Churches in Pittsboro

“We've often been the recipient of many chances in our lives. And because of his slowness to anger, because of everything else, because of his compassion, his grace, his faithfulness, we can experience God's love, which I believe is the ultimate characteristic of God. God is love. God's love allows him to be compassionate. God's love allows him to be faithful. God's love allows him to be slow to anger and to extend grace. God's love is so great, so encompassing, that when God does issue punishment, because he does, we've seen it. Many of you have read it. It's right here in the Bible. When he does issue punishment, he has a rescue plan in place. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden, he had a rescue plan in place. When he flooded the world, he had a rescue plan in place. When there's so much distance between him and us, he had a rescue plan in place. He sent his son Jesus, the one who could not sin and did not sin to take on the world's sin as a punishment for all. God is love.”

“"Jesus Christ is the one perfect manifestation in history of the complete work of the Holy Spirit in man. What does that mean? Jesus was 100% man because he was born of the Virgin Mary, but he was also 100% deity because he came from God."”

“Because if something we want is out in the distance, we don't wait for it to come to us. If it's out there, we don't wait. We go towards it. We drive ourselves to action. We pursue it. So where are you seeking God? Are you in the Bible? Are you reading his word? Are you praying to him? Are you having a conversation with him? Are you just giving him a to do list? Are you actively listening to God? Because here's the thing, feeling distant from God is a real feeling. I cannot tell you that what you feel is not true. But what you feel and what is reality will sometimes not be true. Because you may feel distant from God, but God is never distant from you. God is always present. God is always right there waiting for you to turn to him, to get into his word, to start praying to him, to start having a conversation with him, to start praising him, singing, worshiping. He's right there.”

“Go delight in the Lord, and this isn't something you do passively. Nothing is passive in this this passage. It's an action. Every day we delight in the Lord, we worship him with hands raised, voices loud. We praise him in prayer and faithfulness, we praise him. We praise him, and we delight in him when things are going our way. We praise him, and we delight in him when we are being freed from the bondage of addiction, getting out of a bad relationship, a bad work situation. When things aren't going well in our lives or we get a bad health diagnosis, we delight in him. When we get a bad grade or our project didn't go as well as we thought it would be and we work very hard on it, we delight in him. When a friend betrays our trust, we delight in him. When we're waiting to hear his voice, his action, his willingness to heal, we delight in him. The one who is faithful, the one who is gracious, the one who is compassion, who is slow to anger, who is love. We delight in the Lord. Again, not because what he can give us, but because of who he is.”

“Jesus says that no one gets through the father except through him. So don't let whatever is holding you back from experiencing Jesus, from experiencing God's love. I want to challenge you today to lay that at the feet of Jesus. To let it go, because Jesus didn't come to the earth. He didn't put on flesh. He didn't go through a mock trial, get crucified, was dead and buried, conquered death, risen three days later only for some of your sins. He came from all of them. He came for all of them. And you can experience that too. Later today, we'll have our prayer team in there, and I want you to go I want to encourage you to go and talk the prayer team. If you need to confess something, confess something. If you need help with something, ask for help, ask for prayer. Don't let something hold you back from being able to delight in the Lord to experience love.”

“God is slow to anger. Who is thankful that God's slow to anger? Because I know I am. We we get told that this old testament God is a God of wrath and vengeance, and then God in the flesh, Jesus, he's the one that's kind hearted and loving. But you see, God gives chance after chance to so many people. He gives them so many chances to do what he's actually telling them to do. To not cheat, to not covet, to not steal, to not worship false idols, to not lie, to not do it their way but his way. He is slow to anger.”

“Keep your focus on God, knowing that he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithfulness and love. Because those are the things that matter. There is nothing in this world that will ever give you what he can, and it's not necessarily about what he can give you, it's just about him being who he is. But that's what we chase, don't we? We chase the perfect job, we chase the status, we chase the great house, a car, the new iPhone, game system, likes and follows. None of those things will fulfill you like God does. Pursue God like he'll pursue us.”

“This compassion is something that we should feel ourselves. When we see somebody who is hungry, we don't just say, Oh, man, that's rough. No, our compassion should drive us to want to feed them, to buy them a meal, to give them something. When you see somebody suffering, you shouldn't just say, Oh, man, I wish somebody would do something. Maybe you're that person to do something. Maybe God's calling you. Do you feel the compassion to go help them, to serve them?”

“You see, God was hearing the cries of his people, and it wasn't just that he was hearing it and didn't do anything. It wasn't that he just felt sorry for them. This wasn't an emotion or passive feeling he had. That compassion drove him to action. That compassion drove him to free his people from slavery. His compassion also allowed him to see one amongst the many. Right? Because the people of Israel were disobeying God long before these past three months. And he saw Moses.”

“``Jesus says to you and to me, you wanna know what God looks like? I look just like him. Not only do I look like him, I act just like him. Like, if you've seen me, Jesus says, you have actually seen what the father looks like, who the father is, the character of God. Really good news, my friends, because some of you some of you grew up at this understanding of God. You got, like, angry God and nice Jesus. And what Jesus says is there's no angry God behind Jesus. His heart is the same for you. The father and the son both are all in on reconciling you to God. This displaying, demonstrating perfect love forever and ever. Amen. There is no angry God behind Jesus. There's only the God that Jesus shows us. He's that good. Because if you've seen Jesus, you've seen his heart, you see how he talks to people, how he relates to people, how he heals people. You see great what great lengths he goes to demonstrate his love for you and for me. That's the same father that you and I have. That's the heart of God the father.”