Transformative Power of God's Love and Forgiveness

"Lord, be not far from me," and you said, "I am here, I am here."

And that's what this song is about. It's about God's faithfulness, it's about His continued working in our lives, and it's about His promise that He will never leave us or forsake us. So let's sing this song together, "Do It Again."

Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Thank you, choir, for being here.

So we're gonna sing a song now that's one of my absolute favorites. Guys, I'm so excited to just sing this with you, to hear you all sing this. It's called "Do It Again," and it is a testimony about God's continued working in our lives.

We look at scripture and we see the amazing things that He has done, and we use that to remind ourselves that God did not stop with the last chapter of Revelation. That's right, He is still working right now. He is here with you right now, and you know what? He hears your voice.

I need the lights in it, "Do It Again." That song for me reminds me the most of Lamentations chapter 3, which is probably my favorite chapter in all of scripture. It's written by the Prophet Jeremiah, and he's watching his world fall apart. He's watching the people that he loves being harmed. He's watching his home be destroyed. Everything he's built, everything he's ever known is taken away from him.

And in Lamentations chapter 3, he pours out his frustration to God and says, "God, you are doing this." He says, "God, I feel like I'm being hunted by a bird. It feels like your arrows pierce me," and he cries out to God.

And it's there in that moment that God meets him. Lamentations 3:53 says, "They flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me. Water closed over my head, and I said, 'I am lost.'" That sounds like rock bottom to me, and it brings me back to when I was at rock bottom. Maybe you were there once; maybe you're there today.

But you know, it's at the bottom of everything we've ever hoped for that God can speak. "I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit, and you heard my plea." I said, "Lord, be not far from me," and you said, "I am here, I am here."

And that's what this song is about. It's about God's faithfulness. It's about His continued working in our lives, and it's about His promise that He will never leave us or forsake us.

So let's sing this song together, "Do It Again."

"Do not close your ear to my cry for help. You came near when I called on you," and you said, "Church, do not fear." That's the message that God gives to those who are hurting. He doesn't say, "Guess what, you're going to be fixed right away," but He says, "I'm with you. I come near when you call, so don't be afraid."

Jeremiah says this: "I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end. In fact, they are new every morning." And then the famous phrase, "Great is your faithfulness."

God is faithful when we're at rock bottom. He is faithful. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him." The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. So I will wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Let's pray together, Church. God, we are waiting for you. We are here to meet with you. Lord, in silence, we take this moment to say, "God, speak." God, move in this place.

Let's sing this: "Walking around these walls, I thought by now they'd fall, but you have never failed me yet. I'm waiting, I'm waiting for change to come, but I know, I'm knowing this battle's won. I'm foreign. Yeah, this never failed us, and He won't start now."

Sing, "I know, so I know the night won't last, 'cause your word, your word will come too." Yeah, Church, yeah.

"But Jesus, you're still enough, so keep me within your love. My heart will sing your praise."

Declare this together: "Come on, your promise still stands, great is your faithfulness."

This is gone. We lay our burdens down, we lay our troubles down, we lay it all down. Oh, you gotta have your way in this place. Oh, we trust you, Jesus, we trust you all. Just lay it all down.

Come on, let's sing this: "You believe. You move the mountains, so leave again. You're so good, you're so good. Your promise still stands."

That's a clearance, yeah. "I'm still in yours." This is you've been so good to us, you've been so good. You are worthy, God.

Let's do that chorus one more time: "Your promise still stands." Come on, if you believe it, lift your voice.

Amen. Come on, why don't we give a shout of praise to the Lord today for His faithfulness?

You know, this song is a song of reminding our own spirits that even in the middle of our troubles, we serve a God who has done it before, and He can do it again.

Sometimes the easiest way to give you confidence in your future is to remember what God has done in the past. So if you get spiritual amnesia this morning, it would be really easy for you to forget what God has already done.

But if you remind yourself of the breakthrough that you've already experienced, you will have no problem moving forward knowing that whatever it is that I'm gonna face, God is bigger. He can do more and exceedingly and abundantly all than I can think or ask or imagine.

So here's what I know: "So keep me within your love, my heart will sing your praise."

Declare this together: "Come on, your promise still stands, great is your faithfulness."

This is gone. We lay our burdens down, we lay our troubles down, we lay it all down. Oh, you gotta have your way in this place. Oh, we trust you, Jesus, we trust you all. Just lay it all down.

Come on, let's sing this: "You believe. You move the mountains, so leave again. You're so good, you're so good. Your promise still stands."

That's a clearance, yeah. "I'm still in yours." This is you've been so good to us, you've been so good. You are worthy, God.

Let's do that chorus one more time: "Your promise still stands." Come on, if you believe it, lift your voice.

Amen.

I want to take a moment and just welcome all of our first-time guests. If this is your first time today at Temple City Church, it is so incredible to have you today. It is an honor that you're here.

If you are new, my name is ____. I serve a God that if He parted the waters before, He can do it again. If He could rescue me from my pit, then He can do it again. If He has delivered me from the hand of the enemy, then He can do it again.

I have that experience with a God who has brought me out, and I believe He's gonna do it again.

I just feel like we just need to go back into and I'm seeing Mo come on, "You move the mountains, and I believe I'll see you do it again. You made a way where there was no way, and I believe I'll see you do it again."

I've seen you move, you move the mountain, and I believe I'll see you do it again. You made a way where there was no way, and I believe I'll see you do it again.

I'll see you doing okay. We declare your promise, and your promise still says you've never failed me yet.

So Father, we're thankful, Lord, that we serve a God who has never failed and is not going to start now. God, you didn't bring us this far to leave us here.

God, we have 100% confidence, Lord, that you are who you say you are, that your promises are yes and amen. God, you are faithful to deliver, you are faithful to save, you are faithful to break the chains of addiction and depression and anxiety and suicidal ideation and fear and worry and whatever it is that we're dealing with this morning.

God, you have the power in your hands to deliver us, and God, we stand in faith this morning believing, Lord, that we're going to leave out of here completely different than what we walked in on this July 4th weekend when everybody else is at the beach.

God, we are in your presence wanting a miracle, believing that you can do it, believing you can do it.

So God, I pray, Lord, if there's anybody in this room that needs to be encouraged today, God, you would encourage them. God, if you need to lift the head of the discouraged, God, lift their head. If you need to breathe life into somebody's body today, God, do that.

But God, we believe you for the impossible because you are the God of the impossible, and we've seen you do it before, and we believe that you can do it again.

In Jesus' mighty name, we ask and we pray, and everybody in this room shouted, "Amen" in faith. Come on, amen, amen, amen.

I'm the youth pastor here, and I'm just so thankful that you're in the building with us this morning. It is an incredible honor to have you. We know that you could be so many other places right now. It's July 2nd; you could be at the beach, you could be at the lake, you could be in the mountains, wherever your preference is.

You know you could be in all those places, but you're here, and that's incredible to us, so thank you so much for being here.

If you are new, I would like to turn your attention to the seat pocket in front of you. There's gonna be a connect card. If you pull that out, it won't take you but just a few seconds to fill it out, and then we actually you would just drop it in the offering bucket here in a moment as it passes, or you can hold on to it. You can bring it back to the connect room after service is over, which is in the back of the auditorium where we have a gift for you, and we would love to meet you, some of our staff, and just say hello.

And that connect card, what that's really going to do is it's going to help you get connected to your next step. So if you're here and you're like, "This is my first time; I don't really know anybody," that connect card is the gateway to getting you to where you want to be.

If you want to join a Bible study, if you want to become a member of our church, if you want to get baptized, if you want to join a connection opportunity, whatever that looks like for you, that connect card is the first step.

So if you fill that out, you drop it in the offering bucket. We're not going to show up at your house, we're not going to call you a million times, we're not going to badger you to death. We just want to help you get connected.

So thank you so much for doing that for me. While we're welcoming people, why don't we take a moment and welcome all of our online audience that's watching this morning? Probably a lot of you. Thanks for tuning in on Facebook or YouTube.

We're just excited for what God's doing here. We're excited that you joined us this morning. Go ahead and hit the like button, comment on it, tell us where you're watching from, share it to all your Facebook friends.

We want to get the word out. We want the gospel to reach the ends of the Earth. So what God is doing here is something special. We want to share with the world, so go ahead and do that for me while you are watching this morning.

Is anybody excited to give this morning? I say it all the time, but we get excited when we get to give because it's not an obligation; it's an opportunity for us to partner with God with our finances and watch what He's going to do with it.

We can do way more with our money than we ever could, and so we're excited to partner with Him on that. I'm just telling you, God is doing some incredible things.

I don't know how many of you guys saw all the VBS pictures from this past week. Over 200 kids, 160 volunteers, it was an incredible time, and many students and many kids said yes to Jesus.

It's because of your generosity and your giving that we were able to do that, so thank you so much for that.

We are excited about what God is doing here at Temple City Church, and we are thankful for your generosity that allows us to do things like our upcoming youth camp and our first through fifth graders camp next month.

We can only do these things because of your generosity. You can give today with a cheerful heart, as the Bible says, either in the moment as the bucket passes, by writing a check and mailing it in, or by giving online at templecity.church.

We also want to invite you to our new membership class starting on July 16th at 11 A.M. in mobile unit 3. This four-week class will be a great time to get to know each other and to learn more about what it means to be a part of the Temple City Church family. If you're interested, please sign up at the welcome center.

We also have a new women's Bible study starting on Tuesday, July 11th at 10 A.M. This will be led by Miss Sylvia Wolf and will be a study of Jackie Hill Perry's "Jude: Contending for the Faith in Today's Culture."

Please fill out the survey, either by the QR code in your handout or up on the screen. This information will help us plan and prepare for all the things that are to come.

Thank you for your generosity, and we look forward to seeing you at a women's ministry event in the future.

Good morning, Temple City fam! My name is Jamie Henderson, and I'm here to tell you about an amazing opportunity we have for you. This August, we will be taking 60 second through fifth graders to Travelers Rest, South Carolina for camp.

This isn't just any camp. Look Up Lodge and their Teamworks year-round to create an experience that will help kids grow deeper in their relationship with God and with our Temple City kids leaders. This camp offers outstanding activities like ziplines and kayaking, but the best part is chapel and worship.

However, there will be kids who desperately want to go but can't afford it. We need your help in making sure money is not a reason for them to miss out. One spot costs $289. Please consider sponsoring a child to go this summer. If you can't sponsor the entire amount, just give what you can. Every penny will help in our effort to make sure no kid who wants to go is left out.

You can give online or place it in an offering envelope marked for kids camp. Thank you for being so generous with your time and your money when it comes to our kids.

John Eckland here, I'm the recovery pastor at Temple City Church. If you are a first responder or a veteran, a police officer, an EMT, we want to give you an opportunity to get involved in something called Reboot Recovery.

We know that some of the things that you've been through have produced trauma, anxiety, depression, maybe you struggle with substance use issues, whatever it is, we want to get you plugged into something called Reboot Recovery. It's a 12-week curriculum, and it's run by vets, by EMTs, for vets, for EMTs, for first responders.

It's July 17th when it's starting, Monday night, July 17th. We're going to have childcare. Love for you to sign up. You can sign up at recoveryalive.com. Get involved. If you have any questions, you can come to me, ask any of our leaders at Recovery Alive.

We're so grateful for your service, and we want to give back. Thank you so much for what you do. Sign up today if that's something you're interested in.

Pastor Glenn is going to take you through a three-week class. It's going to cover everything you would ever want to know or need to know about Temple City Church. We really hope to see you there.

New membership class, July 16th, 11 A.M. in mobile unit 3. See you there, everybody.

If you want to know more about who we are, what we believe, where we're headed, and more importantly, how you can be involved in everything that God is doing here, then this class is perfect for you.

Thanks for watching, and don't forget to follow us online at templecity.church and on social media at Temple City Church. We hope today's message is a blessing to you. Sit back, take some notes, and let's see what God has for us. Amen.

Let's welcome those who are watching online and show our gratitude for them. I want to ask you to do something right now. Go to Temple City Church Facebook page and hit share. We want as many people as possible to hear the message of Jesus Christ.

How many of you enjoyed being in the choir? If you're interested in joining, we meet once a month this Wednesday night, July 5th at 6:30. I expect to see all of you here.

We thank you for your giving because lives are being changed in our community. I sat in this room Friday night at our Recovery Live, and I don't know how many there were here, but probably 400-500 people. God is doing something amazing right here.

A few weeks ago, I went to another church, and I couldn't wait to get back to my home church. We have a special guest today, and you are not going to want to miss this testimony.

While you're listening to this testimony, understand what God has done in this man and woman's life. At Temple, we ask people to give a tithe of their income to the church. Do you know that Temple also gives a tithe of its income?

10% of everything that comes in our general offerings goes back out to the community, benevolence, member care, and missionaries. That is why we support two missionaries as a church.

When you give your hard-earned money to these offering buckets, you are supporting the ministry that you are about to hear about. Trent and Carmen Post are missionaries to Ethiopia, and they have an incredible ministry.

We want to bring the rest of our family into this. We have three kids, and God has allowed us to foster over 15 kids in our home. They are now grown, married, have kids, and have careers. We have two that are still living with us.

This is our big Ethiopian family, and thank you, Temple, for being a part of it. We are here today to share our testimony and hopefully achieve two goals. The first is to encourage, challenge, and edify you through the stories of what God has done, is doing, and will do again.

The second is to encourage and celebrate what God is doing through Make Your Mark in Temple City, Ethiopia for the kids and girls living in the streets. Stories are powerful, and we are all in a story that this Almighty Sovereign God is writing.

In these stories, there is often a lie that we are alone and isolated. We want to share the Glory story of God that screams the message: You Are Not Alone.

Before we get started, let us pray. Father in Heaven, you are holy, powerful, and Almighty. We thank you for your grace, mercy, and love. We ask that the Holy Spirit would speak through us and teach us today. Let everything that is spoken bring glory, honor, and praise to the name above all names, the Lord of lords, Jesus Christ.

Good morning, church! It is so good to be with you. Every time we come in to worship with you, the Lord fills us up by Your Presence and worship so that we can go out and continue to do His mission.

We have something special here at Temple City, and we must remember what God has done for us. When we read the Old Testament, it talks about remembering what God did. We must remember what God has done in our lives and that He absolutely will do it again.

I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. When I was eight years old, I watched my father slit my mom's throat. That night, he had plans to come back and kill me, my brother, and himself. But in the midst of darkness, God was still present.

My mother ended up going to the hospital and fighting for her life for a few months. I went to live with my grandmother when I was young, and I remember playing with a little girl down the street from my grandmother. She said to me, "At least she isn't your real mom."

I couldn't wrap my head around what she meant, and I asked her what she meant. She said, "You were adopted." The enemy tried to use my story to kill and destroy me, but God was in the midst of the darkness.

At 12 years old, I started running away from home because I didn't know what to do. Every adult that had been put in my path to take care of me had hurt me deeply. I was sexually abused by three different people by the time I was eight years old.

I started using drugs at a very young age because it was easier for me to be high than to face my reality. It hurt so bad.

I know some of us in this room have had that pain and hurt. Some of us are coming in here today with that hurt, and we feel like drugs are the only thing that we can do to consume it. But God's spirit is after you, and He's going to chase you even when you don't feel like it.

Even when you feel like you can't, He's right there beside you. I promise because He was right there beside me.

I struggled with suicide and tried to attempt suicide many times. I was in and out of mental institutions. Everyone was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, but the reality was there wasn't anything wrong with me. I just needed a heavenly father that spoke that truth into my life.

My mom took me to church when I was 15 years old. She didn't know what to do with me. I remember going to church, and I kind of did the checklist thing.

I want to speak to you, church, today because some of us in here have done the checklist. I know in this church, you're not going to get away with the checklist because the Holy Spirit's going to speak to you.

I allowed all of those checklist things to be my idol of what Jesus was instead of grabbing a hold of Jesus Himself. I can tell you I did not have a relationship with Jesus by doing those things.

The reason I know I didn't is because when we give our life to Jesus Christ, He radically changes us.

Trust God, keep praying, don't give up, keep loving. You might have to create some boundaries and things like that, but boundaries are good and healthy. Trust God because He will not give up. I promise I am standing proof.

Ally transforms us from the inside out; it's proof we don't stay the same. In my life, I continued to stay the same, and not only did I stay the same, I got worse, and that is not the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

So, I want to challenge some of you guys, if you're in that just stagnant place, go talk to your pastor, go talk to Rodney, go talk to some elders, and focus on the intimate truth and relationship of Jesus Christ because He will radically transform you.

My story goes like this: my dad left when I was three, and my parents divorced. When he left, he left my mom and three boys, so I call him the invisible father. He was alive; I just never saw him again.

Around nine years old, I was also sexually abused at a young age, which really messed up my view of girls and dating. So, at nine, I really started going on this search for identity and affirmation. I went on this search in the most destructive and chaotic ways, such as girls, relationships, and drug use at an early age.

This snowballed in my life, and I was full of rage and anger. I was abusive to the girls I dated, and I was in and out of the court system as a teenage kid. In 11th grade, I ended up dropping out of school. I saw my friends selling drugs and making money, so I thought I'd jump into that.

That temporarily falsely filled the void in me, but I kept chasing after it. I continued to live this destructive life in and out of court and jail until I was arrested and got my first felony charge for selling drugs.

On my 21st birthday, I ended up in jail for 60 days down in Charlotte, North Carolina. I went into the jail cell, and on the bed was a Gideon's Bible. I had been out of America for 12 years, and I didn't know if it was still in every hotel room drawer and most prisons like it was before I left.

I started reading the Bible every night, and when I got out after 60 days, something had changed. I didn't give my life to Christ, but the rage and anger that had consumed my life and controlled me in every area was gone.

I realized that God was in the darkness, even in the darkest moments of my life.

Two weeks after getting out, I met a beautiful angel of light, Carmen, in a club. We fell in love, and I knew we were going to get married. She was still going to the same church where she did the checklist and was teaching preschoolers Bible songs.

Her pastor asked us to do a Faith evangelism course, and we started memorizing scriptures and going into evangelism at people's homes. I came back to the church to do praise reports, but the way we were living our lives is we would do those things and then leave straight from there, and I would go straight to the bar, the club, and sell drugs.

People would ask, "How are you going to church and doing that?" It's like, look, the darkness is all we ever knew. We were so immersed in it, and our friends and our people and all that, that's all we ever knew, so we didn't know we were in the darkness, and we didn't even have any conviction at that time.

As I always share, my heart wasn't in it, but oh praise God, the Holy Spirit was in it, and the Holy Spirit was beginning to speak into my heart even though I was still living in some of the darkest moments of my life.

That He had gotten us out of that darkness for a moment, like when we go to a Recovery Live in these things, and it gets us out of the darkness into a place of light.

Then God is speaking in the darkness; it's just hard to hear Him. He gets us into a place of light; we begin to hear Him more, and through scripture and all that.

I know that that's what God used to start making me realize our life is a mess; something's got to change. Like we're moving towards marriage, friends that have gotten married are already divorced or cheating on each other left and right in this environment, that's going to be us if something doesn't change now.

I didn't think like that before, so I know that was the Spirit of the Lord beginning this process of moving us out of the darkness and into the light.

So I began to beg this God that I did not know, did not understand, "Okay, I don't know you, I've been hearing about you in the scripture and these things, but if you will just, just, just intervene, if you will just do whatever it takes to change us and bring us out of this, I would greatly appreciate it."

Well, we got married, and one month after getting married, He answered that prayer. Praise God! Now I wouldn't have said praise God back then because I didn't quite like how He answered it, but we got married one month later.

I get set up for trafficking drugs, and I'm looking at seven years in prison, happy honeymoon year, first year marriage looking at seven years. So I knew it was the answer to God's prayer.

I went to the church, same church that she was going to, and I went up there and I said, "Okay, what do we, what do I do?" Okay, walk up front, I did all this, I did the things, the checklist, and same as Carmen.

There's a key thing that I didn't do, and I'm going to share that in a minute, but we were in church for about three months, but slowly but surely we were back out of church.

We didn't change our people. Now I love my boys; what the Bible speaks on it, bad company corrupts, a paraphrase, I didn't say exactly how it says, that's what He's saying, bad company stops what God's trying to do in our life, and we didn't change that.

And I love my boys; I was friends with them from eight, nine years old, but we didn't change that environment, and we ended up using again.

Voices, and I'm like, "Man, I'm just gonna take the easy way out, and I'm gonna sign these papers, and I'm gonna be done with it, and I'm gonna move on, and I'm gonna be free, and I'm gonna be able to do whatever I want, and I'm gonna be able to go wherever I want."

When the time came, my lawyer said the best he could do was three years. I was 24, and my wife was 23, so young. I thought she would leave me. I stood before the judge and prayed for mercy. I didn't deserve it, but I asked for it.

In that moment, I was given mercy, and I ended up with 15 months in prison. I turned around to my wife and said goodbye, then walked behind the door. That's when everything changed.

I surrendered my life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and started chasing after God. My wife went the opposite direction. She tried to run away from our marriage and handed me divorce papers.

I was hearing voices from the outside, and I was tempted to take the easy way out and sign the papers. But I chose to run towards God instead. I stopped blaming God and accepted ownership for my own responsibilities.

I realized that God had a great plan for my life. I had been running away from home since I was 12 years old, but I was done running. I was tired of feeling empty, and I knew that God could fill that emptiness.

I received God, and in that moment, the peace of God rushed over me. I was no longer running away; I was running towards God.

I was in a dark place before my husband, Trent, went to prison. I was in the clubs, running to drugs, and I had even condemned God and said I didn't believe in Him and that I hated Him.

My pain and hurt were too much for me to bear. One day, Trent called, and I told him I had cheated on him. To my surprise, he said he forgave me.

I didn't understand forgiveness, nor was I seeking it, but that is what God spoke through Trent to me. When Trent got out of prison, he had to be very legalistic to protect himself from me.

I saw what Trent had, and I wanted it. I realized that the things I was chasing, like money, fame, and the high, did not fill me up. Trent was waking up every morning high on the Holy Spirit, and I wanted a piece of that.

I started crying out to this God that I didn't know. One day, my wife came for a visit and put a manila envelope on the table. It was divorce papers, and she said she needed me to sign them.

My flesh was extremely angry, and the rage was rising up inside of me, but the Holy Spirit of God gave me the strength and grace to push the papers back across the table and say, "I ain't signing those papers."

I said God had bigger plans for our life. I stayed steadfast with Jesus, and that radically changed my life.

I was 15 years old when I started getting little bits and pieces of what God could do. I said to God, "If you can do it for him, I want you to do it for me."

God is a God that listens and answers, and He's not far away. So I want to encourage you today, if you're feeling like you just need God to listen, talk to Him.

I was screaming and crying out to God, saying I can't do this anymore, and I want what He has. But you better be ready for what comes next because God's going to call you to action.

The first person God wanted me to forgive was my dad. I didn't want to forgive him, and I told God no. I was wrestling with God, and all I kept hearing was, "You need to forgive your dad, you need to forgive your dad."

I knew it was God because I would never forgive my dad. I asked Trent how this forgiveness thing worked, and we walked on this journey.

I found my dad, and I forgave him, and I was free for the first time in my life. That's the power of Jesus Christ.

God also wanted me to forgive myself. I thought forgiving my dad was hard, but God wanted me to know and believe that I had been washed white as snow by the power of Jesus Christ's blood.

Once I knew and believed that, God started doing incredible things in my life. I had to let go of who I was before Christ so I could walk in freedom in Christ.

God also taught me who He was as a Father. When I used to hear the word "Father," it was a bad word because of the abuse and neglect I had experienced. But God wanted me to know who He was as God the Father.

I want to encourage you to forgive. There is power in forgiveness. Whether it's your wife, husband, or child, forgive them.

There is power and forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ, and it will radically change your life. As Carmen said, God calls us to action; He doesn't set us free to just sit there and do nothing.

That's not the reason He died on the cross and set us free; He died to set us free then to take action. A child of violence, a child of abuse, a runaway, an ex-convict, a drug-dealing rage-filled teenager in their early 20s, God takes all that pain and suffering and recycles it into something usable and good.

Make Your Mark, the organization God started through us, started in Charlotte, North Carolina, right off our front porch. We moved into a neighborhood with drug deals, drug users, and prostitutes, and God whispered, "What are you going to do about it?"

We decided to just love, and it grew. We became a non-profit and did work in Charlotte, but we wanted to get to Ethiopia. We have been established as an organization in Temple City for 10 years, and how we got there was through a precious beautiful girl, Kiki, who was born on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

After we adopted her, we stood where she was born. Stepping through fear into faith, we entered adoption despite the voices telling us we couldn't do it.

We were afraid, but we kept stepping through fear into faith and were able to adopt. This is just God. Through her story, we talk about the power of stories and our story.

Her mother was sex trafficked at 10 years old for a year, escaped at 11 years old, and was on the streets of the capital city. She was digging through trash, begging, and using drugs at 11 years old.

She got pregnant at 13 years old and then crawled out of her plastic house. We heard her story in 2009 and knew that God had us in unity to move 8,000 miles across the world.

We knew this is what we were going to do. We transitioned to celebrating what God has been doing and is doing in Ethiopia. We saw the need, which is desperate and horrific.

Eight-year-olds are using drugs; mothers are having babies die in their arms on the streets because no one would help them. We exist to enter into the dark places that nobody wants to go.

We have an amazing staff over there that is full of the Holy Spirit of God that enters these streets to be the love of Christ and enter the dark places that most people want to ignore.

We have been able to be over there building the kingdom of God, bringing that hope, bringing that light, and bringing that love of Jesus to these children, teenage girls, and mothers on the streets.

To see them be redeemed, renewed, and have hope restored is seeing God do it again and again. We want to celebrate that this morning.

The Calcadon Center has been a success. We are seeing young girls and mothers come out of street life, abuse, rape, gang rape, and traumatic trauma. But seeing God renew and restore them is mind-blowing. It is the work of God.

At the Calcadon Center, we promise these young ladies that they will not be exploited. We are seeing God change the generation of their children.

We started our boy center with four boys eight years ago. We call them the pillars of the kingdom of God, and they have owned it. Taraku was highly addicted to glue, but now he is a sought-after worship leader.

Berhanu was a big-time drug dealer, but now he is selling sim cards for Safaricom. M'bari is a pastor and leader in the church.

God is faithful to who He is, and we are seeing the transformation. We are celebrating the work of God and the hope He brings.

Eskin was highly addicted when he spoke at our 10-year conference. We were surprised that he even said a word, and he spoke with power and authority.

Mickey 2 was also highly addicted. Four of them came in together, and about two years ago, there was a war in the country. The country said if you want to come and fight for your country, two of our boys in our home said they wanted to fight for their country's safety and protection.

We were unsure if they should go, but they insisted. The government people thought they were a nuisance and lower than dogs, but these kids had been changed by the love of Christ, and they gave honor and glory to God and then went to fight for their country.

There was power in that. We love what God is doing in Ethiopia, and we want to close with this final video.

God is still in those dark places, and we trust He spoke into our hearts this morning. We don't know what the Holy Spirit is calling us to, but we trust He did.

God wants to do something in our lives right now. Don't run away from that, and let God do something in your life.

I'm gonna encourage you to run to the arms of the Father. You know God is so good. I know there's people in this room right now that don't necessarily believe that, and I don't know what mission He's calling you to.

It might be that first step like I was, "God, I don't know you, but I want to because I know my life's a mess." That's where you're at this morning.

There are those of us that are seasoned in our faith and may we just become stagnant and wanting to see something new, something fresh. God, do it again.

You're not alone; we all get in those seasons, and so don't let the enemy keep you from experiencing the fullness of God.

I love brother TJ; he hit on one of my light scriptures like personal Journey Make Your Mark growth. It's now unto Him who is able to do immeasurably. Can we say that? Immeasurably?

You can't measure what God wants to do in your life. But get this, I love this more than what you can ask or imagine. You can't even dream of what God is wanting to do in your life.

I never would have thought. I mean, I don't think when you were hearing our story you ever would have thought that we would be doing something like that in this world, but God did.

So if God's doing that in your heart this morning, don't run from it; run to Him and just wrestle with God, talk to God. There's no magic in it; there's just an open heart to what God is wanting to do in and through you.

So let Him this morning. It's simple. "God, I'm clueless," that's all you got to say this morning. "God, I'm clueless, and I need you. Open my eyes, open my heart."

Father in Heaven, I love you, I praise you, and I thank you for all that you have done, you're doing, and gonna do again. You're a powerful God.

Holy Spirit, don't let us let go of what you have done in our hearts this morning. Let your power and authority rest in this place and continue to do again and again what you do: bring reconciliation, bring hope, bring something new, bring chains being broken, victory into people's lives, salvation, purification in Jesus Christ's name.

Amen.

Let's sing this together: "Walking around these walls, I thought by now they'd fall, but you have never failed me."

"I'm waiting for change to come, but we know the battles were for you have never failed me."

We sing of your promise, "Your promise still stands, great is your faithfulness, your faithfulness. I'm still in your hands. This is my confidence; you've never failed me."

See, I know the night won't last; I know your embrace again. You've always been enough, Jesus, and my heart will sing your praise again.

Always your promise still stands, great is your faithfulness, faithfulness. This is my confidence.

So that you're burning down today, He is fighting for you today. I could feel someone's faith rise, and today.

Trent and Carmen Post shared their story of Make Your Mark Ministry with us this morning. They are willing to go to places where no one else wants to go because the work is so daunting and difficult.

We heard how God can use anybody, even a drug addict, drug trafficker, and felon. We also heard the story of a young girl who was abused by the age of eight and turned to drugs.

Trent shared his story of going to prison and how God transformed him. While freedom pushed his wife further away, prison brought him closer to Christ.

His wife called him and said she wanted a divorce and had cheated on him, but his words were powerful: "I forgive you."

God did a work on him in prison and blessed his wife when they got out. We can only imagine how God can use us in the most unlikely of places. What a blessing this morning!