You are invited to stop pretending you know everything and start pursuing a deeper relationship with Him. As you surrender your areas of disobedience, you will find the freedom to walk into the purposes God has prepared for you.
I'm thankful I get to be here. We are a church that will do whatever it takes for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Whatever it takes. Because we love you. We love enough we love you enough to rebuke you if needed, to encourage you, to challenge you, and to listen.
Amen? Well, and how do we do that? How do we we make disciples in that way? By engaging the culture with the love of Jesus, by establishing the believer in the body of Christ, by equipping the believer to engage the culture with the love of Jesus, and by empowering the ready to live out their God given purpose. Engage, establish, equip, empower.
That's that's how we do church. And if you don't like it, either stay here until you do or go somewhere else because we ain't changing. "It is what it is". We love you. Okay.
So our prayer is you encounter the presence and the power of God in a very real way. I believe you probably already have, whether you know it or not, because God's presence is here. And where 2 or more gathered, there he is in their midst. There's a special manifestation of the presence and power of God when the body of Christ comes together in unity. It's a big deal.
We are in a series titled Corinthians. We've been in this series for a long time, since October 2022. We go in and out of it. It's the base series we go back to. I'd encourage you to go back and listen.
I'm going to pick up where we left off last week. I'll probably give you a little bit of a a catch me up, but this the the message today is gonna be very interesting. I'm gonna have fun. I hope you have fun. We're gonna finish out 1 Corinthians-7 starting in verse 36.
We may get into 1 Corinthians-8 verses 1, 2, and 3, but I do want you to know, I'm not gonna cover 1 Corinthians-8 because our our teacher, 1 of our teachers in the house, he was ordained a teacher in the house, Daniel Mannix, did preach 1 Corinthians-8 on 12/17/2023. Just to let you know how long we've been in this series. And he did such a masterful job that I don't need to cover it all again. But there's a couple of points in the in the first couple of sentences that I think go with some of the points that I'm making, so I may get there and I may not. Alright.
You guys ready? Lord Jesus, I thank you that you gave me this word, Lord God. And I pray that what comes out is from you. Lord God, that the people would filter it by your word. They would test it by your word.
And Lord God, that they when they see that it's in your word, they put it into practice in their life. They wouldn't just be mere hearers of the word, deceiving themselves, feeling like they know something that their life doesn't know. But, Lord God, they would be doers of the word. Where they hear, they believe, and they obey. And the supernatural results of of remaining in your word, freedom, Lord God, is on the other side of that obedience.
Lord God, they experience the supernatural results of the abundant life that's found in Jesus Christ. I rebuke unbelief. Lord God, the blinders that the enemy puts on our mind and our eyes that would try to prevent us from walking in the fullness of every purpose that you have for us. I rebuke it in Jesus' name. And we say, Lord God, speak in such a way that we can walk in the freedom you provided for us.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your goodness. Lord, we want to live as friends of God in every way. In Jesus' name. Everybody say Amen. Amen.
Okay. So we left off last week in 1 Corinthians-7:36. It says, if anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed and I just again, I wanna stop right there and remind you what betrothal is. Betrothal in the culture of the day when scripture was written, "betrothal is like a modern day engagement" except much more legal. It's more like a marriage that's not consummated, and the people don't live together.
When someone was betrothed, the husband would go back home to his father's house, and he would tell the bride, I'm going home to prepare a place for you. So he'd go home to prepare a place, and when the father said the place was ready, the father would tell the son, the groom to go get his bride. And he'd go get his bride and pick her up, and they'd come back home and have a wet wedding celebration for, 7 days and consummate the marriage. We are betrothed to Jesus. He's went back to prepare a place for us, and he's coming back to pick us up.
Amen. It's a beautiful thing. That's the picture of betrothal. And we saw last week how sexual immorality in all of its forms is detestable to God. He loves you, and he cares for you, and he loves you right where you are.
No matter what you've done, he paid a price for you to be transformed, But he loves you too much to leave you there. He transforms you so that you can move forward and learn to walk in purity with him, to be an imitator of your heavenly father as a dearly loved child. And an imitator of the heavenly father does not walk in sexual immorality. Instead, they put aside every bit of thing, every sin, and every weight that would hold them back from running the race that God has for them. Amen?
So it's 1 step at a time in learning that, and he prunes us. And the reason that sexual immorality is such a big deal is because all throughout the Old Testament, we see that Israel is seen as the bride of God throughout the Old Testament. And so whenever Israel would walk in idolatry, God viewed it as spiritual sexual immorality, as if Israel was cheating on him. Not a good thing. And so our our marriages today are supposed to represent the a a relationship that the body of Christ has with Jesus, the groom.
And so we are to walk in purity, keeping the marriage bed holy, and enjoying 1 another. I I saw this video on on social media. Sorry. Distraction, but it's good, where where the guy says, my biggest flex is that my kids, instead of begging mom and dad to stop fighting, they beg mom and dad to stop kissing. You want a marriage like that.
You wanna fight for that kind of unity to because your marriage is supposed to reflect the way that God loves the church. Amen? It's a beautiful thing. So betrothal. Now 1 Corinthians-5 6 and 7 are talking about sexual immorality.
1 Corinthians-8 is talking about idolatry and eating food from idols. And this all plays a part in this bunny trail that is gonna look like a bunny trail, but we're gonna go on this journey and come back, and it's gonna be beautiful. You know, in the Old Testament, everything that they walked through in the Old Testament, they were walking through physically, a physical representation of what we're walking through spiritually in our relationship with God today. And you can see the parallels and learn from it as you see it through the lens of Jesus Christ. I'll give you some examples.
Before the the Israelites were delivered from Egypt, they heard a word and believed the word that they needed to slay a lamb and take the blood of the spotless lamb and put it over the doorpost of their home. And those that walked by faith, they heard, believed, and obeyed. The angel of death passed over the home and did not take out the firstborn. Instead, the rest of Egypt experienced judgment and death, but the angel of death passed over them because of the blood of the lamb. And then, Pharaoh let the people go.
They were delivered from Egypt, and they walked straight from Egypt to the Red Sea. So their deliverance from Egypt represents a Christian being born again and delivered from sin. And the first place they go is the waters of baptism. Walking through the Red Sea, the Bible equates to the waters of baptism. On their way to the Red Sea, the Egyptians wanted to put them back into slavery.
They wanted to get to them before they walked through the waters of baptism, trying to say just like the enemy coming at you trying to say, you're not really changed. Nothing really happened, or do whatever it takes to prevent you from walking in that step of obedience. Why? Because real faith is always shown by physical obedience. Real life change, real heart change is always shown by physical obedience, by steps of obedience.
You're changed first, you obey because of the change. Amen? So the Israelites walked through the Red Sea, and in walking through the baptism, they were washed clean of the oppressors. The oppressors were drowned in the sea. There's a lot of people that when they go through baptism, the things that oppress them are left in the water.
Why? Because the supernatural's on the other side of obedience. A It's big deal. There's a lot of times we do baptism out there, and there's deliverance that happens right after. And a lot of times, there's still enemies and giants that people need to overcome in the process of God developing them for the purposes that God has for them.
Right after they went through the Red Sea, where did they go? They went to Mount Sinai and met with God. And God revealed himself in a powerful way. And the people rejected a personal relationship with God for fear. They saw the light.
They saw the thunder. They saw the fire, and they said, no. Moses, if we talk with God, he's gonna kill us. And he's right. Having a close personal relationship with God kills the flesh so that you can walk by the spirit.
Encountering God will be death to you, and that's the that's the most important and best thing that could happen. So you can raise to new life in Christ and reflect the resurrection life of Jesus. But they said, no. That would be death to us. Moses, you talk to him.
So they rejected this close relationship with God, and on Mount Sinai, God gave them the law to break them of themselves. And they said, yeah, we can do this in and of ourself. We will follow. We will obey. And the wilderness, the representation of the wilderness there is Christians who have been born again.
They've come out of Egypt. They've been baptized, and there's aspects of their life that are rejecting God because of fear of him being in control. Fear of complete and total surrender. And they have to go through wilderness to cut and to prune those aspects of their life until they walk in full surrender so they can experience the fullness of the promises and the purposes God has created them for, the promised land. You guys follow me?
I wanna I wanna take you through a couple of those battles that they had to face in the wilderness because it's applicable to what we're talking about in 1 Corinthians-7. But let's continue on our bunny trail. Sounds a little echoey, more echoey than it did. If you didn't change anything, it's just my ears. My ears are echoey then.
Alright. So Numbers-21. This is after they've already been through a lot. I I don't have time today to take you through every battle that they face, but they're applicable. It's applicable.
But in Numbers-21, right before they're going into the promised land, maybe you struggle with some of these giants in your life. Maybe you struggle with some of these battles. As a matter of fact, I know you have because every believer has to overcome these things in their process toward purpose. God is a good father, and he delivers us from the junk that we hold on to so that we can "walk in the fullness" of everything. He's relentless about disciplining us as a good father.
So in in Numbers-21:1, it says, when the Canaanite, the king of Arid, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming. So they had to come against this army of Canaanites led by King Arid. What does King Arid mean? King Arid means "wild donkey", stubborn, dependent independence, untamed. Canaanite means brought low.
A lot of people that are born again, and this wild donkey of a personality, the stubbornness that they have held onto before they gave their life to Jesus, it has to go for them to walk in purpose because you have to walk in fullness of surrender. And it's a giant in a lot of people's lives. They're just stubborn. And it's not it's not steadfastness. Redeemed stubbornness is steadfastness.
Stubbornness is of the devil. It's pride. That's what it is. While I'm doing my thing, I I heard God speak, and I ain't doing what you tell me to even though God put you under somebody. I'm doing it my way.
You can't lead and follow Jesus in your purpose if you're that independent. Because it's about the body of Christ and submitting 1 to another. You have to overcome this thing in your life before you can walk in the fullness of purpose. And brought low that kind of pride, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. He will break you of that and bring you low, get you to the end of yourself.
How did how did the Israelites overcome this? Israel made a vow to the Lord, said, if you will give these people in our hand, then we will devote their cities destruction. Basically, we can't do this. We're coming to you. We know that you can.
I'm not gonna stubbornly try to do it my way for the rest of my life. Instead, I'm surrendering totally to you. And Lord, I trust you in every area of my life that has this type of stubbornness, this type of a wild donkey independence that's independent of what you're doing, and independent of the body of Christ. I surrender to you in totality. Everything.
And if I ever see any aspect of it, I'm devoting it to destruction. That caused humility, that is humility, and it caused freedom. And they overcame king Arid and the Canaanites. The next thing, 21 chapter 4. From Mount Horror, they set out by the Red Sea to go to the land of Edom, and became impatient on the way.
You ever been impatient for your purpose? Impatient to get to the promise? God. You get in a rush, guess what? God doesn't rush.
If you're ever in a rush, you're not in the Lord. You're not in the spirit. You're in the flesh. And the people spoke against God and Moses. Why have you brought us out out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?
For there's no food and no water, and we load the worthless worthless food, or we load the worthless bread, another version says. And they were judged because of it. So it was complaining. In the wilderness, on the way to the purposes that God has for you, you will be tempted to complain about what you don't have, or that life seemed to get harder, and we should just go back to the way that it was. Ever been tempted that way?
We should all raise our hands. We've all been tempted that way. Complainers. God hates complaining. Nowhere in scripture does it give you a "license to complain".
Nowhere. For the believer, there is no license to complain anywhere, and if you find yourself complaining constantly, you need to repent. Overcome that giant so you can walk in purpose. You don't have an excuse. That's just the culture of America to complain.
It's not the culture of the kingdom. So repent and let all complaining get out of your mouth. How did they get how did they get the complaining out of their mouth? How did they overcome this? The Lord the Lord sent judgment against them.
Praise the Lord that Jesus has been judged, but in our complaining, it opens up a door for the enemy to come and attack us. Condemnation, fear, guilt, shame, all that kind of stuff. How did they overcome complaining? God spoke and told Moses to raise up a rod, a pole with a serpent on it, and they had to look to the serpent to be healed. Jesus was raised up on a pole, and he became our sin, representing he became that serpent.
So that when we look to him, he heals us of our junk so that we can walk free from from the effects of sin. That amazing? So how do you overcome complaining in the midst of what you wanna complain about? Look to Jesus. Put your eyes on him and start rejoicing in the sacrifice that he had for you.
That's how you overcome it. It's gonna be a test. God doesn't promote complainers. You will miss out on many aspect of your aspects of your purpose if you if you idolize complaining over rejoicing in what Jesus did for you. Amen?
So it's beautiful that what happened next. It's just the song of the well. They were thirsty in the wilderness. And when they were thirsty in the wilderness, the word was to rejoice in the wilderness. And they started singing, and God supernaturally provided a well of water.
When you're thirsty in the wilderness, you're not walking in the fullness of the promise or the purposes God has for you in a certain season or in your life. Start rejoicing in the wilderness, and God will give you the thirst quenching of his presence, the Holy Spirit. They broke out in song. The song was spring up a well, which is beautiful. Okay.
Next, after that, I'm going somewhere with this. They came to king Sihon. The Israelites sent messengers to Sihon, king of the Amorites. Let us pass through. Sihon didn't let him pass.
You know what Sihon means? Means sweeping away tempestuous, strong, turbulent, and conflicting emotion. You ever had strong, turbulent, conflicting emotion? You ever felt like your life's gonna be swept away because of stuff that's going on, because of things that you heard? The Amorites means talkers, mountain mountain dwellers that they lived on the mountains in the high place and were known as talkers.
Those that are maybe further along than you in your purpose, and you're comparing or just speaking that you're not enough, you can't do it, or just causing fear and doubt and worry because you're listening to the noise and it's creating all these emotions in you. That's what this represents. Fear, worry, anxiety because you're listening to stuff that's not true. People higher than you, or things higher than you, or demonic attacks that's telling you that you're lower than you need to be and you're not enough. That's what this represents.
You know what they had to do? This 1? They had to face it. They killed they killed this king, they killed this enemy by facing it. You have to face your fears with Jesus.
You have to face your insecurities with Jesus. You have to trust him enough to be able to face them down and cut the head off of them. Every single 1 of you on the way to your purpose. Amen? Amen.
It's kinda beautiful, isn't it? So these can happen in in, you know, sequential order like I'm talking about, or can all happen in different times at once. Don't worry. If you defeat this 1 enemy, when you're walking in the purposes that God has for you or more of them, they'll try to come back. They're waiting there too, but you've already defeated it, so you could stand on the testimony of what God did in the wilderness.
Right. Amen. Amen? Amen. Don't forget.
Next, king Og was defeated. He lived in the land of the Amorites. Og, in the Hebrew name, means long necked or long limbed. He was probably a giant. This giant is different.
This giant lived in the land of the Amorites. He was the king of Bashan, and Bashan means provision. It was a really nice land. You know what this represents in your journey on the way to the promised land? On the way to the purposes that God has for you, so you can walk in the fullness of him?
This giant represents the temptation to settle early. It's the temptation to settle early, comfortable blessing that is short of the promise of of God that he gave you. The land of Bashan is pretty close to the promised land. As a matter of fact, some of the tribes settled there. Just let us settle here in this land.
And they did. They went in and helped fight some of the battles, but many of them settled early. Don't settle early. God has more for you. You might come into some blessing or come into some aspects of your promise of the purposes God has for you, but you know that there's more.
Keep pushing and walk by faith. Don't quit. Don't stop. Because that's a giant that's trying to prevent you from walking out the fullness of what God has for you. Cut off the head of king Og 2.
Amen? Now, these are all things and aspects. Remember the Old Testament? Physical representation of what we a lot of times walk through spiritually in our relationship with Jesus. In our relationship with him, knowing that he's already won the battle, and we're learning from this when we have the perspective of Christ as we read the old testament.
Amen? So all of these are attacks. The enemy's attacking from the outside, but he saved the the hardest, the worst attack for last. So the Israelites then are knocking on the door of the promised land, and the enemy wants to do whatever he can to prevent them from walking in the fullness of the promise. And so they go up to the land of Moab, and the king of Moab doesn't know what to do.
Balak. And so he summons Balaam. Balaam is this prophet who hears from God, and he summons Balaam over, and he offers to pay him money, and Balaam was enticed by the money to curse Israel, and he couldn't curse Israel because Israel was blessed by God. Israel was the people of God, and they had overcome all these different obstacles on the way to the promised land, almost walking in the fullness of the purpose. And so Balaam said, I know how you can get them, knowing the ways of God.
He was an evil prophet. He said, I know how you can get them. The enemies couldn't get them from the outside, so let's get them from the inside. Let's send in the send in your women, the Moabite women, and entice them into sexual immorality. And then once they're enticed into sexual immorality, their hearts will be entangled, and they'll fall into idolatry.
Idolatry is simply putting something else over God, putting something else of higher value or higher importance than God in your life. Sexual immorality leads to idolatry. And so that's what they did. By the way, Moab means son of the father, and Moab was the son of of incest. So it was it was already like the the nature of the Moabites, what they came from, what they represent, means creating creating sons, but the wrong way.
Immoral way. Amen? And that's what the enemy wants to do. He wants to come at you from the inside and taint your purpose to create things that are not in line, not not the purity of the promise that he has for you. And a lot of times, the last thing he'll throw at you, or sometimes the first, it doesn't happen sequentially, but it's sexual immorality to get you to be distracted by that image, distracted by that person, distracted by that relationship, or maybe it's the right relationship, but you're doing it in the wrong way.
And once that happens, sexual immorality leads to idolatry, and you begin to compromise in other areas of your life, putting other things first because your heart has been entangled in the wrong way outside of obedience to God. It's the sin of Balaam, the destructive teaching of Balaam. Revelation-2:14 talks about it. But I have a few things against you. You have some who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
There it was. Remember 1 Corinthians-5, 6, and 7, all about sexual immorality. 1 Corinthians-8, food sacrificed to idols. Why? Because the old testament is a physical representation of what we walk through spiritually, and Paul recognized this, and he's following the same playbook because he knew that Christians would be attacked in the same way.
Isn't that crazy? Isn't that cool? So, man, we have the playbook. We can see the enemy. We're not ignorant of the enemy's devices, of his schemes.
So when he comes to attack us in that way, all we gotta do is stand on the word. But if you've fallen into sexual immorality, and idolatry in your life, putting other things as more important to God because your heart was entangled by what you saw. What do you do? How did the Israelites overcome it? Numbers-25.
While Israel lived in Shittim, that that is the place where they got stuck. Don't get stuck there. You gotta come out of shit them to enter into your promised land, into the purposes God has for you. Okay. How did they come out of there?
They got stuck there for, who knows? Couple months, few months, a year. But the way that they came out of it, verse 4, and the Lord said to Moses, take all the chiefs of the people and hang them, and the sun before the Lord. The fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. It was the leaders that allowed it to happen.
And as they said, cut them up. Get them out of there. Now, this is Old Testament. This is a New Testament. Praise the Lord.
Jesus took judgment. But sin's no less dirty. It'll cut you up, and any aspect of your life that has led you into sin, you better destroy it. Has led you into sexual immorality, you better destroy it, surrender, and submit to what God's saying so that you can walk in the fullness of your purpose and not be caught just on the edge of the promise, on the edge of the purposes because you got distracted, and now you're stuck in shit them. You gotta destroy it.
So they destroyed the leaders, and then 1 more person of the whole camp of Israel, if you see all of Israel as your your life, 1 little person went and got a Moabite girl, and somebody saw it. And, they took out even that 1 little thing out of all the 2,000,000 Israelites, that 1 little thing. What is the 1 little thing she'd been making excuses for? Destroy it. No mercy.
So you can walk in the fullness of the purposes that God has for you. Amen? The teaching of Balaam connected to 1 Corinthians-5, 6, 7, and 8. So that kind of gives you the the backstory. Now we have a short little message.
So picking up in verse 36, if anyone thinks he's not behaving 1 Corinthians-7:36. If anyone thinks he's not behaving properly towards his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do it as he wishes. Let them marry. It is no sin. Hey, if you've gotten too much, too passionate, you know, you can't walk in the fruit of the spirit self control.
You you better you better surrender and get married. It's not a sin to do that. Verse 37. But whoever is firmly established in his heart being under no necessity, meaning there's no, like, family promise that has been had between the 2 families because there was arranged marriage back in the day, under no necessity, or the girl got pregnant because you were stupid, you better better married marry that woman so that you can be a good father. But having determined this in his heart to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well.
So the the man that and the woman, like, if you're under self control, you're not messing up, you're just friends. That's okay too. Not a bad thing. I say it's hard in American culture because sex is everywhere, and you're gonna be just you're gonna be tempted to be distracted, and to think that you have to. But as far as this goes, if you can walk in the fruit of spirit and self control, it's okay for you not to get married, but you better be walking in purity and holiness.
Amen? So then he who married has his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better. This is not downing marriage, he's just saying he wants you an undevoted devotion to the Lord. Undivided devotion to the Lord. That's what he's wanting.
And man, if God has called you to run the race of being married, praise the Lord, run that race because she will help you to know Jesus better than you would on your own. But if he hasn't, don't feel obligated to walk in self control. Amen?
Amen.
Verse 39. A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes. Only in the Lord. Yet in my judgment, she's happier if she remains as she is, and I think that I too have the spirit of God.
We get a lot of women that have gone through abusive situations, tough stuff coming to us for counsel, And they're on the verge of divorce, signing papers, he's hurt me too bad, too much, and it's terrible what they've went through, and I cannot recommend divorce. I can recommend separation. As a matter of fact, 1 Corinthians-7:11, verse 10, to the married I give this charge, not I but the Lord. The wife should not separate from her husband. Verse 11.
But if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and the husband should not divorce his wife. So I never I never want to encourage a woman to stay in a situation that is not safe. You know? Now just because there's some conflict, that doesn't mean it's not safe. It's not an excuse for you to leave, but I never wanna encourage a woman to stay in a in a in a in a situation that's not safe.
So 1 Corinthians-7, there it shows that, hey, it's okay to separate if need be. What's the separation for? So that you can pray the Lord will make you into the best wife that you can be and pray for your husband that whatever stupidity is happening, man, God would change his heart and become a man that would would honor his wife. Amen? And the reality is if there's a separation, a holy separation like that, and the man is being worked on by Jesus, he's going to show and prove that he's been changed.
And he's gonna go all out for his wife because he will have been transformed and start loving his wife like the church, and win her heart back. But if he's all selfish and in it for himself, then he's gonna end up giving his heart to another woman, and then she's free. You understand? So it's it's not to force that, but it's it's to help with heart change. Hopefully, that's clear.
Is that clear? Yeah. Okay. So the way and I just wanna hit this real quick, the way to overcome all of this that we talked about as you step towards your purpose is this, the first 3 verses of chapter 8. This is this is the way to overcome it.
Now concerning food offered to idols, we know that all of us possess knowledge. Now that is in quotations, so when Paul wrote this letter, he was writing in response to a letter the Corinthians wrote to him, and they made this prideful statement, seems like. You know, all of us possess knowledge, and any response to it, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. It's that sentiment, oh, I I know as much as you do. You know, it's that it's that person that's trying to prove what they know.
Look, I've been there before. I've had to be humbled in this. That you've been growing, and you come into a place and you want everybody to know what you know, what you've been walking in. That's knowledge that puffs up. But love builds up.
Love sacrifices itself for the sake of another, so it ain't about what you know, it's about how much you can love. And why do you know what you know? It's so that you can sacrifice yourself with wisdom to build those around you up, not so that you can prove yourself or prove anything to anybody. If you've already been proven by Jesus, don't need you don't need to prove yourself to anybody or anything. You can actually love people for them and not for how they see you or if they promote you.
Amen? Amen. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And then what does it say? Because it's that that kind of pride that keeps people under the enemy.
It keeps people in the wilderness preventing them from walking out the fullness of the purposes God has for them. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. There it is right there. When you think you know something, you don't really know. Because the more that you know, the more you understand you don't know.
The more that you get to know God, the more you understand you don't know about him, and it draws you into deeper relationship with him. Why? Because he's infinite, and he's eternal, and he's holy. So when he reveals himself to you as healer, you're like, "I know him as healer". Yeah, you do, but but at the same time, he's infinitely more healer than you know.
So he'll never change. He's always faithful in the way that he's revealed himself to you as healer, and yet pursue him more because he's going reveal more of the aspect of himself as healer over time. And then, there's more than just healer. He's your provider. You know him a little bit as provider.
You've seen some crazy provision when you didn't think it was gonna work out. I know him as provider. Yeah, but you don't know as much as you're gonna know. Don't think you know everything. Don't think you know more than everybody else.
Continue to pursue him, and you'll get to know him as provider all the more. Why? Not so you can puff yourself up. Say, look what I know, but so that you can love, so you can build others up, Because you know him in a way that you're helping to help others to know him, to love him, sharing testimony. It's like Courtney knows him as healer of her womb, not so she can brag about it, but she can she can share that testimony to love you and build you up.
And then what does it say? But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. This is friendship. I'm a "friend of God". 1 John-4:8 shows us that to know him is to love him.
It says, anyone who does not love does not know God because "God is love", which means to know him is to love him. You can't know him and not love him because he is love. So in any area that you don't love him, you don't know him in that area of your life. You're still being attacked by enemy in the wilderness and need that aspect of you to be pruned. To know him is to love him.
What does it look like to love him? To obey him. Those who love me, obey my commands. Any area of your life you're struggling with disobedience, it's because you don't know his love in that area. You don't know him in that area because if you would have known him, you would have obeyed him.
So where you're struggling with disobedience, Lord, help my unbelief and help me to know you in this area where I can trust you because to know you is to trust you. I can't say that I don't trust you and I know you at the same time. And to love him is to be known by him, and that's the thing. In any area that I love him, I'm going to reveal and I know his love for me, I'm gonna reveal every aspect of my junk to him. In any area where I'm hiding from him in disobedience or shame, that's an area where I haven't known his love and been known by him, otherwise I would have been transformed in that area.
So if I really trust him, then I gotta open up everything to him. I'm not hiding anymore. I'm coming into your presence because I trust that you're good. You don't wanna control me. You wanna love me, and I surrender control to you because I love you.
That's what it looks like for freedom, and when you start walking like that in every area of your life, you're ready for the purposes he has for you, and you get promoted into purposes. Why? Not so you can say, look at me and what I know. No. No.
So that you can love and build others up. Amen? That's what I got. So let's have the altar team come forward. If you need prayers for healing, you need to be delivered from some strongholds you have in your life that you recognize.
You have some areas of darkness and shame that you've Areas of disobedience that you've been struggling with. Altar teams coming forward to minister to you through that, to love you, and to shine the light of the love of Jesus on those areas. And remember, we're not we don't do this thing alone. So man, it's it's a humbling thing. You might think, well, hold on.
I can do this myself. This is my personal relationship with Jesus. You're right. It is your personal relationship with Jesus. But a personal relationship with Jesus comes into the light and "walks in the light" as he is in the light so we can have fellowship 1 with another.
And in that personal relationship with Jesus, he says, confess your faults 1 to another and pray for each other so you can be healed. So if you have an area of your life where you've been struggling, you can't get over, you seem like you're circling the drain in that area, that's probably an area you need to allow his light to shine on that area through confession. And so God will heal it. Confession is simply saying, hey guys, I realize God's been saying of me that that, I've been "screwing up in this area", and I've been hiding it, but he's right. I have been screwing up in this area.
Confession is agreeing, and it's it's not who he says that I am. Would you guys help me? I I wanna repent, and walk in freedom. Amen? God's good.
Would you guys stand up real quick? I'm a pray over you, and I'm gonna dismiss you. For some of you, that's dismissal to prayer, altar ministry. Take your time. No rush.
There's no rushing in Jesus. For some of you, that's just missing to the rest of your Mother's Day. Praise the Lord. Go enjoy it. Lord, I thank you for this amazing congregation, these amazing people.
Bless them. Let them walk in freedom on the way to the purposes you have for them. Thank you, Lord, that I get to be their pastor. Lord God, I pray, Father, that, that you just they'd be led by your spirit. And like Jesus, they'd only spend 40 days in the wilderness because it was a opportunity to worship and stand on the word, and then walk in the anointing that you have for them instead of like the Israelites spending 40 years there.
Lord, thank you, father, for what you're gonna do. In Jesus' name.