Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Pastor Brian: I want to share a message today that I believe is real practical, and yet it has a lot to do in relationship too, even our culture. It has to do with how we view ourselves and how we see ourselves. There is a doctor, his name is Dr. Maxwell Martz. He was a plastic surgeon, and he wrote a book called New Faces Equals New Futures. The book was a collection of case histories of people that he had performed cosmetic surgery on. The book was about how those changes and how somebody looked physically had opened the door to a new life for people. Isn't that what most of us think? Like if I just lost 10 pounds, how much more successful I might be able to be, or how much more approval I might get from other people? Basically, the theme of this book was a personality changes can take place when a person's face is made to look more pleasant or more beautiful.
However, as the years went by, Dr. Martz discovered a very startling fact about all of these case histories that he had written about. He began to see patient after patient who after dramatic cosmetic surgery that changed their appearances dramatically for what we would call the good, it did not change how people viewed themselves. People who were made beautiful by this cosmetic surgery kept on thinking and acting out as though they were still their former selves. I don't know if I want to use the word, they were still ugly, but they just didn't have the beauty that they were promised or they thought they were going to get.
Jacque: And that's how they saw themselves.
Pastor Brian: And that's how they saw themselves. And even though they acquired, shall we say, new faces, they went on wearing the same old personalities. They were the same people. Even though their exterior now had changed, their interior was still the same. Many of these patients would angrily exclaim to the doctor, "I looked the same as before! You didn't change a thing in this surgery that you performed on me." This, in spite of amazing photographs before and after photographs that showed dramatic differences with how they appeared.
Later on, Dr. Maltz wrote a second book, and he titled this book Psycho Cybernetics. I don't know if any of you might know what that means, but in this book, he was still trying to change people. Initially, he was trying to change people by changing their outer appearance. But in this book, he was still trying to change people for the good, but not by giving nose jobs or facial reconstruction, but rather by helping people change the picture they had of themselves, the view that they had of themselves. We call that view self-image. Now, this is not a self-help message, okay? But if a person's image of themselves remains scarred and distorted or ugly, or inferior, then that person will continue to act out what they think of themselves regardless of the change of their physical appearance.
However, if the emotional scars can be removed from a person, then a person can truly be transformed. I'm going to just jump ahead a little bit here, but the fact of the matter is, every single one of us has scars. Every single one of us has had ideas formed in our minds about our values. Some of us have been on the, you know, receiving end of terrible abuse. Anytime someone is abused, that abuser is basically devaluing them. That creates emotional scars. The only real way for those scars to be healed is to come to Jesus. That's the only real way. That's why the message that we have of the gospel, the love of Jesus, that's why this message we have in our hearts is so critical for our world today.
In all of the advertising and promotion to stop bullying, bullying is stopped hardly at all in our culture today. In all of our emphasis and passing laws against prejudice, et cetera, et cetera, prejudice is alive and well in our world today. All of these things create scars in people. The only solution for those scars are the only healing for those scars is a real encounter with Jesus Christ. It would be good to, for us today, here--- I'm just going to take a couple minutes to help us understand what this whole idea of self-image is. Self-image is based on a whole set of pictures and feelings that you yourself have put together over the course of your life based on things that have happened to you and how you think.
Remember the scripture in Proverbs that says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. The thoughts that you have about yourself are going to determine a lot of how you act out the choices that you make. What you think and how you think about yourself is what you will ultimately become. There is an interesting story. We talked about this a little bit at prayer on Thursday night. In Genesis chapter 11, there is a story of the Tower of Babel. Back at that time, all of creation, all the inhabitants of the world, it was post Nohaic flood. They all spoke the same language. They were promoting and conniving evil, and so God looked down upon this situation. I'm paraphrasing, but basically the Lord said, because of their ability to be unified and have one language, anything that they purpose in their hearts to do, they will be able to do.
God then said to slow this spread of evil, I'm going to go down and confuse the languages. He did that so they couldn't communicate well with each other. There is where the word Babel comes from, where nobody made sense to each other. And right at that moment was when they were no longer able to be unified and purpose in their heart to do whatever was evil.
That tells us something about mankind. And that thing is this: when we really come into a place of unity and agreement, how much power there is there. But the thing is, when you come into agreement with lies that have been spoken over you, you give power to those lies. There are three essential components to a healthy self-image. The first is a place of belonging. A real mission that we have here at Hope is to give everybody a place to belong. I grew up in a denomination where it was just the opposite of what I just said. In our denomination, if you believed a certain way and behaved a certain way, then you could belong there. Let me say that again.
If you believed according to this set of doctrinal statements, and then you lived in accordance with certain things, you did these things and you didn't do these things, then we will accept you. You can belong here. But at Hope we've just reversed that. We want to give everybody a place to belong regardless of what they believe and regardless of how they behave. That can be a challenge, can't it? But hopefully, if someone has a place to belong and they are loved unconditionally, in the same way that God loves us, because didn't he love us before we ever believed properly and behaved properly?
Jacque: While we were yet sinners, the scriptures say.
Pastor Brian: Yes, while we were yet sinners. How many of you were living pleasing lives to God and believing all the truth when Jesus first loved you? None of us. None of us, right? What we want to do at Hope is create a place where everybody has a sense of belonging. They are valued. Hopefully, by being valued, they will begin to believe the word of God that we try and teach weekly and daily at hope. And as people begin to believe the Word of God, hopefully they will begin to behave properly. Their lives will come into conformity, to that will of God and that word of God. A sense of belonging is such an important part of having a healthy self-esteem.
Let's read a couple scriptures. The first is found in the Song of Solomon 6:3.
One of the reasons I wanted to do that worship song today, Dance With Me, is because of a couple of these verses that we have. Let's read that, Song of Solomon.
Jacque: Because that song came out of the Song of Solomon. I am fully devoted to my beloved and my beloved is fully devoted to me.
Pastor Brian: Wow! I'm fully devoted to my beloved, and he thinks about me every once in a while. You don't want to be in a love relationship with a spouse or somebody do you that only gives you token attention when your heart is completely devoted to that person. That's a recipe for abuse, isn't it? We see here that in the Song of Solomon 6:3, I'm fully devoted to my beloved, and my beloved is fully devoted to me. That's how love works. Let's go onto the other one, 7:10.
Jacque: And who there is my beloved?
Pastor Brian: Yes. Oh, it's God. It's God. Thank you for asking that question.
Jacque: Maybe not everybody would realize that.
Pastor Brian: Yes, Pastor Jeff does a wonderful teaching on the whole book of Song of Songs. We should have him do a series on that here. He kind of did a mini-series on it a few years back. But we should have Pastor Jeff do that again. This book is very metaphorical in a sense. God is spirit and we are flesh. How many know that it's a challenge to communicate things of the spirit realm into the fleshly realm? It's a challenge. And so what God does is he uses metaphors or things that we can relate to in our humanness, in our earthiness. He helps us understand his love for us that way.
Jacque: I love all the pictures of Jesus would to help us understand spiritual concepts.
Pastor Brian: That's right. Song of Songs, 7:10.
Jacque: I belong to my beloved and his desire is for me.
Pastor Brian: I belong to my beloved. There here is that sense of belonging again, and his desire is for me. Wow, these are two wonderful verses that paint this wonderful picture of God's love for us.
Jacque: Sometimes we just read these as words. Just pause and think about that.
Pastor Brian: That's right. Yeah.
Jacque: God desires me.
Pastor Brian: He wants you.
Jacque: Yes.
Pastor Brian: You are the first one he picked, not the last one. This awareness of being wanted or this awareness of being accepted or cared for or enjoyed, does this thought ever go through your mind that God enjoys being with you? For most of us, it doesn't. Most of us think that God just kind of puts up with us. That's a lie. Yes. That's a distorted image. We are going to talk about that in a little bit. This awareness of being wanted. God wants me. God has accepted me. He cares for me. He enjoys actually being with me even in my fallenness. One of the closest things that I can compare it to is the birth of a child, and this little infant can't do one thing for you other than cause you to not get much sleep, takes all your time cooking, changing diapers, 8, 10, 12 times a day. Some of them are really messy. Isn't that our lives God coming behind us, cleaning up all of our, you know what? And he says he loves being with us. When we had our two, two children, Jackie never once looked down in that crib and said, I just can't wait till you are out of diapers.
Jacque: I might have said it since I was the one that changed the diapers.
Pastor Brian: Yes. I've never heard you say it. Let's put it that way. You may have thought it, but I've never heard you say it, because she loved every stage. And there was a sadness when our children went from having to be carried every place to now they were walking and going on their own. Every stage of life, there was a loss of the previous stage. And there was a little bit of a sadness there because we loved every stage of growth. Our attitude wasn't, uh, call me when you are18 and you got your act together. That's how God is with us. He enjoys being with us.
Jacque: Can I say something? Because I think about like sometimes our children were hardly ever naughty, but you know what, and you could get frustrated and everything, but when they would just come to you in their naughtiness. Oh, so sweet. I think that about God so much. I haven't been perfect. He wants to comfort me in that place and bring me to a better place.
Pastor Brian: That's right. He does. One of the truths of how God has created us and made us is this: if a child is unwanted, rarely will they ever have a sense of belonging. Rarely. That's why if we want to give people a true sense of how God feels about them, sometimes we are the only Jesus they will see. They won't hear the spirit of God speaking to them. They won't see Jesus. The Jesus they see most is us. That's why the picture we paint of Jesus has to be an accurate one, not a distorted one. Personally, I've been in the church my whole life and I feel like the church has painted many distorted pictures of how God is and it has hindered the work of the kingdom.
This coming year, we have a great challenge in front of us. That challenge is to be more like Jesus to those who need Jesus, to paint that better picture of Jesus. I'm so thankful that there is not one person that the Lord does not want. There is not one. There are a lot of people we don't want in our lives. There is a lot of people we don't want to be around and hang out with, but there is not one that God doesn't want to hang out with and be in his life. Every single person is so important to God. Every single person has value to God. They all are very critically important to God. That's why every single person that comes through the doors of this church, that's how we need to treat them. They have value, they matter to God.
A second thing we also have is a sense of worth and value, but this is an inner belief and feeling that I count or I matter, that I am of value, that I have significance. A lot of times if you were raised in a home where you weren't given compliments or you weren't encouraged, you don't have that sense of value, and you've started to believe lies about yourself. There is a third thing, uh, that is important in this whole self-image thing, and that is a sense of competence. Now, you know what? We are all not going to be good musicians, nor will we all be good mathematicians or all good mathematicians or whatever "ticians" there are out there.
But God has given every single one of us a gift, giftings, things that we love to do that we are good at. He made us for these things. When we have the attitude of, I can do this task, or I can cope with this situation, or I'm able to do that, it helps our self-esteem. I like the verse that Paul writes to the Church of Philippi in book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 12 through 13. I want to read this in the passion translation, just because it paints, I think, a broader picture of what this verse actually means.
Jacque: I know what it means to lack, and I know what it means to experience overwhelming abundance for I'm trained in the secret of overcoming all things, whether in fullness or in hunger. And I find the strength of Christ's explosive power infuses me to conquer every difficulty.
Pastor Brian: Isn't that good? What we are more familiar with is I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's how we most of us have memorized this verse. But I like this translation because it says, I find that the strength of Christ's explosive power infuses me. It empowers me to conquer every difficulty. We are all going to have difficulties in our lives, aren't we? Daily, circumstantial, relational. And yet God's power in us can infuse us to do that.
Jacque: We sang that today when we said, pour your spirit out. I put my hand up to catch it. I mean, I need it. Yeah. Pour your spirit into get a bigger my life. Yes. Infuse me with your presence.
Pastor Brian: That's right. Belonging, worthwhileness, and competence, these three are essential components of a healthy self-image. But where do we get those three components from? Most of us get those from wrong sources. There are four sources that actually help us with a sense of belonging or worthwhileness or competence. The first one of these four sources that try to mold our self-image is what I call the outer world. It's your parents, your teachers, your friends, your experiences in your life up to this present time. This outer world basically reflects all the messages that have been sent to you during the course of your life. Some of those messages are just through facial expressions.
I remember having in second grade a substitute teacher. I won't me mention her name, I she might still be alive. I don't know. Mrs. Pribble, that was her name. I had some of the worst teachers' names. Schwartz Bauer, Ursula Schwartz Bauer. Can you imagine giving your child a name like that?
Jacque: She matters to God.
Pastor Brian: She did? Yes. She didn't matter much to me when I was in her English class, though. That's for sure. I should have paid more attention. I would have done better in English.
Jacque: Maybe there is a wound there.
Pastor Brian: There is probably a there, but I still remember in second grade, Mrs. Pribble would put her lips together like this and just kind of frown at you. I still remember it to this day.
person: You need healing.
Pastor Brian: I need healing. But interestingly enough, I had this image of myself that she just hated me because of her facial expression. Then I went back and I helped do a funeral in the town I grew up in, what, 45 years later. She was at that funeral, and she sought me out and she thanked me for being one of the best students she ever had. All those years I had an image of what she thought about me. It was a distorted image. It wasn't the real image. I still have that image in my head of what she looked at me like, and attitudes can be launched in our direction. Can they not? There are actions that are done to us at times that maybe we misinterpret. Sometimes, they don't need any interpretation at all. They are just downright bad.
Jacque: Brian, that just makes me want to just express love through my face to everyone. It just makes me want to be careful.
Pastor Brian: It takes a lot more muscles to frown than it is to smile. We have this outer world. There is also an inner world, kind of our senses, our nerves, our capacity to learn. All of us have different capacities to learn, whether it's music or athletics, mechanically inclined. Some people are good with numbers, like I said. think other people are born at the green thumb. Some people just can make a plant come back to life and others of us can just kill any plant that is there. It's amazing, isn't it?
We have this inner world, and for all of us, this world within does include limits. Some people are born that they don't have all their limbs. For example, some people have been born with the cleft palate and it's harder for them to speak. I was born with a syndrome, at least I was called that. The exact term is called this color perception--
Jacque: Color perception deficiency.
Pastor Brian: Yeah. Thank you. Color perception deficiency syndrome. We call it colorblindness. I'm red-green colorblind. So I can't see colors. I can see that Jackie's wearing a yellow dress. No, but I can see colors; I just don't always know what colors I'm seeing. That's why they call it color perception deficiency. Well, you know what, that limits me. You would not want me to do the electrical wiring in your house. With all those different colored wires. I couldn't be a pilot. They would say land on the green runway and I'd be landing over where all the red lights are. That's a taxi way. What are you doing landing over there? Dave, he's not colorblind because he was a pilot. I know he's not colorblind. They don't let colorblind people become pilots.
We all can have some of these deficiencies. Some of us have been born with, like our cousin Cole, with a heart issue. That affects what he can do physically. He's very small a stature. He's been that his whole life. He's not going to work in pouring concrete. You need to lift a hundred pounds to do that. He doesn't even weigh a hundred pounds. Never mind, he could lift it, right? There are deficiencies that we have in our inner world, and we live in the, this fallen world, and the effects of that fallenness can also affect our self-image, can't it? My sister used to take the color crayons and change the outer paper, so I didn't know what color they were.
Jacque: It's okay. Well, he remembers it.
Pastor Brian: I'm coloring the sky and it's purple, not blue. I hand in my paper to the teacher, and she said, well this is interesting, why is the color in your sky purple? And I wanted to argue with her. It was blue. Of course, I couldn't tell blue from purple. I just went by the name on the crayon. She set me up. We all have these deficiencies, and these deficiencies can affect our self-image and how we view ourselves.
There is a third area that affects our self-image and that is Satan and the forces of evil. That's a huge one, the schemes of the enemy. He's a liar and has been a liar from the beginning. So what do you think he's going to say about you? Yeah, lies.
Jacque: And he says a lot of lies about God. He says a lot of lies about God. And he also says a lot of lies to you about other people. The fourth area, besides your outer world or inner world, and the Satan of the forces of evil. This fourth area is God and his word. This should be the dominant source of what molds us. But I'm fearful today in the healthy sense that is often the last area that we allow God to mold our self-esteem in rather than the predominant area. We let the outer world, we let our own inner world based on our own weaknesses. We let the satanic world be what creates our view of ourselves rather than the God word world.
Have any of you ever gone to House of Mirrors like an amusement park? Been in there? They have all sorts of mirrors. One of these mirrors, if you stand in it, you are going to be very tall and skeletal. So if you wanted to lose weight, that's the mirror you want to stand in front of. But then you have your hands down like this and your hands are like 18 inches long and doesn't look very attractive even though you are very slender. Or you stand in front of another mirror and you are round like a balloon. But people didn't stand in front of that mirror too long. There are other mirrors from the waist up. You look like a giraffe. And from the waist down you look like a hippo.
All of these mirrors were not a true reflection of your image. None of them were a true reflection of your image. As a matter of fact, those mirrors were constructed or intended to reflect an image that was distorted and not true about you. That was their intent to have you stand in front of that mirror and then have a distorted view of what you actually really look like the outer world in many ways, even our inner world and the demonic realm, they've all constructed mirrors around us for us to look into. And when we do, the view that we will see of ourselves will be a distorted reflection of who you really are and what you really are and the value that you really have.
Let me say that again. All these realms, the outer world, the inner world, and the demonic world, have constructed mirrors for you to look into and to see a reflection of. And that reflection is intended to give you a distorted image of actually how God sees you. After a while, if the only reflection that we see of ourselves is provided by these three realms, the outer realm, the inner realm, and the demonic realm, if the only realm we see of ourselves is constructed by these three realms, we will soon begin to believe the lies of those distorted mirrors about ourselves. The more you believe in the lies, the less you can truly love God with all your heart. The more you believe in the lies of those distorted mirrors, the harder it will be for you to truly love somebody else as well. Because you certainly are not going to be able to love yourself.
But those mirrors are not the accurate reflection of the real you. They are not the reflection of how God views you or how God sees you. Nor are those mirrors an accurate portrayal in any way, shape or form the value that you have in God's eyes. Nor is it a reflection of how God actually feels about you. That's why we have a tendency to avoid at times the book, the Song of Solomon. Some of us read it with way too much sensuality in our minds when we read it. But if you could read that book and stake the words that are referring to my beloved, which is God and how he has so much passion for us and love for us and commitment to us, we would begin to have a greater sense about how he feels about us.
You see, because God is good all the time and God is love, we somehow dismiss from God that emotional side that God has. Even the King James version got it right back in the book of Genesis where God said, I am broken with your whorish hearts. He didn't say, I want to stomp you out like someone stepping on a grape. He said, my heart is broken because of how you have been so whorish in your hearts for other things. If we could just understand this truth, that what you do and what I do and that the essence of who we are actually affects God's emotions. Did you ever think about that, that we actually can make God feel happy or we can actually make him feel sad? But the one thing you can't do is you can't make God love you any less than he loves you right now. Nor can you do anything to make God love you anymore than he loves you right now.
If we in 2023 can get a real grasp of this whole idea of my value comes from the fact that I've been created in God's image, it's not in what I do, it's not in how I look, it's not in all the talents that I might have. It's not in the ability I have to be a good musician or a good artist or a good baseball player, basketball player, whatever. My value is in that I've been created in the image and likeness of God and we've been all created that way. That's why he loves us with an unending love. As our Christmas season comes to an end, let us continually remember this: Jesus became flesh so that we would believe what he actually said about us. For God's soul loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever would believe in him would not perish but have everlasting life. Life that wouldn't end.
I want to just go over a few scriptures here as we close. They are short and hopefully we will start to see our value and our self-esteem will be rooted in the word of God, more so than it would be in the outer world. What other people say about us, think about us, treat us our inner world, where we know all of our deficiencies, or especially the demonic realm, where nothing but lies come from that realm, but rather God in his word, what he has to say about us. Let's read this.
Jacque: First John 3:1, look with wonder at the depth of the father's marvelous love that he has lavished on us.
Pastor Brian: Just ponder that for a second. The father's marvelous love that he has what?
Jacque: Lavished.
Pastor Brian: Lavished. Isn't that a wonderful word? Lavish. You know, you don't feel like there is just a little drop here and there, right? When it's lavished, it's just full, right?
Jacque: He has called us and made us his very own beloved children.
Pastor Brian: He has made us his own beloved children. Let's go on.
Jacque: First John 3:16 in the passion Translation: this is how we have discovered love's reality. Jesus sacrificed his life for us. Because of this great love, we should be willing to lay down our lives for one another.
Pastor Brian: I like that expression: love's reality. You know, we all have a reality, but for many of us that reality is rooted and based on lies. But that's your reality. That's not reality, but that is your reality. We all want to be loved. John the apostle, as he was exiled and writing this portion of scripture, he says, we have discovered love's reality. This is the reality of love: Jesus sacrificed his love for us, his life for us. Thank you. Because of his great love. Because of his great love. Let's go on.
Jacque: First John 3:20. Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience and he knows everything there is to know about us.
Pastor Brian: How many times have you condemned yourself with your conscience? But this gr scripture says God is greater even than your conscience. Whenever our hearts make us feel guilty and remind us of our failures-- sometimes our hearts do that. Who else does that for us? Satan. That's Satan. That third realm, Satan in the demonic realm. They make us feel guilty. He reminds us of our failures, doesn't he? But if you look at the scripture we looked at last week and first Corinthians 13, where the scripture says, love keep of no record of wrongs. And if God is love, God is not keeping a record of your wrongs. He's not that Santa Claus that's checking the list, see who's naughty or nice. If you didn't hear my sermon last week, go back and listen to it. He keeps a record of wrongs.
We see that even when our hearts or even the demonic realm make us feel guilty and they want to remind us of our failures, we know that God is much greater and more merciful than our conscience or the demonic realm or anything else that reminds us of our failures. He knows everything there is to know about us. When someone knows everything about you and still loves you, that is love, isn't it? Most of us want to hide our imperfections, don't we? We all have bad breath in the morning when we get up.
I'm so thankful that the day after we got married, Jacque didn't say, you have bad breath. I don't want to be married to you anymore. It takes work to be presentable to each other, but we don't have to present ourselves to God. We have to go through this process. He loves us as we are. And because of that love that comes into our hearts, we actually begin to transform. Because you know what happens? You become like the thing you love. So if we love Jesus, the more we love Jesus, the more we will become like Jesus. If you find yourself not being like Jesus, like I find myself from time to time, maybe more often than time to time, I need to love Jesus more, not work harder to be more like Jesus. I don't need to grind my teeth and tense up and just work harder. I just need to fall in love with Christ more. I need to know him more. I need to let his presence be in my life. As I have him more and more and more in my life, because he knows everything about me, I will fall in love with him more. And the more I love him, the more I will become like him. One more, and then we are done.
Jacque: Which one?
Pastor Brian: Luke two. Oh no, I got a couple more here.
Jacque: Luke 2:11, for today in Bethlehem, a rescuer was born for you. He is the Lord, Yahweh the Messiah.
Pastor Brian: I like that. Any of you need rescuing today from your thoughts, the lies that have been spoken about you. Okay. The scripture says, for today--- this was said to the shepherds, but for today in Bethlehem, a rescuer was born for you. Jesus came to rescue us.
Jacque: Ephesians 1:5 and 6. For it was always in his perfect plan to adopt us as his delightful children.
Pastor Brian: That was his plan all along
Jacque: Through our union with Jesus the anointed one. So that his tremendous love that cascades over us would glorify His grace for the same love he has for the beloved Jesus.
Pastor Brian: Hear this. Hear this.
Jacque: For the same love he has for the beloved Jesus, he has for us.
Pastor Brian: Hear that again.
Jacque: For the same love he has for the beloved Jesus. He has for us.
Pastor Brian: Do any of you question the Father's love for Jesus. No, no. And the same love that the Father in heaven has for Jesus, he has for us. He has for us.
Jacque: And this unfolding plan brings him great pleasure.
Pastor Brian: This this isn't something he has to work hard at this, it brings him pleasure. You know, it's not hard work to do something you enjoy. It isn't, I mean, I'm not saying you don't have to work hard, but it's not drudgery when you love to do something. I can sit down and I can practice a piano two/three hours. You tell an eight year old who has a hard time practicing 15 minutes, and it's like three hours. Ah, but I love it. It's not drudgery to do something you love. And this unfolding plan of God to adopt us because of his great love for us brings him great pleasure. Your adoption into his family brought him great pleasure. Just ponder that for a few weeks, right? Just ponder that for a few weeks. And then the last one, Romans 8:38 and 39.
Jacque: So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God's love.
Pastor Brian: Not even you.
Jacque: Not even ourselves.
Pastor Brian: Not even you. You can't separate yourself from God's love.
Jacque: I'm convinced that his love will triumph over death. Life's troubles, fallen angels are dark rulers and the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love.
Pastor Brian: I like that there is nothing in our present nor even our future circumstances. Who's basically responsible for your future circumstances. You are. So even if you mess up in those future circumstances that won't separate you from his love. It won't.
Jacque: There is no power above us or beneath us. No power that could ever be found in the universe, that can distance us from God's passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the anointed one.
Pastor Brian: Which has been lavished on us. Let's just ponder that. Father, thank you that you lavish your love upon us. You've held nothing back, nothing in reserve. You didn't just give us a part of your heart. You've loved us with all of your heart. Now your heart is so much bigger than ours. But because you've loved us with all of your heart, that's why you want us to love you with all of our heart. I pray that in 2023, even though the world can have such a loud voice at times this outer world around us, and then it seems like the demonic realm will amplify those voices. And there are even times where we have sensed our limitations. And that has been a negative impact on our own self-esteem and our own sense of worth. Because we couldn't do what this other person could do. I pray, Lord, that the main realm that we will get our value and self-esteem from is from you and what you say about us. Lord, I pray that we would understand that because of your great love, I can do all things through you who strengthened me.
You will lead me into paths of righteousness. You will lead me onto paths that Lord might take me places I never dreamed of. You've done that with me. And Lord, you have navigated in such a way when you came into my heart. You said, if you'll love me, Brian, with all of your heart, I will do in you what you could never imagine. And so I pray today, Lord, that God, we would let your love just lavish on us. Pastor Robert.
Pastor Robert: Praise God. Before I pray, you have to forgive me if, did I miss anybody visiting for the first time? If you are visiting for the first time, just give me a quick hand raise. Yeah, I knew I passed by someone this morning. Don't be afraid I won't put you on the spot. We have a gift for you. So we are going to make sure that you get that gift. Inside, there is a card we like to, to fill out that card. At this point when you fill it out, you can come see me and hand me that card. Okay? Praise girl. You know there was a revelation that the apostle Paul had to have because he said in some translations he said, I am convinced. In other translation that we just saw, he said, I am now confident, which means there was a time that he wasn't convinced, that he wasn't confident. He didn't have that reassurance. But as he knew more of Christ, that confidence arose. Even knowing his background or where he was, even knowing the state of sin that he was in and even persecuting the church, there was something that happened in Paul's life, in his mind and his spirit that gave him the confidence that there is nothing that can separate the love of God from him.
My question is, are you confident? Have you arrived at that same confidence? I remember a lot of times people are like, well can do you remember when you were once when you were saved, or when you were called into ministry? I remember when I first accepted the Lord, but as far as call to ministry for me, it didn't happen in the moment. It was kind of a progressive thing for me. But I remember the moment that I was confident that nothing could separate me from the love of God and our time together. If you want to ask me about it, you can ask me about it. I'm glad to share. But I remember that moment. It was like I put on this, this robe and I felt like-- and it came out in this way to me, you cannot convince me otherwise yes, how much God loves me. That was how that moment was for me. It was like a switch came on and said, I know without a shout of a doubt about God's love from me. And that has changed my life forever. That's why you see me the way I am. It's not because of me. It's not because of any person. It is because it was secured. God's love for me was secured in my heart and my spirit. And nothing can convince me otherwise through the good, the bad, the ugly.
My prayer today for you with you is that you come to that same conclusion. Not I think so, well, maybe. No, that you know, that you know, that you know God's love for you. So, Lord, I pray for this congregation, our online community, our online congregation that joins us every week, those that the videos are passed on to, everyone that hears our message, this prayer is for you, that you would be so touched by the father's love. I'm not saying that it has to happen the way it happened with me, but you are so touched that it turns something in you that it turns on to say, without a shot of a doubt, I know that God loves me and there is nothing that can separate me from that love.
I pray that that would be an inner witness that manifest throughout your entire life. In order to do that, all the things, the indoctrination, the lies, the self-vows, the whatever has happened in your life, God will do a great deliverance in you to uproot what is a lie. And you'll receive the truth of who God is and how much he loves you. I pray that when that happens, your life would never be the same. And because of that, the lives around you would never be the same.
The second prayer is that as you discover and have that confidence of God's love, that God will solidify your purpose for being here. As he solidifies your purpose in being here, then your identity in him will become not distorted anymore. I pray that every distorted image that you have in your life right now, that the Lord will break it, and that your true identity in him would be established from this day forward in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Pastor Brian: After the service today, Jim and Brenda will be serving communion for those who would like communion. We will have people at the alter to pray for you if you have any prayer needs. Just in conclusion, I was talking to Brad before the service today. We all know the story of Gideon and how he became a great deliverer of Israel. But when the end of the Lord first came to Gideon, he found him hiding in a little mill, trying to grind out one barley loaf so that he could have something to eat because the Midianites had come and just stolen everything from the Israelites. And the angel of the Lord showed up and said, "Hail mighty man of valor." I imagine he kind of looked around, is there somebody else in here with me? Because he didn't feel like a mighty man of valor.
His circumstances, the things that were probably said to him during the course of those years where the Midianites were ransacking Israel, all of those things contributed to him not seeing himself as God saw him. But God addressed him in the way that God saw him, a mighty man of valor. Because God always addresses us based on what his spirit in us can do, not in what we are like apart from him. And so today we have access to all that God has. I just declare over all of us that you are all mighty men and women of God able to do great exploits for the kingdom of God.
In whatever issues you struggle with, there is power there available to you today for you to become more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. So let your image of yourself be rooted in the reflection that God gives to you, not those distorted mirrors that our outer world or our inner world or the demonic world wants to give us. But let that reflection come from the mirror of God in your life. You received this today. Let's raise your hands together, shall we?
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 you begin to see yourself as Jesus sees you this, we pray the name of the Father, son, and Holy Spirit, amen. God bless you. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for being here. May you be blessed.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 1-8-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.