"Deep" | Pastor Todd Bertram

[Music] so [Music] just a quick reminder before service begins um brother carrie jones had some time ago uh requested that all our young people sit more in the first two or three rows in the front preferably the girls over here the guys over there i've noticed of late that some of our young people are excusing themselves by saying they're helping with babies and stuff like that let the moms take care of the babies and you come on up front hallelujah [Music] praise the lord church [Music] say that one more time praise the lord the church amen amen um this week um i don't know this today has been just a different day for me um they're not singing this song but this song has just been resonating in my spirit and i'm not going to sing it i'm not passionate no no no no um [Music] that song uh stones you know um one of the lyrics i just been listening to it all day and one of the uh phrases in that song it talks about obviously not letting stones cry out in your place i know wednesday nights can be sometimes like we're here it's wednesday you know we're just in the place we're where we supposed to be but you know i've learned something about living for god it's an honor and a privilege because some people don't have the wherewithal in their minds to know where to come [Music] and sometimes living for god can be tough but i uh it's a part in that song said you can find me in the desert dancing where you prophesied [Music] that being i'm emotional tonight sometimes we promise things from god and we don't understand but sometimes we just gotta dance anyway we just gotta dance in a way and i don't know who that's for but dan's what he's prophesied amen amen well with that being said i do want to welcome everyone to the sanctuary apostolic pentecostal church we're expecting a mighty move of the lord tonight amen amen and uh [Music] um we do want to bring to everyone's attention um a church yard sale this uh or saturday september 25th uh please see such a sister bertram if you can help at all and if you have any items you would like to donate get with sister bertram and she will lead you in any capacity that you you're looking for um also there will be a special mission we're just preparing you we want to preach so come um sunday with your pockets full because there will be a special um offering taken up for missions amen so on your way to church just grab a little extra at the bank and [Music] bless the missions field amen amen as the ushers are preparing to come [Music] god will thankful for another opportunity to be gathered together in this place we love you and we thank you for the unity of the house of god and we pray your hand upon this offering and we pray that you bless those who have forgiven those who have not and everyone said in jesus name [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] glory to him [Music] [Music] [Music] glory to his name [Music] your feet [Music] glory to him [Music] [Music] from [Music] glory to give glory to his name [Music] [Music] glory to him [Music] hallelujah thank you [Music] here i am [Music] chains are broken [Music] is [Music] [Music] no one else will do [Music] chains are broken eyes are open mirrors [Music] a miracle can happen a miracle can happen a miracle [Music] is [Music] a miracle can [Music] a miracle can happen a miracle can happen a miracle could happen in this place [Music] jesus said will happen [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus said [Music] is [Music] a miracle [Music] is [Music] a miracle can happen is [Music] a miracle [Music] is [Music] jesus said will happen what jesus did [Music] is [Music] is [Music] chains are broken [Music] gracious [Music] [Music] lord we want you no one else [Music] [Music] hearts are trains are broken [Music] that you have to believe that a miracle can happen in this place [Music] i know [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus is [Music] is [Music] [Music] miracles [Music] [Music] raise your hands and thank you [Music] so [Music] [Music] hallelujah hallelujah god is doing a work and um i don't know about you i think i know about you but i can't answer 100 of the time but i want to be in the middle of it do you want to be in the middle of god's will how many want to know god's will for your life hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah being in the god's will is sometimes actually not an easy thing because because god doesn't always just emphatically tell us turn here and this will happen do this and this result will occur oftentimes god just says just follow me without any direction of where he's going hallelujah and kind of reminds me of as we heard preached recently where the lord sent the disciples into the village in samaria to get food and the woman came out to the well and when they got back with the food he said in essence i've got food you don't even know about i'm not hungry so profound i wanna i want to take a few moments tonight and um coming off of this past sunday service there's still a little bit of that here tonight hallelujah i just kind of feel a continuum but time for the word i want to draw your attention to first corinthians chapter 2 and verse 10 this short verse that says but god hath revealed them unto us by his spirit for the spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of god now could i just at the outset kind of break that down a little and help us to understand it when the spirit searcheth all things yea the deep things of god it is helping us to understand that god is looking for a depth in us god already knows his own depth so when he's searching all things yea the deep things of god he's examining us to see if there's any depth in us anybody ever really thought about that looked in the mirror and said hey are there any deep things of god in you who that's one i'm not so sure let me go pray for a while first study my bible for a couple hours fast for a couple of days maybe even go on a missionary journey give a little extra in the offering and then come back and ask me again oh yeah maybe then no because then i'll be the unprofitable servant that says i'm still an unprofitable servant and that that is one of the deep things of god hallelujah because so often then we say but i fast thrice in the week and i thank you lord i'm not like this this one over here that well everybody knows about them now we become as i explained to somebody earlier in the last year so we become pharisaical and we miss the whole thing daniel 2 22 says he revealeth the deep and secret things watch this he knoweth what is in the darkness you know why that's so powerful to me that's like hope there is hope because it doesn't matter how dark it gets he knows what's there and the light dwelleth with him boy there's some i feel like i'm already like way into it and we're just getting started hallelujah psalms 192.5 oh lord how great are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep very deep turn to your neighbor and say i got a feeling we're going deep tonight hallelujah hallelujah all right you may be seated thank you lord for your word you don't just well you can if you're so inclined but for the most part we tend to venture out into deep things we don't just launch ourselves into places that are deep often because we're not sure if we can make it back to where it's shallow and it's safe huh i was kind of like inspired to write a while back and i wrote quite a bit of stuff on following this line and the the thing about if if you really want to get into the depth of anything you got to start somewhere amen you got to start somewhere and um that's really pretty easy how many started out to read your bible in january all the way through how many ever somewhere along the way didn't quite get it finished am i the only honest person in the house see we start out just we say i'm gonna you know and then we kind of just it's gotta it's gotta be something that calls it's gotta be something that you're willing to do you're willing to start and in order for there's always to start anything without knowing uh the outcome is often foolish depends on uh what it may be it's kind of like jumping in the deep end not knowing if you can swim and i did that one time i was about 10 and there was a pool and i wanted to swim in the deep end but you couldn't sweep swim in the deep end unless you first followed the protocols of the lifeguards and the lifeguard said everybody that's going to get in the deep end line up over here and so i decided i'm going to i'm going to uh watch how everybody else swims because until that time i'd never swam and so i got to the end of the line all prepared to watch what everybody else was doing so i could duplicate it i've seen a lot of people swim but for some reason i thought that day i could see something different i guess only to have them reverse the line and the end went first the first shall be last and the last shall be first and suddenly i was at the front of the line instead of at the end of the line and so i am they said go and i went what is most remarkable is that i swam to the other end never having swam before it was kind of like well okay i can do this only to have them tell me yes you did swim to the other end but you're a very weak swimmer and we're not going to allow you into the deep end the only reason i wanted in the deep end was there was a diving board you think i just want to swim around in deep water i knew where i was wanting to go even if i wasn't sure about getting there and so i had to start somewhere i want to talk to us a little bit tonight about developing who we are spiritually where we get in trouble is we think we've got depth because we can come in on a sunday and flood the altars and cry and snot and everything else and somehow or another we think we've somehow another arrived in safe waters the reality is is that is not what creates spiritual depth in a person spiritual formation you got to know where you're going if the only place you're going spiritually is to the altar to repent that's really not much to go on anybody with me so far could it be that we can actually reach the place each and every one of us in this house tonight you could actually reach the place to where no longer is church something you just go to because you go to it no longer is the worship and the singing something you're there to do because somebody mandates if you're a young person mandates that you're there it's your parents but what would happen if all of our young people said it wouldn't matter if mom and dad said or no i think i want to i you know before before i do anything else i want to just explore just how deep god can be oh my here's the problem somewhere in the midst of all of that decision making of okay i'm gonna something called prudence raises its head and we call it common sense we call it the voice of wisdom because we listen to caution and yet caution oftentimes especially when somebody is faced with the things of god it becomes a paradox because although caution is definitely to be recognized as many times a virtuous thing it can also hide the fear of failure it can also hide actually laziness or any other reason whereby we just we shy away from deciding to just find out what god really can be and what god really can do for us and so regardless of the many reasons it actually becomes death to any true spiritual formation and development i'm watching it happen here tonight 99.9 of us are taking taking it in and analyzing it and thinking about the validity of some of this stuff but there's always a few that they just tune you out and they they're in their own little world and i don't know if they expect me to do something or not but far as i'm concerned they can stay stupid that's about as far as i'm going to go because here's the deal there is the potential in this place and every one of these young people our young ladies our young men our moms and our dads there's the potential is always there from the moment that you know you become aware that there's that there's a god somewhere the potential that then springs to life and unless that potential becomes something that is actual you can't ever even arrive yourself let alone ever help somebody else get there you can't lead others where you haven't been it's not in the things of the spirit and in the things of the spirit there's no real road map that everybody can follow like you know a road atlas or something like that or follow in siri on your gps or whatever and say i just want to be here okay at the second light turn right because for every person when the spirits lean you the spirit will say okay this person you turn right you turn left and you make an angle and you you actually back up three steps and then go left and then you go forward and and everybody's the spirits deal with everybody in all these different ways you know why that is that's because every one of us have our own unique spiritual dna and and the lord knows what makes us up and if we're gonna if we're gonna really say make up our mind you know what i'm not just gonna i'm tired of being a shallow christian i want to i want to know christ i want to really know him you know i i i've talked to some of our some of our our our hyphen group that are you know 18 to 30 or so thereabouts and and and i've had them pose these kinds of things to me in their own ways and every every last time it re regardless of what exactly how they're saying it they're all saying the same thing which is basically pastor is is there is there some way to to understand this to make this happen to where uh i i know i i not only not only is the desire there but i know that i'm on the right track i know i'm i'm following the right path and all i and i kind of look at them sometimes like a deer in the headlights and i'm like you know what some of this stuff uh nobody knows only you and god know and all i can tell you is you just gotta keep your faith in god and you gotta trust him and you gotta keep doing the things you know to do knowing that they are going to lead you where you're supposed to be in other words when somebody decides to go into the deep of something you're gonna have to confront some unknowns and there's there's nobody that can tell you only the holy ghost tells you to step here to go there only the holy ghost confirms when you're in the right place and sometimes the holy ghost doesn't even do that sometimes you're just walking by faith not by sight no in other words not by anything i can perceive i'm just i'm just walking with god and i'm attempting to do everything the right way and i have to i have to go this way because this is the only way there is to go if i'm going to know him if i'm going to get into the depth of whatever it is that i'm getting into when i'm trying to know god in a in a greater way because we really have just a pattern set for us that in many ways it's just a framework it's really not the whole package it's just a framework and that is uh parents try to give this framework to their children and they say you know we're going to church and and then they pray that church itself and the preaching of the word which is what we're doing tonight or the preaching that expounds upon principles of the word which is actually more what we're doing tonight and uh and they they pray that the framework of all that will somehow that that that their that their offspring will will grasp a whole of something within it and and and grasp a hold of that intangible that unseen something and say this is what i want for my life this is this is this is resonating with something inside of me and so and it's it's it's it confounds the mind it's it's sometimes it's there's no explanation for for the fact that that somebody can come in off the streets and and they're they're hungry and they they zoom right into it and others that seemingly have just grown up in the midst of the whole and been blessed by being there almost from birth and they they have no sense of understanding or appreciation really of where they're at say how could that be true because i my wife and i grew up in a youth group and 90 90 of that youth group is not living for god for that today and yet there is probably one of the most in my opinion powerful dynamic pastors in this country that is pastoring a church over in spokane washington which is my brother-in-law and i watched him come in in his mid-20s out of the of the world of rock and roll where the world had given him everything he wanted and and it seemed and yet uh he's standing in the in the in the wings fixing to go out on the stage he's doing the opening with you know what you know what happens after you do the opening for a major rock group the next thing that happened is somebody else does the opening for you they move you up they're getting ready to move him up in his band and he's a he's a lead guitar player and he walks into the service but he's standing there in the wings and he hears a voice speak to him is this all there is or you hear the stories of athletes that have that are right there at the cusp of reaching the pinnacle of their their dreams the things their goals the things that and to hear a voice speak to them and say i got more for you than this so i think it's time i think god's wanting to pull folks out of this congregation that are tired of playing around and let me qualify by saying this too god doesn't care what what's behind us god doesn't care what's behind you god man i feel the holy ghost there is an open door for whosoever will and god is saying if you'll just leave it to i'll take care of all that don't you worry about your past don't you worry about your mistakes don't you worry about your failures uh just be willing to let me lead you because there is some depth in me that you haven't even yet attained to and i've got it for you and i'm going to give it to you but you got to be willing to walk into places that you don't know where you're going in me um so to put it in an everyday lingo you cannot get there because the spirit searcheth all things the spirit searcheth the deep things of god and if you're going to claim any depth then never think for one moment that god himself is not going to search what's in you that's why you got to be real careful when you start laying claims to how spiritual you are because the holy ghost goes deep into what a person says they are and the holy ghost searcheth all things and if there's a little bit of pride in there it's going to be revealed if there's a little bit of iniquity somewhere it's going to be revealed now if there's a little bit of stubbornness it's gonna be revealed if there's a little bit of greed it's gonna be revealed if there's a little bit of anything that's uh contrary to the deep things of the spirit god's gonna expose them he may not expose them hourly to everybody else but he's going to expose them and sometimes he does it in ways that we don't like well most of the time we don't like them but nonetheless it's still god exposes them because the spirit is gonna search [Music] and so if you're gonna if you're gonna and it's time for us to go there but we can't go there without honesty because the first thing you got to do is be willing to step through the gate every person in fact every living being has needs and the needs have to be met we desire for them to be met in order for them to be met then we have to act which requires action you got to do something it doesn't matter if we do it individually on the individual level or sometimes we may do it institutionally collectively the requirement still is to act if you don't act now now get this in the things of god in spiritual development and growth you cannot be in a place of spiritual happenings without being confronted by either acting or inacting or an activity in other words you can't stay static you either have to move one way or the other but trying to just hold your place doesn't work because the things of god are moving they have currents in them and so you have to do something and if you don't you ready if you don't do something then all of the natural forces and conditions that are around you have within them the power to actually defeat you and destroy you you have to move in the natural world when you are born they want to know if your lungs are moving if your heart is moving back in the day they used to talk about giving the babies a little hind in a little smack to make it cry that's kind of a rude way of entering the world they don't do that so much anymore we've learned a few things it's really not necessary to spank the baby on the hiney to prove that they're breathing give them a second they'll manifest it but the idea is if they're not moving the very the moment they're entering this life somebody panics where's the heartbeat why aren't the lungs doing what they're supposed to do eventually they want to see the eyes open they want to hear a cry that tells them that everything's okay they're doing something they're because if they if they just don't do anything at all then the concern is something is seriously wrong folks i don't know other way to say any other way to say it it's true in the spiritual realm too when you're when you when you're in the midst of a powerful move of the holy ghost and the current is flowing and people are worshiping and dancing and shouting and singing and clapping their hands and and worshiping in other words everybody's not doing the same but when you see somebody that is inactive that is immobile that is really not doing anything that there's no response it is only natural for the rest of the body to turn and say what's wrong here there's there's obviously a serious problem in effect and we need to do something about this and that's what happens when the church all of a sudden gathers around and starts starts trying to minister and they lay their hands on you they start praying for you they start trying to encourage you they might gather you off somewhere off to to the side and say hey what's going on and it's not because they're trying to be nosy they're not trying to get in your business they just realize that there's a flow of life in the house and for some reason there's no response where there should be i've seen folks go through places of no response because they were wounded and you know what i watch them and until i watch them withdraw and and people that don't understand rush over and say oh no no you're going the wrong direction withdrawing is an action it's a response something's going on as long as they don't withdraw too far i tend to say okay i'll just lord you take care of that let me know if you want me to go and say something but again talking about the deep things which is that opposes you know well-meaning folks going to somebody who's not even been expose long enough or take it upon themselves to decide that they know when they somebody's been around long enough and also they're gonna you know this is why you leave this stuff to the pastor you know because you destroy people because you know the spirit searcheth the deep things um are you saying i'm not spiritual no i'm preaching to the whole church get get more spiritual so why would i say that but i am saying if you're spiritual as you say you are then you'll know that there are some offices that you don't hold and that just because you're spiritual doesn't authorize you to do it in fact if you're really spiritual you understand this is where my this is i've got limitations right here well hallelujah is this all right okay so what happens is when that when when movement occurs when action happens it creates tension it's usually created in the individual by their act they question within themselves is this is this is this right again in conversation with some of our younger adults that question has come up phrased in different ways more than once is this the right way the reason is is because there there's an attempt to step out and then the tension of stepping out creates a question is my action the correct one and so what's happened is the tension has spread from the necessity not only to act but to know is this the right am i am i doing the right thing am i going the right direction which leads to another deal because in order to know that usually requires more action where you turn and you start gathering information that's that's why you come to the pastor and say is this the right thing you're trying to gather information you're trying to make sure that you gather up all of the exploration find out where the negatives are find out where the positives are so that you can come come to a good conclusion and although this often happens before you press and you go into the depth it often happens once you step through the door and you you make up your mind this is where i'm going and all of a sudden you find yourself in in places and trying to understand exactly where it is you're at anybody ever been there well i sure have more than once [Music] so what it's requiring is that i find out all of the facts and i try to gather what i can and this is why when you're talking about spiritual formation you don't gather your facts outside of the things of god you can't develop spiritual formation listening to sean hannity the man is clueless in fact you can't develop spiritual formation truthfully in listening to 99.9 of most televangelists at least in my from my day anymore now we're all televangelists hello out there i guess i just shot myself in the foot which is fine because sometimes i question and i think that's also right it is right that you question your own self your own depth where am i reassess i said something to brother um good lord brother james the other day and i said i told him i said i feel like i'm in a reset right now and i'm going through a reset and he just about i mean he just he was just flabbergasted in in a good way i mean he was like oh wow and i knew exactly when he as soon as you said i he was i was like he was he was in the same spot he was like he was absolutely relating to what what what i just said and you know probably a lot of folks around here are ready for the pastor to do a reset there's probably a few folks around here that are running for cover because if he resets back to 20 years ago it's gonna get rough well but it'll get better see you don't have a choice though because you're either going to grow or you're going to stagnate and die it's really it's a choice but it's not an option you're either going to grow or you're going to stagnate you're either going to develop or you're going to atrophy you're going to build or you're going to fall apart but one way or another you can't just stay in one spot man i'm i know i'm calling and this is kind of like teaching but this i know that this is going places tonight the problem that we get into is when we we we stop and then we start telling ourselves that we're still moving oh come on that it that's where we get in so much trouble because if we're not if we stop and tell ourselves we're still moving we actually are but we're not we're moving backwards now please understand i want to qualify something when you start moving forward in god that doesn't mean every moment or every day or whatever that every time you turn around that there's just this constant whoo [Music] man i got goosebumps on my good no there's going to be a lot of uh when you start going out into the deep still water runs deep and you start getting out into the deep things of god you know it's it's so often completely misunderstood people think deep with when you're walking around and you're just you know every other word out of your mouth is some kind of scripture you know you're quoting scripture all the time and and you know and it's you know you've got this litany of phrases and things that you put together it's kind of like some of the church names i saw when i was you know around flint there you know first church of the this and that and the most blessed and the holiness of this and by the time you get to reading all that name you don't even know you think you're in another country no now here's here's the here's the deal and i'm getting there i'm i'm trying to move through this relatively quickly i'm taking a moment though it's only eight o'clock only going to church for an hour we started a couple of minutes late so chill okay when you finally decide you finally make up your mind okay i i'm through messing around i'm going to live for god gonna i'm gonna get in there i'm gonna it's time to stop being so shallow oh i'm gonna say it again it's time to stop being so shallow now here's the thing when you decide that the first thing that's going to happen is anyone who's shallow is going to all of a sudden want to be your friend because if you think for one minute the enemy doesn't recognize the subtle little signals that you suddenly suddenly start giving given off and he he lines up all of hey let's hang out and let's do this and and come on you know and this is going to be fun and and and but you you decided i'm going to i'm going to i'm going to dedicate this time as my prayer time and and all of a sudden man let's come home let's go they'll even buy let's go get something to eat on me where were you before i decided i was gonna i'll tell you where they were they were in the same camp you were in there wasn't so the enemy there was no use of that but you stepped out of that and all of a sudden there's a vacancy in the carnival i'm not saying you can't be human have fun but there's a vacancy in the carnival where the water is nice and shallow and nobody has to swim and you can just kind of hang out and splash each other isn't this fun but you know what happens when you get into deep water you got to find some way to stay above the surface to keep your nose above the top of the water so that you can live okay and so you decide this time to go and all kind and as soon as you do it creates stresses intentions and ways and then on other things it affects things everything around you and once you once you make up your mind i'm i'm going for this whatever action that you just sat in motion it starts to put pressures on the whole of everything that's been a part of your path that just just stepping into that that arena just going through that door is an act itself and it causes everything in front of it to either resist it or to conform to the new arrangement and when it does that sets in motion a series of rearrangements and changes this is why oftentimes folks don't go because it forces old things to be pushed aside this is why it's so easy oftentimes for people to come straight in out of the world because what they push aside and what they reject and what they say i don't want any more to do with that their whole life was in that and they've already and they don't want anything they're they're good with what the stresses do they're good with the changes it makes they're great with the fact that it just pushes all that away and they just dive in whereas if you grow up in the environment of being in the house of god and the music and the singing and the preaching and the teaching and you're constantly surrounded but yet you grow up and in the middle of it while you're growing up and you're surrounded by heaven forbid but i'm gonna say it anyway you're surrounded by those that are right there with you and they're all and they're carnal everything's carnal i had though i had the holy ghost everybody remember back in the days of uh cassette tapes remember when it when um netflix came along i'm i mean not the kind online where you can just any i'm talking about where you you you know you uh subscribed and they sent you your little your your your cd your dvds in the mail anybody remember those days wow and listen i wasn't old i i mean i wasn't young when they did that and it dawned on me one day i was right here in this city pastoring it's been a few years ago now it dawned on me one day that i'd been in conversation with folks in the church for quite some time and count and the conversation had gone from alabama football to whatever videos had been recently watched to the dog or the cat to you know this or that whatever and not one thing had been said about the things of god there'd never been anything said about things of you know the scripture you know i remember back in the day we don't do this much anymore uh i think we don't do it because it's uncomfortable which it really shouldn't be but i remember a couple of times they didn't do it very often but i remember a couple times when i was a kid growing up where where my parents would have another family over you know we used to do that too you know you know have people over to your house after service or whatever uh you know because it was a lot more economical and so that's how we got our fellowship but they and us kids we we it was like you guys go outside and play and we go out there we go out we'd be outside playing kick the can everything finally we'd hear the call all right wrap it up you guys get in here oh we're just so-and-so ain't been caught yet doesn't matter so we'd go in and our parents every now and then they'd do this they'd say all right we're going to gather around the living room here and we're going to take a few minutes we're going to pray before we all depart now i'm the pastor and i couldn't tell you the last time that we did that at my house that is not a good admission we agree we part with drive safe how about may the lord be with you no not the force as soon as i said it i knew what some of you are thinking actually he is the force see when i started with this i something in my new uh get ready because you're going places you don't even know you're going and i'm totally off script right now but that's all right because i feel like the holy ghost is saying come on y'all we're get you're getting into the end times if you're not in the very end you're getting closer and closer to it every day and if there's ever a time for the church to step back and say wait a minute uh i can't afford i can't afford to just patty cake around this anymore i got to get into the depth of this uh i gotta understand that god's got a deeper call there's something going on in this world and in this life and it's got to go on in me and i got to get a hunger for the things of god because god's getting ready to wrap all this up and if it just happens to be in my lifetime i don't want to be the one that all of a sudden i look around and the church is gone and i'm left behind because somewhere i decided i didn't think it was all that necessary to go off into the place where god was calling me to pilate pilate sat in motion the crucifixion of christ when he based his decision on political strategy rather than what he knew was fact he said i find no fault in him what he was saying was folks this man's not guilty and so what did he decide to do wash his hands washing his hands in no way absolved him from his part in the whole deceitful business jesus decision in the same moments of time his decision to sometimes speak and to sometimes not speak you ready were actions that refused to allow a defense to be presented while also refusing to allow the false charges leveled against him to be validated because there is no deeper than him the humanity of christ chose to submit in obedience to the father's will and that act of submission has set in motion the prerequisite for all humanity who come to god this is what happens when somebody first encounters god they're in a place of decision some have less fear and act immediately others move slower as they contemplate all the consequences and the things that they can figure out the things they try to foresee however god does not allow for them to continue in their status quo because to not act is to act however decision is not enough because when god when you start saying okay god what do you want from me he starts pushing against the mass of personal identity personal wants desires your personal likes and dislikes he pushes against your emotions your perceptions he pushes against your realities he starts forcing change that begins ready with surrender god forces change that begins with surrender if you're not willing to surrender your will to him you will never get there i don't care how spiritual you may say you are if you're not willing to surrender your will to his will you will never understand the things of god that are outside of the shallow pool of just coming in and sitting on a pew or a chair and maybe clamping your hands a little bit and being a part of the congregation but you'll never know him in the power and demonstration of his spirit you'll never know him in the depth of the darkness in the night when his spirit comes to you and comforts you and heals you and strengthens you and picks you up in the place of despair where you say to yourself god i'm just trying to do what is the right thing and what it feels like you're calling me to do and when you're saying god i don't know where you're at and it seems like you're a million miles away and all of a sudden god comes into the place it's not always right when you want it but it does come always right on time and when he comes in it helps you to understand and appreciate him all the more because then you realize that you were able to walk through places where it seemed like you were all alone now only to understand that it wasn't his constant touch on you and touching you and making you feel something that was carrying you but that you had actually graduated into a place in a dimension of strength within yourself and your relationship with him that is able to sustain you as you walk in and humbly and uprightly before him and you cannot do that without submission to his will hmm it's what i run into occasionally you can always you can always spot it it's it's not really hard it's not rocket science god god is god does not have a democracy god has a theocracy and and he establishes a chain of how his authority flows and you can always when folks try to break the chain then paul dealt with it in the general sense of you know god father christ the man the woman children you know and he he put that in place and yet paul also dealt with the the ministries given to the church the pastor evangelist prophet pastor teacher i think it said pastor twice anyway there's five of them and and then he did it again with ministries and once you can always spot where there's something wrong in submission because and i know what i'm preaching teaching about tonight because i i've i've battled some of these battles in my own life even in my own ministry you know and i've one of you lost a few come back around battle them out again do you finally you got to get them one to progress but let me tell you this if you ain't ever occasionally fighting a good fight of faith in some area or capacity of your life you're not you're not going into deep water you're not growing if you're not somewhere going through something that is going to put some stress on you i'm not talking about you got to stress out i'm talking about where something puts attention into your spirit into your life and it's there to correct and it's there it's there to develop you and it's there to help you because if you start out this way you can't once you start if you ever turn around and go back you can turn around and go back a lot of folks have but if you go back this is where you know you're you're just really not fit wow so i'm getting there i'm almost done let's look at in luke they brought to jesus little infants they just wanted him to touch him his disciples start rebuking them the disciples wait a minute uh we you know we're the only we only hands that lay hands on the serious stuff their time will come their time had come boys it was right then disciples are rebuking him jesus says wait a minute allow or suffer the little children to come to me and don't stop them for such is now let me understand something let's let me clarify something the bible said they brought onto him also infants that's that's a translation correct usage is little children you know little children small children uses our translation uses the word infants and we think of babies jesus says no you in other words watch suffer them to come to me allow them to come so obviously it's not infants they're not usually running around walking and coming to somebody on their own cognizance their own speed then he says this for such is the kingdom of god think about this children they just want to be touched by him and he says that's where it starts just let me touch them their children children are supposed to be touched they're supposed to be welcomed that's why all right for all of you real spiritual ones that's why we let our little children sometimes oh if they get too little rambunctious we kind of we'll ease down there amongst them and just kind of calm them down a little bit but that's why we let them just get out there and just frolick why because we want the spirit to touch them they have no idea of the depths but if they can get touched but the problem is when adults have finally reached a place they're adults and they've been touched ten thousand times and they're still children oh i got me a touch today i understand that and i take it within its context and that's that's good but i fear that there sometimes are those amongst us that are living from touch to touch and the extent of who what their spiritual being and person is is literally consistent and exists only from touch to touch which is why they can get a touch on sunday and be a sinner on tuesday and get a touch maybe on wednesday depends on whether or how the service goes and if we don't have the touch on wednesday by the time they go from sunday to friday or saturday they are in desperate need for another touch on sunday it's like their drug addicts going from fix to fix but they're never really getting anything that satisfies and there's no real depth because they're living from touch to touch they've never matured they'd never stepped out they never walked through the gate they never understood and so i and i'm i'm gonna just call a spade a spade as they say there are there are folks uh i know i grew up in a youth group that some of them lived that way and today they're nowhere anywhere near the house of god there were nowhere near the things of god they're so far out in the world they don't even know where they're at themselves and yet god is still doing what he's doing and for those of us that for some reason god was merciful to us and we was that some something in us just said i'm not giving up i'm not quitting i'm going through that door if i have to bust it down now i'm going to find my way into the things of god and we found our way in and god honored that but even then god didn't let us live in the world of touch to touch but god said you got to come on now you got to develop faithfulness you got to develop trustfulness you got to develop the things that will carry you through the darkness you got to develop the things in me that'll cause you to be stronger when everything around you is falling and you can stand up in the midst of adversity and when your friends are saying let's go this way and you know it's not the right way you'll stand up and say no i'm not going that way because something in me and in my walk with god i'm not living from sunday to sunday and to think a young person in this church once said that they feel like the reason why they keep going back and sinning is because that's the only time they feel god is when they come to church on sunday and then they can repent get the altar and cry that's the only time they feel god and when that was spoken into my ears i'm telling you tonight something in my heart just dies and let me tell you something you can't blame it on anybody but yourself you say oh if my parents this no because you got folks sitting right beside you that their parents ain't never been never been around no they ain't living for god they they don't even understand anything about it but yet they're they're there right there they made up their mind and they they got it they got the vision they walked through the door they decided i'm going for the things of god i'm not about to let things sidetrack me i'm not going to let things keep me down i'm going to grow i'm going to become i'm going to develop ah that's what happened with the rich young ruler right after the thing with the little ones isn't it interesting right after the touch here comes to here comes the one known in the scripture as the rich young ruler jesus makes the statement whosoever will not receive the kingdom of god receive it as a little child you got to be willing to let it touch you shall in no eyes enter therein because touching for a purpose it's not just as i've already said and right on the heels of that here comes a certain ruler answer what do i do to inherit internal life you know do the commandments don't commit adultery don't kill don't steal don't be a false witness our father mother isn't that funny he only said half of them and he said i've oh i've done all that from my youth up okay you're lacking one more thing then i hope you can go through this door here's we're gonna find out sell everything you have distribute it to the poor you'll have treasure in heaven and then come and follow me follow me there was others that said we'll follow you we'll follow you wherever you go and his reply was the foxes have holes the birds of the air have nests the son of man had nowhere to lay his head no there's some some things that he reserved for himself he knew that we couldn't go to calvary for him there is much illusion to that in that response this is where jesus said it's easier for a camel rich to go go through the a needle's eye and unless some of you heard that one explanation of the needle gate in that wall of jerusalem just break it down study the context he was literally referring to the eye of a needle something used to sew with this is also borne out in the fact that the disciples said then who can be saved they recognize the impossibility of it which it was not impossible to go through the needle gate they had to strip the animal down and it was small enough for them to go through proverbially peter jumps and says we've left all followed you and watch what jesus says there's nobody that's left father mother house's parents brother wife children for the kingdoms of god's sake who will not receive more and not in fact he says manifold more manifold is too is dissected into two words manny fold or many folds in other words like a book as many each page is a fold manny fold more in this present time and in the world to come life everlasting see the thing about little ones is this there's no pre-existing ideologies there's no pre-existing opinions that are going to jump up and go into battle against god's laws they just feel the touch and boom and the distribution to the poor i'm moving quickly now i know you're getting tired it had everything to do with answering a call that was above it was much deeper than keeping the law see to jesus the rulers keeping of the law had it was it had significance but it didn't have the impact there was no there was no depth to it that's why in another place he said you know you have heard that it's been said thou shalt not commit adultery but i say to you if you look on her to lust after her you've committed it in your heart already he's saying look there the law in many ways is shallow and i'm trying to call you to a depth of something to where you're protected from the inside out not the outside in that's what the law did the lord just said a bunch of rules and regulations and then law is good you need the law we still live under aspects of the law absolutely murder that's that's one of the ten commandments it's funny to me how people won't throw away the bible but then they claim morality i don't believe in god i'm an atheist but i believe we should all just be good you shouldn't steal you shouldn't rob you shouldn't shouldn't commit murder you shouldn't do all this where do you think you got all those shouldn'ts well oh yeah i'm i'm i'm done i'm you're we're out and i am too but i'm gonna tell you what if if you if anybody tries to live on the edge of this beings in a state of stasis for very long you can't survive there something will come along they will undercut everything someone will come along so i i'm gonna answer for me as a pastor as a person i can't stop i can't stop i have to keep moving i have to keep keep becoming as a pastor every i gotta reset but when i reset i gotta i gotta reset or god says this is where we're gonna go and i don't know buckle your seat belts it's gonna be a ride and i'm telling you you're either gonna get in and live for god and you're gonna get out because you ain't gonna be able to stand the pressure because i'm personally determined if you think we're having church now i'd like to ratchet up about a hundred times to where you can't even walk in the door and you're just you you just start shaking as soon as you walk through the door say pastor i don't believe it oh yeah oh yeah i think it's time you know we can actually get back in the prayer room to where the prayer room heats up so hot you can't even get out here to have church because it explodes out of the prayer room and everything just spills out here and people are running shouting dancing talking in tongues and getting the holy ghost and people that are walking in the door they just as soon as they walk in they hold those falls out of it boom say i you mean it can be like that why not look at the day of pentecost you know it's just 120 spilled out on the street there's 3 000. i doubt if anybody that was in the street that day said you know i think i'll go out in the street here today something unusual is going to really happen it's going to be amazing it's going to sweep me right up in it no just the holy ghost was there and god did the rest but he had a bunch of people that were one accord they'd all decided there was only 120 of them out of a whole lot of folks that had gone here and there and everywhere but that 120 said we're hanging out right here and we're waiting because we know and what was i doing they were acting they were dealing with the tension there there's pursuit they're they're worried yes they were they were still after him all those jesus had disappeared and now there's all the rumors that they saw him and and all this kind of chief priests are after him the scribes are after him the romans are after him all kinds of people were after him but they'd made up their mind anybody got your mind made up let's stand let's clap our hands of the lord let's give him some praise god thank you thank you for your word thank you for your presence thank you for your spirit lead us in the holy ghost help me pray right now lord we need you we need you to help us we need you to guide us we need you oh god to direct us lord help us to pray teach us lord ignite in us that's something uh that will push us lord that will lead us even as you were led by the spirit into the wilderness so that you could come forth with power in jesus name we believe you and praise you for it hallelujah and while i'm at it before you go saturday night at 7 is church prayer some of you seem to think because we have it every week that all of a sudden it's only for a select few it is for the whole church you should come and pray from seven to eight that's all we're doing there's no no testimonies the preacher's not gonna preach well he might you never know but generally we come and we pray and i'm telling you when the whole church will come on saturday night and pray but we have to become [Music] faithful by the way that includes our church leadership and i'll let you go home on that one you

Channel: The Sanctuary Apostolic Pentecostal Church

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Length: 104min 22sec (6262 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 23 2021