in the backseat and just saying things and trying to control you. If you don't kill it, the next thing you know, he is going to be in the passenger seat right next to you. If you don't kill it, then guess what? He is going to take over and start driving and he going to put you in the trunk of the car.
Robert: That's about it. Let us move on. As believers, we know better, or at least we should know better. Galatians 5:24 says.
TaQuaris: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.
Robert: As Christ's disciples, we have to be led by the Spirit in our daily walk and in the daily decisions that we make. Before I go more, let's read Galatians 5:16 -18.
TaQuaris: So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. The Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
Robert: There're a couple of things in this scripture. Again, this is one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible. Another key word here is 'let' which indicates choice. It says, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. So the Holy Spirit is not going to force anything upon you, but the Holy Spirit is going to always give you that prompting to what's best for you. We have to allow, we have to let, we have to choose to listen to the leading of that spirit voice. We keep saying, "Be led by the Spirit." It is more profound, more important than most Christians realize. I believe it's at the core of understanding Christ's fulfillment of the law. A spirit-led life is not motivated by external dues and don'ts. Rather it is a life that has allowed the Spirit of God to transform its heart and therefore chooses to do God's will, rather than please the flesh which does not please God. So when you are under the direction of the Spirit which has a transforming effect on your heart, I don't need a law to tell me that I shouldn't cheat on my wife.
If I allow the Spirit of God to take hold of me and Christ to take hold of me, I don't need a law to tell me not to steal gas at the gas station because I live by the law of the Spirit of God. I live by God's law of love that says that I don't wrong anyone, I don't defraud anyone because I have love for my neighbor, and I love God with every part of my being. God is holy. So all that put together is my motivation to do the things that I do or don't do the things that I don't do. The problem is that as my spirit man understands this, I'm not freed from this physical earthly vessel yet, which is hardheaded. I have to constantly remind it that I'm not Robert 30 years ago. That Robert has been redeemed. His nature has been reformed and one day I'm going to escape from you, body, physical flesh, and all your ailments and all your cravings and all your lust and all your desires and you-want-to-be-comfort and all this. I'm going to escape from you. But the Lord hasn't called that time to be yet. So we are going to encamp together, but you are not driving the car.
TaQuaris: Amen.
Robert: I don't just tell it to shut up. It's like, "You go away, you get out of here. The Holy Spirit is dominating this car." As Paul says, I'm not a slave to my sinful nature. I'm a slave to Christ, meaning that I'm under whoever... Whomever you are a slave to is who you obey. If you are a slave to sin, you are going to obey sin. If you are going to be a slave to Christ, you are going to obey Christ. Amen. Thank God for his forgiveness, but he is never pleased in the deeds of our flesh. We could never please God, in our fleshly nature. Thank God that through Christ, we don't have to be. Plain and simple. We don't have to; we don't have to be. That's your good news today. You don't have to be. You are not stuck under the strong hand of sin. Christ took care of that.
TaQuaris: It doesn't mean that you don't deal with things of the sinful nature because that's part of the soulish realm. What it means is you have the Spirit of God living inside of you that will give you the strength to obey Christ and that's... I want you guys to ponder on that this week. Because I know this message can make you a little bit uncomfortable. Right. But sometimes that is really good because God prunes those he loves. Like Pastor Brian was saying earlier, let's be thankful for what God is doing in the future. He is doing something new within all of us. Part of that newness is drawing closer to God. It's okay because we are getting out of the way of what God really is about to do. Something is going to explode. So he want us to be different and set apart and we never arrived. We never arrived. We always want to continue to strive to be better, to be closer to God. I was praying this week and I was like, God, like David said, "Create in me the clean heart and renew the right spirit in me."
We were going over this week. Is this okay? I don't want to take over. As we were going over this, honestly, I was going through some tough times this week, where I could have really acted in the flesh. Some of the things, if I told you, you would be like, "Wow." But the Spirit was there when I was going through it. I thank God for that because if it wasn't trust me. TaQuaris would've been in the flesh. So I take no credit. I'm so grateful because at the end of the day I want to be a light. I want to be the salt. I want to be an example for those who are in the world that don't know God. We are supposed to be different. We can't look and sound like the world. That's the reality because, how are they going to tell you apart? We are in this world, but we are not of this world. We have to be reminded daily who we are in Christ, that our identity is in the Lord and we love him. So things do matter. We thank God for his grace, but we always want to be transformed daily. God, I just want you to kill my flesh. I want to be closer. Draw me closer to you, Lord. Even things that I don't know, renew my mind. Give me the mind of Christ, Father, in the name of Jesus.
Robert: We got one last scripture, Romans 8:7-10.
TaQuaris: 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. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit. If you have the Spirit of God living in you. I'm going to say that again. Hope Community Church is not controlled by the Spirit of our simple nature. We are controlled by the Spirit of God that's living in us. Remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all. Christ lives within you. So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God
Robert: Also, a reminder. Those that are outside of Christ, we can turn up our noses and look at them like, "Why are they behaving that way?" Because they don't have the Spirit of Christ. So it's important for us as believers, as we carry the Spirit. The Bible says, "Our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. If you look at that analogy, the temple was something that in the Old Covenant carried the presence of God. People from all over would make a pilgrimage just to come to the temple to worship God. So the temple was always considered a light to the nations. All the nations would come to make this pilgrimage. Those that believed in the one, true God would come and make a pilgrimage to come to the temple and be drawn to it, to worship God. But now in the New Covenant, as Christ has fulfilled all things, now as we have Christ in us, we are the temple of God. There is no longer a physical temple to draw all men, but we are temples that walk around that are to draw men unto Christ. There is not much drawing to Christ when we don't walk in the Spirit.
That may seem like a lot of pressure. But the reality is that when we act in our flesh, we are not great ambassadors of that light. So what I'm saying is to walk more in the light, walk less in the flesh. That's all. Walk more, because there are times we will have an occasion to the flesh. Let's hurry up and get out of it and get back in the Spirit. Because not only is your life dependent on it, other people's lives are dependent on us. They are looking at us. Sometimes we are people's--a lot of times we are people's first encounter with Christ before they ever walk into a building. Before they ever walk into a building, they see you. What representation are we going to give them? Jacque, we talked about the challenge. It's good for us to be deliberate in our challenges. So I'm going to give a challenge that in our daily prayer we ask God to use us, to have someone—some ones drawn to us and let us be light to them and let us pass the test. In other words, Lord, I want to be used by you today. Not just in the easy cushy situations, but in the tough place.
Let us shine for you because it's not in the cushy places that we often fall to the desires of our fleshly nature. It's in those tough rough places. You say, "Well, what if I don't pass the test? What if I mess up?" Well, that's the beauty of our relationship with God. When we are true and real and authentic, we can ask God to redeem that situation. I don't know how many times I've been in a situation, where I would say lack of a better word, Paula, “My flesh prevailed.” That I repented before God because my heart was sorrowful that I may or may not have been a stumbling block for someone else. Because I was honest and transparent before God, God was able to turn that situation around because I came back and was accountable for my choice in that situation. Because of that... Here is a sad indictment for us, Pastor Brian. This person has said that they have never seen a pastor come back and say that they were wrong and that they were sorry and asked for forgiveness. We got a long way to go. Because I did that, God was able to turn that situation around and bring healing to that situation. You are not by yourself. You don't have to do this thing by yourself. You just walk with the Lord, and he'll help you out in those situations. Do you have something?
TaQuaris: Yeah, I was going to say sometimes it's good to have someone that can hold you accountable. But it can't just be anybody. They have to be a person that you really trust, that's a safe place, because some people unfortunately can be very judgmental, very self-righteous, and that's part of the problem with the body of Christ. People don't want to come to us or reveal anything because the first thing we are going to do is look at them crazily and judge them. But we have to love our brother. It would be such a wonderful experience if I can go to my sister, Tammy, like "Tammy, I really need your prayer. I'm being tried. I want to go off on this person. Just really pray for me so I can stay in the Spirit." And she says, "You know what, TaQuaris I got you. I'm going to keep you lifted up in prayer."
But it's those things and those situations that matter. We have to love and be transparent with each other, not judgmental, not self-righteous, so we can come together when we need each other. That's what we are here for to uplift each other. The Bible says, "The strong bear the infirmities of the week." That is something to really keep in mind right now. We have to be transparent and real because the world is crazy right now. I don't know if you noticed. It's going to continue to get crazier, but the kingdom of God— God is doing something mighty, and we are those people. Many are called, but few are chosen. Why? I wonder why? Think on that. Why is it that only a few are chosen?
Robert: That's it? Let's pray. Dear heavenly father, we thank you that you would love man so much that you would desire to come and dwell in us. Even in these earth and vessels, we are allowed to carry such a treasure of the life of Christ with us. Lord, as you continue to shape us to the image of your son. We pray that we will continue to allow your voice, your spirit, to guide us in our lives, and in our daily decisions with the choices that we have to make. Lord when we don't get it right, let not shame, fear and condemnation grip us to deceive us into thinking that that's the end of the story, because it's not the end of the story. It's not the good news that came through Jesus Christ. Lord, we want to have an ever-increasing growth in our personal walk with you. Not for competition, not to be at some kind of rank, but so that you can consume us more.
So that the more that I get close to you, the less that I'm there, because it's all about you, Jesus. I want to be a walking manifestation of the fruit of what God's love was meant for. Less of me and more of Christ in me. Give me the ability to discern as you deal with the hearts of men. Give me the grace and the patience to navigate through fleshly encounters, to bring life into the situation because of your spirit. Thank you for Hope Community Church as we look forward to the future, to be examples of the true church of Jesus Christ so that we can make a difference in our local community, make a bigger impact in our global community and that we would make the greatest impact in the entire world, one person at a time, with the guidance of your spirit and with our cooperation and our yielding. We look forward to what you have for us in the days to come in Jesus' name. Amen.
Brian: Thank you, Pastor Robert and TaQuaris. God bless you guys, really good. Thank you. As I was listening to this message, I asked the Lord, "What do you want my car to look like? When people are looking at me in my car, what do you want my car to look like?" I felt like the Lord said, "Well, your flesh is always going to be with you until I take you home. So why don't you put that nasty voice in the trunk where it belongs? But your tendency Brian is to want to get behind the wheel and it would be much better if you let Jesus get behind the wheel and you ride shotgun." My tendency is to not just be a back seat driver it's to be a front seat driver too. I keep telling Jesus where he should be taking me. But in the reality, isn't it much better if we just follow where he leads us?
So, Father, I pray again that we would let you drive. We give everyone and everything to you. We give ourselves to you. We give our futures to you. We give our desires to you. We give the things to you, Lord, that are deep in our hearts. We give our families to you, the concerns that we have, the fears that we have, the plans that we have, we give them to you. We yield to you, this God who sings over us with joy. We do say again for the flesh to get in the trunk, his voice isn't nearly as loud there, and we will go where you lead us, where you drive us. We thank you that you invite us to ride with you. What a great life to ride with you. Let's raise our hands together. Now may the Lord bless you, and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face smile upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. May you hear the song of Jesus being sung over your life. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. Have a wonderful day and see you next Saturday at the Rib Fest. God bless you all. Thank you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 7-31-22. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.