March 16, 2026
In John chapter 10, it says this. It said, I'm gonna said Jesus said this. He goes, "The Father and I are one. " And then they picked up stones to kill him. And they and Jesus said, "For which of the good works that I've done are you going to stone me for? " And they said, "Not for the good works you've done, but for blasphemy because you claim to be God. " And what I realize, and there's more developing here, is that people don't have a problem with you doing good works. People don't have a problem with humanitarian effort. People don't have a problem with that building being a restaurant over there. But the moment you claim Jesus, you're acknowledging Jesus as God. And immediately that's going to be persecuted in your life, right? People don't have a problem with you feeding the poor, but then when you start preaching Jesus to, they're like, "Hey, miss. ", and so I'm just telling you, there's more there and I'll develop more out of that. But my point is, people have an opinion about this and they'll have all the opinions and you just we're not going to be moved by opinions. on a regular basis. Let's pray. Father, we love you. We thank you for the privilege it is to know you. And God, thank you for protecting us from storms. God, storms are so big to us in our area.
And yet, they're so minor and just a glimpse of your power and your awesomeness. And we recognize that, God, teach us continually to fear you more in a healthy, reverent way than anything else that we could ever endeavor or face. God, I just pray for the next few minutes while we talk that God, you just speak to our hearts. God, you are ever present and you are good and only good. And we just worship you. God, we acknowledge you. We submit ourselves to the lordship of Jesus. God, help us to grow and know you better and to become more like you to fulfill our purpose. God, I declare in Jesus name that we will fulfill our purpose in this generation, God. That we will be who you've called us to be. We will be effective for your cause, God. We will lay down our life one more time today for the cause of Christ in every way to bring you glory. God bless our time. Speak to us in the next few minutes in Jesus name. Amen. I my intentions tonight were to just follow up on I was talking about love the couple weeks before last week and I appreciate Chad sharing last week and I want to reinforce a little bit what he said just the fact that the Word of God has to be planted in your heart before it's produced in your life and we t and that's what he talked a lot about last week is just the seed of God's Word and th this is what tonight is if it's a small group in the lobby if it's a big group in the auditorium, it doesn't matter. It's the Word of God plant. We're planting seed in our heart. And the more that we continue to till the soil of our heart, the more we're receptive to the Word of God in our heart. In time, seed time, harvest, there will be the production of that your life.
You will see the elevation in your life. You will see the growth. You will see the change. And this is what I want to reinforce as we spend a little another few minutes just talking about love again. And just to review a little bit, we talked about how perfect God's love is, right? We evaluate the fact that this is real love. Not that we love God first, but that he loved us. We recognize that it's real love and that God has nothing to gain from us. Everything about the gift of salvation, him reaching out, restoring us. He didn't owe us that. God doesn't owe you anything. God doesn't owe me anything. God doesn't owe us anything. Everything that we have is a gift. If God never does another thing, from this day forward, he's done enough. He picked you. He saved you. He's rescued you. And so we recognize how perfect and complete his love. He cannot love you any more than he already loves you and he's proud of you and he values you.
He's already proven his love to you. He's already demonstrated his love for you. We talked about that God didn't just say it. He showed it. He showed his love. And so we see that in Jesus when we when we look at that says that this is real love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice. The second thing we talked about is that God loves us forward. And I just want to reinforce how important that is., looking at Chad last week and sharing the Word and talking about, seeing his passion and his tenderness toward the Word and his appreciation because as he shared even last week as a testimony, example that God's Word, how it's tenderized his heart, it's healed his heart. He knew who he was. He remembered who he was. And when he reads the Word, it just wrecks him. It washes him. refineses him. And so that's what this is. That's God's love loving you forward. He's not crying because of a guilt of his past. He's emotional and passionate and appreciative because of what God's doing in his life going forward. And that's and I bring that up not to reference just any tears that he shed, but the fact that's an example of how God's loving you forward.
You are better today than you were last week. You God is God is about where we're going. He's always about where we're going. If you look throughout Scripture, God is always about where he's taking people. He's never he's never he never reminded people of where they were unless it was to remind them of how he delivered them out of it. You we look at the story of the Israelites, right? God didn't he wasn't hovering Egypt over him. He just reminded them of how he brought them out. But his objective was to take him to the promised land. His objective was to establish his covenant for all the world to experience God, to restore God, people back to God. And it's the same way with Jesus, man. He did that to John and I were talking about this before service. Like what God wants for you is good. I don't want to get off on a different message. My point is this. When he gave Jesus, he gave Jesus to move you forward, to get you unstuck out of your sin, out of out of the stronghold, out of the guilt, out of the shame, not to live with it. How many of us like acknowledge Jesus as Lord of our life and still live in the guilt of our past? That's the whole point. God sent Jesus to deliver us from it. Yes, ma'am.
And for the sake of recording, yeah, God didn't die on the cross to be a tour guide of your past. He sent Jesus to deliver you from it and then to begin to renew our mind, to renew our hearts, to restore our soul, to be who God's called us to be, to live the life that God's called us to live. And so that's a lot of what I want to talk about. Let me let me reinforce this verse here in verse 17 of First John. It says, "And as we live in God," it says prior to that it says, "God is love. " Love. And so we live in God. All who live in love live in God and God lives in them. Verse 17. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. Jesus exampled God's love, we receive it. And then our love begins to grow like his love. And this is what's amazing about this is that we become part of God's mission, God's purpose. Listen, we are not puppets in a game where now he's using us to accomplish his objective. Please, please hear this. He's invited us to be restored back to him. Watch. As we live in God and we live in love, our love is growing more perfect like his love. And so, we are now about his mission. We begin to love people like he loves people.
We begin to extend forgiveness to people the way he extended forgiveness to us. in and of myself, I'll never do that. I will never naturally want to give people that kind of pass. I I we were laughing. Brand and I were laughing. It's like the Church and the Gospel has to be big enough to absorb all the goofiness of individuals that are going to come through this door. We have to be able to absorb what I'll call their ignorance. Not to diminish them, but that they don't know what they don't know yet. They haven't grown. If anything, at the very least, they're babies in Christ. if they're even Christians yet. And we have to be able to go come on in, make yourself at home. We're glad you're here. It can never become this is our little club and right because that's not God's love. That was not God's love to you before you were in the club, right? And so we have to continue to let if we live in God and live in love like it says, our love is growing more perfect. And so what happens is we're coming alongside his mission of restoring creation back to him. He gave Jesus to restore creation back to him, to restore his people back to him so that we could live in love. So now, as I'm been restored back to him and I grow in it, my heart, my mind's being renewed. My love is growing stronger and I'm about his mission now.
The purpose of my life is his mission. But if I look around this room, there's every kind of different personality. There's different giftings. There's different backgrounds, different testimonies, different stories, different victories, different challenges, different hurdles, different strongholds, different battles, and all of it. God TAKES ALL of it and he uses it for his glory. It becomes about for his purpose, which his will is to restore people back to him. That's why Romans 12:2 says that God's good, perfect, and pleasing will. What God wants for you is good, perfect, and pleasing. That's why Jesus came and we become the vessels of that. But only if our love is growing more like his love because it's going to require patience. It's going to require endurance. It's going to require forgiveness. It's going to require choosing to see people the way Jesus sees people and says, "Father, forgive me because they don't know what they're doing. " It's going to it's going to require friendliness to people that are not necessarily friendly. It's going to require a part of me I experienced in the last I don't know I guess it was within the last week I'm going to call it borderline harassment from an individual and it was like you just want to the flesh in you wants to go get off me right but and I'm not going to allow this is the balance here I'm not going to allow somebody in that position to have a voice in my life I preached this a couple weeks ago However, I'm going to take the heart of God and recognize that Jesus died for this person. So, this is what we call taking the high road, if you want to call it that. This is what we call, living from the seated position in Christ that I can see beyond their ignorance and their foolishness. It's frustrating. It's goofy. I want to judge it.
I'd like to slap the taste out of their mouth sometimes, right? But I'm going to acknowledge the fact that is a handpicked person by God. How many times have I told you that you're handpicked by God? Well, so was that person. And so what I've got to do is look beyond their ignorance. Look beyond the fact that they're coming from a place of a stuper that they're in and just go, what? and distance myself and then believe God for God to make himself real in that person's life. And if I can be a vessel that in time, maybe my response to them is going to factor into that. And I'm not saying there's not a time for discipline and correction, all that because there most certainly is. But in this particular moment, it was just simply, "All right, have a great day. I'll see you. ", and allow the process to unfold in their life. So the last thing I want to share with you tonight is was the point of the message or the objective tonight is the challenge that we face with loving people. if we're not connected to God, if we don't live in love and live in God, the challenge is can't be overcome. But the Bible says that whatever we put our hand to will overcome. So if I want to put my hand to loving unlovable people, I can get good at it. If I want to put my hand at that mission of reaching the lost and whatever it is or building a a culture, an environment that is welcoming and friendly that come as you are but but be challenged to grow and be different. We can do that. We're going to have to put our hand to it. It's going to require effort.
But it's only going to happen if I'm connected to the goodness of God, the love of God, and then follow his direction and wisdom. And so the challenge is this. Number one, I think I think marriage is probably the easiest example where we laugh things off and we say, "Well, men and women are different. " And I wanted to tease, but I remember being recorded. men and women are different. And so, well, husbands, we know wives, whatever. And we laughed about stuff a while ago. But here's the facts. Here's the reality that there is an obvious distinction between people. There is an obvious distinction between men. And I'm acknowledging the facts here, the challenge. There's an obvious distinction between men and women. There's an obvious distinction between cultures. If you grew up in Africa, that's a lot different of a culture to grow up in than Carter County. There is a distinction between older people and younger people. There is a distinction between people that have money or come from money and people that don't or don't have it or in a tough spot. There is a distinction in the natural on the surface with all the different stages or seasons or backgrounds of life that we come from. Okay. The second thing is there's the dysfunction in our humanity. There's an obvious distinction off the bat that men and women are different and cultures are different.
But then there's the dysfunction of how maybe you were taught. You might have been raised in a not-h home. You might have been taught, racist things. You might have been taught certain things about money. You might have been taught certain things about men, men or certain things about women. And so we get this dysfunction in our mentality and in our heart that they just say, "Well, men are like this and women are like this and white people are like this and black people are like this and old people are like this. " And we just have this behavior that traces with that education, with that teaching. Are you tracking with me? So there's already a dysfunction in that I don't know what I don't know yet, man. I've I've the Revelation of Christ has become real to me and I'm growing in it. But I still am learning. I'm still growing. We cannot exhaust the goodness of God and the nature of God. I have to live in his love every day. I have to live in God every day. I have to live in his Truth every day. And his Truth is continually washing me. And today's challenge is going to not be tomorrow's challenge. And tomorrow's challenge, I'm going to need God's Truth for it. And next year, we're going to be in a completely different season.
And we're going to be believing God for something else. We're going to need God in that situation. We were talking about that before Church, man. It's the journey, right? That building's not the destination. That's the next step. And then when we get there, there's going to be another step. It doesn't stop because as long as we're here, we're stepping. We're going to be stepping. And so, it's not about getting to a destination on this earth. It's about fulfilling the purpose of God in my life while I'm here on this earth. And I want to have the faith and the courage to keep stepping because there's going to be a new challenge when we get there. And then there's going to be another challenge. And here's the deal. Whatever we put our hand to, we can beat it. We can overcome. Some mountains are going to be higher than other mountains. Some are going to be a little bit bigger. But I'm telling you, together we can't lose. And when we get united in vision, we get united together.
We unite our resources. We unite our giftings. We unite our talent. Bro, we just go and we conquer and we live and we take the next step and we overcome. But we have to overcome the dysfunction. We have to get our minds renewed and grow in that way. The third thing is that is that our heart has that carnal wickedness in it even though it's been covered by the blood. So, we're no longer separated by God. I don't know about you, I still have moments of selfishness. I still have moments of that carnal flesh that's like I'm going to crush that person or whatever it is, right? like I don't I don't want to do that and and it and it look there that's one example. Let me get some other examples. I don't want to give toward that, right? There's that we'll just call it selfishness. Whatever that form needs to take, there's that moment of selfishness and how that affected me. And what we do when we give our life to the Lord is like now everything I'm doing is for him, not for me. Well, I have that selfishness in me. That's what we're working to when we live in love and we live in God, my heart is turned to him and I'm going to be much less prone to that selfishness, right? To that. And so, so on the surface, we have this distinction just the differences of people.
We have the dysfunction and then we have the carnality. So, we got a big mountain to climb. I'm going to love like God, but I got three massive hurdles to climb. And so here's all I want to leave you with tonight is number one, God wants to heal your heart and tenderize your heart. If we spend time with him, God will continue to soften your heart to things you will be able to have. And the the fruit of the Spirit is patience. It is love. It is kindness. It is self-control. That's the fruit or the evidence of the Spirit. And again, Chad said this last week, right? As we plant God's Word in our heart, it's going to produce fruit. So we say, "Well, you need to be more patient. Let me help you. You're not going to be more patient than you already are as a human, and you're not good at it. " The patience comes from the tenderizing of God's heart. When I get God's view on a situation, man, now I can endure longer. I can I can I can when my will is surrendered to God's will, I can endure a cross. Okay? But I've got to get on his page.
Jesus had to he had to spend time with the Father. He had to sweat it out. He had to he had to get God's heart on it. Then he could endure what was in front of him. Because what God was wanting to do was restore creation. And it's like, okay, here am I. Use me. And for me to get to that place, that's why Jesus in himself is like, yo, I don't want to do this cross thing. But when he got his heart surrendered, here am I. Use me. Okay? And that's what we got to do. But that's only by the tenderizing of our heart, being in God's Word. Okay? The second thing is God puts a new heart and if you can go back and you can watch that u video because Chad gave a lot of great scriptures, but he will actually give you a heart of flesh and remove that heart of stone and a heart that's sensitive to God's voice, a heart that's tender to him and to his way of doing things. The second thing is now that that takes care of a healthy heart because now we got to work from the inside out. Remember I said the distinction, the dysfunction, and now the carnality. Well, that's what's going to take care of the carnality. my heart's going to begin tenderized to him and less selfish and more sin to him. Then the second thing is we got to renew our mind.
I've got to learn to think like God. I've got to learn to talk like God. I've got to get my mind renewed. My heart has been changed. God's given me a new heart. My heart is open to the things of God. My heart is sensitive and tender to the things of God. And now let me learn to think and talk and behave like him. Let my culture become likened to his culture. my customs, my language, my behavior is not mine anymore. My customs and my behavior, my language, I adopt his. Right? So, we get proud of our Carter County culture. We get proud of our African culture. We get proud of our manhood and womanhood and whatever. And it's like, yeah, those are great elements to use, but I don't care where you come from. I've got to get on his page now. I've got to learn to think like God thinks. I've got to learn. I've got to understand the mission.
I've got to understand the tools that are in my tool belt. I've got to understand how the armor works in my life. I've got to understand and learn the language and the customs of the kingdom. Now, we're kingdom people. We're not Africans. We're not Carterians. We're kingdom people, right? The Bible says, "No, no man by the flesh. " And that's not just man. That's mankind. Man, I don't see Joffrey. I see I see the Spirit of God in him now. Right? I don't know Mila. I know the Spirit of God in me love. I don't want to I don't I don't want I don't want and I said this Nina can back this up when I moved to Van Beern. I didn't grow up here or live in Van Beern. And so people say well so and so or so and so and that family or that and I'm like I really don't I don't I didn't go to school here. I didn't know and I don't want to know them how them. I did it.
I really did it with all my heart. I'm like I really I would stop people. I'm like yeah I don't care. I mean, I didn't want to know that because the moment I meet him, I get to go forward with them. That's it. And I wanted to be a fresh voice and a fresh face and a fresh person and like I don't I don't want you to tell me who she is. So then I go and meet her and I got all that stuff that you told me which is from your perspective. I want to know her. I want to know her as the as as hey God's chosen person. And man, I want to begin to bring life into that situation into that person. Okay. So that's the second thing that deals with the dysfunction, that old training, that old behavior. Let me let me pull those weeds. Let me undo that wiring and let me rewire my heart and my mind on the new heart that God's given me. And then the third thing is just this is honoring people and recognizing our differences. It's okay. We're different, but we're all made in the image and likeness of God. There is no that this is remarkable. Oh, I know this still blows people's minds that there's not two single fingerprints that match. You're you are uniquely handpicked by God.
And what we learn to do is value who you are. And now you becoming the man or woman that God has called you to be. Because when the Truth of God's Word comes into the uniqueness of you, man, that was what God's design was. It was God's design to be God in Joffrey, in Amelia, in Brandon, in John, in me. Like that was God's plan to come in. So Kim doesn't have to be Regina and Regina have to be Kim, right? You just surrender your heart to God. God comes in and then he uses his Truth through your personality. He uses his Truth through your gifting. He uses his Truth through your story and he uses you to be about his mission because your heart is turned to him. Your love is reflecting his love and now you're making an impact in people's lives around you. And that's why you go, well, it's all about who, what Jeremy's doing or not. No, no, no, no. God's using you as much as he's using me. God's use, I mean, like, God has picked you as much as he's picked me. And we might be leaders of the in the Old Testament talks about Jethro. He's like, there's leaders of tens and leaders of hundreds and leaders of thousands, whatever. Great. We may have different capacities, but what I'm telling you is the effectiveness is the same because it's the same God in you as it is in me and anybody else. It's the same Truth in you as it is in me.
I'm you preach the same Truth I'm preaching and that Truth is what heals. The Truth is what delivers. The Truth is what sanctifies and you're a vessel of it. So you don't have to go well if I was more like so and so if I was No, no, no. God handpicked you and I can value that person. So the person that I experienced some borderline harassment from what we saw was what God's put in her that's being used for evil because her heart is not turned to God. But when the heart becomes turned to God, that very thing that is borderline goofy is super goofy becomes a valuable asset for the kingdom. But that it's it's we talked about this at men's Bible study. It's a tool. If you take that big crescent wrench and you're banging nails with it, it's it's not as effective as it's supposed to be. When you figure out what it is and it puts it back in the hand of the one who knows how to use it, man, that thing starts turning wrenches, starts cranking, and it starts being way more valuable. That thing that God's put in you, you can use it for evil, but you can use it for good. And so, I back up and make the point that we have to champion and celebrate the uniqueness of each other. It's okay that we're different. That's what makes this a beautiful thing. That's what makes this a powerful thing. I remember this and I'll finish with this story. When I moved to Teen Mania 1998. That's is where I met Chris and China and Sean, these guys you've heard me talk about. And then that led me to Tulsa five years later.
And then I met Nina and Pastor Bill, all the things. Okay. In 1998, I went to this internship and there was 500 college age kids, 18 year old, 19 year olds. I was on the older echelon of that because I had already turned I was over 20, almost 21 before I discovered it, found it. My point is this. We're there. They would do these massive youth events all around the country called Acquire the Fire. There'd be five 10 thousand youth kids there. They brought in bands. They had pyro techniques, fire, all that stuff. And it was they were amazing events. And then they had the honor academy which is what I went to. So the honor academy would work all those events whether it was calling teenagers, calling youth groups, getting team leaders from mission trips, all the work that went into it. Of those 500 people that the Honor Academy, they were from all over the country. And it was awesome me because I didn't know it existed. I didn't know that was possible. I didn't know there were people my age that love God. And I didn't know they were pretty cool. And I didn't know there were people in New York that love God. And I didn't know there were people in Wisconsin that love God.
And here they are together. And we're all about and it was like it was the and they were all it was like college in the Heaven. It was awesome. I don't know how to explain it. It was like this is amazing., there's guys in their underwear rustling in the hallways AND WE'RE LIKE, YEAH. And they were worshiping God the next morning. It was just like this is great. And so we're at this one event. And I don't remember the city we were in. And there was a guy that was one of his name was Jesse. And I don't remember his last name, but he was kind of gothic in nature style, not nature style. And so he had the black leather and the spike spiky. It would look like Billy Idol if you guys remember back in the day, right? Like that's what he looked like. And the big black combat boots. And this is the late 90s, when it was kind of a thing, I guess. And I was just like, I don't I don't get that dude, right? Like the other 499. I get this one.
I don't get him, ? And anyway, I just thought, well, whatever. He loves Jesus. I don't know how this fits his style and I don't know how this fits because I still got goofy Church stuff I've been taught. And so I see him and we're at this event and I see him talking to other kids at this event. It's a youth event. There's 5,000 youth kids there. And the kids he's talking to look like him. Ah, my bad, God. I got my bad. He doesn't have to change who he is because his heart is surrendered to the Lord and he's connecting with people that stylistically have something in common with him. The fruit of his life is not what kind of jacket he's wearing, how you wear your hair, what kind of style of clothes you are. It's the fruit of your life in spite of those things. It doesn't matter if you're tall, short, athletic, money, no money, what it doesn't matter. So when we value people, if the Holy Spirit comes into your heart, I don't care if you change your style or not, the fruit of your life will change that honors God, you will begin to live in love, living God, and the fruit of your heart will turn to the love of God. And stylistically, you will reach people because you became part of his mission and will become a vessel that's used to reach people. So the same with your story. Whatever your story is, you come from the broken home. You come from alcohol. You come from whatever you come from.
And you connect with people from your story. I can't connect with that. If I didn't have your background, I don't I can speak to it. I can coach. I can encourage. I can give you the Word. But when you can relate to somebody, you connect different than I can connect. And that's exactly what happened with Jesse at this at this point. And so we just value people. We can't be quick to criticize and put people in categories. It's like, whoa, the Gospel is for that person, too. Just because just because we don't agree with it or we don't like it or we don't understand it, I'm not justified in my judgment of I have to go, it's not my style, that's fine., I can see it when it's not healthy and go, that's not good. I'm not going to let my voice in my life. But the moment I start to condemn that tree, I've lost God's heart on it. And so we have to recognize, yes, that might be not healthy fruit on that tree, but I promise you, if we get to the root system of that tree, it can change the fruit. And I don't care if it's a tall tree or a short tree. I don't care if it's wearing a black leather coat with spiky blonde hair or not. The fruit will change when the root system begins to change. Okay.