Cornerstone Christian Center
Cornerstone Christian Center
Who's in Control? You? Sin? God? | Romans
Ever wondered who really holds the reins of your life? Is it you, sin, or God? Join Pastor Angus as he shares his candid and often humorous journey through Romans chapter 7. He opens up about the challenges he faced while crafting this message, throwing in some amusing family anecdotes, and emphasizes the essence of becoming more like Jesus. Pastor Angus underscores the value of community life groups and takes us through his personal odyssey of learning the Bible, offering a heartfelt invitation to find your place in ministry and be a blessing to others.
Dive into the heart-wrenching tug of war with sin, as we unpack Paul's reflections on the law and human nature. Through vivid personal stories and biblical insights, we delve into the inherent struggle between our desires and God's commandments. Pastor Angus reveals how accepting Jesus transforms our lives and shifts control, yet acknowledges the ongoing battle against sin. This episode reassures listeners that slipping up is part of the journey, and the law remains a holy guiding light.
From rooting out generational sin to finding freedom through surrender, Pastor Angus shares powerful testimonies and personal experiences. He talks about the impact of parental influences, the joy found in sinful pleasures, and the profound spiritual awakenings that come with faith. By addressing inner struggles and the transformative power of surrendering to God, this episode provides a roadmap for continuous spiritual growth. Concluding with a prayer of blessing, Pastor Angus invites listeners to next week's session, promising insights into living by the power of the Spirit.
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Amen Good morning church.
Speaker 1:Hey, that was almost pretty good. Let's do it again. Good morning church. That's what I love to hear. So just so you know, every time I get to come up here and speak, I'm going to do that, I'm going to say good morning church. And if you go crazy, then we don't have to do it twice. Okay, so just so you know, because I like to know that you're awake and here and ready to receive from God. And so, good morning church. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:We are continuing our series in Romans. We're going to be in chapter 7 today, but before you turn there, I was trying to figure out how to start today. How many of you have ever started, like, had to write a paper, and you knew what you needed to write about, you knew what you were going to say in the paper, but you had no clue as to how to get it started. Well, that was me with this message. And so yesterday I was telling my family I'm like man, I know what I'm going to say, but I don't know how to even start it. And they said well, what are you preaching on? And I, I told them, and they go oh, why do you get all the fun ones, and so, because I've got a fun message coming for you, I just wanted to give you some, some clues as to what's coming ahead, just to prepare you. So just be aware that in the message that proceeds, there may be a little bit of feathers that get ruffled, okay, and if you're not careful I might step on a toe, okay. But I need you to know that it's in love, and I need you to know that it's because I love you and because God has been chiseling on me with this message. Now he gets to chisel on you, and so I love you and I want you to know that this comes from a place that God loves you, and so he wants to do something. He wants to chisel away some things in your life. He wants to make us ready for what he's got in store. So, without further ado, my question is who is in control? Is it you, god or sin? Well, I can see this is going to be fun, so why don't we lighten it up just a little bit?
Speaker 1:Let me introduce myself, if I haven't met you yet. My name is Pastor Angus. I'm the family pastor here, pastor Jay and Celeste and their family. They're away doing some missions things, and so I get to be here. I work with our kids, our youth, our babies and the directors who kind of wrangle it all, and so I am so thankful that I get a chance to be here and speak to you today.
Speaker 1:But again, if you're new to Cornerstone, I want you to know that our goal here is to be more like Jesus, is to be more like Jesus. You see, we all want to be more like Jesus because we well, here we use this picture of Jesus walking with the disciples, and these guys wanted to be more like Jesus. But see, they were on the road their whole lives, they were in process their whole lives, and so, like the disciples, we use this picture. We have not arrived, we are still in process, we are an imperfect people trying to live out the perfect love of God. And so here we try to love God, make disciples and reach the world, and we do that through our life groups. That's one of the ways we do. It is through our life groups. So we just finished a semester of life groups and I want to encourage you that if you weren't involved, get involved in the next one, and if there's not a group for you, come and talk to us. Maybe you could start one. You see, we've got connect groups. Maybe you like to play board games and there's not a board game group, but there's a lot of people here, myself included, who love to play board games, and so maybe we could get a board game group going so that you can connect with other people and just get to meet some new friends, because, how many of you know, we all need some friends. But maybe you're not just looking for social hour, maybe you're looking to really grow, and that's what our grow groups are for.
Speaker 1:Those are Bible studies, those are curriculums that we have and those are specifically meant to give you more watering than you receive here on a Sunday. It's made to help you be able to walk out your faith with other believers and ask questions with them in real life, in real time, and be able to get answers on how, with other believers, and ask questions with them in real life, in real time, and be able to get answers on how do we do this, how do we live this. And, of course, my favorite group, the serve group. I love serving. It's because of serving that I've grown so much.
Speaker 1:I would say that if you don't know the Bible very well. Take our essentials class, come talk to me and you can work with our kids. See, because you don't have to be a Bible scholar to teach the Bible to kids. All you have to do is be one step ahead of them. And so you know what? When I first started serving, I really started to learn the Bible even more just because I was serving in kids church. Not only that, but our lessons break it down so simply that I could understand some of this stuff before I, you know, got really deep into what God was trying to tell me.
Speaker 1:So if you need a way in kids, church is a great place. Our greeters, our cafe. We'd love to get you connected. There is a ministry here for you. We'd love to get you connected. There is a ministry here for you. You are ready to be a blessing for somebody else. You just have to step up and do it. Doesn't that feel better?
Speaker 1:All right, now that we're done with that, we're in Romans, chapter seven. So last week Pastor Jay talked about do you know the grace of God? Do you know that God loved you, that no matter what you've done, he forgives you, or will forgive you once you acknowledge his son and he offers a grace. That it's a good thing. I'm not the one in charge, because y'all wouldn't get as much grace as you'd get from the Lord. But today, my question is, who is in control? Is it you, is it God, or is it sin? So, jumping off in Romans 7, verse 4, open your Bibles, your tablets, your iPhones or phones, whatever they are, and we'll get started, or phones, whatever they are, and we'll get started. Now I want to tell you that in Romans 7, paul uses a lot of punctuation and if you read through it too fast, it gets very confusing very quickly. So in fact, I was talking to somebody who said I read this three times and I still have no clue what I'm reading. So we're going to go over that.
Speaker 1:In Romans 7, 4, it says Likewise my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. Who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God, for while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit for death, but now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in a new way of the Spirit and not the old way of the written code. Lord, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for this message, god. I have my notes, but you have the word. You've got the message and so, lord, I pray that you would use me to speak to your people and that they would hear what you would say, that we would all leave this place changed. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Speaker 1:So here in Romans 7, 4 through 6, we find Paul addressing the church in Rome, which consisted mainly of Jews who had converted to Christianity and new believers. And there was a bunch of people in there, but they were having difficulty keeping all the laws. So you kind of got to feel sorry for the early church because they didn't have a whole lot of examples to go off of right. You've got the pagans and everything that they do in all the different ways that they do it, or you've got the Jews and all their laws and regulations, which there are a lot of them, and so now, as new Christians, you're trying to to come out of a pagan lifestyle and apply these, all these laws that make absolutely no sense to you, and and they were having some, some struggles. How many of you know, you don't wait until a kid's a teenager to start parenting them, right, because then you're a little bit behind the eight ball. Same thing with us, you know. If we don't get these things into us when we're kids, then we have to begin to discipline ourselves as adults, which is ultra fun. So that's what we have here is we've got Paul.
Speaker 1:He's encouraging the church here in Rome and he explains to them that now that they have died in Christ, they are freed from the law and they can serve God from a motivation of love and not legalism. So before, what they would do is they would serve God, and the way you showed God you loved him was by obeying the rules. But see, we have a kind of they had it messed up and we kind of get it mixed up too. What you do is first you love God and then, because you love God, you want to follow the rules. Does that make sense? And so that's what he's saying is that you guys are no longer under that same code. You don't have to show God you love him by following rules. That's what he said. Is you love God and then you'll want to follow the rules.
Speaker 1:Verse 7 when, then, shall we say the? What, then? Shall we say that the law is sin? By no means. Yet if it had not been for the law, I would have not known sin, for I would have not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said you shall not covet. So here paul is telling us that the scriptures, that these laws, are really a reflection. They're a mirror for us. They show us our sins. Okay, it's when we live apart from God's laws that we recognize that we're doing something wrong. Law is that we recognize that we're doing something wrong, but sin?
Speaker 1:Verse 8 now, seizing an opportunity through the commandment produced in me all kinds of covetousness, for, apart from the law, sin lies dead. Let me put it to you this way Don't think of an elephant. Let me put it to you this way Don't think of an elephant. Why are you all thinking of elephants? And don't lie to me, because I know you are. What is that? Is that your obedient behavior and obedient nature, or is that a sin nature, that idea of don't touch it? You see, I can tell you to not think of an elephant. You can go, okay, I'm not thinking an elephant, but that doesn't stop the elephant from trampling through your mind right now, does it? When we're told not to do something, we want to do it even more.
Speaker 1:I was once alive, apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. So again I ask the question who is in control? Is it you? Everyone has a starting point. Before salvation. You're the driver in life, right? You get to decide where you go, when you go, how fast you go and who goes with you. Right, and don't tell me which direction I need to go either, because I have my preference. How many of you are the always driver, right, like you drive regardless, even if it's not your car? You're like move over, I got this. I've been with people like that that. They're like you are not driving me anyway. It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust anybody else, and I'm only safe when I'm driving right. And so before salvation, that's kind of what it looks like. Is we got the keys? So before salvation, that's kind of what it looks like is we got the keys and we can go wherever we want, but then we hand the keys over to Christ when we receive him as Lord and Savior. But when you hand the keys over to him, sometimes the destination changes a little bit, or the route, the way you get there. Definitely the people you go with changes, and some of the decisions that you previously made you don't have to make anymore or you don't get to make anymore.
Speaker 1:Verse 10, the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me, for sin. Seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and, through it, killed me. This is where we start to get into the portion of the chapter that I've always struggled with, because Paul, the guy who wrote this book, he wrote most of the New Testament he saw Jesus. Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus and this guy struggled with sin, and this guy struggled with sin. So if he did, what chance do I have, see? But that's where you should be encouraged. It's because he shares his struggles with us that you know that you're not alone, that these giants in the Bible they failed and they succeeded, and we get to see it all. How many of you have ever failed a test before, how many of you have hidden it when your teacher's passing it out and they're bringing it by, and how many of you are like, oh yeah, I did great on it, and you cover it up or you quickly put it under the desk. I don't want you to see my answers, dude. We already took the test. I don't care, right, because we're proud of the A's, we're proud of the successes. But, man, those failures, they're not as easy to brag about, they're not as easy to get on board with, and so that's why I'm so thankful for Scripture, that we get to see the victories but also the failures. We get to see that other people who were strong in the Lord, still struggled. And I don't know about you, but that really encourages me.
Speaker 1:Verse 12, so the law is holy and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Did that, which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means it was sin producing death in me. Through it was, though it was good In order. That't really have a problem with sin, do you? Well, that's the whole point is that your flesh kind of goes to whatever feels good, and whatever feels good isn't always necessarily right, and so before Christ it's very easy to get along with sin. Once you've accepted Jesus, then it should start to get more and more difficult and those things again. As you develop that relationship, you should say I'm kind of done with this.
Speaker 1:Now, verse 14, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold under sin, for I do not understand my own actions. How many of you have done something stupid and you're like why did I do that? See, you're identifying with Paul, for I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate. Want, but I do the very thing that I hate. This is where it starts to close in on you. You don't have to raise your hand, but how many of you have found yourself, especially in your Christian life, doing things that you're like man?
Speaker 1:I thought when I accepted Jesus, this mean I didn't have to do this anymore, or I wasn't going to do this anymore, like that it would just go away and it would be really nice if, as soon as you accept Christ, it all just goes away. But that's not how it works. Now, if I do what I do not want. I agree with the law that it is good. Okay, so if I'm sinning and if I'm doing that, what I don't want to do that means that the law is right. Okay, it's that mirror. It's showing me that I'm not in right standing with God. I'm not in a good position here. So again, who's showing me that I'm not in right standing with God? I'm not in a good position here. So again, who's in control? You or sin?
Speaker 1:Paul is struggling with the sin nature within him and again, what's kind of encouraging to know is that he struggled with it his whole life, which means that when you struggle with your flesh the whole life, you're no different than Paul or any of the other guys or gals that you read about in God's Word. We are fleshly beings and so we will struggle and we will wrestle against the sin nature. That came to us. We didn't choose it, but this is the hand we were dealt, and so now we deal with it right. Romans 7, 18.
Speaker 1:For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh. For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Who's felt too weak to do what's right? There are some times where it's just easier to pop off at the mouth, isn't it? It takes way more restraint, way more energy to say Lord, bless you, I love you so much. But see, even though there's that thing that's constantly pulling against us, we continue on and we press into the Lord and we ask him to help us Verse 19,. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Pretty awesome right Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me.
Speaker 1:So, as you're reading this, there's kind of this tug of war that's going on between Paul and himself. Right, he knows what he's supposed to and he wants to because he loves God. But there's still this thing that's just pulling him back, maybe to old ways or to new ways that are off of God's plan. But see, that's where we find ourselves. A lot of time is in this tug of war between our friends and God, between our job and God, between us and God, between our flesh and the Lord. So I find it to be so. I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God in my inner being. So I don't like to say it this way, but how many of you know that Satan, the enemy, is just as faithful as the Lord, is just not in a good way.
Speaker 1:Right, you come here on Sunday ready to get rid of some of those things in your life, and you come here, you bring it to the altar, god takes care of it, and you feel amazing about it. Maybe he dealt with your tongue. Today you go out and it's. You don't even get out on an Indian school before you got more work to do. You see, just because you become a Christian doesn't mean the struggle goes away. The struggle is real and the struggle is until you die, and so what we have to do is we have to understand that, because that's the case. Rather than complaining about it, let's just deal with it and do something about it.
Speaker 1:But I see in my members another law, verse 23, waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. So who's in control? Is it God?
Speaker 1:See, it all starts with justification Justification, so we talked about before, when you're the driver and you're in charge and you're kind of doing your own thing. Then what happens is you come to a place of justification. That's when you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and what he does is it's kind of like how many of you have weeds in your yard or have had weeds in your yard or have had to deal with weeds? Okay, what it's like is, when you're justified before the Lord, he cuts off the tops of all those weeds, and now everything looks great. But the problem is what happens if you just cut the weed off at the top? It grows back. And not only does it grow back, but it grows back meaner and bigger than it was before. Right, and so what we do is we have to find out what is the root. What is the root of that sin?
Speaker 1:Why do I keep coming back to this, and the process that we go through after receiving Christ and justification is called sanctification. That's the process by which God sets us apart and begins to make us holy, so that other people see, hey, there's something different about that guy, there's something different about her, and I want to know what it is. And it's that sanctification process, the wins and the loses, the failures and the successes. It's as you walk this out in front of people and you show them hey, I'm just trying to be more like Jesus and if you need to keep a picture, we can print those out and keep a picture of Jesus walking with the disciples in the back pocket and just say, hey, I'm trying to be more like this guy. I'm not perfect, because non-believers in your life will absolutely point out how imperfect you are, right, and so if you beat them to the punch, it's a whole lot easier. If you beat them to the punch, it's a whole lot easier.
Speaker 1:Let me share with you what this looked like in my life. See, I've shared before that my dad was. He wasn't a believer, and he did the best he could. I think he did a fairly decent job with me. There were some things that I would change about my upbringing, and so I've adapted that in my parenting. But see, like I said, my dad didn't have the Lord and so he parented me based off of what he thought was best. And he was a really smart guy, he was a doctor and a really smart man. But see, because he didn't have the leading of the Holy Spirit, he treated me in a way where it was. He had some things in him that he didn't like.
Speaker 1:Anybody identify with that Anybody else have anything that you don't want to see replicated in your kids or grandkids. Yeah, so those are the things that we have to root out so that they don't make it down the generations, right? Well, see, my dad didn't have the Holy Spirit to be able to help root out those things in his life and keep them from jumping into me. What he did was he just pre-punished me. So he tried to punish the behavior out of me before it was even there, by keeping me too busy to be bad. So I'd wake up oftentimes on a Saturday morning with a legal pad front and back, no space lines, no skip lines of things that had to be done that day before I could hang out with friends or do anything fun or whatever, usually included a book report or whatever. But see, what he didn't realize is that by treating a kid who's not being a bad kid like a bad kid can make him a bad kid.
Speaker 1:And so what ended up happening in me is I was like, well, if I'm always going to be treated like I'm in trouble, I might as well go out and get in some trouble and enjoy it. But see, the thing was is I also don't like being in trouble. So what I did was I would try and get around it and so I would go out and do things, and I was really good at hiding the things that I was doing. And it was when I was at camp or at a camp camp or at a camp that, while I was worshiping, I saw the Lord dig into the soil of my heart. And so I saw these two hands go into this lush soil and from within the soil came out this treasure box. Oh, so beautiful. And I kind of got excited. I was like, ooh, what's that treasure that's in my heart? Lord, he goes, that's the pleasure you take in sin. I went, what? That's the pleasure you take in sin. See, what I had done was I, and I didn't even know it. I had turned sin into a game, see, because I would get frustrated and I would do whatever I was going to do, and then I would hide it and I'd get away with it around. This really smart guy who thought I was, you know, and eventually it became this thing where I got a satisfaction, a joy, from sinning and getting away with it, which made not sinning even more hard, because when you get excited about that, see.
Speaker 1:The problem was, though, is I didn't always live in my dad's house. I developed a really bad habit of sinning and then hiding it, and when I married my wife, the Lord began to use her to chip away at some of the things that God wanted to get rid of in me. But, see, what I saw was my father, something I needed to rebel against, and so what I did was I would continue to sin and hide it from my wife and guys. It did a lot of damage. I had to.
Speaker 1:It's been a lot of work coming from a place where that was the case that I was rebelling against my wife, the person that wants to do life with me the rest of my life, who wants nothing but good for me and me the rest of my life, who wants nothing but good for me? And what I didn't know, and what she didn't know, is that I included her into this twisted little game of hiding sin and she became an unwitting player that she couldn't quit because she made a promise to God. So, because she made a promise to God, now she's stuck in this game that she didn't sign up for and I'm in a game that I don't even know I'm playing. So then, when the Lord showed me this, I had to go to her and I had to say look, I'm not saying that anything I've done is right. Nothing that I've done in these regards have been right or correct and nothing can excuse it away. So I'm not asking for an excuse.
Speaker 1:What I'm telling you is this is the reason that I've been the way that I have. It's because I realized there was a weed growing in me that I thought was a flower. There was stuff in me that I didn't know that it was going on, and so when I figured it out, I had to deal with that. And so when that treasure box came out and I set it down and the Lord showed me what it was, I didn't like it so much anymore. It wasn't such a pretty box. So I said, lord, what do I do with this? I said smash it, break it. And so I did. I smashed it with my foot and this incredible light came from it, and I'll tell you.
Speaker 1:Since that point I've not had the same joy in sin. I'm really beginning more and more, and time goes, the more I feel the weight of that sin. Guys, I don't like to lift weights. It's too hot to do all that stuff. So now that I'm not taking pleasure in sinning, I want to get it off my plate. I want to get it out of me as quick as possible.
Speaker 1:And if something keeps popping back up, I need to say Lord, where's the root? Help me decide, help me to find what that root is. Help me decide, help me to find what that root is. See, it may be that somebody did something to you or said something to you and you're medicating pain. But when you stop the medication, whatever it is, the pain comes back, and so you can pray about the medication all day long. Lord, help me to stop drinking, help me to stop smoking weed, help me to stop doing whatever it is I'm doing. But if you don't deal with the reason you're medicating, it's going to continue to hurt. And so what we have to do is we have to understand that the Lord can't wait to fix your boo-boos. He can't wait to kiss those hurts, to make them better, to speak truth to the lies that you've medicated, to the truths that you don't want to feel or see. So again, I'll ask you who's in control? Is it you, is it sin, or is it God? In just a few moments I'm going to ask the worship team to come.
Speaker 1:Some verses to just encourage you and let you know that the Lord loves you. He sees us as broken, but he doesn't leave us there. He wants to fix us. In Isaiah 64, 8, it says but now, o Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay and you are our potter. We are all the work of your hand. We are the clay and you are our potter. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things passed away. Behold, new things have come. In Jeremiah 24, 7, I will give them a heart to know me, for I am the Lord, and they will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me with their whole heart, to me with their whole heart.
Speaker 1:You've got a loving God who doesn't want even though you've been a kid that's been bad your whole life he doesn't want to treat you that way. God doesn't want to pre-punish you. He wants to forgive you. But more than just forgiving you, he wants to root things out. Like I said, if you're the driver of your car, you got to turn something over and you go. How do I do that? My question to you is have you embraced Jesus? Because it's when you embrace Jesus and you recognize that he loves you. He's going to get you to the end goal safely and intact and you're going to have a good time doing it most of the time.
Speaker 1:But maybe you're here today and that's you, and you have not. You have no concept of what it means to hand the keys over to somebody else. You see, we look at the cross as a symbol of hope and of peace. The Romans meant it as a symbol for destruction and something to deter you, something to keep you from going there. But see, god is inviting you into relationship so that you don't have to figure it all out on your own. You don't have to get rid of the things in you that so that your generations don't have to deal with it.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna ask if you would stand with me.
Speaker 1:It says in Romans 10, verses 9 and 10, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Speaker 1:For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. If that's you, if you're ready to move into the passenger seat and let the Lord take you where he would have you go if you would do this life a little different, I'm going to ask, with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, that, if that's you, that you recognize that you are not in right standing with God, that you need a savior, I'm going to just ask that you would raise your hand up, real right standing with God, that you need a savior. I'm going to just ask that you would raise your hand up real quick and, as soon as I see it, you can put it down. I just want to know how to pray with you. There are so many people in this room at this moment who've raised their hands before you did. Thank you moment. Who've raised their hands?
Speaker 1:before you did so. For those who did raise their hand, for those who didn't, here's a simple prayer that can bring you into right standing with God. I'm going to just ask if you would all say it with me and our new brothers and sisters in Christ Lord, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you In Christ's name, amen, amen. If that's you, we want to congratulate you and wish you happy birthday on your spiritual birthday, and we also want to invite you that, if that was you, you can go back to our prayer banner. We've got some resources to help you on this journey of faith. Prayer banner. We've got some resources to help you on this journey of faith.
Speaker 1:For the rest of us, you've had some time with the Lord to examine yourself, to ask, and here's the thing you don't. You can lie to me, but you can't lie to God. You can't lie to yourself. So I ask you, who's in control? Is it you, is it God, or is it sin? And if you find that sin has more of a place in your life than you want. Maybe you've got those weeds that you come every Sunday and you pray about the same thing, and maybe for a couple days you see victory, but then you've got to come to church again because the weed just popped right back up. If that's you, this altar is also open for you. And here's what I want to tell you if you come up here, nobody cares what you're praying for, because they're all dealing with their own stuff, and so it's only the enemy that's making you feel like everybody's judging you because you go forth, because you need help with something. So if you need something, if you need God, as you identify the behavior and say, lord, I need this out of my life today, show me the root, let him listen. Then listen to him and then rip that sucker out and don't let it come back.
Speaker 1:So, if that's you, this altar is for you. Guys, don't let the wounds fester. It all comes to light eventually. Lord, I just ask that as we come, as we acknowledge to you and to ourselves where we are at, maybe it's not a sin issue. Maybe we don't have a problem with sin, god, maybe it's a me issue. Maybe you need to deal with me. Maybe you need to deal with me. Lord, I pray for all of those here who need something, who need a touch, who need freedom, who need victory. God, I pray that you'd give them courage to come and deal with you at the altar. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:Amen. Well, church, all I've got to say is I am thankful I'm in a house where they're not afraid to step on toes. I have this wonderful faith and understanding that what's going to come from what happened today are amazing testimonies that we will be able to see the fruit of that for years to come. So thank you for being willing to say the things that nobody wanted to hear and no one wanted to say.
Speaker 1:Amen. Well, if you would stand with me for the blessing before we go. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift his countenance up upon you and give you peace. Lord, we pray this blessing over your church, your people, and we just ask that you would be with us as we go out today. Lord, that you would help us to tell of what you've done. Lord, we thank you in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen, amen. Well, thank you so much for being here. We look forward to seeing you next week where we talk about living by the power of the Spirit. So if you were challenged today, you get the answer next week. Amen.