A.R. Bernard | “Walking By Faith” | Christian Cultural Center

[Music] oh man i sometimes want to start singing enjoy the lord yes lord yes lord i know i can't sing [Music] let's go to the lord in prayer oh father god you are such a great god lord in spite of our circumstances in spite of our hurts our pains you celebrate god our condition does not determine the greatness of the god we serve our circumstances do not determine the greatness of the god we serve so lord react that you just continue to have your way bless the rest of the service bless us empower us to succeed lord we approach the throne transparent make it unashamed so as you can see what needs to be done in our lives to make us a better person a better christian a better husband a better brother a better mother a better wife a better father a better sister [Music] so lord we ask that you have your way anoint the man of god as he speaks a word in season touch us emotionally physically mentally spiritually right here right now no matter where we are in this world we ask that you have your way in jesus precious precious name amen and amen [Music] before you see that you know remember we can't stop high five can't hug so just give the nod to five people you know welcome just you know yeah because he didn't you got the six-speed buffer you're good to go then you may be seated make sure you get fired up praise the lord uh it is good to see you in the house yes it is you know you you cannot trade uh being together amen you know uh we appreciate all the virtual world that we can do so many different things but being together like this is something special now how is it that we have israel here and no special music it was uh we had a special moment though called communion that was the first in the building together okay all right all right yeah okay and then we know with the time constraints because remember we have to uh the people have to leave right we have to sanitize the whole sanctuary and this is not a small sanctuary oh so that's the fumigate yes get it ready we've got to move quickly okay good but it is good to see all of you and um we're going to be yeah you can do that right praise the lord and of course those of you who are with us online across the country and around the world thank you for being with us today first time visit them give it a shot mary angle okay g yeah you try you try that i'm sorry it's not that we're making fun i just want to make sure i'm saying correctly mary angel marry angel marie angel yes marry angel you gotta put the glasses on yeah right i'm good this is just a read way yes so welcome for the first time visa welcome to our service did she say does it say where she's no it doesn't say where she's from but i just all right so we give her a shout out yes amen yes praise the lord and now are we going to do this we have a set of twins uh we're trying to see her name is our facebook deleted that's right oh really yes but they're they're celebrating birthday yes 50th birthday i know right and i'm i'm worried about starting this because the rest of you're going to want the same treatment all right so we better be careful here yes i'm going to find it so by the way what's that renee reed and her brother happy 25th our 50th birthday so they've been going to church for 25 years this church between ccc all right yeah better give them a shout out gotta give them a shout out yeah praise the lord so we just want to say happy birthday happy birthday amen yeah but we won't start that but that's great that's great uh so half of their lives yes they've been coming here yes to ccc and celebrating a 50th birthday and she's from westchester uh mary angel amen amen praise the lord so you know as we move back into the new normal not not the old normal but the new normal we're going to be increasing the numbers of people that we're bringing into the building the mayor of new york city has announced that july 1st is the grand opening or reopening of new york city so in line with that we will be accelerating our process of getting back into the building and starting more regular services so stand by stay tuned pay attention uh you'll be hearing information about more services than just every first sunday of the month we'll continue this uh through may may and then something may change in june we'll add another service until we get back to normal amen or amen the new normal yes praise the lord so we asked and we i was talking to somebody and a matter of fact seisha her and i was sitting down talking and i asked that you pray for us so that we will be able to move forward uh and under discernment to make sure we get the the guiding and the leading of the lord when corona hit a lot of churches had an identity crisis a lot of churches they wanted to see what the church who's doing what and they try to mimic that right and one of the things god blessed us with was a great team and to become creative and say hey this is how we're going to present yeah yeah and and one of the the concerns is we don't want to go back to the way we're doing pre-corona so the idea is making sure that we try to fuse what we did to corona and and introduce something new and come up with that combination so that we can minister to the people and not forget that it's we're a digital church with a physical presence president that's that's a change yeah that's a change so our family has expanded uh by by way of internet you know so our virtual congregation community uh has expanded so we're we're juggling both managing both so we do definitely need your prayers uh and your patience and your cooperation yes uh and we want god's wisdom as we navigate all of this right yes amen and also um just this format has worked so well uh people love it and uh some folks are saying well uh we don't like it um how many of you know is you have as many opinions as you have people yes that's just the way it is it reminds me of the story i heard can i tell the story yeah tell the story so there's two men walking with a donkey and when as they were walking with a donkey when a lady said that's the strong strapping donkey what you know why are you wasting the strength of that donkey and uh somebody should ride it so the man pushes the young boy in the donkey he keeps on continuing down the road and another individual says that's a selfish young man what are you doing your father's older the hem rider donkey so the man switched they took the boy off the donkey put the the man jumped on the donkey and they're walking down the road and as he gets closer to the market somebody says wait what are you doing that donkey's so strong why don't you both take advantage of that donkey right and they both end up going on a donkey and as they get closer to the town the last person in the town says wow i can't believe it the two of you are young strapping individuals strong and you're weighing the back of that donkey why don't you both get off that donkey that's the donkey walk you both can carry it you're so strong and the idea of the moral of the story is everybody has an opinion yeah everybody tell you what to do we just had a joel osteen moment we want to recognize senator brian benjamin who is actually running for new york city comptroller he's with us we're glad to have you here senator amen god bless you so of course that comes back with you know getting back into the building and having you know our our elected officials uh ask if they could come and share with you from time to time so we're getting back to the normal run of things but what i want to see is a packed house yes and israel leading us with the team phrase and worship team and worship and we're just enjoying the presence of god yeah and we're going to be doing some things differently also on on communions sundays more hands-on ministry once we can lay hands on and watch them recover yeah we really you know want to see the movement of the holy spirit i wrote uh these words because these are the three things that jesus gave remember jesus said i will build my church yes is that what he said how many know he's still building his church it's been 2 000 years right but he's still building his church he said i will build my church he said upon this rock but the most important point that we're looking at is i will build my church and these are the three things that he uses to build his church amen the spirit work of the holy spirit his word and the church which is community so he's given us his spirit his word and put us in a community those three things are critical to our growth and our development as believers and the the growth and development of the church and of course covet affected what the community community but it did not affect the spirit spirit or the word that stays in place amen amen and because he gave us three things and not two we have to restore that thing that was taken from us during covet and that is community we don't grow in isolation we grow in community community amen amen so those are the three things very very important and we want to make sure that we're responsible to the lord jesus for those three things the spirit the word and community and we give place for all three in our spiritual growth and development you all hear that out there can't just live in a virtual world all right it requires spirit word and community and for those who are part of our virtual campus in your communities we're actually putting together some systems and structures in place so that no matter where you live there's going to be a faith community that's attached to ccc yep so pray for us we're excited about all the things that are going on and our continued expansion amen and because we're community we're doing this housekeeping yeah so please pray pray pray pray we're gonna need a lot of prayer especially in the latter part of this year yeah yeah and uh also um we are not restoring the passing of baskets uh in the service any longer that will not be a part of our service so we won't be taking up an offering like that you have so many ways to give i've been praying for 10 years for this to happen that we can have sunday service without having to pass baskets and nothing wrong with passing baskets if every church you may be aware of the past baskets that's fine all right but we wanted the people to be mature enough to give on their own appreciating the work of this ministry the deposit that god has made in your life based upon christian cultural center so if you if you still have an envelope of things like that you can you can deposit it in one of the mail uh boxes we have um the toddler from boxes okay tithing offering boxes receptacles around the building so that you can drop it off when you come in when you leave or you can mail it in etc so we won't be restoring that uh it took elder pointer a lot of prayer to get beyond putting it in the basket pastor i have to put it in the basket i said tell the point of no you don't he's the pastor i have to put it in the bathroom so he is now techno savvy yes and he is doing it online lfp [Laughter] you know it's sometimes difficult to break old habits and and we develop these traditions that lock into us and all of a sudden it becomes sacred when really it's a tradition that we have put in place praise the lord so i want to mention that even the communion experience the way we did it today has changed so right right and we're going to continue to to develop develop that um so i it was not announced because it was private and um we did not want to have a you know thousands of people in our parking lot or on the streets because of how well loved this individual was in his particular industry and artistry so we did have the dmx funeral here uh the funeral for rapper dmx how many have ever heard of dmx okay some have never heard of them that's that's good you spiritual people um so uh of course he he passed at the age of 50. openly prayed at concerts openly confessed his his relationship with the lord but his life was a paradox between his christian confession and the lifestyle that he lived the struggle so it can happen where your life is a contradiction because you live in that tension between your identity with jesus and at the same time your struggle to live out that identity in a moral way amen yeah so when we got a call from the family because some of the family members and extended family members um go to ccc they asked would you do this we feel that this is the only place that could really handle something like this for us and we were open to that and we were able to work quickly and put it together and um it was just a blessing and this is how we build relationships and out of that has come opportunity to speak into the lives of people who would not ordinarily come to church so it is part of our good will as well as our evangelistic uh efforts that also uh stems from the relationship we actually started building with them during the with rough riders right yeah the during our bike lessons that we used to have so i i look at how god plant seeds and you know you don't see the fruit sometimes of it what was that about 15 20 years ago that's right that we were doing like bike blessings and now it it comes out through hosting the funeral and the respect that they had from us that it was established not during the funeral but those years back then during the bike lessons yeah yeah and those of you who keep up with social media know that there was a little incident at the end of the funeral and um which required some spiritual authority and but i will let you know if you don't know that young man all right called me and we spoke on the phone and he apologized to me personally he apologized to our church to the family and he actually posted a a video uh apology you know and those are opportunities that we get to really express the love the life and the light of jesus christ and that's what we should be about amen amen praise the lord so i took heat i took criticism yes for doing it but jesus loved me but the the ironic thing is you took more uh there was more love shared than it was criticism you know especially being on the shade room you know you look at the comments the shade room but the comments were more favorable favorable towards what you did standing up and asserting yourself in the house of god than you know the people complaining about some of the stuff you said okay all right so what's the shade room if you want any if you want to know anything that's going on in a community of color good bad or ugly you go to the shade room [Laughter] the latest gossip i just and i'm not getting paid for this so i'm not giving them a shout out but it's true if i need to what happened you go to the shade yeah you go go to the shade room and they're pretty consistent and fast with the information i think they're better than tmz sometimes oh tmc tmz shade room tmz i knew about world star hip hop that's that's worse than shade room they need jesus three times all right so we'll leave that there so much of christ in culture um but but it was it was a special uh occasion a special opportunity um to really exemplify christ so thank you for your prayers and our staff our staff was amazing excellent job amazing we were here from early in the morning for the first service right and then for a five-hour funeral that started in the afternoon and media all of our staff you were fantastic thank you you really made us look good so we appreciate that and thank you ccc because that funeral was our donation to the family and to the honor and then they turn around responded with a 7 500 donation to our social justice and pantry food pantry and things that we're doing so you know um it that was great uh i had a lot of housekeeping today but we're going to get into some word all right don't worry don't worry yesterday last evening we had a memorial service for our own deacon joseph brown you know deacon brown he's been a ccc member for 36 years unfortunately he contracted covid and he went home to be with the lord because of that covet situation just relocated to florida settling his family down and he's going to be with the lord so deacon brown if there's any one word that describes him it's loyalty yes loyalty to god to his family and to the church so if you've ever had a run-in i mean run in uh to deacon brown you know who i'm talking about and he's been a blessing with us uh a long time it was it it was that one um really took me for a loop it was difficult to deal with because it was a love dislike relationship with deacon brown so growing up you know in church deacon brown was the enforcer so literally we would run with what the enforcer yes we would run from him because he was making sure we were going to service and i i many of chastisements we received when we got home because of digging brown telling on us but as i got older i appreciated the fact of his love to make sure that we got spiritually fed yeah 36 years he saw a whole generation grow up have children yes and you know right to his last breath he's not chasing my kids around he's thinking brown yeah praise the lord and and lastly uh own bradley toms brad has been a member of ccc for a long time and an employee as the head of our media department for 24 years uh and brad is now pursuing uh a career in producing yep and he is going yeah no no no not another passing no no uh yeah so he's no longer going to be employed by us but um still committed to to volunteering and and working with our media department but he is pursuing a career in producing now you should have showed their faces when you say and brad thompson oh no no no no no no no no no no but he's still going to be uh involved oh yeah yeah this is his home this is his church and uh he emphasized that to me but um we have we've had so many people come and this was a launching pad for them to go out and take on careers and do very very well you know matthew henderson you know one of the sons of the ministry and he's out there producing and doing some incredible things and uh shashana and don shay uh who you may remember from the highlights and whatnot uh she is in the industry as well so you know traditionally what what the church especially the black church you know church of color has been is a launching pad for many careers and many many things so we thank god for uh our ability to provide that uh launching pad amen amen praise the lord and i think we've got we did all of the housekeeping we need uh to do but there's something that i want to share that was meditating on and then we're going to go into a series i finished up uh last week the principle of acceleration i mean you know we could talk for another year about that principle in its application but bottom line is that your success in life can outpace your capacity motivationally spiritually emotionally intellectually to sustain that growth and whenever you're good at something you get better and better at it and the the greater the demand on your life so the scripture says beloved i wish above all things that you prosper and be in hell even as your soul problems amen so the prosperity of your soul the growth and development of your spirituality the inner formation your spiritual formation must be parallel to any external success and development that you experience in life god wants you to be blessed and have a wonderful life so that you can give and be a blessing to others but you have to sustain your spiritual life we walk by faith and not by sight that's a that's a a statement that i i wrestle with uh being able to really articulate that because what does that mean that we walk by faith and not by sight right you know because often in churches they have really made it they went to such an extreme with the whole idea of faith and not by sight where you see people walking around blind and they end up getting into things because they misunderstood the whole idea of faith in sight relationship with the person and they walk with god yeah yeah they close their eyes to things yeah um so what it means to walk by faith it means that faith is a lifestyle one of the things that um the word of faith movement did dr fred price and pagan some of the others um they made faith practical because the tendency was to see faith only in the context of your relationship with god to see it in a religious context so faith in jesus towards salvation and i'm going to heaven but what they did was make faith practical translating faith into daily life daily living believing and trusting god for um a quality of life trusting god out of crisis and situations problem is that even that was taken to the extreme and anything taken to the extreme becomes what error error yes even truth can be taken to an extreme and it can become error amen amen but the reality is that god meant for us to exercise faith not just on a spiritual level but on a very practical level in our day-to-day functions and not day-to-day operations to live by faith is to constantly think and act all right in conjunction with faith if you think and act without faith without understanding your connection to god and the trust that you have in god and that god is your source and provider all right then you're not living a life of faith that's amazing and because you you have to be able to balance it you got one extreme where i'm going to live by faith and not by sight so i'm going to believe for it you know and prayerfully it'll manifest or you don't have enough faith and that's why you didn't have it uh you know and it's true because when you based on that definition that is a part of our everyday living we live by faith much more than we think absolutely absolutely i mean you know you have the faith you have to have faith that we were going to be here when you showed up or even even more practical you have to have faith that your legs are going to work work when you wake up we take a lot for granted and when things don't work that's when we realize wow you know my leg's not working yes something's not functioning you know but i think and and and i want to share this especially as we talk about growth and development in my my devotions uh the other day in the gospel of of matthew just looking at this in response to what you just said in gospel of matthew chapter 16 uh verse 5 and i'm reading from the new living translation matthew 16 verse 5. it's a it's a it's it's a situation where this was the problem faith was the problem verse five later later after they crossed to the other side of the lake the disciples discovered that they had forgotten to bring any bread it may be a familiar passage to you watch out jesus warned them beware of the yeast or the leaven of the pharisees and the sadducees now pharisees and sadducees were religious leaders right uh different sex with different uh nuances in terms of what they believed so verse 7 at this they the disciples began to argue with each other because they hadn't brought any bread understand the situation jesus said beware the leaven or yeast of the pharisees they think he's talking about bread all right leaven bread yeast bread when he makes a statement about warning them to beware of the leaven of the pharisees of the yeast of the pharisees what he was actually talking about was the teaching the doctrine of the pharisees and the sadducees because jesus said beware of their hypocrisy but they translated it into erroneously into the fact that they hadn't taken bread and i like the way the new living translation states it here at this they began to argue with each other in other words they were blaming each other no you didn't bring the bread you should have brought the bread no no you should have brought the bread so they're arguing they're in their human capacity about not having bread something to eat jesus says verse 8 jesus knew that they what they were saying so he said you have so little faith why are you arguing with each other about having no bread don't you understand even yet don't you remember the five thousand i fed with five loaves and the baskets of leftovers you picked up or the four thousand i fed with seven loaves and the large baskets of leftovers you picked up why can't you understand that i'm not talking about bread so again i say beware of the yeast of the pharisees and the sadducees then at last they understood that he wasn't speaking about the yeast in bread but about the deceptive teaching of the pharisees and the sadducees there's so much that we can get out of this because here jesus god is trying to have a conversation with his disciples with his ambassadors about larger issues within the context of ministry and they're caught up in bread they're caught up in their daily meal and see that's what the devil would love to do all right keep you uh restricted to your daily life and arguing and worrying about your daily life so that you never move to the next level of ambassadorship representing god on much bigger issues that impact our society amen amen amen amen yeah he wants to keep you majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors yes so here they're going back and forth about bread and what does he do jesus takes them back to things that they have seen god do in their lives and and that's what we have to reflect on often you know god has to take us back and say remember when yes yes i was with you in this situation i was with you in that situation remember when i opened this store remember when i provided this opportunity remember when i brought this person into your life remember when i change this around yes yes he's got to take us back because we failed to learn the lesson we should have learned in those situations every time that god does something in your life it's a lesson that you're going to have to apply in the future i guarantee you amen amen so he's taking them back he's saying don't and and here's the crazy thing the miracle of the five thousand feeding the five thousand and the miracle of feeding the four thousand was not something that they watched at spectators they passed the basket they participated they gave out the bread and the fish they collected the fragments so they were actively engaged and involved in the miracle yes how many of you have experienced god having you actively involved in the miracle amen you weren't just watching what was happening you were part of what was happening yes come on shout amen wow he had to take him back the problem was not the absence of bread the problem was the absence of faith yes i'm gonna try that one more time you have to you have your problem is not what you lack materially and physically it's what you lack in faith wow what does god want he wants our faith so what did they do they failed to think with faith they failed to act with faith yes so what they heard and observed and participated in did not profit them because they did not mix their faith to it that's the biggest thing folks so walking by faith living my faith is living in a consciousness that when you think about anything keep god in the equation yes when you act keep god in the equation yes he is your source and this is what he's trying to get and not only that but in matthew 6 because this is matthew 16 in matthew 6 jesus talked to them about anxiety and worrying about material and physical things he said seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these what things will be added to you he said these are things that the gentiles worry about don't you worry about them because your heavenly father knows what you have need of and is waiting to provide waiting to supply but he needs you to trust him that's good here's something that that i i was i was reflecting on on the issue of faith the other day i'm glad you raised this question you got me into it because i i'm actually ministering about resilience in long island and i i part of that is resilient people understand that god does not respond to what they have but to the faith so god always responds to your faith not your condition amen not your materials amen and yet we try to present our condition and our need all right to somehow move him into compassionate response he already said he loves you he already said he'll be there for you so okay great and then the other part is you you preached years ago that that uh if you want to know what god is doing look at what he has done right so so and that's on a global scale biblically biblically speaking but on a personal scale if you want to know what god can do what god would do in your life look at what he has done and it goes back to what you just said god you know look at remember when remember remember when yeah yeah i mean when david was facing goliath what did he do he remembered god being with him with the lion right you remember you reach back into that path because god is building your faith along the way as he represents himself as your source yes right in any given situation along the way and you said what he looks for is our faith absolutely when when when the the paralytic man's friends ripped the roof off and we're lowering him down into the the the place all right what did jesus look up the scripture says he looked up he didn't see the paralytic man he didn't see the stretcher he didn't see his friends he saw their faith yes and that's what he responded to so that is faith on a practical level and that's what we need and here's something that i just examined in my own walk of faith when you're when you're a child all right you are learning and growing in your trust for your parents yes your you're you're seeing a dependency on them you look to them as your source as your protection as your guide correct so you're learning to trust them i remember when when your brother who is now with the lord when we we were at i forget the park action park action park and and he was among my boys who didn't know how to swim and he saw his brothers swimming across and whatnot and he he he knew what to do all right but it's just afraid to do it so we're standing on the edge and i and i said franz look i got you all right you know what to do just do it and he stood at the edge of the pool he he crouched down and he looked back at me said you got me right i said i got you i got you and he crouched down again and he started to get up again and then he made up his mind did this hit he jumps in and he starts swimming across to the other side i'm watching him slow down so i jumped in the water went under him and he he was about two feet away from the other side and he's running out of gas and i came up under him and just lifted him and he was able to reach for the side and hold on so when he grabbed it i came up out of the water and he looked at me he said i did it i did it i did it i was there it was trust and after that day he was in the water having fun with his friends you've got to believe that god is there so when we are children whether naturally or spiritual listen when we are children all right we learn and grow and have trus to have trust in our parents but as we mature and get older it shifts our parents are now asking if they can trust us so i don't live my life wondering if i can trust god anymore i've outgrown that i ask god can you trust me in any given situation can you trust me with this responsibility so i'm not concerned about trusting god anymore that's settled yes yes i'm concerned about bringing myself to a place where god can trust me in any given situation to represent him in any way to further his agenda and his kingdom yes how many understand i'm sorry so if you're still struggling with your trust in god you're still a child you're still immature in your faith because when faith takes hold there's no question you know that you know that you know that you know that god is there for you he is with you he said he'll never leave you or forsake you you don't have to wrestle with that you may have a moment where you check for him [Laughter] lord i just want to make sure you're here but you're not struggling with that can i trust god that should not be a question when you're mature in your walk with the lord yes living by faith is knowing without a shadow of a doubt god is there and he will do what he said he will do now the question is can god trust me i'm the one with the weaknesses the deficiencies the impulses and i want to do everything i can to build my life in such a way that god can trust me and i will tell you when opportunities come doors open all right i see it as god trusting me god trust me with this god trust me with that i cannot tell you how many opportunities are now opening on a national level and a global level to speak into our society and all i see is god trusting me so when god blesses you with something when he brings an opportunity when he opens the door he is lovingly telling you i can trust you with that wow now you have to live up to that trust wow you have to measure up you have to say lord you can depend on me yes that's good preaching that's real good that's real good so it should not be you struggling oh lord can i trust you can i trust you or how about this you know where were you god how did could you let this happen you don't know your god because if you're still blaming him for the bad things in your life blaming him for evil blaming him for bad things in the world you don't know the nature of your god you don't know your god you don't know your parent yes yes it is your heavenly father's good pleasure he takes joy in meeting your needs he takes joy in guiding you he takes joy in watching you grow and move from one level of life to another or one quality of life to another he takes joy in that that's who he is and you know why he could do that because he's rich when you have all and everything you take joy in sharing and empowering others he he he looks for ways that he can bless you come on he that's it that's it he's looking if god responds out of his love he loves you and when you love somebody you start looking for ways i just want to do now you look like one of the things i love about my wife and she pays attention to the small things she will go and i like reese's pieces and she'll just go and grab a pack of reese's pieces because she's just looking forward to saying okay how can i just bless him right just think about the magnificent god now he's looking at you and you're doing your thing you're out there doing your thing and he said i just want to bless this person i'm looking forward to it let me let me see how i can bless this person and that's how i look at my relationship with god he's looking for opportunity and all i said okay lord let me become the person yeah let me become the individual that you can bless amen amen amen bless and used to bless yes he told abraham remember the covenant i will bless you and i will make you a blessing yes and that's important because you can be selfish and just want to be blessed no god blesses us so that we can be a blessing that's why he does it amen amen so that's good yeah very good we need to get to our text no it's very good for you all right very good but listen grow up yes i you know i i had conversation with with a christian that's been a christian for 25 years and i want to tell this person don't tell anybody you've been a christian that long because they they were angry with god because of bad things that came their way and it's like we we think we're exempt because god loves us and because jesus he made it clear that in the world you will have tribulation what don't you understand about that paul said when i would do good evil is present he said it's a law it's a principle that's at work and yet there are christians who are still getting mad with god and that's that's that you you don't know your heavenly father you need to know your heavenly father you need to know your heavenly father that's why he's that's why we study that's why he's given us his word yes that's why he's given us community that's why he's given us his spirit to help us grow to that place jesus would make statements like i know you're always with me but i said it so that they may know this is the faith walk this is what it is to walk by faith and not by sight it's not letting what you see scare you yes because your god is greater than what you see come on give god a good hand clap often hallelujah amen that was the most comprehensive but simple explanation of walking by faith so well balanced you pulled it out of me you pulled it out of me you represent the people remember that yes yes if i may say we enjoyed that correct praise the lord and i hope you all are shouting in your living room your bedroom wherever you may be enjoying this message and this communion with each other here amen amen praise the lord you want to pray yes i'm going to pray but before we pray uh wow we're so used to being online i usually have a minister and we have a minister that's set up to go online and um oh yeah make the altar call well wow if you are uh are watching this and and like dr said you know that faith aspect of just knowing that god is involved god is there and you were challenged with that today uh because of what you've gone through because of and we what we tend to do we look at the negative but i want you to change your perspective and look at the positive things where god did meet you not where you felt that he didn't meet you but where did god meet you and for many of us we can go back and say okay wow god the way he works is he makes sure that there's certain times certain moments in your life that you know that you know that you know that only could be god yeah yeah yeah hallelujah yeah so if you're watching this or if you're in the building i want to pray with you and all right you can just sit down we're going to be just this is the moment god is meeting you where you are i'm sensing your um a bitter heart there's somebody here that really just is angry and i'm not sure where your anger is directed to but you're angry and and god wants to penetrate their heart and i know i normally don't do this i i'm struggling with this but somebody is hurting i i can hear your cries i can hear your your pain i can hear your hurt and if that's you i want to pray for you specific hallelujah if you if you want you can raise your hand and say that's that's me i'm right here and i want you to take your hand and put it over your heart and start talking to your god start asking god just amend that heart to soften that heart to make it pliable lord right now we ask that you just have your way we know that the heart is a central motivating factor in our lives the heart is is is a filter of what we see and hear the heart is the filter on what we say for we know that boys adultery violence comes out of the heart so right now i pray for the individuals that are in this room that has their hand over their heart and acts that you just touch their heart lord i pray that you will meet them in a way that you will comfort them through this part process because for some being bitter is a comfortable place so lord i ask that you just touch them right now and i saw those hands i saw those hands i and i pray that this is a prayer that blesses you a prayer that you will intentionally move out of this spirit of bitterness out of this heart and give it to god yes place it at the office right now hallelujah anoint you afresh so that god will move in your life in jesus precious precious name and and i think what i'm what i believe is that god wants to use you but he can't use you if you're operating in bitterness because that'll hinder everything you hear and everything you see that god is doing in your life for those who are watching sidetracked a little and the lord spoke to you pastor can you bring them into yeah i'll do that look jesus is the key that unlocks the bible unlocks the plans and purposes of god the old testament prophets the psalms the law all testified about this man jesus the incarnation of the invisible god who entered human history 2 000 years ago he's the one he is the one humanity was waiting for and is currently waiting to return whether they don't whether they know it or not he's the answer he is the prince of peace he is the wonderful counsel of the mighty god he is the one that will open the door to new life to god's love and compassion for your situation and he made it simple not complicated you don't have to go to seminary he simply said if you confess with your mouth through the apostle paul he said if you confess with your mouth the lord jesus and believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead you shall be saved that's all it takes so let me lead you in that confession if you've never made it the lord i thank you for this opportunity to open my heart to your love to your grace through jesus christ today i confess him as my lord and my savior and i believe that he rose from the dead for my justification so that he can give me new life and i embrace that new life today you said whoever believes in him passes from death into life from darkness in to light make me a part of this family of god let your holy spirit baptize me into this body this new community of faith and let the spirit word and community grow me into your image your likeness in jesus christ thank you for hearing this humble prayer i believe it and receive it in jesus name amen amen and amen praise the lord yes we're done we're done thank you for being with us yes thank you again for your prayerful support your financial support your love and appreciation of the ministry here as we close as we leave this place for another god's presence come do [Music] [Music]

Channel: Christian Cultural Center - Brooklyn Campus

Views: 12,836

Rating: 4.8995814 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: iWcG6zkW_q0

Length: 52min 55sec (3175 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021