And so I want to talk to you about how to stop feeling bad, how to stop feeling bad, and it may sound like a very superficial kind of teaching or feeling bad, like why would God care about that? Because God cares about everything about your life. He cares about every detail of your life, and he cares about every one of us and how we feel and what we're living and what we're going through. And he wants us to learn how to master our emotions rather than how to let our emotions rather than our emotions mastering us. You know, everybody has emotions, but we just don't want our emotions to have us. We want to be in control of them rather than them being in control of us. And I'm going to show you how to stop feeling bad. You know, I don't know if you realize this or not, but your chains are gone, your chains to sin are gone. The things that have changed us to sin and chained us to guilt and chained us to addictions and chained us to depression. The chains of of of oppression are gone. Jesus came and liberated us from all the chains that had been holding us down to a defeated life, to a fearful life, to a defeated lifea. A life of fear, a life of anxiety and life of worry. A life of depression. A life of addiction. I experienced all of those things at a very young age. And I'll talk about that with you just a moment. But I want you to realize your chains have been broken. Every one of us have been set free. The problem is, is that the devil works overtime to try to stop us from realizing the freedom that we've been given. Jesus said if the sun has set you free, you shall be free. Indeed. And so Jesus, when he died on the cross and said it is finished, he set us free from sin. He set us free from addictions. He set us free from the curse. He set us free from loneliness. He set us free from fear. He set us free from depression. He set us free from anger. He set us free from the fear of people and the fear of torture and the fear of punishment. He set us free from condemnation and guilt. But if you don't know it, you won't experience it. You could have freedom, but not enjoy your freedom because you're ignorant of it. You could have healing, but not enjoy your healing because you're ignorant, ignorant of it. You could have salvation, but not enjoy your salvation because you're ignorant of the joy of your salvation. You remember David described the joy of his salvation. He said, Restore to me, oh, Lord, the joy of my salvation. David didn't ask God to restore his salvation. Now, let me tell you something. If anybody could lose their salvation, David would have David committed adultery with Bathsheba, committed murder to get rid of Bathsheba's husband and then lied about it to everybody. And the Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart. And you know that in the Old Testament, we have a description of all of David's sins. Every time David is mentioned in the Old Testament, we can't read the Old Testament without seeing his sins. We can't read Psalm fifty one without recognizing that. That's a psalm of David's lament, David's anguish over his sin. And yet in the New Testament, when David is mentioned and he's mentioned many, many times, isn't it interesting in the New Testament, David Sin is not even mentioned once, because once Jesus died for our sins, he washed them all away under the Old Testament. There's a lot of mention of David sins. But in the New Testament, there's not one mention of David Sin, many mentions of David, but not of his sin. That's how powerful the blood of Jesus is. And when David prayed in Psalm fifty one, verse eleven or twelve, he said, Restore to me, Lord, the joy whoa. Yeah, the joy of my salvation. He didn't say restore to me my salvation because God doesn't take it away. Let me ask you something. This is a topic that people stumble over. And I don't want to be all theological on you today, but I just want you to be a. Today, because God wants to restore to you and to me the joy and the enjoyment of our salvation, the joy and the enjoyment of our salvation, and I want to show you how to stop feeling bad about your life, stop feeling bad about letting people down, stop feeling bad about not being able to do everything for your kids. Stop feeling bad about all the mistakes you made. Stop feeling bad about where you've fallen short. Stop feeling bad about what you didn't do, what you did do. We need to learn to stop feeling bad about our lives because if we let ourselves, we would be condemned the rest of our lives because we don't pray enough. Oh, I feel bad because I'm not praying enough. And then we're praying. I feel bad because I'm not reading the Bible enough and reading the Bible. I feel bad. I'm not sharing with others enough. And when we're sharing with others, I feel bad. I'm not praying enough. I feel bad. I'm not with my family enough. I feel bad. I'm not working harder. I feel bad. I'm not doing this. I feel bad. I'm not doing that. And the devil will obliterate your emotions and obliterate your life with guilt and condemnation, accusing you day and night of all that you've fallen short of. And that's why Jesus took care of the stuff. He wiped it all the way so that we don't have to suffer over our sins. We have to grieve over them anymore. We have to lament over them anymore. Jesus is asking us to beg for our salvation back because he didn't take David's salvation away. And if he could have taken away from anybody, it would have been David with all the things he did wrong. But he didn't take David's salvation away. So why is it going to take yours away? He's not ever going to do that because the Bible says in Romans eleven twenty nine, the gifts of God are without repentance. They're irrevocable. And the greatest gift of God is salvation. Because I didn't earn it. You didn't earn it. Can any can everybody agree that salvation is a gift is one of God's gifts? It's the best gift. Right? Come on, talk to me now. It's best gift. Right. And what does it say about the gifts and calling of God? They're what? Irrevocable. Irrevocable. He's not taking them back. Yeah. Sorry, you smoked a cigaret. You're gone. Sorry you had a bad thought. You're out of here. Sorry you had lust in your eyes. I'm plucking one out. Jesus, when Jesus came, he fixed it all, he washed it all away, everything was broken, everything was fragmented, everything was understood just in pieces. But when Jesus comes, he fulfills the picture and he gives a total picture of what he is and who he is and why he came. And let me show you one of the reasons he came, because he came to remove our sins, came to restore to the father. But let me show you what else he came to do. John, chapter 10, verse 10. Watch this, John. Chapter 10. Verse Ten for the thief. Jesus says the thief comes only for three reasons. What are they? The thief comes to steal. Sounds reasonable for a thief. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. This is what the devil wants to do in your life. Wants to steal, kill and destroy, Jesus said. But I have come here. Hey, I love that word. But but I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. Now the Bible says it really great and really brings the fullness of this verse. It says The thief comes only in order to steal, to kill and destroy, Jesus said. But I came that they may have and enjoy life and have it in abundance to the full till it overflows. Now, if you look at your life right now, you'd probably have to admit you're not living in this life of enjoying life, abundance to the full till it overflows. You want to know something? Everybody's going to overflow with something. You're going to overflow with bitterness. You're going to overflow with an ad negative attitude. You can overflow with complaining. You're going to overflow within gratitude. You can overflow with pessimism and you're going to overflow with a victim mentality or you're going to overflow with love and you can overflow and joy. You can overflow with peace, you can overflow with kindness and you can overflow with the life of God. But I want you to see this. These are Jesus words. He says the devil has come to steal, kill and destroy. But I have come that you may have and enjoy life. And here was my point earlier. He said that you may have and enjoy life. We all have eternal life when you are born again, when you accept Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord, you have eternal life. But he says he wants us to have it and enjoy it. He wants us to have it and enjoy it. Oh, if I can get this across to you that God wants us to have the life and we all have it, but he wants us to enjoy it too. If we could get a hold of this, I'm telling you, the greatest form of evangelism, the greatest way we can win others to Jesus is when they see the love and the joy overflowing in our lives. You cannot argue against love and joy. You can argue theology. You can argue over, you know, translation or something, you know, religious traditions. You can argue over which denomination is the more biblical dénouement. What's religion like? Oh, man. Like God doesn't want us messing with that. When we are arguing with people to try to win them. You might win an argument and lose a soul. But if you are overflowing with love, I know this might sound that's too idealistic. Come on. None of us overflow with love. Exactly. That's what I'm talking about is so much. Come on, Pastor. Nobody overflows with love. That's because you're not hearing it enough. You're not experiencing it enough. You're not enjoying God's love. Like throughout the day I'm thinking about God's love. For me, it's not a theology. To me it's not a topic. It's not a chapter. It's not a subject. Love is a person. His name is God. He's God, the father, God for us, yeah, he's God, the son, God with us, and he's God, the Holy Spirit, God in us. We're not enjoying half of our salvation. We're not enjoying 90 percent of our salvation. We're like, well, when I get to heaven, I'll enjoy my salvation, then, yeah, we're all going to enjoy it. But God doesn't want us to wait to get to heaven, to enjoy life. He wants us to have it and enjoy it now. Listen, happiness and joy and pleasure. Those are God's ideas. We got to stop letting the devil get the credit for pleasure. Pleasure, sinful, really. Then God really blew when he put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the word Eden means pleasure. He put Adam and Eve before they send he put Adam and Eve in the garden of Pleasure. Oh, pleasure is bad. You know what I believe I can't I can't define this scientifically or prove this scientifically. But if you have a hard time, if you feel if you feel guilty about feeling good, then it's most likely something happened to you growing up that hurt you really bad. Some form of abuse took place, some form of some harm has been done to you. Something devastated your life because God created mankind to live in joy and to enjoy life. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he said, Look, here's your garden and look at all these trees. And he said in Genesis chapter two, verse sixteen, he said, You see all these trees from any of them. You may eat freely, you may eat freely. You see, the first commandment that God ever gave to Adam and Eve was eat freely. Some of us actually believe the first commandment God gave was to me was to do an Atkins diet or paleo diet or what are some of the other ones, Ketel, how about we stop living in the deprivation of ever tasting anything good because we think it's bad. Like lately I've been eating a Klondike bar every night. I share with Jesus only. I'm on like the last bite, I'm like, he's like all you, bro. One 982, or as the president says to. We're getting political pressure. Oh, yeah, that's a real political oh, yeah, that's me, Mr. Political. That's another topic we should get to one day. We got to stop with all the hating. We've got to stop with all the division. We stop with picking sides. You better. Thank God. You better. Thank God God's on your side. You better just be happy with that. Like, let's settle there. Let's quit while we're ahead. God's on our side. We don't care if this politician or that politician look, politics does not rule your life. Jesus is Lord. And if you will let if you will let Jesus lead you, you're going to be a happy camper rather than being mad if so-and-so gets elected or mad if so-and-so was elected or like I've lived long enough for all the what since I've been since I've been alive. I don't know how many presidents they've been, but there are a lot of dead ones and most of the dead presidents I want in my pocket. If you catch my drift particularly well, one guy that's not that wasn't president, but Benjamin Franklin is probably my favorite historical figure because he's on the hundred dollar bill, something like, whoa, or is that coming from. I've lived through, I don't know, ten presidents or so. I can't. I don't I'd have to count to go back and count them. But my life not not one president has ever changed my life. But Jesus sure has. So. And he lets me eat the whole Klondike bar like I don't have to share with the government, don't tax my Barbro. Your chains are gone. It's like we got to realize that Paul and Silas were in prison except for 16 and they had chains on their hands, they had chains on their feet, and they were behind prison bars. And what do we find them doing? Singing and praising and praying. And the Bible says the thing that the whole prison shook when they were praising God in Chapter 16, the prison shook. When they were praying, it shook and the chains came off of their hands and the chains came off their feet and the prison doors opened and they didn't even leave. They stayed there to win the jailer to Jesus and get him saved. They didn't even leave because because those chains didn't have them right. That prison couldn't hold back their praise. That prison couldn't hold back their prayers. There's nothing the devil can try to do to you that can hold back your praise. There's nothing that could happen in your life that has to hold back your prayers. You just keep praising God anyway. You just keep thanking God anyway. You just keep worshiping him anyway and you will see the power of God show up in your life. Because I'm going to tell you something. The devil loves to disguise religion as this depressed, sad, miserable condition. Religious people are miserable. You know why? Because religion makes men miserable. But the goodness of God and the love of God and the grace of God makes men free. Religion makes us miserable, but God's love makes us free. And Victor Hugo, the great author, my favorite quote, other than something from the Bible is Victor Hugo's quote when he said, The supreme happiness in life is the assurance that you are loved. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance that you are loved. That to me, that is the greatest quote that any human being has ever has ever uttered outside of the Bible, outside of Jesus. The supreme happiness in life is the assurance that we are loved. And boy, I am sure that God loves me. Nothing I do right makes him love me more and nothing I do wrong makes him love me less. And until you get that straight, you're going to argue all you want about why he's talking about it's OK to do whatever he wants to do. And you show sin however you want to listen to me. That is a byproduct of our behavior, is a byproduct of our beliefs. Once you believe the love God has for you, you stop being a mean son of a gun. Once you believe the love that God has for you, you stop being lonely. Once you believe the love that God has for you, you stop being afraid. Once you believe the love that God has for you, you stop being insecure, you start feeling good instead of feeling bad. I used to wake up every day as a Christian after I got saved around 17 years old. I used to wake up every day sad, feeling bad about myself, feeling bad, hadn't done anything that night. It's like the guy that, you know, prays. Oh God. I just want to thank you that you know, that I just want to thank you for all your goodness. I want to thank you that you've helped me and you protected me from all the evil. I haven't done anything bad today. I haven't cost yet. I haven't heard anybody. I haven't stolen anything. I haven't lied. I haven't cheated all day. But Lord, I'm about to get out of bed this morning and I'm going to need your help then the rest of the day. Some you get that later. All right. So here's the thing. I used to wake up every day feeling bad, like I don't pray enough. I'm not holy enough, I'm not pure enough. And God wants us to be delivered from all that bondage. And he wants you to know you're enough and he's enough in you and nothing can separate you from his love. Nothing nothing can separate you from his love. And when you have that assurance, you're going to stop beating yourself up. We beat ourselves up because we're not we don't do enough for everybody. We don't do enough for our kids. We don't do enough for our for our spouse who don't do enough for our friends. We don't do enough for at our job. We just never feel like we do enough. And God doesn't want you to feel that way anymore. And look at this like as far as you being productive at your job. That's not on me, that's I'm not here to get you to be productive on your job, like if you need to be motivated your job and hire a motivational person to help you at your job and your career, go to a seminar at your job. I'm talking about at life every day, every breathing moment of your life. You can be happy, you can be fulfilled. You can be content. I mean, there are ups and downs for everybody. Don't get me wrong. But what I'm saying is we've been robbed of the joy and happiness of our salvation because we thought because we feel guilty all the time. When are we going to stop feeling guilty? Look at Romans Chapter eight. I got to show you this. Romans Chapter eight and they'll get to one of my my other points, Romans Chapter eight. Look at what he says in verse. Let's start there in verse 30, verse thirty one. What shall we say then to these things? So we're going to have to start saying some stuff. What shall we say to these things now? He just listed for us all these things and he lists form after that principalities, death, life, angels, things present things, things to calm, power, height, depth. He lists all these bad things that happen in our lives. And he says, What shall we say to these things? So you know what? You're going to have to start opening your mouth. You want to feel better about your life. You don't have to use your tongue because your tongue is the steering wheel. Your tongue is the rudder of the ship, the whole ship, a whole boat, a cruise liner. The way that it turns is with a small rudder. The boat is two football fields long, but the rudder that turns the boat is like a just a fraction of that. And anybody knows if they've ever been on a boat, a little boat, a little boat that's, you know, row, row, row your boat, six foot long boat. The thing that will turn that little motor boat is one little thing, one little piece of that motor called the rudder. And if you turn it this way, the whole boat turns that way. Our tongue, the Bible says, is the rudder of our ship. It controls the whole direction of our lives. That's why the Bible says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His prays will continually be in my mouth. Why? Because when when you're blessing Lord at all times, when you're when his praise is continually in your mouth, your whole life is going to go in that direction. Your whole life is going to follow your tongue. But he says, what shall we say to these things? We got to open our mouth. He says he did not spare his own son, but delivered him up of wait for you. Sorry, he said. What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? You'll stop feeling bad when you start saying things like this. Listen to me. It's really simple. You'll stop feeling bad when you start thinking and saying things like this. If God is for us, who can be against us? I'm just reading the Bible for you right now. If God is for me, who can personalize it? If God is for me, who can be against me? He who did not spare his own son but delivered him up over foresaw how so he not also with him freely. Give us all things. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies who is the one that condemns verse thirty four says Christ. Jesus is the one who has died. And his brother is raised from the dead whose at the right hand of the father interceding for us, who can separate us from the love of Christ. He's saying these are the things that we need to be saying. What shall we say to these things? What shall we say to our guilt? What shall we say to our condemnation? What shall we say to when we feel bad about ourselves? We shall say, if God before me, who can be against me? That's what we should say. God didn't withhold his own son. Why would he withhold anything from me? Go over with me to First Timothy, Chapter six. Now first, Timothy, Chapter six, one of the scriptures I've been meditating on and thinking about for the last year or so. And it's just been just building inside of me and growing inside of me. And I just can't contain myself because I believe that so many people leave church being beat up and love doesn't beat up. The Bible says love builds up. So somebody has got it wrong. If you leave in a church beat up, somebody's got it wrong. The preacher got it wrong. If you leave here, beat up, if you leave here condemned. If you leave here feeling bad about yourself, then you didn't listen to a word I said. You're not leaving here that way. If you're listen and you're not leaving here that way, keep that verse up, please. You're not leaving that way. Boom shaka laka. First, Timothy, chapter six, verse 17, instruct those that are rich in this present world to stop being rich. It's not what he says. He says instruct him not to be conceited. Pride is the problem. Money is not a problem. Pride is the problem. Trusting in your riches, that's a problem. Trusting in money is the problem. Trusting in God. It's funny how on our money it says in God we trust, but we trust the money more than we trust God to instruct those that are rich in this present world not to be conceited and do not fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God. What is he saying? Fix your hope on God who was richly supplies. Let's read this together. Don't put your don't fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches. Everybody read together, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. You know what I mean? Tell you something, most Christians are shocked. This is even in the Bible. Most Christians don't even know this is in here. And once they see it, a lot of people right now, maybe not a lot of you here, maybe somebody watch it or maybe a couple of people here. You want to fight me about it? I don't want to fight you about it. It's in the Bible. I'm taking it. I'm taking it. I receive it. Healing's in the Bible. I'm telling you want to argue about it. You argue I'm speaking in tongues. You want to argue about it. I'm walking in healing. You want to argue about it. I'm going to be generous. You want to argue about it. I'm going to teach people about Jesus. You want to argue about stuff. You go ahead and argue about stuff. But I'm taking the Bible word for word. The way it's written is the way he meant it. We just need to understand. We need to understand the context of it. God, Ritchie supplies us with what? All things to what? Enjoy. Enjoy. God, he's not. Now, somebody said, well, are you to say you can take that? You could take that the wrong way? Yes, you can take everything the wrong way. But how about we just focus on taking it the right way rather than abandoning it because we don't want to take it the wrong way, so we don't even take it the right way. How about first take it the right way, then it'll fix everything about the wrong way. Like, look, for example, he says God supplies us with all things. Oh, so does God really supply us with pornography? Does God really supply us with sin? No, he's not. You have to understand the context. All things he's talking about good things. God rich supplies us with joy, with peace, with God. He supplies us with enough for our needs to be met. God supplies us with enough air, enough water, enough food, enough friends and a family, enough church, enough people, enough things, everything the Bible says don't you don't have to seek these things, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things to be added to you. These are good things. He's talking about good things. Good things. Every good thing is from the heaven is from our heavenly father, he says. In James Chapter one, Every good and perfect gift comes from above from the father of lights. But he look at what he says, which supplies us with all things. Obviously it's all good things, but look at what he says we're supposed to do with them to enjoy. Man, the Christian life is not meant to be a life of suffering. Jesus did the suffering, the only suffering, the God asks of us in this in this in this era, like when after the rapture, a lot of stuff's going to change. I'm not here to argue that either. But there is going to be a rapture, a catching away of Christians one day. So I can't believe that. But you can believe somebody rose from the dead. You can't believe that. But you can believe you can get a disease by being exposed to somebody else's germs like germs you've never seen you're afraid of. And you're wearing a mask. Go ahead. Where all the masks you are. But we're going to have to
believe that we have a covenant of healing from God to a man. Last time I was last time I was overseas. Everybody's wearing these masks because, you know, all these viruses and the latest virus, Jesus said in Psalm 91, no evil will come near our dwelling place. No plague will come to our tent. I'm not taking that disease. No, thank you. Knock, knock. I'm the flu. You know what? I've had enough of you. I'm never having you. You're not welcome here. Goodbye. Knock, knock coronavirus or whatever. It's called Corona. That's like a drink. That'll actually kill some of the diseases I think he created all things he gives us all things he supplies us with all things richly to what to enjoy. And you know what? You're going to
start enjoying them when you realize they're there from him and you're willing to share because look at what the next verse says. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works and to be ready to share. You know what? You'll never be ready to share if you're not enjoying your life. You'll never be ready to share if you don't have something to share. God wants us to be ready to share. So he wants us to he he told us he will richly supply us with all things to enjoy. Really, he's more interested in us enjoying life than us having the things that cause us to enjoy life. The goal is not the things. The goal is the enjoyment of the thing that God wants us to enjoy our families. He wants us to enjoy our day. He wants us to enjoy our jobs. He wants us. You're not going to enjoy it if you think that God doesn't want you to. If you if you believed a mystical, mystical belief in that you're that you're meant to suffer and you're meant to be miserable, that's a lie. Jesus bore our grief and he bore our sorrows so that we could be healed. Not so that we could remain in grief and in sorrow, but so that we could discover happiness and joy, Jesus said in John Chapter sixteen twenty four, he said, Ask and you shall receive that your joy would be made for the goal is not even look, he said. Up until now you've nothing but ask and you shall receive so that your joy may be made full. Look at his goal. God's goal. Jesus goal for us is the point of having the joy, the fullness of joy that your joy may be full. He's the source. So often we focus on. I got to ask and receive. I need this thing. I need this thing. I need to think God's just using that thing to bring you to a place of joy. God's goal is for you to have joy in his presence, his fullness of joy and his right hand are pleasure forevermore. You see, you can't abuse things when you're generous, in other words, you can't abuse the enjoyment of things when you're ready to share them, like if you're always ready to share, you'll never abuse what you have. Boy, if we could just get a hold of this, that the point that Jesus is getting to hear is the fullness of joy, not asking and receiving, asking and receiving is a mechanism. Asking and receiving is a method to get us to live in the joy that God intended to enjoy our lives, to enjoy God. You know, let me start with that, because I've got like six or seven things that God created us to enjoy. But let me just start with number one. We need to be enjoying our relationship with God. And I'm going to tell you why most people aren't enjoying their relationship with God is because we labor under the guilt of how we've let God down. We've let ourselves down. We have failed. And the reason people do not enjoy the relationship with God is because they base their relationship with God on the promises that they've made to God. I promise you, God, now that I'm saved, I promise you God, I'm going to be good. I promise you, I'm going to pray. I promise you, I'm going to read more. I promise you, I'm going to do better. I promise you, I'm going to be holier. And we make all these promises to God that guess what, we can't keep. And then we're disappointed in ourselves. But Christianity is not built upon the promises that we make to God. No, Christianity is built upon the promises that he makes to us. Your Christian life must be built around God's promises, not your promises. It's God's promises toward us, not not our promises towards God. Now, if you just focused on God's promises in the Bible and you just prayed, prayed, God's promises, spoke, God's promises, thought about God's promises, expected God's promises, you would have peace and you would have fullness of joy. But when you're full and you would enjoy your relationship with God and there are times when I'm just talking to God. Oh, Lord, I just love you so much. And thank you for being my father. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for your love. Like that may not sound spiritual to you, but it sure as heck is spiritual to me. It's real to me. I enjoy my relationship with God because it's no longer built around my failure. It's all built around what he did for me, not what I've failed at that. I didn't pray enough. When's enough? When have we prayed enough? Is it a minute. Is it ten minutes is in an hour. Well, could you not Terri with me for one hour. Good luck with that one. Good luck with that. You will fail if you say I'm going to pray every day for an hour a day, you will eventually fail. And besides that or you get arrogant. Oh, I pray. I pray an hour every day. OK, Pharisee, glad to know you. Oh yes. I pray. I fast I give I do all these things you give prideful about the things we do. God doesn't want us to take pride in what we've done for him. He wants us to be humbly thankful for what he's done for us so we can enjoy all that he has done for us, our salvation. He wants us to enjoy it, our healing. He wants us to enjoy it, our togetherness, our unity. He wants us to enjoy one another. You know, the first miracle that Jesus did and I know this is going to shock people, but the first miracle Jesus did was a miracle of luxury. It wasn't a miracle of necessity. The first miracle Jesus did was a miracle of love. I'm not saying that everybody needs to go get a yacht. Oh, yes, I'm ready for my miracle of luxury. God turned my car into a yacht. Ain't happened in. I'm not saying that we need to be seeking after luxury in life, what I'm saying is Jesus first miracle was not necessary. It was a luxury, not a necessity. He turned water into wine. It wasn't like we ran out of wine law. We're all about to die. We ran out of wine, Lord, so I don't know what we're going to do. We're all we're all going to end up in hell. We ran out of wine, Lord. So guess what? Our life is over. Our life is ruined. It wasn't necessary. They didn't need any more wine. But Jesus still turned the water into wine and it represented something. It symbolizes something no one is symbolized that that the new the new covenant starts with Jesus blood. It's going to it's symbolizing that the old way, the water pots, the old vessel is over and the new the new era, the new covenant begins in blood. And that's why wine symbolizes the blood of Jesus. So the first reason why his first miracle was turning water into wine was to show that the old covenant of water is over. But the new covenant of wine is the new covenant of life and the Holy Spirit and new new beginnings in Christ that starts with the blood of Jesus. That's the first reason Jesus did that miracle. But the second reason Jesus turned water into wine was to show us that God wants us to celebrate. I'm not saying everybody needs to go get some Jack Daniels after they leave church here today because some you already had some this morning. I can see a good word, Pastor. I saw some people out in the lobby. It's a good word. There's a good word about the wine. Pasha's a good word. Good, good word. Good word. Jesus does this miracle to show us we need to stop living our Christian Christian lives as a tribulation and start living the Christian life is a celebration, a celebration of his love, the celebration of his kindness, the celebration of his joy, celebration of his peace, celebration of his provision, celebration of his supply. He said, what about people that don't have anything share? That's why you have a lot to share. What about people that don't have anything? You find the people don't have anything and give them some of what you have rather than trying to make a theology out of. Well, God must not want us to have anything because there are people that don't have anything. There are people in our lives that don't have things because sometimes God has called us to help. Find a need and fill it, find to hurt and heal it. This is the goodness of God that he would give us so much. We have so much to be grateful for. How do you how do you keep it from spoiling you share it first, receive it all and share and give and love and do good because you're loved. Because God's happy with you, God smiling at you. What do you think God's doing? You think right now God's going like this God's call. I guess you know that word in first Timothy six for 17. He supplies us with all things to enjoy. You know, the Greek word for enjoy. There is the word Appaloosas which comes from which is where we get the word applause from the Greek word is where we get the word applause from. He said, God wants to supply us with all things that will make us applaud. He wants to supply us with victory so we can applaud. He wants to supply us with good friends so we can applaud our friends. He supplies us with family so we can applaud our family. He supplies us with jobs. We can applaud everything worthy of praise, everything worthy of praise. To think on these things applaud. We need to start applauding God. We need to start applauding the things he's given us. We applaud that we have a Bible applaud. We have a spirit applaud. We have a church applaud. We have won another applause. We have a family applaud. We have food on the table, applaud. We have joy, peace, salvation. The goodness of God. Applause, applause, applause. God wants you to live a life of enjoying every good thing that he created. Enjoy it. Stop trying to be a martyr if you need to be a martyr. God will give you the strength to be one, but you need to stop being a martyr and you be a merry, not a martyr. I mean, Martha. Hey, OK, bad joke. Look, if you never comes to where you have to face the firing squad or renounce your Christianity, go ahead and face the firing squad and die for the glory of God. But until that time comes, enjoy this life of God's provision that everything that has breath. Praise the Lord, as long as you're still breathing, thank him. Sing to him, celebrate him, celebrate one another, celebrate your family. As bad as they may be, sometimes as dysfunctional as they are. Sometimes you're part of it. You're part of the reason. Blame it on your mother. You were a bad kid. To blame it on your brother. Blame it on your sister. Stop all that. Just enjoy the people that God's given you enjoy the people in your life. Yeah, but there's weird uncle, you know, there's real uncle, weird Uncle Harry or Harry. Uncle Weird. I don't know. But you know what? I enjoy the people in your life because there's something inside of you. If there's something inside of you that you can't and I'm going to close now. But I just want you to hear this when doing's when doing something good or when having something good feels bad, when having good in life, it feels bad to have good. It feels bad when something good is done. That usually is a symptom that that you were abused in some way, verbally, emotionally, physically, sexually. Because when abuse happens to a child, I know the topic is opening up a can of worms, but I'm going to close with this. The normal impulses of enjoyment, the normal reflex of enjoyment and delight get broken when you've been hurt by something. And then what happens is a child associates all pleasure with evil and danger because somebody abused that child. But when God created us, he created us to enjoy life and enjoy our family. That's why it's so damaging when a family member abuses another family member or when somebody is abused, period, in any way. It's so damaging because in the moments that we're learning to celebrate pleasure and trusting the people that are closest to us, that's the person that breaks our trust. And it's going to be nearly impossible to trust anybody ever again because nobody will ever have that closeness that your parent was supposed to have or that your family was supposed to have. You see what I'm saying? So God wants to heal us of this shame, of pleasure, being ashamed of pleasure because something shamed you growing up or something shamed you or somebody shamed you. Jesus wants to heal that so you can begin to enjoy life and enjoy the good things that God gives. I'm not talking about having to sin, to have joy. I'm talking about enjoying people and enjoying the blessings and the gifts of God. Let's stand together. I want to pray for you just in a holy moment. If we could just not move around unless we got a ministry assignment just for the sake of I just stuck my heart to pray for you. If you've been abused in any way, I want to pray for you. It doesn't take long. You may not feel anything, but when we pray, Jesus, the healer is going to start mending that brokenness inside of your soul. Yeah, I'm asking him. And he said, ask and it will be given to you that your joy, my joy and your joy are going to become full when he heals you and he's going to heal you today. Would you just close your eyes by your heads for a moment? I'm not going to embarrass anybody. I'm not going to ask you to disclose if you've been abused, if you're watching online, if you've been hurt or abused, you can enjoy life. It's impossible to enjoy life, something blocking your ability to enjoy and experience the pleasure of God because you feel broken, because you were hurt, you were abused, you were taken advantage of. And it's serious stuff. But Jesus, healing power is greater than the hurting power. The healing power is greater than the hurting power. And so I'm just going to I'm just going to ask you to pray. Everybody pray this out loud. Say, Heavenly Father, through the blood of Jesus, the miracle power, the healing power of Jesus. I am asking you to heal me, to heal my brothers and sisters, to heal those around me, to heal those in my church, to heal those that are connected to us from all forms of abuse, from verbal abuse, from physical abuse, from emotional abuse, from sexual abuse. I'm asking you to heal us now. Jesus, you took it. You took the abuse on the cross so that by your stripes I could be healed. My church family could be healed. My family at home can be healed. My loved ones can be healed by your stripes. We're healed. We receive the gift of healing from all forms of abuse that have blocked me from being able to celebrate and experience pleasure and joy in my life. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Come on, let's praise God. I want us to come Wednesday, come next Sunday, and let's drink this, join up in the morning with applause and celebrating and enjoying what God has given us. It's time for us to be celebrating people and applauding people, not because it's just a habit, but applauding because we're enjoying all the good that God has supplied us richly with. Hallelujah. You're dismissed. If you need prayer for salvation, healing the Holy Spirit, come on up for prayer at the altar. One of our prayer members, prayer leaders, prayer partners will pray for you. God bless everybody. Have a beautiful rest of your day. I love you guys.
