A.R. & Jamaal Bernard | "Understanding Power" Part 4 | Christian Cultural Center

we need more of you in our mind we give you access to the areas of our hearts that we fight against lord right now we give you action as we ask for more lord we grant you access into our lives into the areas that we need you the most right now in the areas that we need you the most right now in the areas spiritually mentally physically emotionally financially god we give you access we grant you the keys and forgive us for creating that tension between allowing you to do what it is that you do and because you are good because you are good only goodness is inevitable once your hand touches it so give us an understanding of what good is touch our eyes and see when you act that it still is good so lord reacts you have your way right now continue to work with us prepare us for a word in season lord touch us right now anoint us afresh you are such a good good god so lord we ask that you just prepare us for word and season wherever we are touch your eyes to see how it will specifically fit in the context of our life as we learn more and more of who god is what does it mean to be human and how to live this christian walk lord you are so good and we say thank you for it in jesus precious precious name amen and amen [Music] nick excellent job wherever you are oh there you are [Music] i didn't call you up here so you gotta look at him [Music] we're live yes we're live we're on yep praise and worship was amazing ban fantastic absolutely fantastic all of our singers just just i was in it i was in it boy you all ushered me into the presence of god thank you so much and thank you of course for joining us the reason i have you up here nicholas because i was watching the dynamic between you and the other lead singers around you they were cheering you on did you feel that i did they were just like come on do it man just we're with you we're backing you up it was just a beautiful dynamic you've got to know that you've got an incredible support behind you to encourage you so you're blessed you are blessed amen now wait this is a this nicholas too right yes this came up through the youth ministry yeah really he was part of c3 you're part of c3 wow yeah and he just said he wanted to give his gifts challenging abilities to god and he just been singing since c3 beautiful beautiful thank you man we love you we're praying for you stay with us be represented he's he also wrestles so i'm about to give him the people's job hey wrestle is [Laughter] i think you know it's so important that we encourage one another that you strengthen one another and especially in a world that's so divided and demonizing each other and at each other's throat within the body of christ we should be experiencing that kind of love that's so true and uh i never come to a place where i believe that god is finished with me amen and and and i because i was working a message you know you tried to trip me up this week but i was working on a message and when one of the things i was working on i'm gonna i'm gonna explain what he just said go ahead go ahead one of the things i was working on is looking at how even the things i go through as personally in order to come up here and minister and i realize you people aren't nice like all the time like not you if the shoe doesn't fit don't wear it right but the the church people are not as loving as you thought you would get compared to the world the world embraces quicker the flaws of humanity than some of the church folk that's a tough thing because we we we live in a tension between the ideal and the reality and the ideal is the high moral standard that we're held to as as as leaders and and that's where you know when you think about moses and remember he comes down and instead of speaking to the rock he strikes the rock and he says drink you rebels and he's upset with the people you know and god for that reason you know kept him said you're not going to go into the promised land with the people of course we know that moses did enter god's glory and we see him with jesus in the new testament in the mount of transfiguration but the problem was that he became angry with the very people that he had to lead and that's why shepherds and leaders you know shepherds right that's what we are we're shepherds we we we shepherd people we lead them we guide them we encourage them we strengthen them we connect them with god you know and and disciple them and and build them and we've got to make sure that we don't get upset with those people that we're called to leave because it's tough to lead people it is you know and and especially you you've been taught to have an understanding and a perception of the broader body of christ the broader church not just this local church ccc but you've been taught to be sensitive to the entire church the church universal around the world and when you see some of the things that are happening it can be frustrating so what what what did you go through this week well my father asked me to minister today and i was ready i was prepared but i had a wedding yesterday a baby dedication i was trying to go from brooklyn out to out east to waiting river uh in traffic to go uh pray for two teens that are going off to college you know so i i i was i was so you had baby dedication in the morning you had summer fest in the afternoon and then you had a wedding you had a wedding that you do yesterday and you uh i was trying to run and pray for these two teams yeah i think you've got a wedding to do right and and i was gonna take some time and go visit someone who is dealing with some sickness and uh i said well you know you handle service yeah so so the process of handling the service i just got into my prayer life and uh i want to give a shout out i i don't normally shout out uh bands and you know but um the the there's an album that has been ministering to me and i was listening to it it's uh elevation worship and maverick music and just a collaboration elevation that's right stephen no i don't know who's the best pastor stephen is a pastor of elevation church but i don't know if that's the same organization okay so i don't know elevation music yeah elevation music and um mavic and naomi sings a song about church uh church music i mean not the church music but about the church yes about the church and um it's naomi and oh man build your church it's called and naomi naomi comes out of ccc so it was just a blessing to hear her voice uh you know just to listen to her she's uh she's doing well very well she's doing very well she's on a circuit i said so give a shout out to naomi rain uh i didn't know what her wedding naomi rain used to be sunny naomi her name is last name right now is naomi solomon but before that it was naomi felder yes right right um larry felder and and and his wife marissa felder right mm-hmm and one of the parts she says is is how sweet are the feet that carries the gospel gospel right right and it's just so amazing yeah this time and then i started praying and worshiping and i got into looking at the state of the church and and i got troubled in my heart where i started wrestling literally really wrestling with it i said man the state of the church is not healthy right and i'm talking about not seeing not ccc but the body of believers and and and i wrestled with it i texted i said i'm having a hard time with um the preparation because my attention is so much on just really praying for the church because if we don't make a pivot right now we are going to become irrelevant as a moral voice on a global ah morally irrelevant so we've been working on being culturally relevant that we're losing our moral authority our moral voice we've seen that in politics the church's involvement in politics and political idolatry is one of the things that we've seen and now you're talking about just on a general basis and so when you look at the board you see that it says spirit word and community you saw that church was trying so hard to create this community right that people were so comfortable coming to they weren't challenged with the word and being convicted by the spirit ah say that again i'm gonna play your role today say that again they were they built a community so much so that people were so comfortable that they weren't challenged by the word and convicted by the spirit wow wow so community became more of a club yeah more of a yep you know place to go at one time someone said to me he said you know ccc used to be the place to be a place to go i said really i said that's terrible thanks for letting me know so i can pray us out of that we don't want to be just the the club the place to be we want to be a place that people look to for spiritual growth and development when you think about this because we got word spirit and community which those three things have to work together you can't have emphasize one over the other balance is the key to life you've if you've been around ccc you've heard those words balance is the key to life and balancing word spirit and community because it's easy to emphasize one you could emphasize spirit and look for strictly spiritual experiences the the worship experience and manifestations of spiritual gifts and all of that but if you're not founded in the word i i i met god in his word that's why i met god yes the church was instrumental because i was invited to a uh a nikki cruz meeting january 11 1975 your mom and i went and i sat in that uh church auditorium baptist temple downtown brooklyn and i i was coming out of the nation of islam that was my context and a secretary that i had for 19 in 1974 she told me about jesus in a way that i never heard about i read about jesus but didn't know about jesus in the way that she did it was a personal intimate into uh relationship so i went to this meeting nikki cruz you know gave his message in broken english um but that night i got saved january 11 19 you're your birthday yeah and you're elected you were born on my spiritual birthday um what does that mean so i that night two things hit me number one um i heard this clear as ever in my heart i'm the god that you're looking for i knew intuitively it was jesus christ number two i and my word are one that was so important because god and the word became one for me so now the scripture the word became god so i met god yeah in his word yeah it was in the context of a church building and a church service but that was supportive the real thing was the word and so as i when going through my studies my praying and stuff like that when i realized that this when you look up on the board it says spirit word and community and that really speaks to the areas where most people are right so either they're educated they want their spiritual uh they need that spiritual connection or they need that community right so we look at the dynamics of the church and look at the dynamics of uh how the church is built and designed uh which is genius god is you know he's so smart you you look at it and each individual is met by those three areas primarily those three areas are the way people are met in the church you got the intellect i just okay help me understand this thing called christianity and you know help me understand how this relates to this this life i'm living you know help me understand how that the the necessity for this god who is this god how do i articulate this guy any individual i need a spiritual connection i need to be hit in my spirit there's something that's going on in my spirit that that is released when i meet this god this jesus christ whether it's the chains i'm dealing with whether it's the emotional issues i'm dealing with there's something that goes in the spirit so the here comes the spirit that the the spirit that com the the truth that is necessary for that you know level of conviction for me to change but then some people come through the community i just need i i'm lonely i need some place to go i need i need i need friendship i need fellowship i need you know there's a need because of how i will buy it as individuals that's why i don't believe that this online campus our situation is going to fill us as individuals because there's a need for community the question was what does it look like now and when you look at it people yes that's how they enter but they can't stay there oh it's good preaching that's good preaching so this is what i was dealing with spirit yep soul which is the mind will and emotion and body yes which is community yep expression of god in the flesh that's how it works together and that's what i said so and and and so we can't if you stay there and you don't grow and it's as as as the the leadership of the church the pastors and not just the pastors no longer just on the pastors the pastor shares the vision but now it's about the team being created because they understand the need to to really catch these souls but take them to a process that leads to discipleship like you say see that's that's that's so important because the church provides number one our role is to number one connect people with god that's number one connect make the god connection this is the role of the church in society right connect people with god number one disciple those people help them assist them in spiritual formation spiritual growth and development in that relationship we connect them to god we help them build that relationship with god thirdly the create community connecting them not just with god but connecting them with each other and building community in that way and also to engage them in some form of service to serve god to discover their gift their talent their abilities and to serve god with those gifts which brings glory to god and ultimately be a voice to the culture be a voice of the society and that sums up really what the church is about and the role that we play in human society now how we do it the methods that we employ that's that depends on the context age i mean education level economics capacity all of that comes into play but essentially that's what the church is about yep and and so when i looked at that i started working on a message and i said okay trying to encourage individuals on just being able to be a voice in spite of uh and and you know i think that's where a lot of the tension is uh because some individuals if you're watching this you might think that you're not worthy to be a voice because of your past right and just to take that's a real tension though you know when i was in guatemala the guy said god can't forgive me because i killed my my rival king wait wait wait you he wasn't just visiting passing through guatemala he went into the prison system in guatemala and met with the gang members that were there now that i gave context tell the story and while we're there in the prison the guy says you know god can't forgive me i said what do you mean how are you gonna put a limitation on god he said look this is what i did i killed my my rival gang member you know the rival gang i killed him he said but before i killed him i killed his mother in front of him right and then i i raped and killed his his his his wife and then killed him said that's the last thing he saw and i was intentional about it and he said god can't forgive me and i said who says that he says well that's that's what the church says right so here it is this is the church telling him that he's going to hell yeah he can't be forgiven it's the fire brimstone preaching that has you know and i understand that the culture we're in is is is a when the pendulum swings and you so you go from fire and brimstone now to this whole you know love wins environment there's no median at the place you know so that's why i love that message that you preaching truth and grace you know yeah very important the balance of truth that jesus brought the two i i what you said is very important because i was meditating in my fellowship and of course we're still we're going to still talk about power yes defining power um but what i said in in the beginning that i met god in his word and that's where i've stayed that's where i've grown yes i've been in the church i grew in ministry and all of those things and relationships spirit and community but my foundation is in the word the word of god uh to know the word is to know god to know god is to know his word he sent his word jesus was the incarnation of the word of god the word come in human form so your relationship with the word is really the measure of your relationship with god not what you experience in spirit or even in community those things are important but the true measure is the word of god and unfortunately there's a lot of shallow christianity that's going on shallow preaching that's more entertainment and performance coming from the pulpit and the preachers then actually expounding of the word of god so that people can become rooted and grounded in the word i will tell you how to get off social media because of that social media and then there's some and the sad thing about there are some strong names out there of individuals trying to speak but they they i i believe my frustration is starting to come back because they have the platform i think that's where the frustration goes you have the platform you have the ears of these individuals but when you're feeding them what are you feeding them what do you feel and it hurts because when you listen to some of these messages i'm like that's not biblical you know that's not what the word says this this so now you see why the church is not growing because the pastors are not teaching them and that means the pastors aren't growing so therefore if the past is ongoing people aren't going to grow yeah and it's about likes it's about followers it's about going viral and that's the world in which we live and we're careful here because you know we we have our flaws and yes comings uh as well but you cannot be a lover of god's word what did jesus say to peter do you love me yes the word feed my sheep how can you feed the sheep if you don't know the word what are you going to give them except what's influenced from from the culture yep you know um i will share right well pastor said he said never mistaken followers for disciples that's right say it again never mistaken followers for disciples that's right just because you're a follower of jesus doesn't mean you're being a disciple of jesus people follow you around they followed paul and silas yeah you know just to see their miracles and they follow jesus so they can get more bread than he miraculously eaten us yeah there's a difference there's a difference but i will share with you you know and talk about leadership the passage that meant the most to me when i acknowledged god's call to ministry to be a pastor and it was it's in joshua chapter one joshua chapter one verse one through nine you got it nrs yes right read it okay i love those let me see read okay read on it after the death of moses the servant of the lord the lord spoke to joshua son of nun moses assistant saying my servant moses is dead now proceed to cross the jordan you and all this people into the land that i'm giving to them to the israelites every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon i have given to you as a promise to to moses from the wilderness and the lebanon as far as the great river the river euphrates all the land of the hittites to the great sea and the west shall be your territory and it's funny because people read this and say everywhere his foot but there was still boundaries within his book exactly yeah that's another message no one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life as i was with moses so i will be with you yeah i will not fall i will not fill you or forsake you verse six be strong and courageous for you shall put it take strength and courage to lead yes okay yes but it's funny because as i continue reading be strong and courageous for you shall put this people in possession of the land that i swore to their ancestors to give them in verse seven he says only be strong and very very courageous so he emphasizes the courage the courage right yeah being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant moses commanded you do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left so that you may be successful wherever you go wow so the success was based upon joshua's relationship with the law yes the word yes in another translation king james it says for you uh be be careful to observe all the things that are written there and then you will make your way prosperous then you'll have good things meditate on it day and night i legacy is is spiritual it's intellectual it's emotional it's motivational uh it is it is material legacy what the most important thing that i could pass on to you all right or any of my children my family and even my spiritual children is a love for the word of god that's the most important thing your love and passion for the word apologetics and all that other stuff your love and passion for the work is what's going to make you successful so here joshua has to step into some big shoes yes moses was the man and he led you know over a million people out of bondage and then shaped them and formed them into a national entity now joshua's about to take him into the promised land and what does god point him to in terms of what will make him successful the word the word is and we've gotten away we you know the jews were called the people of the book why aren't we continuing that tradition and being called the people of the book so when i got saved in pentecostal church right they were quoting scripture and what i had to do was study to learn and let me just say this all right when i got saved i was given a lens all right through which i read the bible i understood the church i understood jesus i understood christianity understood my own identity in christ but i kept studying i kept reading so that i can sharpen that lens so we're all when we come to christ we're handed a lens through which we see and read and understand and interpret but you have a responsibility to keep growing so as i grew i understood that that pentecostal context that lens that i was given you know needed some adjustments i thought about when jesus comes to the the religious leaders and he says he says like in matthew 5 21 he he says you have heard that it was said but i say to you and i those are the that's what i experienced in my growth so i i heard one thing and understood certain things you know in my theology my eschatology but as i continued to study i realized no no wait something needs to be adjusted here this so what happens is some people they get the lens and they don't grow they stay with that lens so they really don't grow mature even pastors and leaders you have to grow you have to keep growing maturing because your people will outgrow you yep you have to keep tweaking that lens so yeah jesus said you heard that it was said but i say to you that forced me to go back and read some of the things that jesus said what you just brought up before right i was taught in that context that god loves christians and hates sinners so he loved the believer but hates the world and then i go back and read jesus's comments and read the scripture that god benevolently his common grace god benevolently loves the word he doesn't hate the world all right so i learned the difference between god's common grace his benevolence towards the righteous the unrighteous and the righteous the the the good and the evil in the world he just he poured out his blessings his paul puts it this way so beautifully in acts chapter 14 verse 15 through 17 he says that god allowed the nations to go their own way right to develop on their own but in fact he allowed them to develop on their own i was going to try to decide whether to read the text or just paraphrase it uh to develop on their own establish their own systems of government and religious belief systems and moral systems etc all right but he didn't leave them without witness the apostle paul said in there he gave them reigns the crops he a lot gave them joy he gave them the experience of love he he he restrained let me put it this way all right he got he gave them rain sun prosperity health happiness natural capacities and gifts he restrained sin on their behalf they even though they didn't realize it from having complete dominion over them and destroying them and that helped me understand god's sovereignty and god's providence and how it works through human history because i i was handed a lens that's with them and us yeah it's it's us the believers whom god loves and it's y'all out there your sin is going to hell but god loves people and we have to learn to love people whether they are in relationship with god because all of us were at one time yep sinners sinners and well paul silken says that we're sinners [Laughter] yeah that's interesting by great so so i understood the difference between common grace right and god's saving grace his common grace which is his love for all humanity and his benevolence towards all humanity and his saving grace which is that unique loving relationship that god has with those who are in in relationship with him through jesus christ it's so good and and you won't come to realization if you're not connected with the word that's right because when you when you see the new the old testament what you're seeing is god's administration of his common grace and his saving grace and this helped me understand power because i was saying how could god let people remember power is the ability to influence people events and outcomes and i would say well how could god allow certain people in power how could he allow certain nations to develop in a certain way and their power is self-destructive and the willingness to destroy all humanity we have nations that if they ever got hold of nuclear weapons they don't care if they destroy the whole world while they destroy in attempts to destroy their enemy all right so how does god and why does god allow this stuff so going back in to really look at what jesus said to really look at what the scripture says not just the lens that was handed to me i was able to expand my understanding understand political power economic power and how it works to shape the world and who we are and how we experience life uh today you know so this that's you gotta study to show your little is it second timothy 2 15. study to show yourself approved unto god a workman king james language that needs not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth and i don't use that to support a discipline a a a a a a radical dispensational uh way of thinking or seeing the bible all right but i do say we're called to study your favorite passage be ready to give every man an answer of the hope the reason for the hope that is in you in meekness and fear your study of the word determines the is the measure of your relationship with god yeah we can enjoy the things of the spirit and and and unfortunately i talked about a few weeks ago grab and go grab and go christianity i was i was at a panera yeah i eat panera and and they had a sign outside grab and go and i said wow you know that's fast food but it's also translated into people's relationship with god you know let me just you know get a quick a quick interaction with god can you imagine if if husbands and wives operated that way just quick quickly quick interaction quick interaction with your spouse and then you're gone no you need intimacy you need time you need interaction you get to know god in his word wow that's good stuff man yes very good very good another thing that you and i talked about and going to power is calling sense of calling and sense of purpose you sent me a text this week about understanding your role and your calling and defining that clarifying that do you remember that text yeah but it was and my overall calling i understand right but when we look at the regression of of one christianity one society i think that you know out of that person certain uh voices emerge right so when you look at your growth as a pastor you you the voice that emerged was based on what the context in which you were ministering right so the context is not in every necessary geographic but also the time right so we look at the time within the context you look at your voice that is louder than you know you know specific other voices that you would talk about and when i talk about voice i'm not you know trying to make sure i don't sound crazy but the the one voice that emerges is based on the the the the time that the church is in right so look at the time that the church is in the question is okay what voice is going to emerge to respond to the condition of the church the condition of society to knowing that that god is still not done as long as we still got breath and things are still going the way it's going we still have work to do so the question is based on that understanding what is the voice that's going to emerge out of jamar bernard see and and for me all right because i am in circles now that are dealing with issues of race inequity social justice you know i'm working within a lot of those circles right now and they're asking for my voice my insight on this my my biblical lens on all of this so the last 42 years of ministry was actually preparing my voice to be a voice in this present time god knew all this stuff would happen god knew how the condition of humanity in the church right now so he prepares you sometimes he takes time to prepare you for a specific season where your voice can then emerge everybody wants their voice to emerge right away yeah you know that's not right but i thought about um this in in turn luke 4 18 luke chapter 4 verse 18 and this will help you if you're still wrestling you know um with number one your calling sense of calling purpose and and and application of that purpose because people are still wrestling with this you know i think i thought rick warren wrote a great book you know purpose-driven life and it sold so many copies just because of the title alone before you even get to the content of the book the title purpose everybody's hungry they wanted no purpose because i knew we spoke about this before i my passion is to to encourage christians to have fun living this christian walk but it's biblically centered christian yeah right which means you got to know the word yeah you have to know the word because you i think that the more you know the word the more freedom you can live this christian walk like there's more freedom in this christian world right because as as as you develop and mature what wasn't good for you you know because some people need a radical change right they need a radical change so they need to cut cold turkey that's right that's why i i i went into the strict pentecostal church from the nation of islam i needed a radical chance and that cold turkey took you from things that you wasn't good not because you're a christian but because of how you're wired yeah right everything was seen everything everything was centered because you couldn't touch that at that time right but uh and i think as you get more um educated in the walk with god through the relationship with the bible you'll start seeing certain things uh that you can you know and i'm trying to say this carefully because i'm not giving a green light for anything yeah yeah yeah yeah but you find mature you find freedom okay put this where you find freedom and the maturity you gain through your relationship with the word of god you move from concrete authority yes to abstract authority concrete authority we exercise over our children when they're young yep because i said so no explanation yeah because they don't they're they're growth of development they need commands thank you you said it better than they need precepts yep they they don't they're not ready for principles and patterns which require experience and judgment and discernment no they need precepts they need commands i said so so that's concrete authority as they mature and grow now you can reason with them that's abstract authority we have people incarcerated yes because they did not transfer transition from concrete authority to abstract authority so they're they're incarcerated why because they need concrete authority yep they need those commands and those boundaries in force but as you get older you begin to think you begin to reason that's the whole when i was a child paul said i thought like a child i reasoned like a child i understood like a child but when i became a man i put away childish thing so as you mature in life you think different you you have a different lens so chapter 4 verse 18 luke 4 18 the spirit of the lord this helped me a lot all right the spirit of the lord is upon me this is jesus talking you hear me this is jesus talking the spirit of the lord is upon me because so there's a reason why god places his holy spirit on an individual right the spirit of the lord upon me because he has anointed me you get that to anoint uh in in the old testament uh ceremonial uh practice was to rub oil on a person they were anointed what it meant was that they were being consecrated they were being separated by god towards something and they were going to be empowered so jesus said the spirit of the lord is upon me because there's a reason he has anointed me too to do something to do what to bring good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to let the oppressed go free to proclaim the year of the lord's favor so anointed me which means he has placed certain graces in jesus's life right certain gift talents and abilities in my life i can put myself in that god has anointed me he has consecrated me he has placed certain graces in my life certain gift talents and abilities in my life and has consecrated me to use them for his glory and and that's a very broad expression there so now to glorify god is essentially to bring honor to god the proverb says honor the lord with your substance it's not just your material wealth but you as a whole being as as as a person so the question is what are your gifts and how can you use them to glorify god so you have to identify the graces in your life the gifts in your life those talents and abilities that god has given you all right jesus understood that everything he did in luke 11 20 jesus understood that everything he did was powered by the holy spirit when they were challenging him about casting out demons they accused him of casting out demons by the power of belzebaum right so they weren't questioned his ability to cast out they saw his power they witnessed it they didn't challenge that they challenged his motive and his source so he turns around and in luke 11 20 he says if i with the finger of god cast out devils who do you cast them out with right so exorcism was real it was believed because that was the world in which jesus you know existed here on earth but he understood that everything that he did was powered by the holy spirit which is god's active presence in our lives it was god's active presence in his earthly life right and it's god's active presence in our earthly life the presence of god however the presence of the holy spirit and the power of the holy spirit in jesus was without measure all right john 3 24. he was given the spirit without measure the same is true for us in terms of everything that we do is powered by the holy spirit we do for god in the glory of god it's powered by the holy spirit but with us they're boundaries yes we are given the spirit with measure and paul says that we should function within the measure of god's grace in our life because you know we humans our flesh gets in there we want to be jesus yeah no then we i i believe we will we we will abuse that power look at a a young person compared to older individuals driving a sports car right the likelihood statistically speaking for that person to get an accident it's higher for a young person because they don't have the maturity uh level in order to operate that car with all of the variances and variables that come into play when driving at high speeds there's there's a require yeah maturity yeah so our level of maturity will never get to a place where we understand everything that's going on right our limited mind does not have the capacity to say everything is going on so therefore the holy spirit has to limit the power that we operate in and ephesians chapter 4 which talks about the gifting of the church the building up of the body says that we have a responsibility to contribute to the whole our measure of grace so it's about working together it's not about you being the superstar it's about taking what god has blessed you what he has anointed you with all right and bringing that to bear on the body as a whole it's what you contribute to the whole and and that's why we have to be careful with with our pursuit of greatness all right and and and and misunderstand that that it becomes all about you no jesus said if you want to be great serve find a way to serve so it is in your service that you become great and it is in your service that you contribute to a whole that comes together and it makes up this word spirit and community and it built this good stuff man yep yep so that was my week that was your week yes so we spent the whole service on his week brought to you by dj passenger jamal bernard but my resolve is that god is still in control absolutely right and the question is and the question that we all have to ask it wasn't just pastor jamal had to ask that we all have to ask because the next level of growth in the church is not just because of the pastor right right or the underground tangible expression of what a christian looks like is you so i'm putting this on you as well what is your voice that's going to emerge at this time and your sphere of influence everybody has a voice whether it's with your friend group the corporate air arena that you're working in your social uh area that you're working in what is your voice that's going to merge at this time and is is that voice the foundation to that voice is going to be the word of god or is it going to be your emotions that you're trying to be all fancy about absolutely good stuff man say it bam i think we have a minister now waiting yes in the weight right yes so as as we transition to the minister my question is really for you the thing about what role you're going to play what your voice is going to be what has god anointed you to why the spirit of the lord is upon you because he has anointed you for something yes find out what that is you discover it in the context of your gifts talents and abilities using them to bring glory to god his minister lamont o'neil right and he was amazing in praising worship this morning great great job minister oh praise god praise god we thank you pastor and pastor jamal for the word we pray that that word is even now being impressed upon your heart and your spirit thank you lord for your word and we believe father that you sent it in order to heal our disease beloved know that we will be judged by our faithfulness by our faith in god's word and what better time and way to be launched on a journey of faithfulness and discipleship then right here right now romans 10 9. i'm reading out the new king james version it says if you confess with your mouth the lord jesus and believe in your heart that god has raised him from the dead you will be saved you will be saved listen if you're ready to settle the search and solidify your identification with god through the person of his son jesus christ i'm gonna ask that you pray this prayer with me you just say father i denounce my old lifestyle my old ways i renounce being lord of my life and i declare jesus you are my lord you are my savior i receive you right now into my heart into my life i commit to praise you for the rest of my life with the rest of my life thank you jesus for salvation today and forevermore i'm free i'm free and i give you all the praise all the glory and all the honor in your loving name i pray jesus amen and amen listen if you prayed that prayer for the first time welcome to the family of god welcome welcome and if you prayed that prayer for the first time we want to hear from you so please follow the prompts below and text save to 63125 or call 718-306-1061 and once again welcome to the family of god [Music] welcome welcome welcome to the body of believers welcome i'm i'm excited i'm excited because you are if you prayed that prayer if you join the bible believers god has something specific for you and once again if you have questions which i know you're going to have uh we actually do text saved to 631-250-688-2688 i'm sorry 631-250-2688 or you can call zero 718-306-106 one i'm excited so so excited for you and for joining the body believers the family believers and like i always say it is not easy but is anything in life easy no especially anything that you wanna be good at but it is possible and the word says it is possible that's why i always quote this statement my father taught me this years ago he said if you ever want to know what god is about to do just look at what he has done and we have the word and uh god's about to do some amazing things with the church the true authentic church of god amen amen all good things in life are upstream yes you got to paddle yes current's not going to take you upstream the current's going to take you downstream yep you got a paddle up stream for the good stuff so some housekeeping so we're we're having in-person service well let's first start but there's no in-person service for the fourth of july or july four years yeah so it's just my first is no personal service i repeat why no personal service because it's july 4th and um we're giving our staff off yes that's great that is really nice but we're we're still having service yes we're still going to have services they're still streaming like we here yes but it's not going to be in person we won't be gathering because we gather every first sunday yes in person in the building we won't be in the building gathering yeah but july 11th we will be back in the building gathering same times but there is no registration for this ah so you just come yes just come beautiful yeah we are reopening yes we are reopening uh and it's just the july 11th and then august first we're gonna be in person and in september the first of september launches us back into the building as long as things go smooth this summer amen amen yeah so please keep that in prayer and uh some of the stuff we share is as an announcement but also for you to pray for uh yeah you know what i think it's important to refer to an email that came in from suleiman is it wiggins yes you want to read it yeah i'll read it thanks and thank you for all of your father's day wishes the cards and the cards the expressions of love uh thank you we appreciate that as your spiritual father uh it means a lot to hear from you and to have you share but one of our members suleiman wiggins said happy father's day to pastor bernard and pastor jamal i continue to pray for you and your entire families daily as the lord has instructed me to do so also thank you to all the leaders and the whole ministry team at ccc thank you for continuing to serve us and encouraging us at home it's working it's working this sunday i could just feel the anointing and the love of god coming through the screen as i watch the program what we have at ccc is so special it's unique it's god-given pure and true please continue to let the lord lead you forward it's working at the end of the program i felt so refreshed so new i struggled to keep the tears in my eyes so thank you for doing what god has given you to do it is definitely working i'm so glad to be a member so proud to be a christian happy father's day god bless and thank you for your obedience to the lord see them silly mom thank you for sharing this this is so important yes we appreciate the affirmation and the encouragement that comes from you yeah two more announcements we're gonna be out of here uh just a reminder for all the parents uh just keeping the loop c3 has some summer events that they're doing i think four for the summer uh one one of the events is uh skating back at the building really yeah so we're trying to do some things to get the kids back together to socialize them because they haven't really gathered you youth haven't really gathered so work on that here please go on the website your registration is open you can join uh through the website there's a lot of couple of events nice things that we're looking to plan on doing and hopefully you know things really open up we can start going back to the retreats again uh next year 2022. restoring all of these things yeah absolutely yes yeah so keep him in prayer he's got the operations and the programming responsibility on his shoulders and and then lastly we have what we call the 12 verse challenge and uh the 12 verse challenge is is is uh we're participating with movement.org illumination and we are the 12 verse challenge is basically trying to get people to um sponsor 12 verses and the 12 verses that they sponsor they also will memorize for the year so the 12 verses that that's going to challenge them to sponsor but and 12 verses that they're going memorize them and the reason why we're sponsoring this is because there are we we found that there are nations languages that do not have the bible in their language and i'm passionate about this because every time i think about the relationship i have with this word and what it has done for me in my life it's not fair to keep it to myself so we're looking to sponsor and be a part of that uh 12 verse challenge which starts today and the 12 verse challenge you can go to uh 12 bc 1 2 bc victor charlie verse challenge dot com backslash ccc now what we have is that's on our website forward slash voiceover yeah usually um but we'll have it on our website we'll have it on our website and there's a meter to show how much we as ccc uh is uh uh we're gonna and what's our goal not monetarily but what's our goal we want to do the whole new testament yeah we're doing a whole new testament beautiful and we haven't picked the language yet but we're starting to get this going we're doing a whole new testament and that is 7957 verses or 306 chapters or uh you know so it's just all of those different things that are going on so here we as you participate you go on the website uh i'm excited because once again like dr raj has been saying today about the word and the interaction with the word there are individuals that cannot do the very thing that god is calling asking them to do is to build a relationship with the word of god yeah yeah and to think that here it is 2021 and there are nations who don't have the bible in their language there are societies and cultures that don't have the bible you know we think everybody's got a bible yeah no no we we think from a western mindset in our american mindset but no there are people groups in the world that don't have the scripture in their language and this is the way we're going to get it to them yeah and excellent and it's fun because when you look at some of these people group they're sitting there with their notepad and the person who can translate the bible from english into their language is reading and they're copying yeah and they're really trying to build a relationship so the passion behind it is totally different i'm like man this is how the church used to be yeah and now we got all this other stuff and they they say one or two verses and they think that they preach church we take a lot for granted here in america yes in our prosperity we're so inundated and it's so accessible we take it for granted don't take the word of god for granted there are people who have a little passage of scripture on a piece of paper in a communist country and that is precious to them they could lose their life over that one passage of scripture on a piece of paper they could lose their life all right so please don't take for granted all the blessings and benefits that we have here in america yes amen amen so next week is uh fourth of july yes where we celebrate you know uh independence in this nation and we're going to be talking about that uh independence yes we're going to get into that and you know finish this thing with our political power yes political power and economic power until next time as we leave this place with another god's presence jesus is lord period we believe it we proclaim it and we're seeing it come to pass god bless you enjoy the rest of your week

Channel: Christian Cultural Center - Brooklyn Campus

Views: 3,251

Rating: 4.8461537 out of 5

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Id: 3i_2VPlTfNw

Length: 55min 10sec (3310 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 06 2021