Churches in Conneaut Lake

“In other you know, what does that verse say? You you know, you really gotta break that down to understand. Actually, I I think I have let me give you this real quick. In this verse, Jesus is telling the religious leaders that why they meticulously study the scriptures to find eternal life, they missed the point because those same scriptures point directly to him, yet they refuse to come to him for that very life. Basically, what it's whatever says to you and I is fear god, not men. Fear god, not men. You know, you wanna transform the world we live in? Start fearing god and not men. We are so afraid of what somebody thinks about us and and all that. That's why most people don't even witness and tell people about Jesus Christ because we're afraid of what they think. You know, if we would start fearing god and the heck with men, and I don't mean the heck with men in a disrespectful way, but but it's like, listen. I I don't really care what you think. God has called me to tell you about Jesus. You can hate it or love it, but I'm gonna do what god has called me to do. But, no, we we get so fearful what they might think of us or or or, you know, that we did you know, we don't say nothing. It's crazy to me.”

“``Prayer does not overpower God's sovereignty, but God's sovereignty invites prayer into his work. Let me say that again. Prayer does not overpower God's sovereignty, but God's sovereignty invites prayer into his work. Notice the way Moses prayed, and he doesn't say, god, can you lower your standards of justice? Can we just say, okay. You said no other gods, but can we put an addendum on there that says, well, only golden calf gods allowed.”

“so the the two critical points, the man is willing to sell and to give up all, and that's not our world today. You know, we're we're real you know, we wanna put our toes in the water, but we don't wanna jump into the water. Right? In other words, you know, the the the the person that really receives Jesus and and starts to transfer them from their their lives is a person that is willing to turn to god from all, right, from whatever. You know, in other words, lord, you have me, whatever you wanna do. In other words, that person is willing to what? The controversial word that that person is willing to repent. Right? That person is willing to repent. He's will we're you know, he's he or she is willing to turn from the way that they were going and start going in a new direction, and that is Jesus Christ. Why would one wanna repent?”

“When a person finds a treasury, he does five things. A, he hides it and protects it. We protect it. Now what do we do? Well, the bible says you know, in other words, a person who has really tasted and learned the value of Christ hides that treasure in our heart. Right? It becomes part of who we are. You know, we seek on a daily basis to know Jesus more. We seek and we seek and we lay hold of the gospel, and we don't let it go. It it becomes part of who we are. It becomes, you know, that thing that that motivates us. We we, we we we seek to, we seek to possess as much of that treasure as we possibly can.”

“And I can tell you here this morning, if you're not completely surrendered to Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, if he is not the one if you're not fearing him and you're fearing what other people think, you know, it it man, there's a better life out there for us. I'm not here to question whether you're getting in heaven or not if you're somewhere in that realm. All I'm saying is if you want if you wanna live the best life you can now as we're doing life here on Earth, sell out to Jesus Christ, man. Make him the authority, in your life. You know, he needs to be the authority in this church as well. And I'm telling you, things will change. You know, lay hold of the treasure. You know, whether you think it's potential believers or whether you think it's the gospel of Jesus Christ, grab a hold of it. Let's pray.”

“It's it's it's standing so close to the Lord. It's it's it's standing so close to God's heart. It's it's having a relationship with him that we appeal to him based on his promises, based on his character, based on his purposes, and and God in his sovereignty chooses to work through those prayers. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. He doesn't need us. He chooses to work through our prayers.”

“And I and I think, again, I mentioned this a little last week. I think in the back of our minds, there's this nagging sort of suspicion that our prayers really don't do all that much. Right? God is god. God's gonna do what god's gonna do. What what real difference would my prayer make? So I wanna say that's error number one in in how we think about prayer. Error number one is to think that prayer changes nothing.”

“The Lord changed his mind. He did what? He's not supposed to do that. Right? God is not supposed to change his mind. Numbers chapter 23 verse 19 says, God is not a man that he should lie nor a son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? And this is why I said this is a difficult passage”