When the Word Comes Alive 5-17-2026

If this is your first time listening you can check us out at lifefamily.church or on Facebook and Instagram at @lfcbeardstown

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome to the Life Family Church Sermon Podcast. If this is your first time listening, you can check us out on our website at lifefamily.church or on Facebook at LFC. Now let's get right to the message.

unknown 0:18

Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Thank you, Jesus. Lord, we love you, we thank you. That we are your children.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

And that you love us. And that you're for us, you're not against us. Thank you, Jesus, that you call us your own. That you've called me your friend. That you've called me a son of God, a child of God, a son or a daughter of God. That we're no longer held bondage by sin. But we're made free because of what Jesus did for us. And Lord, we just want to take a moment and just thank you for your goodness, for your mercy, for your great grace. Let's just lift up our hands right now, all throughout the sanctuary, and just worship the Lord. We thank you, Father. We thank you, Jesus. We love you. We honor you. We glorify you. Lord, we magnify your name, for you are good and your mercies endure forever. You are good and your mercy endures forever. I said, You are good, and your mercy endures forever. Forever your mercy endures. Thank you, Jesus. We love you, we love you, we love you. We honor your name. Your name is to be glorified. We lift you up.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

We thank you for all that you've done for us. We love you, Jesus. We praise your name. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Jesus, we love you. Jesus, we love you. Jesus, we love you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Praise the Lord. You can be seated this morning. Thank you, Jesus. The Lord is good. I want to say something that I I try to say this as many times as possible, but it's it's just so true. I want you to hear this. God is not mad at you. God is not mad at you. There's many people out there in the world that think that God is disappointed in them. I'm gonna say something that might shock you. God is not disappointed in you. God does not look at you and think, what a shame. He looks at you and he says, I love you. I love you with an everlasting love, and sin has no more dominion over you. So we serve a God who loves us and is not ashamed of us, and who declares over you that sin has no more power to rule and reign in your life. You're free from that. Amen. That's good news. Come on. Might as well shout about it, amen. That is good news. That he chose you before the foundation of the world and he called you blameless. Blameless. I want you to point at your chest right now and say, I am blameless before the Lord. If you have been born again, you are a new creature in Christ Jesus. Your old nature has died. I mean, we should be shouting over that dead body. That thing's dead. That thing is gone. And when you were buried, when you were baptized, it says it was buried. That old nature has been buried. What are you doing digging it up? Why are you hanging out next to a grave? We should move on. Let's move on to better things. Let's move on to freedom. Amen. Let's move on from glory to glory, from strength to strength, to righteousness to righteousness, from the goodness of God to the more goodness to more goodness to more goodness from more glory, more glory, more glory. You don't have to stop. Don't hang out at the grave anymore. Don't hang out at the grave of rejection anymore. Don't hang out at the grave of shame anymore. Don't hang out at the grave of pain any longer. Let's move on from the grave, take off the grave clothes. You've got new clothes, and that is the clothes of righteousness. You are clothed in righteousness. So put on Christ, put on the new nature, put on the new man, dressed in royalty, dressed in forgiveness, dressed in righteousness, dressed in perfection, dressed in holiness and true righteousness. Amen. That is your new nature. I believe the church has been in an identity crisis. We don't know who we are, because if we knew who we were, we would be celebrating every time we got together and shouting and giving God glory for his goodness. If you really knew who you were, and the power that's on the inside of you, that would shake you to your core. Oh, that would make you walk with your shoulders back and your head held high and bold. We should be bold as lions. We should be confident. We should be people that walk because we have a God who loves us, who is for us, and doesn't look at us and condemn us and throw down on us and judge us that we're horrible people, those old rotten, nasty people. No, he doesn't do that. He sees you in Christ Jesus. If you've been born again, say amen. That's you. That's you. You don't have to wait to get it. You don't have to wait till you die to get it. You can have it right now. Amen. Amen. Jesus, the word must, everybody say must, must become our highest truth. I want to say a few things this morning that I think will encourage you. Um every time we come together, I pray that the Lord encourages you through the word. Um, I don't believe at all that you should ever leave church feeling worse than you came in. I believe you should feel better. Glory to God. When you leave here, I pray that you'll be lifted, encouraged, strengthened, built up. That's what we're supposed to do as ministers is encourage each other. Amen. We're not supposed to discourage people. We're supposed to encourage them. We're supposed to say, you can make it, you can do it. You got this, man. You can make it. Just continue on in the faith. Contend for the faith. Don't stop. So this morning I'm going to speak just a little bit on the word of God and how valuable the word of God is to us, and a little bit about revelation knowledge of the word. A few things I have to lay down first before we get there. Number one, experience can shape us, but they must never become greater than the truth of God's word. So experience or good. There's nothing wrong with good experiences. There's nothing wrong with experiences. You might have been in church all your life and experience a lot of wonderful things, but those experiences never trump the word of God. What is true is eternal. Your experiences, they're temporary. That's why you can be shouting today, and tomorrow you'll be crying. You'll be running the pews today, and in 30 minutes you'll be bummed out and bored. Your emotions, your experiences, they're all temporary. That's why it's so important that we don't live by our emotions, but we live by the truth and the principle of the word of God. That we consume the word so that when the emotions start to try to overtake us, we can say, nope, stop there. The word of God says this, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do. See, people who live by principle, they see results. People that live by emotions, they're up and down, up and down, and you really don't know what's gonna happen from one moment to the next. I want to be around people that are stable. People that are that are that are sure footed. You know what that means? To be sure footed? Like I I want to be pretty uh, you know, I want people to know exactly what I'm gonna do. When I ask Pastor a question, I know exactly what he's gonna say. What does the Bible say? Because everything that man says in their own opinions and their own advice can be called a lie. But the word of God is always gonna be true, and it never can lie to you, and will always come and be or be become fruitful in your life. Too many people are living from church experience to church experience. I had a bad experience in church, so therefore, God must be bad. That's not true. I had a good experience in church, therefore, uh, you know, I'm gonna hop around from church to church to keep trying to get that emotional fix. You see, the reason why we don't hop around looking for different moves of God all the time is because we have a move of God, it's on the inside of us. It's Jesus Christ. When is Jesus gonna be enough? You know what I'm saying? People are looking for something out here when God is looking on the inside and saying, why don't you look what's already in you and start taking hold of the truth that's on the inside and walking by faith on what you already have. Amen. You hear it all over the place. I I all my life I've been praying for a revival. Some of you all have been doing the same thing. But the Lord He just captured my heart a few years back and said, you know what? If you want revival, start moving, start doing something. Use what you already have and go after it. But we're waiting for God to do something about our condition when it's up to us to take a stand and get into the word of God and to rely on the truth of the word and walk by principle, walk by faith and not by sight, and see God do a move through us. Amen. It's easier, isn't it, to say, God, come down and do whatever you want to do. He's like, I already did that. I sent Jesus. He went to the cross and he died for you, he gave his life for you so you could have joy, peace, and freedom. And if we will just walk in that freedom, walk in that light, walk in that joy that we already have, people will just flock to this place because they see something different than what they've experienced in church before. Amen. People want the truth, whether they know it or not, they should. They want the truth. Because the truth is the only thing that will make you free. The only thing. Nothing else will make your life free other than the principles of the word of God. Amen. The Bible says in John 17, 17, it says, Sanctify them by your truth. Thy word is truth. Sanctify, what does that mean? That means set them apart by the truth of the word. You know what sets you apart from everything else or anybody else is the word of God in your life working through you. That's the only thing that separates you from the world system, is the word of God. When you have the word of God in you, that makes you different. You're different, you're a different being because the word of Almighty God is on the inside of you. And it sanctifies you, it purifies your motives, it purifies your perspectives, it causes you to walk by principle and not by emotions. We should pursue the word of God like a gold prospector would be digging for gold. If somebody told me that there's gold on this hill right down here, and there's a vein of gold that is priceless. There's so much gold right here in this front of this church. I dare say probably 15. Well, I know, I know Lynn would be there because he's got the biggest machine. He'd be out there digging today. He'd be looking for that vein of gold. And when he finds it, you think he's just gonna leave that gold sitting there? No, he's gonna go after it, ain't he? And you know what else he's gonna do? He ain't gonna tell anybody else about it. But there's enough gold, Lynn. We could all have a share, right? Come on, man, be generous. Gosh, so selfish. But see, we have a gold vein that's in this word. It's there, but we gotta prospect it. We gotta go after it, we gotta dig for it, we gotta do something. Those that want to enter into rest have got to go after it. We can't just sit back and hope that everything works okay. It doesn't work that way in life. I don't know if you guys have figured this out or not, but life is not easy. Life will kick you in the head and just keep kicking you when you're down. Can I get a witness? Yeah. Life will beat you down and throw down on you and continue to kick on you and could care less. Satan is no, uh, he doesn't care about you. He hates you to the core and he would destroy you and kill you if he could. He doesn't care about you. But we have a truth that's higher than the devil's lie, and that is the word of God. And if we'll go after it, and if we'll be hungry for it, and if we'll desire it, then I'm telling you, once we hit that vein of gold, oh man, life is gonna get good. But too many times the church, we we find that gold, we get into the word, and we find it, and then we're like, okay, I found the gold, now let's go somewhere else, do something else. No, man, I'm telling you, if you found gold, you're not leaving that place until you've dug up every last ounce of it. How much is gold going for, by the way, right now? $4,000 an ounce. But the word of God is much more precious than fine gold. And yet, the church has a vein of gold in that word that's so priceless and so wonderful that is far more greater than any gold that you could ever have on this earth, and yet we still have a hard time pursuing it, consuming it, going after it. What am I saying, church? I'm saying it's time to dust off the book. It's time to dust off the word, it's time to get in here, it's time to study, it's time to show yourself approved, a workman. Okay, come on, somebody, a workman rightly dividing the word of truth. What does that mean? That means someone who's going after the word like it's a labor position. It's not always fun. Trust me. Every time I read the Bible, every day I go in here, it's not all uh bells and whistles and bubbles and and and balloons and it's sometimes it's just hard work. It's hard to get into a book that tells you what you're doing is not working. That your way is not the right way. If I were to come to you and say, Yeah, you know, what you're doing is wrong, you're probably gonna smack me across the head. What are you talking about? Remember the old what you talking about, Willis? You're gonna look at me, you're gonna roll your eyes and say, Who do you think you are telling me what I can do? Every time you get in this word, it's someone telling you how you should do it. And you have a choice to make. Will I submit myself to the word or will I resist what the word is saying to my life? Well, here's the result of that. If you submit to the word, then you will have God pour out grace in your life, and you will have so much you can receive from Him, and your life will continue to grow and mature and develop and be fruitful. If you resist the Word, then God will resist you. Okay, moving right along. I saw that head nod. All right. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 7, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Many people allow past pain, failures, emotion, disappointments, or experiences to define them. Guys, you are not defined by your past. You're defined by what the word of God says about you. Amen. That's good news. But the believer is called to live by what God says, not by what life has done to them. You are not arthritis, you are not cancer, you are not death, you are not destruction, you are not failure. You're a child of the most high God. Amen. You are not your past hurt. Too many people in the church are still battling with wounds and hurt. I know things hurt, but that's why it's so important to live by the truth of the word and not by hurt, because every decision you've made is based and filtered through that past hurt. You get what I'm saying? Every decision you make is filtered through that fear that you have, every decision you make is filtered through that insecurity that you carry, or that shame you might have experienced, or that rejection you had. Everything in life, you've made decisions based on those things alone. And then because now you're where you are in life and you don't like what you see, you wonder why, God, am I where am I right here where I am right now? And God is saying to you, through this preacher standing here right now, it's time to change what you send through the filter. Stop filtering every thought and every decision you make through condemnation, guilt, and shame. Start focusing on what the word says about you, who my identity in Christ is. Start making decisions and filtering my thoughts through the word of God, and then allow those decisions to be made. Your decisions should be made based on principle, not based on emotions. Never make decisions in a valley. Make decisions when you're on a hill and you can see clear and you got a great perspective. What is that perspective? That's seated on high with Jesus at the right hand of the Father as a child of God ruling and reigning in this life. We're not walking in doubt any longer, but we are walking confident, knowing that when we speak, we're speaking what the word says. When you speak what the word says, you see results, you see change, and you line up and submit your life to the word of God, and you start to see the results that you've always dreamed and desired. Amen. We're not our problems, we are believers. We got to know who we are in Christ Jesus. When we were born again, we received a new nature. Say, I'm I have a new nature. Salvation is or was not only about going to heaven one day. Too many of us we think of heaven and we think, that's why I got born again, so one day I'll go to heaven. Heaven's a great thing. Don't get me wrong. How many of y'all want to go there one day? I think that'd be a great place to go. Amen. I mean, the other place I don't know if I want to go there. So I'll make a good choice and I'll receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior, right? But that was not why you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You didn't receive him so you could go to heaven. Because life eternal is not so you can go to heaven one day. Life eternal is so that you can know the God who created you. That you could stand in his presence and have a relationship with him throughout eternity. That is life eternal. Not so that when I die, soon and very soon, we're gonna see the king, right? You heard the joke? I'm not gonna tell it. Okay, okay, all right. We'll stop moving right along. See, that was an emotional response to me. You shouldn't do that. I think I was inspired to tell that joke, but I'll move right along, all right. But we were supposed to live based on our new nature, not our past, not on who we used to be. Okay, I'll say it. Um when you're hanging around old buddies that you see at the store, you see hanging out, maybe you go to a reunion of something or a family reunion, and all you talk about is what you used to do in your past. Boy, we used to be rough next, we used to have a good time doing all these bad things, you know. It's okay just in passing, but don't get caught up in the way you used to be. Don't give glory and honor to those things you used to be. Because like Lazarus, when he was in that grave, they said he stinketh. That was the King James English for he stunk. He stunk. He stunk, bad. He's been dead for four days, he stinks, right? Don't go back and rehearse your past. If you start to start meditating on things that's happened in your past, you need to stop yourself and you need to remind yourself who you are now in Christ that I'm not who I used to be. I'm not glorifying that old nature any longer. It stinketh, it's gone, it's dead. I ain't gonna resurrect it again. It's forevermore gone. We have to know who we are in Christ Jesus today. Get a revelation of who you are in Christ, because that is what's gonna set and make you free. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this is 2 Corinthians 5, 17. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And then another verse in John 17 through 3, and this is eternal life. Remember, we were talking about eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know you. That is talking about Jesus, the only true God and Jesus whom you have sent. That is eternal life. Eternal life is not a destination. Eternal life is a union and a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we don't have to wait till we die to get it. We don't have to wait till we die to celebrate heaven. We don't have to wait till we die to have joy eternally. We can go ahead and start today. Amen. Hallelujah. We can go ahead and start right now rejoicing, thanking God what he's done and who he is and what we have in Christ. We don't have to wait till we die to have peace. You can have that right now. In the middle of a storm, in the middle of trouble, in the middle of trials, in the middle of tribulation, you can have peace. Amen. Amen. The Bible says that if you're a child of God, you're gonna suffer violence. There's things gonna take place that's gonna keep you get you off the path. But we don't have to get off the path. The path of the righteous gets brighter and brighter and brighter. The more I know about righteousness, the more I want more. The more I want to know more, the more I want to continue in it. I don't want to stop. I want to keep on digging, keep on going for more gold. It's a good stuff. Amen. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Anybody in here want to give me their gold? Just saying. We need revelation power at work in our lives. Knowledge of the word teaches us what God has promised and provided. Revelation causes those truths to become alive in our hearts. Then faith rises to take hold of what God has promised in His Word. You cannot have faith in a promise that you don't know about. Amen. I'm gonna say it again. You can't have faith for something that you don't know about. You gotta know in what you believe. You gotta know in whom you believe. And when you know it, you got it. Then you gotta believe for it and thank God for it because it belongs to me. Amen. So if it's a promise in the word, then it's yes, thank you, and amen. So be it. Amen. Anytime you see a promise by his stripes, I am healed. Yes. Amen. Glory to God. I would prosper and be in good health even as my Yes. Amen. Woo! Glory to God. I can prosper. I can be in good health, even as my soul prospers. Glory, I've got mental health, physical health. Health is mine. It belongs to me. Glory to God. Yes. I will take some of that. A little extra, please. Amen. A little goodness on the side, a little mercy there. I'll take it all. Amen. We have privileges. We have rights as children of God. Well, I'm just no rotten, dirty sinner saved by grace. No, you're not. Not anymore. You're not. If you're a child of God, you have rights and privileges, and you will rule and reign as kings and priests if you will believe it.

unknown 28:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

You got to believe what the word says, and it will come alive in your heart, become revelation power, revelation knowledge. Then you speak forth what you believe in your heart, confess it with your mouth, and it'll be manifested unto you. Glory to God. That's how you were born again. And guess what? That's how everything else works. Glory to God. Here we go. Um, all right, ahead of myself. Romans 10:17. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. How does faith come? How does faith come? Hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing, hearing by the word, hearing by the word. Hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing by the word of God. I'm not trying to take up your time. I'm saying that the only way the word of God comes is by hearing and hearing and hearing and hearing. It doesn't come by having heard. I heard that before, preacher. I don't need that again. I've already heard what that means. I know what you're talking about. I've already heard it. Had this kid in our youth group one time, he was hilarious. I would preach a message and I'd be like, how what did you guys hear tonight? Because I want to hear their perspective. What did how did how did you perceive what I taught you tonight? First of all, I wanted to know that they were listening to me because you're dealing with teenagers. So, you know, you want to know when they're leaned back in their chair with quarters in their eyes. Like, did you hear me? All right. You believe, believe it or not, a lot of them are here, or they're listening, whether you know you think they are or not. They're listening. Uh they're listening more at your lifestyle than they are your words, uh, but moving right along. Um, but what but these kids are listening, and and one of them, I'm like, hey, um, what did you hear as I taught tonight? Well, I mean, I think you were saying this, this, this about the Bible. Okay, what did you hear, uh, Susie? Well, I've here's what I heard. You said this about the word of God. I said, Okay, so what did you hear, Weston? He goes, I've already heard that. I'm like, what? And I just cracked up laughing because it's so true. Too many people are like, I've already heard that before. But faith doesn't come by having heard. Faith is fresh. Faith is like walking up to an oven that's still hot and the bread's still in there, and you open it up, and that hot wind just blows in your face, like face like a like a hot summer day when you walk out your door, um, just smacks you right in the face. That's exactly how faith should be. When you open the word of God, you should feel that hot air and that bread just sitting there waiting for you to grab a hold of and start eating. How many of y'all like hot bread? Good bread. Oh, that bread from Texas Roadhouse bread. You know what I'm saying? That honey butter from Texas Roadhouse and that ribeye steak, that Fort Worth, you know what I'm talking about. Anybody, do I have anybody here that likes bread? Amen. If you're if you're on a diet right now, oh too bad, you don't get none of this bread. But there's some good bread waiting on you in the word of God, so you can have all that you want. Amen. It brings healing to your life. So if you can't eat the real bread, go ahead and get the bread of life. It's so good. Amen, Lynn. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. No more bread for you, brother. The Bible says in Hosea 4, 6, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Why are they destroyed for lack of knowledge? Is knowledge important? You need knowledge. Knowledge of what? Knowledge of the football game last night, knowledge of who won the baseball game, or knowledge of who won that uh three-point contest. No, knowledge of the word of God because it's the word of God that can set your course on the right in the right place. The word of God is the only thing that can set and make you free. And I'm gonna go just a step further and then we'll wind this up today. In the beginning, let's go to John chapter 1. In the beginning, I'm gonna read down a few verses here, so listen closely. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Who was in the beginning with God? The word was in the beginning with God. Amen. All things made were made through him. How were things made? Through what? Through the word. Without him, nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light, that all through him might believe. He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light, that was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own did not receive him, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Listen to this. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of him and cried out, saying, This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me, and of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Amen. A couple things on that. In verse 4, it talks about light. Out of the word of God proceeds life and light. What does light do? Obviously, we could turn the power off in here and it would get dark, correct? So light lights up a place, right? It's pretty easy. I think most of you all realize that. But there's a couple words I want to bring out that I want you to hear. Light causes things to be manifested. I need healing in my body to manifest. What brings it? The light of the word of God. That's what brings it. The word is health to all your flesh. Medicine. When the light of God is manifested in your life, it will shine the truth on the areas of your life that needs to change. You see, the Bible says it's the small foxes that spoil the vine. Meaning there's little things in your life that could be causing big turmoil. Little things that you change can make big differences. Little attitude you have. Come on, somebody. That little attitude you have. If you would change that little attitude, you would see that you would have way more friends and that people would like you. Amen. If you'd make the adjustment, if the Lord speaks to you concerning how you treat yourself, how you treat your body, make that just small adjustment, you would see healing come into your life. What you speak over your life, if if you're speaking negativity all over all the time over your life and you're always down and always a Debbie Downer, if your name is Debbie, I'm not trying to be offensive. Because you're the least Debbie Downer I've ever seen in my life. I'll tell you a quick story. Do y'all remember the movie Napoleon Dynamite? Some of you are like 30 years old, you're like, oh yeah. I remember that movie. I was preaching to the teenagers one day in youth. And I was given, I mean, I I'm gonna tell you something. When I was a youth pastor, you wouldn't have liked my youth group. My wife said, Amen. Church was an hour and a half. When the teenagers came in, I shut the door and I preached for an hour and a half straight. Every time they came into the room. It was like, sit down. The Bible says this, and here we go. I mean, we're an hour and a half preaching just straight, right? I mean, I just wanted to preach. They were the recipients of that. They they got to learn, they got to experience me learning and growing in the ministry, which I'm sure. Anyways, well, moving right along, I was preaching one day and we were talking about Napoleon dynamite. And if you know a part in that movie where it says, Tino, you big fat lord, you remember that part? Was a llama, right? Tina, you big fat lord. I was I was preaching and I was like, I'm gonna be funny to these teenagers. And I said, Oh, Tina, you big fat lord, and I heard a woman in the back go, excuse me. I'm like, it wasn't, no, I wasn't thinking about you. I wasn't talking about you. A lady named Tina Hedrick was standing in the back of the church, and I'm like, because I would preach so long that church would get out and the parents would come and stand at the door and wait for me to stop preaching. And I called this, this, this, yeah. Anyways, so no disrespect. Oh man, sometimes you get in trouble when you preach. You gotta watch it. I'm sure, you know. Uh, anyways, the Bible says that the word of God became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld him. The word of God became flesh. Jesus was the manifested light of God our Father. If Jesus did it, that says this is the Father's way. If Jesus came and healed the sick, that's our Father. Because what did he do? He reflected the glory of his Father. When his Father wants to heal, Jesus reflects that light on you. When God our Father says you're blessed, that light comes through the word into your life. It reflects that light. The word of God is the reflection of God's glory. And when he speaks and he has spoken over your life, when you read the word, that reflection gets on you. And it exposes the areas in our life that need to be exposed. And when you notice things in your life that needs to be changed, you make the adjustment and you do it with joy because you know that the light of the glorious gospel has now come into that room of my life and lit it up. I have never been in a well, I'm not gonna say that because every place in Alaska is a bar and grill. I've never been to a dance club bar, you know what I'm talking about, where it's real dark and people are dancing, doing their little thing, you know, cutting a rug, you know, and all that kind of stuff. I've never been to one of those places, but I would dare say that if you walked in one of those places at three o'clock in the morning and someone turned on the light, it would be the most disgusting place that you would, you would not want to be there. Why? Because the light has exposed the trash. Amen. I've been to restaurants before and I've seen them in the restaurant while we're eating, spraying for bugs. Boy, I'm gonna go back to that restaurant next week for sure. What did that do? It just exposed that there's roaches in your business. I was eating at a Chinese restaurant. No, no, not here. This was in Tennessee. I was eating in a Chinese restaurant, no joke. As I'm eating, the people on the other side of the table is just laughing. What are y'all laughing about?

SPEAKER_03 42:34

They're like, turn your head to the right.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Then I'm really nervous then. I'm like, okay, so I kind of like give it like this right here. And I see this roach standing on the corner of the of the chair, and he's going like this. He's standing up on his back. He's like, give me that food. Don't take it. Don't eat that. That's mine. I'm serious. That's nasty. But um, yeah. If you're eating uh Chinese today, boy, I've just messed up everybody's meal today, haven't I? Uh Jesus is the full revelation of the Father. And I want to make it clear when you get into the Word of God and you become serious about the Word of God, the Word of God will become serious in your life. And you'll start to see things develop in you and change your life, and you'll get on such a course that you can't put this book down. There's been seasons of my life where I don't want to put the word of God down. I don't want to go to work, I want to read the Bible, I want to do this, I want to do that. There's times in your life that you can't put it down because it's bringing forth so much light. And if you're not hungry for this word, you're not going to see results in your life. You got to be hungry for the word of God. You've got to desire it. If you're going through trouble in your life, like I said a few days ago, it's not the time to read the book of Revelation, all right? If you're having nightmares, don't read Revelations, all right? It's not time to study on the seven headed beasts. Coming out of the North Sea, you know, whatever. Like it's time to study the Word of God that promotes your healing, promotes your freedom, promotes peace in your life. These are the areas of our life that the Word of God provides all the answers. We don't have to ask our support group. We don't need a support group. You don't need a support group when you have the word. Because all the support group will do is pat you on the side. You're okay. Everything's going to be okay. No, it's not. If you're not walking according to the word, no, it's not going to be okay. The life you're living is not okay. It's not. And if somebody you have people around you that go and they're like telling you everything's going to be okay, you just keep doing what you're doing. No. You need a new nature. First of all, you need to be born again. Number one. And number two, you need to get in this word. This is your support group right here. This is your support group. This is your psychiatrist right here. If people really want to change, they can. Don't ever tell me, oh, it doesn't work for me. You're a liar. That was a little harsh. You're untrue. The word is the truth. And if it said it will make you free, guess what? You can be free. So don't make excuses why it ain't working. Don't make excuses to me. Well, I don't know why my life's going to make excuses to me. Are you in the word? Are you studying the word? Are you are you relaboring the word? Are you going after the word? Are you hungry for the word? Because if you're not doing it, guess what? The fruit, you're gonna eat it. And you might not like it. There's gonna be bugs in that fruit. You don't like that kind of fruit. I want what the word wants from my life. It's a mirror. When I look into the word, I see the reflection of who I am in Christ Jesus. And if you don't know who you are in Christ, this is the way to get it. Amen. Let's all stand up. Amen. Glory to God. As you can tell, I'm pretty passionate when it comes to the Word of God. Because it has absolutely changed my life. Believe it or not, I've not always been a good boy. Huh? There's been areas in my life that I've had to grow up in. You have to continue to grow. Well, I've been born again since I've been, you know, four years old, and I'm 80 years old, and I'm still having trouble and loving people and being good. Grow up. How do you do that? You get in the word. You start to mature through the word. Do you know that there could be 80-year-olds in church that have been to church all their life that are still immature? And then there's also areas in your life that you have not given to the Lord that you could be immature in those areas. And yet, mature as you could be in another area. You might be so full of faith that you can move mountains, but if you don't have love, it profits nobody. So the areas in your life, we have to have all of them. We can't just have one truth. I live by this truth and this truth alone. No, I live by the truth of the Word of God and the whole Word of God and nothing but the Word of God. I want it all. It will change everything. If you came in here looking for change, this is it. If you came in here desiring that your life be different, this is it. If you want to see differences in your in your in your jobs, in your in your relationships, or whatever it might be, this is it. This is it. Get in the word. Get in the word. Find out what God says about you. And then when you find it out, say yes and amen. I receive it, I'll take it, turn the light on in every room of my house. If there's anything that's displeasing to you, expose it, manifest it in my life, and get it out of me. Because I want to walk in total freeness. Total freedom. Let's all bow our heads right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for your word. Lord, thank you so much for giving us such freedom that only comes through knowing you, the eternal one. And Father, I pray right now, if there's someone in here that has never received you as their Lord and Savior, that they would make that commitment today. So if you're in here right now and you've never received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and you'd like to make a commitment to receive him right now, would you slip out from where you are and come up here to the front? I want to pray with you. I want to lead you to a relationship with Jesus, the Son of the living God, the Word made flesh that dwelt among you. So if you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you would please make your way up here to the front, I want to pray with you and lead you to Jesus. Hallelujah. I'll just give you a few moments to make that decision, if that's you. Amen. The only thing I will say from here is if you're in here and you've got areas in your life that you need to make the adjustment, and the Lord has spoken to you today that I need to make the adjustment. I don't have to bring you up here and lay my hands on you, pray with you. The way that you conquer the things in your life is not by having someone pray for you. The way that you conquer the areas in your life that are defeating you is that you get in the word of God and you allow the word to transform your life. Because the word of God will do that. So, Father, I pray for anyone in here that has things in their life that they need to yield to you, submit to you, that Lord, they'll make the adjustment. And that, Lord, we will allow your word to transform us, renew our minds according to your standards, your ways, your will for our life. And Lord, I thank you that you bring joy, peace, and forever eternal life to us in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, is the Lord good? Amen. Um, my family is traveling right after church here. We're gonna go grab our stuff at the house, and we're traveling to Oklahoma to go and grab our stuff. Go grab my fishing rods, my kayaks, oh yeah. My my smoker, yes, my grill, yes, my summer clothes, yes. God is so good to us, and on the 26th, our house will be completely sold. And um, we're actually going, yes, praise God. We're actually going on the 20th, tomorrow, yeah. So that's tomorrow. We're gonna we're gonna be signing our part of the paperwork. So we'll be, we'll be, our our John Hancock could be there. So we've made a commitment. And listen, my family has made a commitment to you. And I want you to do the same for us. Let's pray for each other. Let's encourage each other. When you see someone down, it's not the time to beat them up. It's the time to go and put your arm around them and say, let's do this together. You can make it. Let's be a church that's so consumed with the love of God that it just enlightens this whole area. Amen. Will you commit to that? I want to be known as the most loving church in this region. When people come here, I want them to experience the love of God. Amen. And if they don't, oh, I will get, I will, we will, we will. The Bible says you prune things. We'll make the adjustment. We're gonna be a loving church. Glory to God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, all right, God bless you. We'll see you Wednesday. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Thanks for listening. We hope that this message helps you draw closer to God as you walk out your faith. We'll see you next week.