Entanglement // Pastors Earl and Oneka

hey family happy sunday well or it might be monday exactly or tuesday or friday or friday night we're just glad you're here that's right friday night before you go to the club welcome to shoreline city it's going to be a great great time i'm earl i'm one my beautiful wife oh nica and we are in a relationship series that we're incredibly excited about i cannot wait to see what god is going to do in all of our lives today i pray that you are ready the title the title of today's message honey is entanglement hey come on somebody here we go uh if you're if you're watching no matter where you are on your couch what we said a sunday monday doesn't matter what day it is you're either married or single you're either male or female so what we're going to talk about today is going to meet you exactly where you are some of you have been divorced others of you have never been married some folks are in a relationship right now and some folks are really wanting to be in one or maybe not being one at all and the beautiful thing about relationships is i think sometimes people think ah relationship message i'm gonna tune this out but bottom line is you have relationship with your family your relationship with your friends you have relationship with your boss with the teams you lead with your professors and so this isn't just a relationship talk about someone who's dating or married it's actually about the relationships that we all handle in life yes so uh last week and you're welcome to go back and check that out on our youtube we talked about offense and it was a very very uh heartfelt i think necessary conversation that we want to encourage you to go take a look at but but today as we talk about the this aspect of relationships and entanglement i can't wait to see what god is going to do with all of us i remember uh honey you and i we were i think oh actually this is a sad moment this is when uh granny passed that's okay okay so i remember that's the thing i just never know what he's gonna say that's right so i'm just rolling with him so what is oh and oh nigga's beautiful grandmother uh her name was eunice yes eunice great grandma name uh she went to uh went to heaven and we went and just were kind of you know cleaning up her house and putting things here and there and um remember you remember bernard was there so i'm 20 something at the time right and bernard was in his 40s but the man looks so good number one black don't crack right so he is looking real good and he's in his 40s but he is fit and i'm like how does he look this good in his 40s because when you're in your 20s and you're talking to somebody in their 40s they're old i mean they're they're about to go to heaven basically i mean it's like they are archaic they're a dinosaur and now i'm in my 40s and i realize it's not as far away as you think 20-somethings but you're sitting there and i'm looking at i'm like man how are you in such great shape what's your secret tell me your secret because i know i want to look like you in my 40s tell me your secret and he goes hmm i don't know consistency [Music] wow that is not a protein powder no it's not a pill it's the most non-sexy answer you can possibly get consistency but it's a necessary answer and anyone that has done anything significant over a long period of time understands it's not all the sexy stuff that makes it really really special it is like that just hard nose grinded out trust god keep on putting one foot giving up not giving up and in our day and age we want to have pretty and shiny and i'm just telling you we'll just tell you right now you would rather have ugly and faithful come on somebody ugly and faithful then you want to have pretty and a liar i'll just tell you that right now because that pretty and you can't trust them pretty and they're not uh faithful pretty and they can't be consistent pretty and you don't know what side of the mouth they're talking out of so good i'm telling you would rather have somebody that's like he's all right but i know he's a man of god somebody put that in the chat somebody put it in a comment right now because somebody put that on their instagram you someone needs that right now stop looking at just on the outside today we're gonna deal with that stuff that's on the inside and help us become who god has called us to be uh romans chapter 12 verse number two honey i'm so excited one of my favorite passages of scripture if i can open up my bible here romans chapter 12 verse number two it says do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will be able to test and approve what god's will is his good pleasing and perfect will do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind honey when you read that passive scripture right there what does it speak to you i start thinking about all the relationships and all the things that we see on social media and i think that that's a pattern that many of us apply our lives to so we see these couples or we see these single people living their best life or we see these entrepreneurs and business owners living their best life on the gram but what we don't see is the behind the scenes and time and time again i've heard so many stories of companies ending or relationships ending that on paper on instagram they just were living their best life like i wanted their life and so i think a lot of times we apply our life towards what we see on our phones instead of what the word of god says and i think if more of us took the time to be consistent to do the work that we would have relationships that don't just look good on instagram because it's okay to look at on instagram i'm all about a filter in a second give me a filter in a second i am not mad but at the end of the day what matters is one on the inside because what's on the inside moved by god's presence is what produces something that other people can live off of yeah so so good so we want to uh throw this on the screen for you real quick okay it is it is not intention that determines where you end up no my friends no no it is direction not intention that determines your destination it is direction not intention that determines your destination this is a quote i heard years and years ago and and it has stuck with me it's actually from a book i can't remember the name of the book but this quote right here is something that you and i need to take on because we all have the best of the purest of motives at the beginning everyone's like yes i want to have a great relationship yeah i want my company to have this kind of culture yeah i want my family to feel like this oh i grew up in this type of house so whenever i have a wife whenever i have a husband or whenever i raise my kids this is the type of parent i want to be oh this is the type of friend i want to be this is the type of a connect group i want to have and you can have all the best intentions in the world but if you do not have the right direction it does not matter what your intentions are you'll end up in the wrong spot you and i uh just took a flight uh to california and uh we got on a plane that was headed to california we intended to go to california if we intended to go to california but we got on a plane that was going to europe it would not matter what our intention was if we're on a plane that's headed to europe and there are too many of us in our relationships right now come on listen to me here follow follow along with us there's too many of us right now that we have the intention to go to california but the direction of our relationships is headed to europe there is they are not founded in god's word there's not the humility that is needed they're not the tools that are needed there's not the language that's understood that's not the surrender to the work of the spirit that is necessary we are conforming our lives to the pattern of this world and not being transformed by the renewing of our minds and because of that we're surprised when we end up in europe but we ought not be surprised because that was a plane we were always on but today give it this handshake uh uh today we're going to help individuals we're going to help ourselves yes get to the place and learn i want to get better yes we're going to get to the place that god has for every single one of us i think what's so powerful about these conversations is many of us did not grow up in homes where this was modeled for us or our families had their own companies or crushed it in school but a lot of times don't spend the time to talk about how do you make this work and i think if we just look at other people's lives through photos but we don't have conversations we fool ourselves it's similar to when i cook something i love to bake cookies and pies and i just love to make sure she does yeah it's gotten the best of us in this season but hey you still look good it's all good but with that said when i leave out an ingredient it looks actually like the cookie on the outside it has the same shape the same coloring but when i leave out salt or i leave out vanilla it doesn't taste right and i think that just like life if we just apply our lives and try to make them look like other people's lives that we see on social media or on tv or we see other people crushing it in their companies but we miss the ingredient of community we miss the ingredient of being planted in god's house we miss the ingredient of prayer we miss the ingredient of consistency that's why it's not working out and i think by taking moments like this to be teachable to be leaned in to just talk about how do you make relationships last how do you deal with the fence just like we talked about last week i think these are things that we can build on because so many of us go into things not teachable and then we end up pulled over on the side of the road feeling like how did i get here but the bottom line is we're going to make mistakes we're going to fall we're going to have to pull over and ask for ask for help but if we have some of these handles that we're gonna talk through today i feel like it's gonna strengthen us in every relationship yes that is so so good uh we've got a little thought and and here it is we all want the blessing of god i know you do i do we want the blessing of god on our relationships every last one i know that about you we know that about you but too many times we don't want to follow the path of god for our relationships and this my friends is where the rubber meets the road this is where you and i have to wrestle with things because we're saying god i i i want it i want it i want i want your blessing on this but then we're not wanting to walk in the path that he has for us i think about the bride who's had her pinterest board saved since the time she was little or someone about to start their company or someone even in the ministry you might think oh it's all every detail that i put into the wedding is the most important but really it's the details that you put into the marriage that are most important same thing with people that you see start their own companies or people that are crushing it in real estate so many times we think okay if i have the office if i have the clothes if i have the trench coat if i have the connections that's the car if i have the car that's what's going to give me favor in real estate but what we're leaving out is the hard work the late hours the perseverance to being leaned in to being teachable we're forgetting something people i've i know so many people that are want to go into full-time ministry and so they think oh i need a leather coat and a certain type of jeans and a certain little shoe boot um and some fresh frames and i'm ready to go on ministry but my friend that is not ministry do not be fooled by just a leather jacket that is not the thing that's going to give you the endurance when the test comes the breaking comes the living life with people the celebrations the pain the hurt we need something that's not seen we need strength we need consistency we need to apply our lives with the principles found in scripture and that's what gives us endurance and that's how you keep smiling even when it's all crazy this is so so good just for the record i love sitting next to you you're the best okay everything you're sharing is so so life-giving we've got some practicals here we're going to get really really practical yeah we're talking about not conforming to the pattern of this world but being transformed by the renewing of our mind not getting entangled the pattern of this world so here is one of the very first principles that we practicals we want to share with every single one of us can i say something to you really quick before you go to the practicals the crazy thing about entanglement is you don't plan it it's not like you plan to be entangled in something that you don't want to be in you really it's not a plan it's not you don't write it in your general dear journal dear diary i want to get i want to do this business deal that i know is going to cause me to lose my integrity dear diary i want to get into a relationship with someone else who's already in a relationship hello hello dear diary you know we don't plan to fall into these entanglements these traps it's actually when we don't have our course set correctly but sometimes it's because we don't have the right handles or we didn't have the right conversations to prepare us and so i just want to say if you find yourself in a spot today where you're blaming yourself we just want you to know there's no shame there's no condemnation but now you know and so we're praying that our just the eyes of our hearts would just be opened to see to move where god wants us to move to make changes when we need to make changes and to just to be teachable this is so so good first and foremost and we're going to the shallow end first stop letting anger control you stop letting anger control you james chapter one we're going to read verses 19 and 20. my dear brothers and sisters take note of this everyone should be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that god desires some of you are angry already that i even shared this verse of scripture because this is something that continues to trip you up you can look at relationship after relationship co-worker after co-worker boss after boss employee after employee maybe maybe boyfriend after boyfriend a girlfriend after girlfriend and you can see where your anger has inserted itself and it has destroyed something that god was trying to build we got to stop letting anger control us i want you to understand this when you and i become followers of jesus christ when we give our hearts and our lives over to him there are two amazing things that happen one is this thing called salvation and that happens in a moment but there's another thing called sanctification and that happens over a lifetime and too many of us have just had this salvation moment but we're not allowing god to do his sanctifying work his cleansing work his changing work on the inside of us so i just want us to pause for a second and at least be willing to look in the mirror and go hey i've got to deal with this i'll be uh honest here when we were first getting married remember this honey and i remember i remember this this anger thing was something i'm a pretty nice guy what do you think one of the nicest i think i'm a nice guy but i had this anger thing on the inside of me that came from i won't get into all the other stuff where daddy is yeah yeah you know you have issues growing up and you know you've got all different things so you end up with this with this anger that honestly i it did not raise its ugly head very often but man there were a few times in my life i can really remember it was not something that was controlling me but there were some moments that i was just like man i took that too far and i remember remember sitting with our uh um marriage count pre-marriage counselors bill and lisa schuler and we're sitting with them and barnes and noble remember barnes and nobody barnes and noble pour it out this is now what we're we're married 23 years so this is maybe 25 years ago so crazy 24 years ago we're sitting with them and somehow we begin to get on this anger topic and i remember bill schuler who is another incredibly nice guy coming at me with so much force to remind me and let me know earl you can never ever raise your voice at your wife you can never put your hands on your what i had never done any of those things you know thank god but he was trying to attack this area of my life so aggressively and it took a man that i respected looking at me eyeball to eyeball saying hey you're not going to let this control you and destroy this marriage that god is giving you and i want to look at every man eyeball to eyeball and let you know you are a new creation in christ jesus the old is gone and the new is here and you do not have any excuse whatsoever to allow yourself to bubble boil over so much that the people that you love are afraid of you we want to kill this thing on the inside of you and he whom the son has set free is free indeed i not only speak that over you but i want you to receive that into your heart that you can be the type of man that walks with kindness and integrity and love and compassion and mercy and you do not have to allow the pains and the fears of your past to dictate your emotions this my friends is what we need in order for our relationships to not end up in all the entanglement that they can end up in that's so good and i think many of us grow up in homes where people just lose their cool or lose their chill no chill and just just speak their mind but with venom and just to tear down and i think for some of us this is revelation because we've been so surrounded with people that just say the first thing that's on their mind that are quick to go straight to anger of course we all have felt anger deal with anger it's a real emotion and real response but i think the key is the people that we do life with it's important that we don't use our words and our anger to destroy to deconstruct to tear down to prove a point let's we can go on a walk or we can leave the room we can take some deep breaths but we don't here's a here's a major key right now here's something for free for someone right now you don't have to actually say everything you think let's just let that marinate for a second every single thought you have you do not have to express them or verbalize them to the person that you're having them about there's been so many times through the course of our over 20 years of marriage that i've thought things that i have not said to earl thank you yes because i what things i don't know any given moment but there's so many things in the heat of an argument or a discussion that i could have said that i know would be cutting but then in james it talks about it talks about controlling our tongue because our tongues can just get us into a lot of trouble but it takes self-control it takes practice and i know i have so many friends that say i only have hot or cold i can go 100 in a second but it can be taught because we both grew up in homes where our families were loud but we just decided that that wasn't going to be the culture of our home so you can decide right now i'm not going to just use my words as a knife to just cut destroy and to cause someone's heart to bleed because i can there are other skill sets in communication that god wants us to develop because if you have anger issues at home lord knows that at your job you probably have the same anger issues or with your classmates or when you're playing sports with friends we can be passionate we can have real frustration but there's a healthy way to deal with our emotions like anger and we're just talking through this because for many of us we didn't know that you don't have to yell or to be cutting to get a point across god did not give you a spirit of fear but a spirit of power love and self-discipline the fruit of the spirit love joy peace kindness faithful gentleness goodness and self-control against such there is no law you actually received when you gave your heart to jesus a new spirit and the the lie of the world the pattern of the world is to say oh you're just always that old you no my friends you've been given a new you on the inside and if you and i are willing to continue to allow god to renew our minds the word of god to renew our minds and remind ourselves of our identity in christ you actually have everything that you need to be all that god has called you to be that's just number one number two stop letting your wounds protect you stop letting your wounds protect you the reason we want you to stop letting your wounds protect you is because they can't and so many of us right now are living lives where we have allowed the pain of our past to dictate the relationships of our present and our future and all of these pains and all of these scars that are legitimate all of the times that people hurt you stabbed you in the back did not treat you right spoke ill of you said they would be with you and they're not with you all of these things are very very real we have experienced them you have experienced them and if you haven't experienced them yet just live a little bit longer but all of us end up with wounds every last one of us but if you and i continue to live and lead from our from the pain of our wounds thinking those wounds can protect us i'm telling you they're not protecting us at all in actuality they're imprisoning us john chapter 20 verses 25 through 27 you want to read this honey you want me to i'll read it so the other disciples told him we have seen the lord but he said to them unless i see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side i will not believe verse 27 then he said to thomas put your fingers here see my hands reach out your hand and put it into my side stop doubting and believe do you see this is an interaction between jesus and thomas who got a terrible name doubting thomas i mean that's a rough name to have who wants that i mean here comes doubting thomas i mean what if you were labeled by the one time that you really messed up right i can go down the list of names i could have on my on my life but here in this moment thomas like i'm not going to believe unless i can see the wounds see the scars and jesus because he was not allowing his wounds to protect him all of you guys left me all of you guys ran away i was in my darkest hour and you weren't there for me here i was on the cross and i could only see john and and some other ladies that were willing to stand by my side where were all of you you said you were my writer dies you said we rolled together we die together where are you at now jesus did not say any of that instead he said hey i'm not going to use these wounds to keep me in prison to keep me hiding out i'm not going to stay in this tomb because of my wounds as a matter of fact i'm going to allow the resurrection power of almighty god of the spirit to take me out of this tomb and now i'm going to allow my wounds to be the thing that helps somebody else believe stop letting your wounds protect you they can't some of you won't get in a connect group because of past wounds some of you are only willing to watch church online because of past wounds some of you aren't willing to have some friendships because of your past wounds some of us aren't willing to start the company that we know god is asking us to start because of past wounds we're asking you by the grace that god provides to not allow your wounds to protect you because they can't all right honey if you got some kids in the room right now we're about to go to another topic here so uh it's a topic that begins with s so if you have some kids in the room and you don't want them to hear this give them ear muffs or throw on the ipad give them the ipad put on youtube kids or something some jojo cy or whatever throw some fortnite on because here we go this next one is a vital vitally important one stop letting sex drive you stop letting sex drive you first corinthians chapter 6 verses 18 through 20. you want to read that honey sure flee from sexual immorality all their signs excuse me flee from sexual immorality all other sins a person commits are outside the body but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body verse 19 do you not know that your bodies are temples of the holy spirit who is in you whom you have received from god you are not your own you are bought with a price therefore god therefore honor god with your bodies okay you are not your own wow this verse right did you not know yeah i we were talking and we actually thought people don't know they genuinely don't know like it sounds like some archaic sounds crazy yeah if you don't know yeah some kind of i don't know random traditional maybe overly religious i i don't know there could be a whole bunch of thoughts that people can have around this but we just want to let you know that the idea of you just having sex with your spouse that might be new for you but my friends it's not new to the way of of following christ and we want to let you know if you don't know this is his path for you you're like oh no you're in my business now leave me alone do you expect me do you expect me as a 32 year old not to have sex until i'm married what's your answer honey yep wait you expect me i'm 21 and i've got all this energy you expect me not to have sex until i'm married what's our answer honey do you not sounds crazy right i know it's quiet listen i also want to let it sink in we recognize we recognize that this is definitely not the pattern of this world not easy it is so not easy yo do you know how bad onika wanted my body when we were dating do you know i mean you want to tell them it was so difficult for o'nika i'm like honey read first corinthians chapter 6 verse 18 through 20. i ain't doing this that's basically our whole relationship and then i married her it's not true at all i'm not even acknowledging that i'm not i'm just not but in all honesty we did by the grace of god and it was incredibly difficult we actually waited until we were married to have sex it's crazy right we did it but can i just tell you and today can be anyone's first start come on it can be someone in high school's fresh start someone in college someone who's dating today can be your day of just let god wash over you cleanse you reset you renew you he wants your whole body today can be your day and i think it's actually the secret sauce when you do something god's way he blesses it and honors it and actually teaches you self-control so that when you are married and you are on a job and there is someone cute who's your co-worker you've actually already practiced self-control because just because you have a ring on does not mean you're not tempted does not mean that you don't notice if someone's attractive or attracted to you rings don't do anything like they really don't actually people still do stuff with rings so rings they're not going to save you but what we'll save you is um character what will save you is making the tough choices ahead of time and so i actually feel like was it hard yes it was not easy i mean look at them and those biceps those biceps just wow just wow but i had to learn self-control but i really think to this day over 20 years married earl still by the grace of god is very madly in love with me but yes i am but i think it's because thank you he had to wait so he appreciates the gift that god gave him and me and vice versa vice versa so i just encourage y'all like let's have different relationships because the way we're all doing things now doesn't really work anyways so we might as well try something new if we're willing to try keto shout out to the people doing keto i'm not doing keto but those of you that are putting like a stick of butter in your coffee and just eating meat like steak after steak after steak because you're like hey my carb life wasn't working i'm trying something new so why don't we apply that same discipline that same self-control because it sounds crazy like if someone told you five years ago you're gonna be putting butter in your coffee you'd have looked at them like they lost their mind and some of you are looking at us today like wait you want me to save sex for marriage like what what planet are you from but i just promise you time and time again i've seen the faithfulness of god when someone decides to fast something to say god i trust you just like we trust him with our resources and we give ten percent of our of our income it's the same thing with our sexuality when you say god i have all these desires because this is why you wired me but i'm gonna trust you and i'm not gonna let my desires rule over me i'm gonna trust you for self-control he blesses that he honors that and then you get to know each other so shows like the bachelor are fun like i'm so not mad at the bachelor it's actually really got a bachelor connection we have a bachelor connect group shout out to all the bachelor connect groups but the bottom line is that is not real life they're not talking about the things that we're talking about today to actually strengthen a relationship a dinner on the beach going to an amusement park together that's all fun and even they make it seem more glamorous than it really is but when you have these handles and you decide you know what i'm going to honor you your body is a temple and it is a beautiful temple that i admire yes yes it is but i'm going to trust god with every desire that i have because i want to build something that will last and i feel like many of us today are looking for relationships that will last and this what we're talking about right now it is a secret sauce because so many relationships christian relationships are ending left and right dating and marriage because we don't know how to control our sexuality so many churches real talk are no longer in existence because the leaders did not know how to control their bodies so if pastors and leaders are struggling with this obviously we need to stop we need to keto and just rethink how we approach sexuality because something's broken wow for those of you who are dating someone right now and this is an active part of your relationship you know sex and and all that comes with it you can pause we just had a family in the church and uh this is last year oh maybe a year and a half ago the the the husband or the fiance at the time got baptized got down on a knee asked his fiancee to or asked his girlfriend to become his wife after he gets baptized he has the ring then his girlfriend has a son and he is on his knee for that son and gives this young man a ring too and it's like hey i'm gonna be your dad i've got you i love you we're all bawling our eyes out from baptism to two rings on the finger to the commitment it was amazing well that hus that that um man and woman they just got married a few weeks ago they've been living together they were living together before he got baptized and been living here the whole time they stopped sleeping together for the entire year year and a half until they made their marriage official god is going to honor that it is making an announcement not only even to that young man the ring that was put on that young man's finger was one thing but his father his stepfather making this not even step this this uh beautiful relationship god relationship that has been put together he has made a mark on that young man's heart friends this is what we feel god is calling us to and if we want to be the light in the world then we get the opportunity to have him reflect in every single area of our lives and i just want to say something to the next generation those that are younger than earl and i which are most we're now the old people in the room i just want to remind us to that it is a gift our sexuality is a gift your beauty or your handsomeness is such a gift from god but you don't have to put it out there on blast to get attention i know that as i'm raising a young girl and my youngest daughter who's five and i'm raging raising a 16 year old alongside my husband and a ten-year-old boy i see the things that are on instagram and i see what girls that are 15 16 14 i see what guys that are the same age are just putting out there and i think in your mind you're like hey i'm confident in my body don't body shame me i have the right to express and show my body because this is god's gift i mean i'm not saying don't be confident but what i am saying is you don't have to dumb yourself down to become for someone to be attracted to you that there's another way and i see the things that people are putting out there on all the devices tick tock snapchat instagram all of it and when i have a 10 year old son that walks by when i'm on my feed it's kind of scary what's out there and so i just want to encourage that there is a better way you can still be 100 you 100 confident and celebrate your body and all that god has done with it at the gym for the guys or for the girls who are like love me this is who i am but there's another part that is actually going to last outlast even your body and that's your mind your heart your passion your strength and so i just want to encourage us to just leave some mystery um that we don't have to put it all out there because i know for me as i raise my sons i want them to continue to honor every single woman and value every single woman and i know that those that are raising daughters want sons to do the exact same thing and so let's have those conversations with one another let's coach and encourage each other in the best way not in a judging way i'm not judging that's right i'm not judging anyone who likes to just um show their bodies all of them i'm not judging you but i am just saying help a mom out of some teenagers here and let's have the conversations and remind each other that our worth and identity is not found on the outside that there's something even more beautiful on the inside so so good i know we've got a couple others here hon do you want to share them want to just do one more no more what do you think scripture or story um practical principle let's just fire just real quick real quick we'll fire these last two okay stop letting your urges bury you now when you say urges you think sexual no we're not talking sexual we're talking i'm talking actually on this one more financial stop letting your urges bury you the urge to look like the joneses your urge to match this person's lifestyle your urge to make sure you measure up your urge to make sure you put off a certain persona listen my friends you want to know what's sexy being out of debt i love that that is attractive yeah it's like oh wow you got money in the bank dang okay that right there that's beautiful that's handsome you can write down the scripture we won't read it right now proverbs chapter 23 uh verses one and two i think i might go all the way to verse number three uh which talks about when you're sitting at the king's table and the king has all this food here the bible says it's kind of graphic put a knife to your throat don't be a glutton okay don't try to look at those delicacies and think i just want all of that and too many of us are looking at the world around us feeling like we got to have a certain type of shoe certain type of clothes certain type of house certain type of neighborhood certain type and certain type of school that we have to go to and we're burying ourselves in debt and putting ourselves in holes and we're making ourselves slaves to the debtor uh the slaves to the lender and instead god is like hey i want you to be free to be generous i want you to be free to do the things that i put in your heart i want you to be free to be able to build my kingdom i want you to be able to be free to not have all this weight on your shoulders and on your mind so go ahead and go to financial peace university don't conform to the pattern of this world the pattern of this world is let me just swipe and swipe and swipe and swipe and swipe until i am in a hole and we get this past year has been hard for so many of us and maybe credit cards are the things that have been keeping us afloat is what we feel like but i need you to not get into that pattern let's trust god to break that so we don't pass it on to our kids we don't share with our roommates and instead we can be a people that are living free don't let your urges bury you and last but certainly not least stop letting your friends fool you get some good friends around you proverbs chapter 13 verse 20 says whoever walks with the wise grows wise but a companion companion of full suffers harm that's what the scripture says i even think less is more sometimes less friends is more because if you have six friends that you think this is my crew they get me we roll together but they're not leading you correctly and your life is not better as a result of running with them sometimes it's just better to have one are they ready to grow with you into the new version of you that right there because if they're not ready to grow with you into the new version of you the transformed version of you the virgin of you that god is trying to make you into so that you can reflect his glory and his light in his life everywhere you go if they're not ready to do that i'm not we're not saying you got to cut them off completely but they probably should not have the same authority in your life that they had before and you have to be willing and i'm i'm loyal right i'm a i'm a loyalist i know nick is loyal like we got the friends we got the friends we ain't letting them go we ain't letting them go and i'm not saying you got to let them go but it might have to be a change and you got to be okay with that change because everyone might be used to the silly version of you but they're not ready for the entrepreneur version of you so you got to have some friends that are like i not only love you for where you are i love you for coming here for where you're going and what god has on the inside of you and you succeeding is not an indictment on me as a matter of fact you succeeding pulls me up higher you need some friends around you like that as i as do i and i'm thankful that we have those friends we try to be that for each other that's what we're saying being community that's what we're saying run with each other that group there's so many awesome connect groups at shoreline city if you want to go deeper in the bible there's a connect group if you're a sneakerhead and you just love fresh shoes there's a connect group if you love basketball there's a connect group if you love reading those thick books those books that just take a lifetime to read there's a connect group for you if you love to cook there's a connect group for online in person children there's a connect group for you if you're older and fabulous and we're thinking i'm the only one in charlotte city who's older and fabulous you are not the only one there's a whole community of men and women that are your age that want to be in community with you get in a connector we want to encourage people uh not only on a sunday but every day throughout the week you don't have a church family you're a part of come on jump on this journey with us we would love to be a part of helping you become who god has called you to be we want to see you be raised up to be a christ-like leader who makes it on earth as it is in heaven no matter where you are around the world you can be a part of this family i pray today the words that onik and i shared have been an encouragement to your heart i pray that today you've been able to see a little bit more of what scripture says about you as we've been trying to point all of us to jesus christ we're not just talking about self-help here we're talking about a transformed life that happens by an encounter with the living god there's no shame there's no condemnation and we pray that you you don't feel beat down at all what we want you to do is feel inspired and we also want you to feel convicted and allowing the holy spirit to meet you exactly where you are i was challenged today by some things onika said i pray that god is illuminating to you the exact thing that he wants you to be working on and the good news is he doesn't want you to do it alone but maybe you're with us today and you've never given your heart and your life to christ you've never made them number one you've never made them first in your life and you are with us today you're saying you don't want to go your own way anymore you want to go his way you don't want to be first in your life you want him to be first and we're not asking do you want to join a church we're asking we're not asking do you have a bible we're asking are you ready to say jesus you can be in the driver's seat of my life this is a moment of transformation a moment of salvation a moment where you get a brand new start and you no longer walk on your own path but you walk on his if that's you today you've never given your heart to christ at one point in time you did and you've gone your own direction and today you're ready to surrender or re-surrender your life to jesus i'm gonna ask you to do me a favor just put your hand over your heart right now i'm gonna ask you to repeat this prayer out loud after me say dear jesus i ask you to forgive me of all my sins i admit i made mistakes and today i give you my heart i give you my life give me the power to live for you in jesus name amen hey i just led you in some vows come on can we clap our hands all over the place all over the world whether you're in bahamas or europe or you're in colorado or the west coast or east coast no matter where you are you're in central america or south america we know that this is a moment of a brand new beginning we want to know that you've taken this step would you mind texting jesus first to 97 000 text jesus first to 97 000 gives us an opportunity to follow up and connect with you answer any questions you might have and help you along this journey because their next step honey is growth track that's your next step your next step is to get joined in connected with the family let's link arms together and make it on earth as it is in heaven we're going to see this world turn right side up for the cause of jesus christ there is so much god has in store for you there's so much he wants to do in you and through you and i'm glad we get to be changed and transformed by his love his power and his spirit hey we're about to sing in just a moment but before we sing i want to remind us of our wonderful the wonderful honor we have to give hey i want to make sure church family we keep putting god first this is not some side issue as a matter of fact we get the chance to make sure homeless individuals have roofs over their head and even masks for their face we have an opportunity to help folks that are in natural disasters all around the world your giving is going to make a difference so do not take it lightly i dare you we dare you to take the step and begin to put god first in your resources text to give use the app give online however you choose to do it let's make sure we keep putting god first for nick and i this is not a little side issue for us it's how we shape our lives you want to talk about the pattern of this world the pattern of this world is to try to keep things to yourself the pattern of the kingdom put god first that first ten percent pour it into the church pour it into god's people and that other ninety percent god does amazing things with it that absolutely blow our mind but even more importantly it's what happened what happens in our hearts so friends let's keep on putting god first

Channel: Shoreline City Church

Views: 4,827

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: shorelinecity, earlmcclellan, onekamcclellan, entanglement

Id: hEJInsxxUAU

Length: 47min 26sec (2846 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 14 2021