Churches in Walls

“God, how can I stop and pump the brakes for just a second? Right? We'll sing. I surrender all. But then we wanna negotiate how we surrender. Right? I'll surrender all as long as it's going my direction. But the moment it gets a little hard, god must not be in that because if it it's so hard, it must be god is closing a door. Right? Well, maybe he is closing a door, but maybe he wants you to kick the door down. All of that depends on what is the word and the will of god. We cannot fall for a counterfeit. We cannot build a self centered Christianity in which God exists to make our lives easier. We must build not a comfortable, not even a successful Christianity. We must build a Christ centered view of our lives, our families, our world, our church. If it's not centered on Jesus and his will and his word, then there's always something wrong. So”

“Now in following Jesus, the reality is a lot of times, it will feel like you're taking care of yourself. Sometimes following Jesus will feel like you're putting everybody else before yourself, and it won't feel like taking care of yourself. But let me remind you, your feelings are not a good compass for your life. Your feelings don't give you a great direction. Alright? God gave you your feelings. Your feelings are valid. The word of God is what gives us the direction we should move him. The truth of his word is what we live according to. He gave us feelings, but sometimes those feelings will lie to us. Yes. We do feel that way. But if you feel like the word of God is wrong, what that's actually telling you or or if you feel like God is telling you to do something you don't really like it, it makes you feel afraid. It makes you feel what it's actually telling you is whether or not you want to obey and surrender and submit to the word of God. It's not telling you whether or not the word of God is true.”

“Paul is reminding us that sometimes we need to be selfless instead of selfish. That if we're going to look like Christ, it won't always easy. It won't always be comfortable that Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe, the god of the heavens, the one who, without a doubt, everything should always be all about him. Even he put aside his glory and his majesty, and he stepped out of the throne room of heaven. He took off his his kingly robes, and he put on this earthly flesh, and he walked among us, and he gave his life. He took on the form of a servant, and he even went to the cross for us, for our interests.”

“I'm just wondering, with everything that we have going on in this world, all the anxiety, all of the depression, all of the struggle that we have, it happens in the church just as much as it happens outside the church. I want you to think about this. Maybe our problem is not that we love ourselves too little. So that's what the world tells us. You need some time for yourself. You need to do something for yourself. Maybe the problem is not that we love ourselves too little. Maybe it's that we've made ourselves the center. That if we actually put Jesus as the center and we understood what our relationship really is with him, how much he really loves us and cares for us, and how if we live according to his will, I'm not promising you that it's gonna be easy. Not at all. But that when we live according to his will and his way for his kingdom and his desires, I'm guessing a lot of those feelings that are probably, in many cases, false feelings would just fade away because we have Jesus as our center. So number two, Number two if you're taking notes. Loving yourself is not a command.”

“Listen. Whether you can do something about it or not really doesn't matter. Alright? There may be something about your personality. Not just something on the outside, but something on the inside that that you don't really like. But what happens is we we get this fixation, on whatever that is, and we'll tear ourselves down. We don't understand that we're created in the image of God. We don't live our lives as though it's all about God. And in the end, it's not all about us, the way that we look or even our personality because God gave us those things. And so what happens, is we wanna like, the answer for us is if I could just change this, things would be better. And the world is happy to help us out with surgery or whatever else. And listen, again, I'm not saying that it's wrong to do something like that. It's not necessarily sinful. But the answer, stick with me, the answer is not to stare at ourselves until we finally become depressed and then fix ourselves until we finally become impressed with ourselves. That's not the answer. The answer is to lift our eyes to Jesus.”

“However it's worded, whatever it looks like, the counterfeit idea is that your first priority is to take care of yourself. Because if you don't take care of yourself, mama, you're not gonna be able to take care of those kids very well. If you don't take care of yourself, wife, then you're probably not gonna love your husband the way that you ought to love your husband. Or, men, if you don't take care of yourself, then you might die an early death. Who's gonna be around to take care of your kids and your wife? Right? So we hear this, take care of yourself. That is your first priority. But that's a counterfeit. Jesus says follow me.”

“When something sounds true and we we elevate that to a priority in our lives, because part of it is true, but it causes us to actually put that thing or that idea or possibly ourselves and our will, our purpose, our desires above God's will or God's purposes for our lives, then that almost truth becomes a dangerous lie. It becomes a counterfeit that we can fall for. So here's today's counterfeit. In a nutshell, the world says your first priority is to take care of yourself.”

“Sometimes we say follow Jesus and he will improve your life. Listen, I've preached before. I've preached these very words. If you trust Jesus as your savior, Jesus is gonna be he's gonna make you better at life. He's gonna make life better. Sometimes. Not all the time. Jesus says, follow me and surrender your life. We say, Jesus, will you help me accomplish my dreams? And Jesus says, lay down your dreams and receive my purpose.”

“He says it is to your advantage that he goes away. The disciples could not even imagine how this would be true. They've been walking with him for for three years at this point. But here's the deal. If if Jesus doesn't leave, Pentecost never happens. There's no mighty rushing wind. We have no charismatic movement in the church. There's no, you know, whatever. You know, there's nothing for us because Jesus didn't go away. We don't have the power of heaven living inside of us. If Pentecost never comes, right, the church is never empowered. The church is gonna grow. But if Pentecost doesn't happen, where do we get the power to overcome sin? What's inside of us? Sometimes God's greatest gift comes wrapped up in our biggest disappointments, the biggest letdowns. But keep in mind, the Holy Spirit's already at work before you get there.”

“So guys, the route may change, but Jesus never does. Never does. And I'm gonna close with this. I get a statement that keeps coming to me a lot these days. We never know what we believe until that belief is challenged. I think a lot of guys think they love their wives, But then I don't really think they love their wives until they have an opportunity to love their wife. A lot of people might think they're great employees until they're presented with an opportunity that challenges them being a great employee. And then they have to be their great employee. You think you follow Jesus and you're a Christ follower? Wait till you find out that that's being attacked, and then see how you respond.”