**Announcements**
Hello everyone, my name is Brooks. Welcome to Hope City Church, where love is at the center of everything we do. We believe that every person who walks through our doors should feel embraced and accepted, regardless of their background or beliefs. Whether you're seeking spiritual guidance or simply looking for a place where you can connect with others, we're here for you.
To connect with us, text HC Connect to 9400. A member of our team is waiting to connect with you. We are honored you chose to worship with us. Welcome home!
Today is step two of our new members class. This is an exciting opportunity for you to discover your gifts. All of us were created by God to make a difference in the life of another person. In this class, you will discover the place where you can use your unique abilities and passions here at Hope City to touch the lives of others.
So join us immediately following each service in the Next Steps room. Here at Hope City, we strive to create a warm and welcoming environment for all. Our community groups are filled with individuals who are ready to extend a hand of friendship and support. We offer various groups catered to different age groups and interests, so there is something for everyone in our church family.
To join a group, visit weareopcity.cc/groups.
Middle and high school students, join us for Movement Night here at Hope City Church the second Wednesday of each month, where you will dive into inspiring discussions, connect with fellow students, and experience a sense of community. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. We hope to see you there!
The Sunday Morning Experience is about creating an atmosphere where everyone feels welcome, accepted, and valued. You can participate in this collective effort by finding a place here at Hope City Church to use your gifts and talents by becoming a member of a Dream Team. To find your place to serve, visit weareopcity.cc/dreamteam.
Members of the Dream Team, this is your call to action! We're seeking volunteers to assist with our Movement Nights that occur here at Hope City Church the second Wednesday of each month. To volunteer or for more information, visit the church website weareopcity.cc.
Alright everyone, don't miss out on all the incredible things happening at Hope City! Stay connected with us on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, the Church Center app, and online at weareopcity.cc.
So, sow a seed of hope in the city by inviting your family and friends so we can help them know God, find freedom, discover their purpose, and make a difference.
Alright, Hope City, I'll see you next week!
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**Good Morning Hope City!**
Good morning, Hope City! Good morning! One more time, good morning, Hope City!
We had an amazing weekend here at Hope City Church. I am pretty convinced that the fruit that we're going to see from the couples event is going to be some amazing marriages in this church. Come on, somebody!
Don't be weak! Some amazing marriages! And the second selfish thing I believe that will come from that is that there are going to be a lot of marriage small groups that will be birthed out of this past conference. Come on, somebody!
So couples, your pain and your pressure could be the small group that God will be calling you to birth out. Your mountain could be the small group that God would use you and your spouse to birth out in this upcoming season.
And to all the single folk that had the audacity to go all the way to Jacksonville over the past weekend, I believe some amazing singles ministries or singles small groups are going to be birthed out of that trip in Jacksonville. From what I saw online yesterday, it looked like you guys had a mighty fine time.
So welcome home, but get back home, though! I said, now y'all getting too comfortable down there. Get on back home!
And if you've ever been to our home church, Impact Church, God is doing some amazing things there. It is almost easy to get stuck and not come back home, but it's good to see you, Alexis. So welcome home!
I want to just jump right into the word today, which I find interesting. I did not even think about the fact that all of what's happening right now at Hope City when I put this title together for my message today.
As we're in our series, which you'll see this series screen here real soon, the series that we're in right now is "Relationships Made Simple." I had no clue, as I was processing the title for the message today, which is actually "Forged Under Pressure."
Good relationships or great relationships are literally forged under pressure, but oftentimes we avoid pressure. Why? Because no one likes pressure, and we don't understand the power and the purpose behind pressure.
When we don't understand the purpose of something, we often run from it. So when I thought about this title, this message today, "Forged Under Pressure," I thought about what God is doing here at Hope City Church.
For those who don't know, those who just come on Sunday morning, get the word, and get out, you guys are enjoying that. You love your church! I got the best church in the world! I can go there, get some coffee, get in and out, my kids being looked after, drop my little offering in the back, and I can just go home. Everything is so perfect there—no pressure!
It's no pressure on you because you just get to go home, but there are a lot of people who work in and out of the week to make sure that Sunday, the conferences, and all those things go off without a hitch.
So can we give all of our Dream Team members and our staff a hand clap for all the pressure they often find themselves in trying to make this thing happen?
Even the pressure we sometimes feel in the auditorium trying to make space, taking chairs out, leaving chairs in—it's convenient to leave them in, but then it's also a code violation issue to leave them in. Come on, somebody!
So talking about the pressures of trying to navigate and know the rope, when to hold things tight, and when to loosen up, that's not always an easy thing to navigate.
One thing I learned is that pressure can either form you or pressure can crush you. Pressure can develop you or pressure can destroy you.
As we talk about relationships today, whether it's your marriage, in ministry, or with a coworker, great things are forged under pressure. Oftentimes, we avoid the pressure at the expense of what God is trying to get organized and perfected in our life.
So this is not the season for us, as a church or as individuals, to run from the pressure. This is the time for us to get an understanding of why this particular pressure is in my life.
We do know that high blood pressure, if you would, or too much pressure or not enough pressure—neither one of them is good, right? Too much pressure is bad, and not enough pressure is bad. Either one can kill you, right?
But the right amount of pressure in our life has the beauty and the power to produce something absolutely amazing in our life.
Today, I want to help us get a revelation that God is trying to forge some amazing relationships in our life, and He's going to do it under pressure. Somebody shout, "Pressure!"
Amen!
So I want to look at the life of Peter. Peter in Luke chapter 22 is a foundation of scripture for us to look at. If you know anything about Luke chapter 22, the story that begins with that is that Jesus is on His way to be crucified.
He told His disciples, particularly Peter, that, "Hey, I'm about to go to the cross. I'm about to be destroyed," if you would. And Peter did not like that idea. Peter did not like that plan that Jesus' exit out of the Earth was going to be that He was going to be taken and nailed to a cross.
So much so, Peter was against that. Peter said, "Far be it from me if I would allow that to happen."
And what did Jesus do? Jesus turned around, rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an offense." In other words, the thing that you are saying, the words that you are saying, they are contrary to what I am trying to do.
So literally, what Peter thought he was doing—he thought he was taking the pressure off of God. He thought he was taking the pressure off of Jesus. But that was necessary pressure. That was a necessary process.
That was necessary in order for God to manifest what He wanted to manifest in the life of Jesus. Death on the cross was a part of the assignment.
Oftentimes, people try to talk us out of the process of what God is trying to do, and they do that because they don't understand this is the process that God's going to use to elevate us and to get us where we're going.
Oftentimes, we think that it is a pretty process. It is a desired road. It is a road that is paved with gold that's going to get us to our destiny. Oftentimes, it is ugly. It is an ugly process, an ugly circumstance that is going to usher us into the very presence of the things that we desire from God.
Has anybody been through anything lately that was not desirable, but the thing that you see at the end of it makes you say it was all worth it? Come on, somebody!
You may be going through something right now, and the process was not that pretty, but when you look at what's at the end of that process, it's like, "You know what? It will be worth it all in the end."
But what if you were not willing to go through that process? The beautiful thing, the beautiful potential that's on the other side of what God is about to do, we are going to miss.
I think about what God is doing here even now at Hope City Church, that we're in a process now of launching a second location. The process is not easy. The process is not pleasurable.
Sometimes, whether it's this process, you can oftentimes want to abandon what God is trying to do because you don't understand the process. But you cannot abandon what God is trying to do because the process is not this perfect laid-out step one, step two process.
Success is not a straight line. Come on, somebody! If I look at all my successes, it was not a straight line that got me there. It was a lot of dips, a lot of turns, a lot of going backwards that ultimately got me to where I wanted to be.
I want to paint this picture very clear today: God wants to get our relationships into this amazing place, but the process is not always pretty.
So then we get to this point where Jesus said to Peter, "Hey Peter, it's going to be a point that you're going to deny that you even know who I am."
And Peter said, "Far be it from me! I would never deny you!"
Our relationship, watch this here, our relationship is too far important to me for me to ever deny that I knew you.
And Jesus said, "Peter, before the rooster crows three times, I'm telling you, you're going to act like you never knew who I was."
You know, when circumstances come into our life, they challenge just how strong your relationship is, just how committed you are to your partner, just how committed you are to your ministry, just how committed you are to your...
Peter said, "Far be it from me!" Have you ever said that before about something? "I'll never do this! I'll never do that!"
Look what the scripture says here in verse 54: "Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance."
Look what Peter was doing. It said Peter was there, but he was following at a distance.
Listen, people leave before they leave. People leave before they leave. They may still be there physically, but oftentimes when someone is ready to leave you before they leave, they are—before they physically leave—they've already left in their mind. They've left in their heart.
It said Peter was there, but he followed at a distance.
I know when people have left me many times. I knew before they left the room, they were already gone. I knew at the meeting table. I knew in the conversation. I knew they had...
Peter was there, but he was at a distance.
Have you ever been there before? People you knew that were still in the room, that were still at the job, that still came to the family dinner, but you knew they were not there?
You knew the divorce was coming even though you were still in the same... You felt it. You sensed it. You knew that something was off.
And Peter was following at a distance.
Verse 55: "And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them."
Look at verse 56: "Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, 'This man also was with him.'"
It says, "But he denied it, saying, 'Woman, I do not know him.'"
He denied Jesus at His most greatest need—the people that were closest to Him. He said, "I do not know him."
He says in verse 58, "But a little later, someone else saw him and said, 'You also are one of them.'"
But Peter said, "Man, I am not!"
Have you ever been somewhere and you were like, "Hey, don't I know you?" "I don't know you!"
"No, no, I saw you last night at the so-and-so place, and you were just going like..." "No, remember that? You don't know? No, that wasn't me!"
"Yeah, that was you! You had the long hair, your long nails, and you were bumping up all on that man! Yeah, that was you!"
But then your hair was shorter, though. You know how they do it. Not to hair long, short, praise and change hair.
So often, watch this here, and after an interval of about an hour, still another insisted, saying, "Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean."
It said, "But Peter said, 'Man, I don't know what you're talking about.'"
And the Bible says, "And immediately, as Peter was speaking, the rooster crowed three times."
And he said in that moment, Peter remembered what Jesus had told him. He ran away, he walked away, and he began to weep bitterly.
Why? Because someone he was in covenant with, someone he was in relationship with, someone that he needed—the Jesus needed the most—see, oftentimes your friends don't need you that much when they're on a mountain. They need you when they're in their valley.
And when Jesus needed him the most, he said, "I don't have any clue."
Have you ever been there before? People you needed the most, that friend you needed the most—they wouldn't respond back to you. They wouldn't talk to you.
This is where Peter finds himself, and Peter succumbs to the pressure.
Peter broke under pressure.
When I look at how and why Peter broke under pressure, I saw, number one, it was because of fear. He was afraid that he was going to lose his own life. He knew what was about to happen to Jesus, and now he found himself in a position where he possibly was going to lose his life.
And out of fear, he denied the relationship.
A second thing: the absence of trust. Peter did not trust the process.
We break under pressure—the pressure of starting the business, the pressure of launching the new campus, the pressure of allowing new people to be on your team, the pressure of writing the book, the pressure of going back to school.
We allow the pressure of not trusting the process to break us.
We allow the pressure of not knowing what was going to happen to not form us; we allow it to break us and to destroy us.
Here's another thing Peter forgot, or that caused him to succumb to pressure: he forgot about all the past victories.
He forgot about all the miracles he saw God do through Jesus Christ. He forgot about the healings. He forgot about the blind eyes being opened. He forgot about the food being multiplied. He forgot about the lame being able to walk. He forgot about the deaf being able to hear.
He forgot about all that Jesus...
Have you forgotten about what God has brought you through?
Have you forgotten about how God provided for you when you lost that job? He made sure you were still taken care of.
You may be under pressure right now. You may think you're about to lose something right now, but you must remember the past victories that God has brought you through and not allow the pressure that you're under now to destroy you.
Allow it to form you.
Can we give God a praise right there?
We cannot succumb to the pressures of this life. We cannot succumb to the pressures that we've been tested with right now. Some of you are being tested right now, tempted to quit, tempted to throw in the towel, tempted to back away from what God is calling you to.
Why? Because you don't like the pressure of the process.
And here's the problem: you don't define the process; God defines the process.
And when you don't allow God to define the process, the promises that are literally at the end of the process, you're not going to get them because you went another way.
One scripture says, "There's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death."
Have you ever gone down a road looking for something, thinking something would be down there, but when you got down there, what you were looking for was not there?
Because there's a way that there—a process that is convenient, that is comfortable, that is the preferred route—that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death.
I think about our process here at Hope City Church, why we have a Dream Team and a process to help people become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ and how they join Hope City Church.
Then they go through the growth track and understand who we are and who God is. You know, what does it mean to be a part of a small group and to go through the Dream Team?
That process—people say, "I'm called to do this, and I'm called," but they don't want to be processed.
God called me here to do... Okay, let's go through the process.
Because here's the beauty: if you were the ugly side of church growth, at the beginning, when you're starting off, needy people do needy things.
Don't play with me right now! When you're starting off, you do stuff you can't do when you get bigger.
As you're growing, a sailboat, if you would, I can get out there in the Atlantic Ocean, and I can go fast. I can do twists. I can do all kinds of stuff.
But as a Titanic, the process is different. You know why that Titanic crashed? It saw that thing miles out, but not enough—they didn't see it soon enough to be able to make the turn it needed to make to avoid what it was about to encounter.
The bigger we become, the slower we make decisions. In the beginning, we have to make decisions on the dime, on the drop.
But the bigger something becomes, you have to process some of that stuff. How does that impact that?
And then people come in used to going to Burger King and having it their way, and then they take it personal when they don't get personal things to happen their way.
I tell people now, I got a responsibility that is greater to the organization than I do to one person. I just can't appease one person at the good of what God is trying to do.
But if you're willing to go through the process, I promise you, if God sent you here—yeah, you said God sent you here—if God sent you here, I promise you, trust the process. He's going to get you.
And watch this here: you can't be looked over. If God sent you here, you're going to be seen.
Even if they got you out on the backside of the desert, David said, "Send me your son."
"Yeah, one? Okay, now that ain't him."
He said, "Surely these can't be all your boys because there's no witness in my spirit that neither one of these are."
He said, "Yeah, I do got one more, but he's out in the desert field working with the sheep."
He said, "Yeah, go get him real fast."
He came and said, "Yep, this is the one."
Listen, you could be in the sound booth and in the parking lot and be called to pastor and preach. God will find you right where you are.
You just get busy working.
And can I give y'all one thing for free? You want to know the fastest way to be seen by me? The fastest way to be seen by me is to be serving.
The fastest way for me to kind of see you is because you're serving. Like, "See, you've been here for a while now. There's not a day that goes by that I don't see you."
Because why? You stepped out of saying, "I just want to be a consumer." I now want to be a contributor.
Come on, Hope City! Y'all come on!
Come on, Miss Janine! You couldn't be looked over in the masses. You can't be!
When you get busy serving and get busy working, you cannot be overlooked.
I'm saying that for those of you who are like, "Man, I'll never be seen! I'll never be heard! I got this gift of singing! I got this gift of teaching! I got this gift of knowing how to park cars!"
Trust me, just get busy serving. Get busy doing something, and God will point you out.
I don't know what that has to do with this message here at all, but it just came at a perfect moment right there.
I think it was tied to the process, but watch this real fast, y'all.
Pressure isn't a weight that crushes us; it's the environment where diamonds of resilience, patience, and love are formed.
I'm going to say it again: pressure isn't a weight that crushes us; it's the environment where diamonds of resilience, patience, and love are formed.
Look at James 5:11: "As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered."
He said, "You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about."
So one scripture says, "Many are the afflictions..."
Anybody been under pressure lately? I mean, like, they've been many?
Some of y'all don't know pressure. I'm talking about those of us that know many pressures.
You ever hear folks say, "It's one thing after another?" Come on, somebody!
It's like... and then don't say nothing stupid like, "Can't nothing else happen!" Uh-oh! There you go! There you go right there!
It's like it's one thing after... many are the afflictions of the righteous.
Many of you are going through pressure in your job, in your marriage, with your children, with your finances.
But many are the afflictions of the righteous, and the Lord will bring you through them all.
Can I get a praise for God right there? He will bring you through them all!
Allow the pressure to do what God desires for it to do, and that is not to crush you; it is to form you.
Many of you are allowing the pressure in your marriage to crush you. It's supposed to form you, make you stronger, make you better, make you more brilliant.
I'm going to show you that here in just a moment.
Pressure has the power to crush us or to form us.
Let me give you four quick things, and I'm done for today.
**Four Pillars of Relationship Growth**
1. **Pressure and Patience**:
Pressure and patience.
Anybody ever go to the gym trying to gain weight or lose weight?
All y'all New Year's resolution gym-goers, where you at? You start off January 1st, you make it a couple weeks, and you quit.
Why? Because of the pressure and the impatience of the weight to come off or the weight to come on.
Diamonds are formed deep within the Earth's mantle, under immense pressure and heat.
Similarly, our relationships are often tested and refined through life's challenges.
Look what the scripture says here in James 5:11: that patience in times of difficulty can lead to blessings.
It is through enduring trials that we often discover the strength and resilience of our relationships.
When you go through trials with your relationships, whether it's your marriage or you and your kid or you and a friend, whenever that trial comes, what does it do to you?
What does it reveal to you? Does it bring out the worst in you, the mean in you, and you begin to attack each other and not the problem?
Come on, somebody! What is it revealing?
Are you discovering the strength and the resilience of that relationship?
You got to know how to endure.
The scripture says, "Endure hardness as a good soldier."
Unfortunately, we are in an age, we are in a time frame where people do not know how to endure pressure.
We run from pressure. Any sign of heat, any sign of pressure, we out!
Get married today, one disagreement, you at the divorce court tomorrow!
Pressure! The heat is on!
Now diamonds are formed deep. Your marriage, your dream, your vision, that thing you are running after, it needs to sometimes go through immense pressure and heat—not to destroy you, but to develop you.
Not to crush you, but to form you.
Some of you right now, where you are right now, your situations have formed you.
And for many of you, that is a great thing. You did not allow your upbringing to destroy you or to crush you; you allowed it to form you.
In fact, give yourself a hand clap because some of the stuff you've been through should have killed you!
It should have taken you out, but you're still right here with all your mind!
Now some of y'all got a piece of it, but you're able to sit here with all your mental faculties.
The scripture says, "In your patience possess ye your souls."
Don't miss this here: "In your patience possess ye your soul."
What is my soul? My soul is the seat of my emotions. It's where I think; it's how I feel.
It is in my soul realm where I make my decisions. It's in my soul where I say, "I do like this; I don't like that."
My soul says, "I want to go to work; I don't want to go to work."
My soul says, "I love him; I don't love him."
My soul says, "I love her."
But that's in my soul.
He said, "In your patience possess ye your soul."
So as long as I'm patient, I have control over how I think, how I feel, and how I respond.
But watch this here: "In my impatience, I give away my soul."
So if you don't have patience, it's not just you saying, "I'm not a patient person."
What you are saying is, "I'm an out-of-control person who has no control over how I'm going to think or how I let circumstances dictate how I'm going to respond."
So therefore, when the pressure comes, it's not going to form me; it's going to crush me because it tells me what to do. I don't tell it what to do.
"In your patience possess ye your soul."
You can stay...
Single people, in your patience, you will possess your...
In your impatience, single person, you give away the seat of your...
How you think, how you feel, what I want to do.
A man comes, a woman comes, you don't have any control.
You're giving away your patience, and he says, "Let's do this or do that," and you're going to do anything they say because you lost.
You don't have any patience.
**2. Time and Transformation**:
Time and transformation.
Again, diamonds are formed deep within the Earth's mantle.
Time and transformation—diamonds take millions of years to form.
Likewise, relationships require time to evolve and to mature.
Anybody ever dated somebody, and then you ended up getting... you loved them, and they did no wrong?
I mean, they didn't know. All you saw was good. They were perfect.
You got... you said, "I'll do..." Y'all married now for one or two years.
You got to go to work. You done had a baby.
And some of the same stuff they did when you were single that you were able to endure and say, "Oh, that's cute," now it's annoying.
Now it's aggravating. Now it's a turn-off.
The very things that attracted you to them, that you were able to endure, that you were able to gloss over and say, "Oh, that's not a big deal," it's the very stuff now that is trying to divide you.
Your relationships require time to not only mature but to evolve.
Look what it says in 1 Peter 5:10: "But the God of all grace, who has called us into His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, that after you have suffered a while..."
I got to stop there for a second.
He said, "After you have suffered..." Oh wow!
He's standing right there. Just get the picture.
He said, "Brother, He's letting you suffer for a while."
He sees what's going on.
He said, "After you have been through, dealt with, going through all of that, He said, 'After you have suffered for a while, He will make you perfect, He will establish you, He will strengthen you, and He will settle you.'"
Come on, somebody!
This is only for people who have suffered for a while.
See, some of us, we want the perfect, we want the established, we want the strengthened, we want the settling, but we don't want to go through the suffering.
See, the suffering is necessary to bring all the things together to create the diamond.
You can't have a diamond without the right elements coming together, and that's where the suffering comes together.
That's where, for marriage, the two shall become one, and now you got to suffer for a minute of the hardship trying to understand how she thinks, how he thinks, why they do it that way, why he puts the toilet up and leaves it up, and why she got to have it down.
You're going through suffering, a hardship process.
But after you have suffered a while, after you endured a while, after you are patient for a while, He will establish you, He will make you perfect, He will strengthen you, and He will settle you.
Can I get an amen in this place on today?
Just... I can never say this word right, so y'all please forgive me.
Is it cubic zirconia? I can never say it right here, and I just love the way it's easy for you guys to say.
I assume you have some cubic, but for us diamond people, we just say diamonds.
But it's okay, y'all got the cubic like, "Oh, like respect my cubic!"
Here's the interesting thing about the cubic and the diamond: from a distance, they could look the same.
And we got a lot of people who look the part, who got a form of this but no power.
I want to back it up.
Look like church, but under closer observation, you ain't nothing but a...
And watch this here: it's cheaper to get a cubic.
It takes work to get a diamond.
That's nobody want to go through the process, so we're settling for cubic relationships.
Come on, somebody!
Cubic dreams!
Got a cubic Facebook page that looks like you got it going on. Everything looks great, but it ain't nothing but a...
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This concludes the cleaned-up transcript.
on Feb 12, 2024
