Harvest Church OK

#GratitudeIsGodsWill

“As a pastor, I hear people all the time go, I just don't know what god's will is. Well, let me start you off. Gratitude, thanks living is god's will. So if you're not sure the details of God's purpose for your life, let me tell you the first thing. If you wanna jump on God's will for your life and get headed in the right direction is change attitude.”

#GiveFromTheHeart

“Why does giving matter? Why does how you give matter? Why is being generous a a a... Not an option for us in the church but a necessity? It's because giving tells where your heart is. And how many of you know, god doesn't need nor want your money, but he wants your heart. And there is a line that he has drawn in between where you give and where your heart is. And he said, if I can look and see where you give and what you spend your money on. I can tell what truly has your heart.”

#ChooseGenerosity

“And this whole series is centered around the fact that we have a choice to make in our lives, that if we're going to follow after Jesus in all aspects of our life and specifically dealing with this series in respect to giving. We have a choice to make whether we're gonna live breaking our box and live radically generous or we're gonna clutch the bag and live in fear and greed.”

#FaithToReceive

“And so when we look at this story, we we see number one that she cries out to the lord. Number two, that that that he he challenges her perspective and asks her to change the way she's looking at things. Number three, that she has to listen not for an for for a solution but for an instruction. And then fourthly, that she'll obey I want you to notice this and then Imma give you the three points. Her miracle was limited only by her faith to gather containers. The oil kept flowing until there were no more containers. God's provision wasn't the limiting factor. capacity to receive was. And god's not gonna waste a miracle.”

#RadicalGenerosity

“The person who shouldn't have been there made the greatest impact. The one who was supposed to be there proves himself to be a thief. Mary broke the box. Judas clutched the bag. Mary represents radical generosity. Judas represents fear and greed. When I heard this message preached few months ago, I walked out and I thought, my god, too many of us are more concerned with clutching the bag than breaking the box. And so over the next couple of weeks, I want us to learn to break the box of radical generosity so that our lives can change the atmosphere, not just of a room, but of the city in which we live.”

#FollowJesus

“Here's the thing. I hear lots of people say, I just wanna follow Jesus. But their life does not reflect what their words communicate. I want you to understand this. The way of god will never contradict the word of god. And too often in today's culture, we wanna cut out the parts of this book that we disagree with or we find unsettling. But the way of god never contradicts the word of God. God will never speak to you and send you in a direction that his word says, don't go down.”

#GraceOverJudgment

“I have this note that says, our response to the failures of others is often an indicator of how we think god responds to us. Our response to the failures of others is often an indicator of how we think god responds to us. If that's the case, how many of us are walking around and we really think if that's if if we truly are conditioned pass judgment on others without offering any kind of restoration. Is that how we see god responding to us? If that's the case, may I beg you to open your Bible once again and take a look at who he really is? Because my friend, that is not how god responds to us.”

#GenerosityOverGreed

“And the issue is is we've got two gospels, if you will, that are prevalent today. We've got the gospel of Jesus, and we got the gospel of America. And the gospel of America simply says, the more you have, the happier you'll be. Get and get and get some more. Whereas the gospel of Jesus said he wants to bless you so that you can bless others. If you want to stop the flow of god's blessing in your life, start being a hoarder and not a blesser.”

#DiscipleFirst

“Every one of us, not me, not the staff at this church, every one of us who call ourselves believers are called to be a disciple first and to be a disciple maker second. And so if you've been called to that higher life, Jesus goes there. Three spiritual, practices that you need to develop in private so that your life is worth following in public. And that is thankless generosity, personal prayer, and faithful fasting. And here's my question to you. Is which one needs to be developed in your life right now?”

#BeSaltBeLight

“So how do we live our lives as a lamp that shines and salt that seasons? You don't. You're not light because of what you do. Light just shows up. Salt just is. And it changes everything around. You know the cool thing about salt? If there's the right amount of salt on something, you don't taste the salt. you're just being salt in the world, People aren't even seeing you. They're experiencing him through you.”

#TrustNotJustFaith

“I don't think most people have a faith crisis. I think most people have a trust crisis. Because even people that don't have a relationship with God still believe a higher power exists. A lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of them. Even there's people that have never submitted their lives to God, and yet they still believe, yeah, God's a good one. God's a higher power. There's a belief or a faith that he exists. But let me tell you what takes faith to a whole new level, trust. It's the anchor of trust. Why? Because whenever I get to a place to where I trust God, my relationship goes from a simple belief to now it's a submission.”

#PeacemakersNotPeacekeepers

“You wanna be a peacemaker? You can expect to bleed. Because those who make peace aren't peacekeeping. They're not just trying to keep the calm. They're not just trying. Let's just keep from fighting. Let's just pretend like everything's okay. Let's just, you know, no. They gonna step in and they're gonna look and they're gonna go, you're in the wrong. And you need to repent. You need to apologize. You need to turn things around. Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers. If you give your dependence on him, you learn how to suffer well. You understand that you've been given power by him, but you choose to reign that power in. If you seek after him with all of your heart, if you are merciful toward others who aren't merciful towards you, if you are the same person day in and day out, And if you learn how to be a peacemaker in the midst of turmoil, he says, they're ready.”

#NotForgottenByGod

“``So what do we take away from this section? God hasn't forgotten about you. I don't know where you are today, but I would dare say in a room this size with the number of people that are in this room that there are people in this room that secretly you feel like god has forgotten about And I'm here to tell you just like Isaiah was telling the Israelites at that moment, god has not forgotten. Even in your darkest hour, god has always been present.”

#TrustGodsTiming

“``Just because you don't see it immediately, doesn't mean it won't happen indefinitely. Come on. If we ask god for something and we don't see it in thirty minutes, we get mad, we pout, we God gave them a promise of a Messiah and from Isaiah's time, we fast forward six to seven hundred years. To the fulfillment of that prophecy. Moses waited in the wilderness for forty years Yet, if we have to wait forty minutes Come on. Just because you don't see it immediately does not mean it won't happen indefinitely,”

#GodRedirects

“``Come on. Listen. God isn't trying to destroy you. He's trying to get you on the right path. Right? And so when life happens, sometimes we have to step back and go, okay, what do I need? Is there something I need to do here in response to what's going on? And so and so, Micah is trying to speak to the northern and southern kingdoms and he's going, listen, don't lose heart because in the middle of all this, god is moving.”

#VoiceInTheStorm

“``When the storm becomes so overwhelming that all I can see is the storm, then I stop listening for the voice and I start hearing the storm. But if I can reorient my spirit to recognize there's a storm. But out of the storm comes a voice. Then in the middle of the storm, I can rehear the voice and what the voice of the Lord is saying to me.”

#HopeForTheHopeless

“``Because all of us have something that that we think maybe has gone too far. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's it's part of your story that that you're not proud of. Maybe it's it's a dream that you feel like you've lost. Maybe it's something inside you that you think will always be broken. But Chris' story reminds us god's not intimidated by the places that you think have no hope. He's not. God specializes in bringing hope to hopeless situations, to bringing light to dark situations, to bring restoration where we thought there was none.”

#SpeakWithAuthority

“```Watch out your mouth. You cannot speak all day long unbelief. When you need or you need a faith, you wanna pray, you know, you have problems. You have unbelief. Why? Because of talking. We're talking. We're talking. We're talking. I wanna encourage you, brothers and sisters. We have the authority. Authority comes with the word, words. So our words are very important. Meditate the word. No matter how the situation looks, declare the word because authority at the same time, declaration is needed. Not only speaking, declaration. It's a special language. We need to declare the gospel.”

#RestorativePower

“``Because when the restoring work of God takes place, there's nothing like it. I get to spend and I work now as a crisis therapist. I get to see people on their worst days after their suicide attempts or after their psycho psychotic break or just after a fight with their family, and I get to sit with them on the floor in their tears loving on them. I I'm a supervisor, so I get to train other people on how to be in those moments. And throughout my entire life, the the lovely marriage that I've been a part of, the the blessing that my daughter has been, I have seen that when the restorative power of God takes place, there is nothing that can hold you back. There's nothing that can separate you. The the vision, the things that other people put on you, that the restorative power of God overcomes all of those things when we just will trust him and and not rely on our own strength to do those things. Thank”

#LoveOverTongues

“``So, let me just put this plainly and probably a bit sarcastically. If you can talk in tongues but you can't love your neighbor, you ain't full of the holy ghost.”

#StrengthInWaiting

“He thought he was done for. He thought it was over. And yet all of a sudden, sitting there, he felt Don't forget that's where his strength was found. God didn't forget and god hadn't given up on him. Are you with me? There was just a process of time that it took for that hair to grow back and maybe, maybe you're in this room and you think I've gone too far when you've just been in a place of waiting for your strength to come back.”

#LetTheMusicPlay

“Most of us have cut off the music in our lives and we've lost the anticipation of what's coming next Through discouragement and disappointment and frustration and all of those things, we have just and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I know. The other shoe's gonna drop but I just don't wanna hear it. But if we're going to be prepared for what god has for us You gotta let the music play.”

#SeedToHarvest

“``Now, looking back on this, we understand, Jesus was looking at them and he wasn't going. My ministry is about to explode. was getting, he was saying, what I arrived on this planet to do the time has come for me to fulfill my purpose and what you need to understand is unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. What is he saying? He's saying, I have come to the point in my life to fulfill my purpose and you're not going to like it. But you need to understand that on the other side, of the death of this seed there is a harvest of wheat that you can't yet imagine.”

#MoreInCommunity

“Argue with this book all you want to. It ain't gonna change the book. He didn't call us to individually walk with the lord. He called us to communally walk with him and we do that through the body. Therefore, Imma make a hard statement. I will never fulfill my personal more apart from the community. Well, I'm just gonna be, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do this thing on my own. We can't do that. I love you too much to lie to you and tell you, that's okay because it ain't.”

#LoveReflectsFaith

“It's not an order of importance kind of thing. It's not I have to love god and then I have to love my neighbor. It's god is going the way that you love me. Is shown. In how you love your neighbor. Now, what I have learned is that most of us, while we probably wouldn't put in the in terms of the way that the lawyer put it in the story, we would still begin to question, well, who's the neighbor? To which I would say, number two, where we get it wrong. Number two, my brother is my neighbor.”

#IntentionalApologies

“And I I think that's the difference. And I think the way you respond in in problems, and I know that that's something that we've been very intentional about, and we hadn't been perfect. So when I say intentional, that is not perfection because, like like she was saying, there have been times where I've been dealing with stress at work, and then and then I'd come home and I'd take it out on my kids, and I have to, at that time, be intentional about going and apologizing and looking at them and going, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I shouldn't have yelled at you.”

#HeartbrokenGod

“Guys, listen. To sum up the book of Hosea, I can sum it up in just this simple statement. The book of Hosea is a heartfelt message by a heart sick prophet about a heart broken god. Say it one more time. The book of Hosea and this is such a picture of god is a heartfelt message by a heart sick prophet about a heart broken god and that brings us into chapters four through 10 and we're just simply gonna call this a fickled nation.”

#GodIsNotVengeful

“``God repeatedly said throughout this prophecy that he tried to speak and they ignored what he said. For the record, god doesn't punish to get you back He only allows punishment to win you back God's not a vengeful god okay? So, he's not like, oh yeah, you did this. Imma do this back to you. No, no, no, that's not god. But what god is saying is he's saying, you've let yourself get too far.”

#ScriptureSpeaks

“Now, you look at me and go, man, god's really been speaking to me. I'm going to go From what scripture? Because if he's not speaking to you through his word And so if you're only hearing from him by your spirit and never from his word, you are not spending time here. Then what you're hearing is probably not his spirit because his spirit will always work in tandem with his word Come on.”

#ObeyEveryCall

“You go, well, man, I'm not like Jonah. You know, like god hadn't called me to preach to the nations and I'm running from it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but what if what if the lord's calling you to to get out of debt and and you are just ignoring that call. Is is that any less disobedient? What if what if the lord is is calling you to to befriend and reach a neighbor that you don't necessarily like and and you're ignoring that. Isn't it is is that any less disobedient? Than what Jonah did?”

#RunningFromGodAffectsAll

“When it falls on Jonah, Jonah does the right thing. He looks good. He says, guys, it's all my fault and here's how you remedy it. Throw me overboard. Okay? Now, I think it's interesting that that that was not their first recourse even after he offered it. But they tried all these other ways and god would not relent and finally, they agreed to follow-up with Jonah's suggestion and they threw him overboard. And we come to the end of chapter one and here's the takeaway. Running from god affects more than just you.”

#CalledToBelong

“because he's calling you. And when you know that your name has been called by Jesus, you're gonna have three things. Number one, you're gonna have ownership. You're gonna know that you're not random, that you actually belong to him. Number two, you're gonna have purpose. You're gonna know that he didn't just call a crowd, but he calls people like you. And you're gonna have intimacy because he knows more than just your story. He goes below the surface. He knows every part of your life. Jesus loves you. And when you experience him, it's unshakable. You'll never be able to walk away.”

#ActYourFaith

“Again, how many things are we believing for that god is just sitting back going, I'm just waiting on you to act on it and when you act on it, when you care enough to do something about it, I'm going to step in He says that I may receive my sight. Jesus said, go your way. Your faith has made you well. So, my question to you, if our worship team wants to go ahead and make their way this way, one point, I stuck to it, Chris. See? Yeah. My question to you is, do you care enough about your health to change your eating habits? Do you care enough about being out of debt to create and live by a budget? Do you care enough about your future to go back to school?”

#ButGodMoments

“But but guys, What if? What if in saying the words but you don't understand pastor Chris, but my bank account, but my kids, but my boss. What if we started saying words like but god? But god. Let me read you some scriptures. Again, I didn't throw em up on the screen but I'm gonna read them to you. You can write them down if you'd like. Look em up later. It says this, but god, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love, made us alive together with Christ. That's in Ephesians chapter two verse four through five. But god commanded his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's in Romans five eight. For as for you, you meant for evil but god meant it for good. That's in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20. Matthew chapter 19 verse 26 says this, with men, that is impossible but with god, all things are possible.”

#TrustGodsWord

“I just, I, you know, in my own mind, you know, I'm I'm thinking about the disciples going in to wake Jesus up and and you you're talking about Jesus, right? This is Jesus. Now, Jesus taking a nap. I don't wanna wake G. I don't wanna wake god up. You know what I'm saying? They go, do you care not that we perish? And he gets up and he rebukes them for their lack of faith and he speaks to the winds and waves and they calm down. Because he knew what he had said. We talked about this last week. They were so focused on the circumstances around them but he knew what he had said and he knew that his word was going to come to pass. Faith is knowing and trusting that if god said it in his word, then it's yours. Amen. Even when circumstances seem to be contrary.”

#ShiftInside

“Can I just be real with you? If this isn't important to you, you're to live a life full of fear. Amen. But when you take this word here as life then all of a sudden, things will begin to shift inside you. And here's the thing, it don't have to shift around you as long as it shifts inside you. Yeah.”

#StepIntoYourYes

“He say, come this morning because I have great and mighty things to show you. And if you keep it in your mind, you will miss it. If you keep it under the comfortable umbrella of your family and of your finances and of your comfortable zone, you will miss the miraculous. But God says, I have more for you, and this is a narrow path. It's a narrow path. It's narrow. It's uncomfortable, and sometimes it's gonna feel like you're the only one on that path. But the truth is is you're not alone because he said I would never leave you nor forsake you. And God has a way that when you just step into your yes, God has a way to finding things to get to you, people that'll get to you. Come on. Conversations that'll get to you, finances that'll get to you, favor that will get to you.”

#PressIntoHisPresence

“Come on, will you just, in your own words, tune everybody else out, close everybody else. If you need to close your eyes, if you need to come up and stand over in a corner, kneel at an altar, whatever you need to do but for the next minute, minute and a half, can we just press into his presence? Because I refuse to go through life and have church but not have god We didn't gather just to do a religious thing. Listen, we gathered so that we could encounter his presence and so would you just do that? Father, we just bless you.”

#GenerosityIsLove

“You know, generosity or giving, it really is an outflow of of love. It begins as an outflow of love and we're, it's modeled in scripture in John three sixteen, he says, for god so loved that he gave, right? He modeled that in scripture and so, giving is an outflow of love. It should it should come out of a place of love. Paul actually combats the fact that we shouldn't give out of a heart of obligation or feeling compelled to, right? But it should start as a place of love.”

#TrustThroughGiving

“And so this morning as we prepare to bring our tithe and offering, I just want to ask you, man, how does your, how is your giving reflective of how you're trusting god in your life right now? Because I have found that in the areas or in the times of our lives that we have most needed from the lord. The time where the times where we have been in the place of greatest need. God's called us to the greatest point of trust.”

#GenerosityIsTrust

“Now, here's what I want you to understand. This lady's generosity had nothing to do with the mount. The reason she makes it into the writing of scripture is has nothing to do with the amount that she gave because we often times place importance or priority on a mount. Notice Jesus didn't say anything about any of the other people who gave out of their wealth but she out of her poverty, she gave what? Everything. Everything she had to live on. The issue was not the amount. The issue was trust. By her giving everything she had to live on, what she was ultimately saying was, god, I trust you.”

#StretchOutYourHand

“And he arose and stood, and Jesus said to them, I'll ask you one thing, is it lawful to do on the Sabbath to do good or do do evil, to save a life or to destroy? And when he had looked around at all at them all, he said to the man, stretch out your hand. And he did so, and his hand was restored as whole as the other.”

#ChoicesEcho

“``Some of us think we talked about this last point, but some of us think that our choices only affect us and only affect today. But scripture says that your choices are going to echo into tomorrow and the day after and forever and ever and ever. Guys, your decision to to trust god, your decision to to worship in the hardship, your decision to choose joy, it might be the reason that your kids decide to follow Jesus.”

#chooseyourthoughts

“``when I have a thought, I can choose whether to continue to dwell on that thought and move on to action or I can choose to discard that thought and move on in my thinking to something more productive. Paul talks about this, right? And so, beginning this year, I decided that we were gonna make a series of choices that were going to help us close the distance between where you are and where god wants you. Because our our choices, our choices determine that distance.”

#BeTheNewYou

“what I have found is we have gotten so comfortable in church We just, oh, you just be, you be you and we want you to be you. Please don't misunderstand me. We just want you to be the new you. Amen. Not the old you. We want you to be the you walking around with clarity of mind and purpose. We want you to be the you walking around with an enlightened understanding. We want you to be the you that is connected to the life of god and not alienated from it. Amen.”

#JoyFromHisWord

“And what we can learn from that is Christ's coming allows us to choose joy even when life isn't joyful. You see, happiness, I've heard it described like this, happiness is a result of your circumstances. But joy is a result of His Word. Come on. And if we learnto trust His Word, then when our circumstance does not align itself with His Word, we have to understand that at some point He is going to make a way for us to return to His Word.”

#GratitudeIsWorship

“A thankful heart is a worshipful heart. I can't find anybody who's grateful who isn't worshiping at the same time. Come on. When I come to the Lord and worship, I can't help but think on the things that he's done for me. And when I think about the things he's done for me, it causes me to stop and say thank you. Why? Because thank you is worship. And the thing about worship is worship retrains your brain where to focus.”

#GodWorksInYou

“how many of you have ever noticed like I want Godto start something today and finish it by tonightright and sometimes God starts it when I was a child and he finishes it pretty close to my deathbed sometimes God starts and finishes things not on our time frame but on his put this down I said God is more concerned about what he's doing in you than what he's doing through you”

#CommittedToTheWord

“There was a point in time where the church took the scripture seriously. And we didn't want a motivational talk. We didn't want somebody to come in and tell us what we wanted to hear. We didn't want somebody just to come in and encourage us. And we all want encouragement. Please don't misunderstand me. But what we were was we were committed enough to the word that if you would come in and even if it offended where I was, if it was his word, I was willing to change where I was to move to where I should be. Because that's what his word said.”

#LiveGenerously

“We will live generously with our time, our talent, and our treasure. Here's a key thought. The next generation can do more because I lived generously today. It's kind of a key thought I want you to continue to hold on to and to continue to think about today. That the next generation can do better because I lived generously today.”

#LegacyMakesPossible

“A legacy is not what you do, but it's what you make possible. A legacy is not what you do. It's what you make possible. You know, whenever people hear the word, the word legacy, again, they start thinking about what they're going to do in life, what they're going to build, what they're going to be remembered for. And that sounds good, but as we begin to study Scripture, we can see that's not quite how the Bible defines a legacy. That's not quite how the Bible defines a legacy. Legacy isn't about what you do. Legacy is about what you make possible for someone else.”

#LivingInCircles

“The secret sauce of Harvest Church is being a part of a team and being a part of a circle. Because when we believe that the greatest way that you're going to experience Harvest Church is those two ways. We live in circles, not rows. That's how we say it here. We don't exist for the Sunday morning service. We get to do the Sunday morning service as something that we enjoy doing, but we don't exist for it. We exist for everyone around us.”

#GodOnTheThrone

“``Before you begin to worry about a beast or a dragon, understand God is on his throne. Amen. Before you begin to wonder what elders are and what the four living creatures are, understand God is on his throne. And being that he is speaking to persecuted churches and knowing that the prophecy is telling them things don't look like they're going to get any better for quite some time, he wants them to understand that before you step into any more trial, any more difficulty, any more trouble, any more turmoil, any more chaos, I want you to understand that the one who holds the world in his hands is sitting on his throne, and he is dictating peace to every chaotic situation.”

#ObeyBeforeUnderstanding

“We are going to approach this like I would in a biblical interpretation class. We're actually going to take it and we're going to look at and see what the Spirit of God might be saying to us. Through His word. We're going to learn the book of Revelation. But we're also going to listen. Right? And we listen so that we can obey. Right? From last week. We read Revelation so that we can obey Revelation. Not so that we can necessarily understand everything about the book of Revelation.”

#RejectMediaDrivenProphecy

“If your interpretation of Revelation starts with a newspaper article, you're doing it wrong. If it starts with Fox News or CNN or it starts with msnbc, you're doing it wrong. That is not how we interpret Scripture and that is not how we interpret Revelation. Okay? So we have to start. So I'm just gonna say this. I'm gonna let it land where it may. Some of you might get mad, some of you might cheer me on, some of you might be confused, but I'm just gonna preach it and let it land where it lay.”

#ChurchInCulture

“The whole premise behind this series is there are some principles that while I am very much, I believe that we have to do church in a way that is relevant to our culture. I think that can be proven through scripture and through history. We have to do church in a way that is relevant to our culture. Now, when I say that, a lot of folks will go, well, we don't bow the knee to culture. No, we don't. But we have to speak the language of it so that we can adequately communicate to it.”

#GodRemainsOnTheThrone

“And let me tell you this, God didn't leave you. God didn't forsake you.God's not distant from you. Did Paul do anything wrong? Was Paul sinning? And so because he was sinning, then he was beaten and shipwrecked? No, actually, as a matter of fact, he was preaching the gospel. And that's why he was beaten and stoned and all of these different things. And so what can we learn from that? We can learn simply this. Guys, listen, life just happens.But here's the most important thing. God is still God. God is still on the throne. And guess what? God still wins.”

#JoelWarningHarvest

“Grain represents harvest, new wine represents the presence or the move of the Holy Spirit, and oil represents the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The first time I went back and I read Joel, I won't say the first time, but when God really began to deal with me about this, in Joel 1 and 10, he said, the grain is ruined, the new wine is dried up, and the oil fails. Joel is looking at them, and he's going, everything that you've worked for is destroyed.”

#PrioritizeTheGreater

“When you realize your days are numbered, you begin to properly number your days. What is your priority in life? What are you actually supposed to do? Some of us in this room, we're just way too busy. Some of us, we just have way too much stuff going on. And you're doing it because you want somebody to pat you on the back. Or you're doing it because you feel like you're going to let somebody else down. And God never called you to some of those things. You just keep doing them over and over and over again. And you're doing the lesser thing and you're not doing the greater thing which God's called you to do.”

#FollowGodRegardless

“Job wasn't written to any like specific people group, not like the Hebrews, not the Gentiles. It was just written to all in any of humanity that could benefit from the book. Written for, to show people reading it and to urge people reading it, to follow God regardless. To follow God regardless.”