Amen. There's nothing like His name. Amen. Amen.
1 Corinthians chapter 6. Amen.
Been a minute or two since we did a Thrive sermon. Amen. I really feel like the Lord's going to speak to us, talk to us tonight. Amen. And I hope you want God to talk to you. Amen. Amen.
1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse number 19. Verse number 19. What? Everybody say what?
Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own. For you are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Amen.
That's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the "I" that's in Thrive, and I want to talk about our bodies tonight. Amen. Is that alright? Amen. Amen.
You can be seated. Thank you for standing. Thank you for worshiping. I feel the presence of God in the house because of the worship. Amen. I'm glad for that. Praise the Lord.
So at the beginning of the year, we started this process called Thrive. Thrive. It is what we want to talk about all year long. And the word Thrive means this. It means to grow vigorously. That's what the word Thrive means. It means to flourish. Look at your neighbor and say you need to flourish. Amen.
It means to progress forward or realize a goal despite or because of circumstance. That's what Thrive means. And so this year we talked about this, and we want to grow in multiple ways. We want to grow spiritually. That's always a first. We want to grow spiritually. We want to... And to do that, we have to pray more. We have to fast more. We have to dig into the word. Amen. That's growing spiritually.
We want to grow numerically. It's God's will for us to grow numerically. I'm not... I don't care necessarily about numbers. But I like it when we grow numerically. It shows that God is reaching people, and so we have to invite people all the time. We have to teach some Bible studies and those kinds of things.
We want to grow financially. Anybody want to grow financially? Our church needs to grow financially. And that means that we invest into the kingdom of God. That's how we do that.
We want to grow missionally, and we've done that. We want to get involved in missions. We have sent somebody on mission trips. We had a missionary this morning. And we have grown missionally. We're not done yet. I'm not going to tell all the facts. But we're not done with missions yet. Locally, in the United States, and internationally. We want to do that. We want to grow missionally.
I... Excuse me. I really would love it. We cannot do this by... I mean, this would totally be a God thing. Okay? But my goal missionally is for us to support every missionary in the world and every home missionary in the United States. I know you're looking at me kind of funny. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of missionaries. That's a lot of home missionaries and global missionaries. But I would love to be able to do that.
So somebody hurry up and become a multi-millionaire. Caleb and Nick and Jonah and Jack and the young people. Y'all need to hurry up and become millionaires so we can do that. Come on. Let's go. Let's do it. Amen.
We want to grow in ministry. And to do that, we have to get involved in ministry. And we want to do that. That's thriving. And so I want... Here's always been my goal. I want everybody to flourish. Not just the ministry team. Not just the people that put their faces up here for you and dress up and look nice for the cameras. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what this is about. Amen. Amen.
But I want... I want everybody to flourish. From the youngest, which now is Amaris, right? He's our youngest. I want... Is that right? I want the youngest to the oldest, which is I don't know who and I'm not going to say. And it ain't me. It ain't me. Hallelujah. Amen.
Maybe it's Brother Hal. I don't know. Amen. But it's one of those things that I want everybody to flourish. I want every child. I want every youth. I want every young married couple. I want every middle-aged person. Every elder in this church. I want everybody flourishing. Amen. For the kingdom of God.
I want everybody growing. Everybody needs to be growing spiritually. Amen. I think everybody should be digging in and grabbing a hold of the things of God spiritually. I want everyone reaching their potential and their goals in spite of hindrances. In spite of the devil throwing darts at you. I want... I want... Everybody... Amen. I want you reaching your goals. Amen.
And if you've failed on reaching a goal in your life, get up again and go after it again. Amen. Until you reach that goal. Amen. I believe that God desires this. Whatever your goal may be at the moment, it may seem very minute to somebody, but it may be very big to you. Amen. And get after that goal until you reach your goal. Amen.
We've talked about a lot of things. We've talked about truth, the T in Thrive. Amen. We did several sermons about truth. We talked about hope, which is the H in Thrive. And we talked about responsibility in Thrive. Amen. And a few weeks ago, I started the I in Thrive and talked about the I. Amen.
But tonight, I want to take it a step further in the I. And I want to talk about these bodies. And then we're going to talk about... Because we're made up of three parts: body, soul, and spirit. And so I want to talk about these physical bodies.
You say, well, there's nothing in the Bible about that. Oh, you really think so? There's a whole lot about these bodies in the Bible. Amen. And if I'm not in Thrive, if my body and my spirit and my soul are not involved in this Thrive, then I'm not thriving. I've got to get involved in it. God made us to thrive. Amen.
I want to slow down here a little bit. He made us to thrive. He made us to be successful. He made us to be what He wants us to be. I promise you, God doesn't look at you and say... He doesn't look at you and say, oh, look at that sinner. That's not what He says.
He looked at Peter one day and He said, oh, look at that rock. Peter was not a rock, y'all. He was wishy-washy. Peter was hot one minute and cold the next. He was next for the kingdom of God. He didn't know what he wanted to do. Sometimes Peter didn't know if he was coming or going. He didn't know.
But yet God called him a rock. Amen. He said, upon this rock, I will build my church. He was talking about Peter and he was talking about the revelation of the church and how it was going to be started.
I came to tell somebody tonight, He don't look at you and say, well, look at that hippie. Look at that old... I don't have no names. I can't think of anything. Amen. Think of your own. Think of your own for yourself. Look at that. That's not what He does.
He's looking at this church and He said, man, I see a mighty, mighty army in Stroud. I see a church that is a sending church. I see a church that is on fire for revival. We may not be there yet right now. I know it's the middle of summer, but come on, somebody. God still wants us to have... He proved it this morning. He still wants us to have revival.
In the midst of summertime. I don't... I'll just be honest with you. I didn't go back and look at the numbers. Amen. But with people that are here tonight that weren't here this morning. Amen. We've had 52 in church on this day. It's been a long time since we had 52 in church on a Sunday. Amen.
But you know what? It's the middle of summer. And God spoke to me this afternoon as I was preparing this. And I can feel God dealing with me and saying, I want revival. I want revival in the middle of summertime. He let me know I want to fill somebody with the Holy Ghost in the middle of summertime. Amen.
So we're going to talk about the body. Amen. Anybody glad you're born? That you were born. Amen. Anybody glad about that? That you're alive? Amen. Can you imagine being Adam and Eve? You weren't born. You were made.
I don't know. I've always wondered about the thoughts of Adam. I've made up stories. Y'all have heard some of my stories about Adam and when he first saw Eve. I love that story. I love to tell that story. But I don't know. I don't know what Adam was thinking. But he had to have some really weird and crazy thoughts.
Now we know a lot more than Adam ever knew, right? We have the after picture of Adam. But God made him. He's made out of dirt. You know, I'll say it, we're all just a bunch of dirt bags, right? That's what we are. He's made from the dust of the earth.
And the Bible says, it says that God formed him out of the dust of the earth. And then God breathed into him the breath of life. And Adam became a living soul. Some of my favorite scriptures to talk about. Amen. Because it's an incredible, incredible thing that God did.
I'm going to tell you something. We're not dogs. We're not horses. We're not dolphins. I'm sorry. This is going to make people mad. But we're not. Amen. We are humanity. We're not animals. We're not mammals. We're not any type of animal. We're none of those things.
We are humanity that God made and God breathed into. He did not do that for a dog. And He did not do that for a dolphin. He didn't breathe into them the breath of life. He just told them, be, and there they were. And they were breathing and doing all those things.
But God's own breath came into us. I just came to tell somebody. Whoo, I feel the Holy Ghost right now. Amen. I just came to tell somebody that when you breathe your first breath, amen, when you were born, it was God breathing into you the breath of life. He made you a living soul. Amen.
And so Adam and Eve, and then of course Eve, was pulled from the side of Adam and formed out of the rib of Adam. That's why men only have 11 ribs. I was getting some good looks out there from the kids. That's why I said it. Amen.
But it's one of those things that God did, and He made Adam and Eve. And they became husband and wife and became one flesh and all those things. And we're not going to get into all that. Amen.
But they were made, but we are born. We're born. We're born into this world. And we're born in sin. Because Adam and Eve sinned and got kicked out of the garden. And ever since that day, every child that has been born is born in sin and shapen in iniquity. That's Bible.
We live a few short years. Seventy years isn't very long, by the way. It's getting shorter all the time. Amen. We live a few short years and then we die. And that is our life. And the only thing that is important is, it's not the numbers, it's not the date you were born and the date you died, even though we put a lot of emphasis on those two dates. Amen.
It's that hyphen in between those two dates that matter. Amen. Amen. And so, when you begin to look at life in the Old Testament, and you begin to look at it, and everything that was going on, and how people were born and people died. Amen.
Adam lived 900 something years. And Methuselah lived 968 years. Adam lived 906 or 910, somewhere in there. Back then they lived a long time. Amen. And then it kept getting shorter and shorter because of sin and disease and sickness on the earth. And man's life became shorter and shorter until we get to where God declared that the life of man is about 70 years. Amen.
And if you go past that, as my dad says, amen, you're blessed. And he says he's very blessed right now. That's what my dad will tell you. Because he's way past 70. I wish he was here. Amen.
But it's one of those things that we have to understand, amen, that their bodies, amen, in the Old Testament their bodies were very important. Everything was about the flesh in the Old Testament. I got proof. Y'all ready? Amen.
Everything was about the flesh. Everything was about this. Poke yourself. If I would have been there, it would have been about this. The belly. How many like to eat? It's too hot to eat right now, but I like to eat. Amen.
And so everything was about the flesh and the carnal things. And so when God did something for them, He did a fleshly thing. Right? He brought them. He blessed them. They weren't blessed spiritually, they were blessed physically. Amen.
I'll just tell you, can I say this and not make anybody mad? We couldn't have made it back then. We're too wimpy. We like air conditioning, which I'm wishing this thing over here was working right now because I'm dying. Amen.
It's hot in here. Amen. And we're too wimpy. We couldn't have made it back then in those days. We couldn't have, I'm sorry, but I couldn't have been like Shamgar and wielded a sword all day until, by himself defending a pea patch until he killed all of the Philistines that came at him. There's no way I couldn't do that. I'm not that strong.
I preached with my sword that I got for ordination one night. I preached with it one day or one night here. Amen. I don't know if it's here. Yeah, it was in here. Amen.
And I preached with it and it wore me smooth out just for that 30 or 40 minutes that I preached with it in my hand. I couldn't have lived back then. Everything was about the flesh back then. I'm not that strong and you're not that strong.
Everything that God did and everything about those people, I'm sorry and I'm not trying to be mean and I'm not trying to be ugly, but they were selfish. Everything was about carnality. Everything was about supplying the needs of the flesh. That's why those men had multiple wives. That's why they did all of these things.
Matter of fact, you can go read the book of Ecclesiastes about Solomon and Solomon said this. Solomon said, I withheld nothing from myself. I just read this the other day and that's what got this going. I withheld nothing from myself. And he lists all the things that he did, all the things that he partook of, he lists those in the Bible.
I came to tell us, I thank God for today that it is not about the flesh. Amen. I cannot walk after the flesh. I'm getting way ahead of myself. But I've got to walk after the Spirit. Amen.
Babies, I've watched it. I've watched the babies as they are selfish and needy. Amen. That's what babies do. But as we grow, we begin to learn, come on somebody, we begin to learn that we're not the only ones that's alive. It's not just me and I and myself and all about, it's not about me. Amen.
There's other people that have needs also and we're going to get there, I'll get to that, I promise. Amen. But when we're born again, there should be something that happens in us. It goes from flesh to spirit. And I'll get to that too. It puts away the selfishness. Amen.
And we begin to turn into what God wants us to do. I came to tell you that the body was made to relate to the natural world around us. That's what the body was made for, to relate. I wish everybody would hear this and get this in your spirit.
The body was made to relate to the natural world around us. It is the house, amen, in which our spirit, not talking about God's spirit yet, but this body is the house that my spirit resides in and my soul resides in. It's what this body is here for. My spirit and my soul reside in this body.
This body has its own appetites, but watch this. It will basically obey the soul's commands. Your body will do what your mind tells it to do. Genesis 2 and 7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.
1 Corinthians 15 and 45, and so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit, talking about Jesus, amen. The word living soul in the Hebrew is, help me, I don't know. And in Greek, I tried to look these up how to say them and it wouldn't give it to me. I don't know what was up with that.
Usually it will tell you how to say the Greek and the Hebrew, it wouldn't tell me. And in Greek it's the zo-souk, which sight comes from the souk. The souk word, and y'all, I'm not that smart, okay. I'm just telling you what I read, amen.
And so that's what a living soul, in other words, it's the physical, the psychological, the physical side of a man, and that's what a living soul is. In Psalm chapter 8, verse 4, the Bible says this, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet, amen. And so here's what we have to understand, is that God never intended for humans to function intellectually, in other words, with your brain. You're not to function without influence and instruction.
You can't just function. You've got to have instruction with your brain. You've got to have something that influences you, and we've got to have instruction. We were made to have instruction, amen. You were never meant to be an independent thinker.
I'm sorry, I know the world pushes that. You hear it all the time. But you were not made to be an independent thinker. Our reasoning was always meant to have a supernatural element in it.
And this is what I want to get to eventually. But I just came to tell somebody, in the Old Testament, everything was about the physical, but they did have a supernatural element. God did the miraculous in their midst.
Come on, he came down and he blessed them, amen. When Abraham took Isaac to the altar and he had raised that knife, and Abraham had said, you know what, I know that God is going to raise him. If I kill him, this was Abraham's thought. This is given in the book of Hebrews, that Abraham, he trusted God, that if Abraham killed Isaac, that God would raise him up.
But there was something that Abraham knew about God, that God was his provider. And he said that before he ever goes up the mountain. He talks about worshiping. The lad and I would go yonder and worship, amen. He talks about provision from God. Amen.
And God provided for him. God said, look behind you, amen. There's something caught in the thicket that you are to sacrifice to me. I came to tell somebody, in your flesh, amen, sometimes you've got to look behind you because God's got a blessing there and a provision there to get you where you need to go, amen.
But we were never meant to be an independent thinker. But when Adam fell, we as humanity got broke. That's not right, broken. We got broken, is that right? My brain's not going real good yet, it'll get there. But we got broken and so it was at that time that we lost the life that God had given us.
God had placed Adam and Eve in that garden. The garden was not heaven, by the way. That garden was not heaven. I hear too many songs talking about the garden of Eden being heaven. No, it was not. There was a devil there. I ain't going to get no help, Elma. Y'all sure you're awake? Amen.
And so when he fell, we lost that life that God gave us. Can I say it this way? I tried to put it in words up above, amen, but it's the logic of God. Whatever that word was, that zoe or whatever it was, that logic of God. Amen. To us. To us, in the Greek, it's the logos.
We lost that logic, that word of God. And we also lost His truth, amen. Did you know that truth is not the same as facts? You can have facts and they may not be true, but the truth is what God gives.
Satan will give you facts. He'll tell you and he'll accuse you of what you've done this past week. Well, did you see how they treated so and so? He'll go accuse you to God. He's the accuser of the brethren and the sisters. He'll go accuse you to God. He'll go accuse you to anybody that'll listen.
He'll go to another church member and accuse you. And if you're not careful and you listen to that, you'll be part of his party. I don't know how I was going to get on that, but it sounded good anyhow. Amen.
We need to be careful about facts. Because sometimes facts can distort truth. Because I'll tell you right now, you can get the facts from a doctor, and if God's told you He's going to heal you, you can forget about those facts that the doctor gave. Come on now. Amen.
You can go to court and the facts were the judge told David. He told him, you're going to do seven years. Well, guess what? The judge didn't know our God too well and he didn't do no seven years. I could go on and on with the stories about the facts.
The facts say that you're going to be a drug addict your whole life because your mom or your daddy did it. That's what the facts say. The facts say you're going to be an alcoholic because mom and dad did it. Or grandpa was an alcoholic.
The facts say that you're probably going to get divorced. Amen. Because that's the way of the world. Amen. But that's not what God says. God says the truth. And God says that He will take care of those things.
And so when we got broken, when we left the Garden of Eden and we got broken. Amen. And we're all born in sin now. Amen. I came to tell somebody there had to be something that happened to fix us.
There had to be something with these bodies that made the brain quit thinking about sin. And made the heart get right. And made us do what God wanted these bodies to do. God never intended for this body to sin its whole life. No, no, no, no. He never intended that.
He intended for this body, this physical body to live for Him. That's why He made this body. Amen. I'm going to tell you something. I know we're all different things in this world. Amen. Some of you are secretaries. Amen. We have a couple of baristas in our church. We have stay-at-home moms. We have machinists in our church.
I can sit here and name everything. Everything that we do in our church. Amen. But I came to tell you. I feel the Holy Ghost so strongly. He didn't create you to sit there and do nothing. He created you to love Him and to worship Him. Amen.
We got to be born again. Adam existed. I want you to pay attention to this. I stole this from Brother Bernard. He said Adam existed as a spirit-controlled man. He didn't have the Holy Ghost. Y'all listening?
Adam existed as a spirit-controlled man. That's what happens to us when we're born again. We are spirit-controlled. We get the Holy Ghost. You know the first thing you're going to do? When you get the Holy Ghost, you're going to go hug somebody. Because the Spirit is controlling you.
I've watched it so many times. You know the first thing that's going to happen to a big old man when he gets the Holy Ghost? He's going to cry. I've watched it so many times. You know what's going to happen to a woman that may have been pushed down and beat down? You know what's going to happen when she gets the Holy Ghost? She's going to have boldness like nobody else in the church.
I've watched it so many times. Amen. Because we're spirit-controlled. Amen. But what initially happens. This is what Brother Bernard said. He said what initially happens to every person who is born again. He said however our lifetime habits of being soul-controlled continually try to exert themselves in your life.
I think I said it Wednesday night. We get the Holy Ghost. New converts bring more people. They worship more than anybody else. They do everything more than anybody else. And then the older we get, the longer we're in church, the less we do. Shouldn't be that way. Amen.
But I understand why. It's because your soul has started controlling more of your life than the spirit has. And when we allow that to happen, we get broken all over again.
Watch this. 1 Corinthians 2:14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolish unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
Y'all, I don't get people not wanting the Holy Ghost. I've never understood that. It don't make sense to me. Because the only way we're going to learn of God is when we get the Holy Ghost. That's the only way.
I've seen so many people when they get the Holy Ghost, they'll say, Pastor, I understand Scripture now. I get it. I get what you've been telling me all this time. Amen. Because the natural man cannot. That's what the Bible says. It cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. Can't do it.
It's not that we won't. It's that we can't. We're not controlled by what is true, but by what we believe is true. By what your brain thinks is true. You know, Romans 8 and 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
You know, we say all the time, Jesus went to the cross. I saw this. I can't remember the guy's name, but I saw this when I was looking at things of the body. And this is what he said. We say all the time, Jesus went to the cross so I wouldn't have to go there.
He said, that's true, but did you ever think of this? That Jesus went to the cross so I could go there. Every day. Take up your cross. Follow Jesus. Every day. Not just Sundays. Not just Wednesdays. This is an everyday walk with God.
Jesus said to His disciples, He said, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2. Amen. And I'm getting to where I'm going. Amen.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, everybody say, my body. You present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world. Don't be pressed into this world's mold. Amen. But be you transformed. Be changed by the renewing of your mind, your soul by that renewing. You've got to let it change you.
That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Amen. Can I tell you, we've got to allow the Spirit of God to rule our lives. I know a big percentage, except for the little kids, have the Holy Ghost in this room.
And can I tell you that every one of us need to be ruled by the Spirit of Almighty God. You need to quit listening to what your brain is telling you, and listen to what the Spirit is telling you. Amen.
Your brain is telling you to quit. And go home. Get back up and do what I want you to do. Oh, hallelujah. Let's clap our hands to the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Our Scripture text says that our body is the temple of God. Amen. What? I love that. What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? We are the temple of God. Amen.
I was reading the other day and I was reading, it was in the book of Exodus, I was looking for something else, and I saw this. So, Moses is at the burning bush, right? He's at the burning bush, and God had told him, said, I want you to go, and I want you to set my people free.
Well, who am I to tell them that sent me? And what God said in Exodus chapter 2, He said, tell them the I AM that I AM has sent you. Amen.
I looked up that I AM that I AM, I thought, there's got to be some, and I love it anyway, and I've done this before, but I wanted to get it so I could put it down on paper. And I found it, and so this is, this is the total, there's a bunch of this, okay, so you got, you're going to have to hang on. Y'all ready?
Everybody buckle your seatbelt, stay put, don't run off on me. Don't let your mind wander. Get your mind in here. Amen. Get it off your checkbook, get it off your texting, get it off your girlfriend, your boyfriend, husband, your wife, your kids, and put it on the I AM.
Because here's what it said, here's what it means. The I AM means that I am the center of everything. I am the same every day. I change not, saith God. I love that.
Anybody like change all the time? I AM the Lord. In other words, He's the Creator, He's the one who gave us life. I AM the Savior. They didn't even, watch this, they didn't even know what they had meant. They hadn't been saved yet. They're in Egypt. And He's sending, He's telling Moses, I AM the Savior.
Oh, my Lord. He said, and I like this one, and they put this in there, and I thought, you know what, we need to think about this one, because the I AM means that I am inexhaustible. You cannot exhaust my resources.
And I am immeasurable. You cannot measure God. You know what we try to do? I remember a sermon one time, it was Brother Jeff Arnold, and he had a tape measure, and he was preaching about measuring God.
Now, if you hadn't ever heard a message from Brother Jeff Arnold, get on YouTube, go watch Brother Jeff Arnold. He calls everybody, what does he call them, Blaine? He calls them hypocrites, and he's always got these names for people, and it's just funny to watch him, but he had this tape measure, and he kept getting mixed up with the tape measure and the microphone.
And I understand that. Okay? But he's talking about how we are always trying to measure God. And you can't measure God. God is immeasurable. He holds the universe in His hand. And we can't even measure the universe. He holds the earth in His hand. Amen.
And He's immeasurable. And so, Moses was getting something from God that nobody else had ever gotten. He's getting a revelation of who God was, the I AM that I AM. Amen.
And in that heartbeat, in that moment, Moses knew two important facts. He knew God's name, and he knew his own, for in God's name is I AM. And then Moses' name had to be I AM NOT. That's what that commentary said, and I thought, man, that is so good, because you know what?
We get to thinking we're all that, and that we can measure God. Amen. But God is the I AM. And guess what? We are the I AM NOTs. Amen. Amen.
And so we have to understand, amen, that I am not the Savior. And I am not the way maker. And I am not the head of anything. And I'm not Lord. Amen. And I'm not the one calling the shots. And I'm not the solution. And I'm not the center of anything. God is. He is that and more. Amen.
And so God is more massive than our wildest imagination. He's bigger. I've had to put all this in there. He's bigger than the biggest words we have to describe Him. God is constant. Amen.
He blinks and your lifetime comes and it goes. To Him, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years like one day. All of the human history could be written on His fingernail with plenty of room left over for more. Just think about that.
God is so massive and so much bigger than what we think. And we try to put God in a box. Amen. We try to put God and we tie Him down. And we try to make God something that He is not. And God is doing very well today, by the way, let me tell you. Amen.
He has no dilemmas. He has no quandaries. He has no counselors. He has no shortages. He has no rival. And He knows He's God. And you and I are not Him. He's timeless. He's ageless. He's changeless. He's always there.
After an eternity of being God, He shows no sign of wear and tear. He has no needs. His accounts are in the black. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. That's why I love God. He owns cattle. And all the hills those cows are standing on, He owns too. He holds the patent on everything in the world. Amen.
And I came to tell you that our bodies are the temple of the living and mighty God. God does whatever He wants. His purposes are a sure thing. There's no stopping Him. There's no containing Him. There's no refuting Him. There's no cutting Him off at the pass. There's no short-circuiting His agenda. God is in control.
Nothing is hidden from Him. He wrestles with no mysteries. He doesn't need to wait for a polygraph to decipher the truth. He doesn't need to wait for a polygraph to decipher the truth. He's never known what it is to have a teacher, a role model, an advisor, a therapist, a loan officer, or a doctor.
And yet, our bodies are the temple of Him. God's rule and reign are unrivaled in history and eternity. He sits on an everlasting throne. His kingdom has no end. Little gods abound, but He alone made the heavens and the earth. God is in control.
God has never feared a power struggle or a hostile takeover. He doesn't have to watch His back. He has no equal, no peer, no competition. And yet again, our bodies are the temple of this God.
Therefore, let me say, let me say, I don't get to do what I want to do with this body. It's such a lie from the devil that you can live for God and do whatever you want with your body. That is such... That is such a lie. Amen.
I'm to give this body as a living sacrifice. Everybody say holy. Holy. Everybody say acceptable. And acceptable unto God. Amen. Which is? Say it louder. Which is? My reasonable service.
It's not unreasonable for me to live in holiness. It's not unreasonable for me to live in acceptability. It's not unreasonable for me to live in the holiness of God. Amen.
That's why I cannot, I cannot, y'all hear me. I cannot let the lie of I accept God as my personal Savior. That is not in the Bible. If you can find it in the Bible, I'll give you $1,000. But you can give me $1,000 since it's not in there.
But I'll tell you what is in there. I'm to be acceptable to Him. You see, that doctrine is all backwards. Thinking that we can accept God. Who are we? Who are we to think that we can accept God? God is God is God is God is God.
And you can't do nothing about it. I don't care whether you accept Him or not. It's not going to change who God is. And it's not going to change what God does. But I'll tell you what happens to us. Amen.
When God accepts us, now we're part of His kingdom. Now I feel the Holy Ghost. Now we're part of His family. Now we belong to Him. I've got to give Him my body as a living sacrifice so that God will accept me. Amen.
I've been bought with a price. He shed His blood. Amen. There's an old preacher that I love. His name's J.H. Osborne. He's oneness. And he's apostolic. And he preached a message one time. I went and looked it up today to make sure I was right.
He preached a message one time talking about... And he was talking about, oh, my brain just went away. He was talking about how God accepts us and how God lets us know. Amen.
And the way that we know is this fact. He said there's only three thoughts in the Bible. He said the first thought in the Old Testament from the very beginning is that somebody's coming to help you. They preached it all through the Old Testament.
And when we get to the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they preach it all through the Old Testament. Luke and John. He said somebody's here to help you right now.
And then all of the letters to the churches is this from Acts on. And that somebody's coming back again to take His church with Him. He said to take His body with Him. Amen.
Did you know our whole purpose, our whole purpose is to worship God so that we can go to Him? I have no other reason to be on this earth. And yet I think, my brain thinks, that I'm all that in a bag of chips. And I can accept God. Amen.
I've been bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 3:16. Know you not that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.
Watch this. Watch this. If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God. Him shall God. Him shall God. Him shall God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
If I defile it, if I put sin in this body, if I cause this body to do something it's not supposed to do, I better be careful of that, because God's going to destroy you. I'm quoting Scripture.
We've got to be careful of what we allow these bodies to do. Can I take it a step further? We need to be careful of what we allow these bodies to say, what you spew out of your mouth. We've got to be careful.
We've got to be careful of that. If I'm going to thrive in God and grow the way that God wants me to grow, then I have to give my body to God. Amen.
I've been preaching like this for a while. You can come and help. I've been preaching like this for a while about surrendering ourselves. It seems like it's been a theme even this morning. It seems like it's been a little bit of a theme for the last few weeks.
Every sermon. It seems like it's bent that direction. Amen. And I normally try not to do that. I try to change stuff up, but I've just been following the leading of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
And sometimes I think that we get stuck in a place. Amen. We talked about this in Addicted to Recovery, and I had somebody come to me and say, Preacher, I'm stuck. And I thought, man, if more people would admit that, we'd get somewhere.
We'd realize that we're stuck where we are and that we need God to pick us up out of the mire. Oh, man, I feel the Holy Ghost pick us up out of the mess. Can I say it that way?
Do you know clay and mud is a mess? It's a mess. There's an advertisement on the radio on Sports Animal. It's Phil and Zinga. And he says, I've got three dogs. He said, and I live in Oklahoma City and we have red mud.
He said, my dogs bring in that red mud all the time into my house and I'm sitting there thinking, because you're an idiot. That's my first thought. Kick them dogs out. Don't let them in when their feet are muddy.
Either that or teach them to wipe their feet off. Does Brucey wipe his feet? You don't need to teach him that. Amen.
You know, it's really interesting that... Help me, Jesus, right now. I want to say the right things. It's really interesting what we let go on in our temple.
I know it's going to get quiet, but it's alright. The things we allow to bring mud into our life. To bog us down into the muck and the mire. Y'all, God wants to lift us out of that.
Isaiah talks about this. Jeremiah talks about it. Ezekiel talks about it. Getting out of the mire. We sing the song about it. He brought me out of the mirey clay. He set my feet on the rock to stay. We sing about it.
But do we really do it? Why are you allowing that in your body? I'm not just talking about physical things now. I'm talking about things that we allow to mess with our lives. Amen.
But when you give your body to God as a living sacrifice. You know what's going to happen? It's going to kill all that. It's a living sacrifice.
And I felt this so strongly in my spirit this afternoon. I felt so strongly. You know what? I'm not telling you to turn around and go back. That's not what I'm saying.
But you need to look behind you. There's provision from something that you went through. There's a ram in a thicket. Do you know rams don't get stuck in thickets? Do you know where rams are all the time? They don't go to thickets. They live on rocks.
Did I just blow your minds? What was that ram doing in a thicket? I'll tell you what. God put him there. God put him there.
Y'all, if I would give myself as a living sacrifice unto God. Holy acceptable unto God. God will do the miraculous in my life. There's going to be provision like I've never had before in my life.
You see, man, I feel this in the Holy Ghost. There's people in this room. You're waiting on provision right now. I feel this. You're waiting on provision right now from God.
But you haven't given anything to God first. We want God to do everything for us. And us to do nothing. And for God. We want the miracles. And we want God to clear the storm.
But we don't want to have to go through the storm. We want all that to happen without us doing anything. But oh, if I would give myself as a living sacrifice unto God.
There's provision waiting right there. It's waiting. It's already been given. I just got to give myself as a living sacrifice unto God.
Let's stand. Amen. This is not corporate. Even though it is. This is very personal. What we need to do with God tonight. Amen.
You can come to the front. You can stay where you are. You can go in a corner somewhere if you need to do that. But I'm just telling you, we need to spend some time with God and offer ourself as a living sacrifice.
If you want provision, if you want the miraculous to happen in your life, you've got to give yourself to God. You've got to give yourself as a living sacrifice unto God. Whatever that means to you, whatever that takes, whatever happens, amen.
So I suggest that everybody find a place to pray. My wife's going to play and sing. Amen. I believe that God wants us to give Him our bodies today, amen. We are the temple of the living God. Oh, hallelujah.
on Jun 30, 2024
