Life Lessons (2021-05-09)

[Music] um [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] good morning everybody happy mother's day happy mother's day it's a great day to be in the house of the lord can we all just stand up and worship him this morning hallelujah [Music] we're calling out your glory like a fire awakening desire will burn our hearts with you you're the reason we're here [Music] [Applause] a mighty river flowing from your heart [Music] descending like the clouds [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] your heart flowing from your heart and feeling every part us show us your glory show us show us your power show us show us your glory lord we want to worship you [Music] show us show us your glory show us show us your power [Music] chose [Music] [Applause] [Music] a mighty [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] oh [Applause] [Music] feeling every part of our [Music] we lift your name upon high lord jesus we believe in you we trust you we honor you and we give you all of the praise we come today for you to show us show us your glory [Music] show us show us your power [Music] show us your glory show us show us your powers show us show us your glory lord [Music] [Music] open up the planet a mighty river flowing from your heart feeling every part of our prey [Applause] [Music] a mighty river floating from your heart and feeling every part [Music] [Applause] hallelujah to the king he's glorious here's the mighty yes we love you lord we're here to worship you this morning lord in all your splendor and all your glory hallelujah [Music] i love you lord oh your mercy never fails me all my days i've been held in your head [Music] of the goodness [Music] and all my life [Music] with every breath that i [Music] of the am of god [Music] i love you as a father i've known you as [Music] in the goodness [Music] [Applause] with every [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] with every breath that [Applause] [Music] of the goodness [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that i am [Music] come on and praise him if you believe in the goodness of god today come on and praise him oh hallelujah hallelujah you know the devil hates it when you sing the very first temptation he tried to tempt eve that god wasn't good and when you start declaring that god is good that was a song in the old testament that always brought the glory of god amen oh can you one more time give him praise because god is good hallelujah all you moms you know that you have raised your kids in prayer knowing that god is good amen stand with me for prayer if you would delta nyer thank you for your prayers we both had two negative coping tests on thursday this week so we praise god for your prayers we're doing great uh please remember uh some of our staff that is in need of prayer today uh again remember jackie white who's doing well but she's in the hospital getting some breathing treatments uh for kovitz so remember sweet jackie fiery preacher jackie white and uh her husband uh james our music pastor worship pastor is is tested negative he does doesn't have kofit but he is self quarantining again this sunday to keep all of his team safe and also remember his sons his sons jaren and julian also tested positive for covet so please remember the whites in your prayers today also remember floyd and gayle and their son brian floyd and gay are actually in the lamb hospital this morning and if you're watching brother and sister we love you and praying for you and they are in there because of covet as well so if you'll pray for brother and sister lahan their son brian also contracted it as well then remember my mom and dad my mom and dad of course uh had coveted but they were in the hospital both of them today in deland hospital because of some symptoms of a tia so they're testing them and just examining them so please remember them in your prayers also and then the sweetheart of the sanctuary uh heather omran has also tested positive for covid and her great young son isaac but they're doing fantastic almost asymptomatic and wishing she could be here she again uh so much has her heart here as pastor james and jackie do as well but pray for them her husband mark is not here because he's self-quarantining he is tested negative but he is self-quarantining today and their son trey had already had this earlier and is got the antibodies of immunity in his body doing good today so remember uh our own heather omran isaac this morning in your prayers also further remember jerry cooper his brother passed away kurt this week remember them if you would jerry and brandi cooper also the helen moore family and also pauline cole's family and the service for her grandson tavian will be this coming saturday at 1pm so a lot of prayer requests this morning but how many of you know that god is faithful and he is good as we say amen so we are going to pray amen and we're going to pray healing into these our dear loved ones today amen would you join me in prayer today father in the name of jesus who is the healer we praise you jesus we lift up your blood we lift up your promises and your power and lord today we magnify you over kophil we magnify you over these that are in the hospital and in jesus name we plead your blood heal the sick and deliver those that are there lord we pray that you would also minister comfort to those who have lost loved ones that we've called by name today touch every mother that's here today and touch their families god minister to them and strengthen them and their family members god save any unsaved family members lord hear the prayer of mamas on mother's day today and give healing give salvation god to give blessing let there be a banner of love god over all of your moms today in jesus name we give you praise lord because you triumph you triumph over all these diseases you healed them all in in matthew 8 17 so we declare the blood of jesus by your stripes we are healed and we give you our praise and our faith today for that if you believe that and you know that god's good give him one more hand clapper praise because he is good he is so good amen praise god amen wave to somebody as you're reseeded this morning be friendly wave to somebody and online you can uh again wave there are i found out last week watching the services online there are emojis for hand waves so you can give us a hand wave online with an emoji there and again i was pressing the love emojis and and the like emojis and the hand raised emojis so praise god for all of our family that's online as well and we welcome all of you to the house of god if you are a uh mother here today would you please stand we want to give you a hand all moms please stand all right come on let's give our moms a big uh god bless we honor you moms we honor all of you moms yes we honor all of you moms god bless you moms amen you might be receding we're so proud of you happy mother's day we do have some cupcakes in the lobby for you when you leave today that's all the first service the old testament declares that the fat belongs to the lord and i can promise you those cupcakes are not gluten-free or fat-free and uh but we want to bless you with the fat of the lord today as you go out so be sure and pick up a cupcake there's also a selfie station you can take a picture of your family or yourself again just take advantage of that and we're so glad you're here we honor you today i just want to make an announcement about our children's pastor jason and jennifer libby they've been with us for over five years they recently just accepted a new position as the national field representatives for church mobilization with the assemblies of god and that is uh amen let's give jason jennifer a hand for that it's awesome stuff amen jason and jennifer have been with the missions ministries of the sims of god before earlier in their ministry kept ties there there are licensed assemblies of god ministers how many of you know that the uh city sanctuary is an ecumenical church right we so we've had jason we've teased him we know we're church of god he's a symbol of god we say we are an equal opportunity employer right so uh we have had a lot of fun with him being licensed in the assemblies but working in the church of god and i told him the other day i said you know the church of god is responsible for your promotion you understand that right and uh he laughed and had a good time with that as well but this is an important position they will be traveling in an rv he said we're excited about taking our kids across country and showing them america as we go from church to church ministering to the various requests that the churches have in the assemblies of god for mobilization coordination and they will be perfect for the assignment and so both jason and jennifer will be using their skills and talents in this and next season of ministry for them they're being set up to be the next director in the future so uh we're proud of them be working out of the springfield office springfield is the headquarters for the assemblies of god so we give honor to them and on the 30th of this month jason will be preaching and we'll give a special love offering we'll be contributing to their missions budget they're going to be living by faith amen and raising money to live on so again we're going to be the first in line to support them and we already have our first children's pastor candidate on the next sunday june 4 and we already have selected the replacement for the little lambs directorship as well i'll announce that at a later time but right now we just want to focus on loving and appreciating the libbies and their two adorable children so be sure and take this opportunity to send them a card give them a call send them a facebook message whatever however you want to do that and then on the 30th we'll have a special time with them also want to make mention to you that because we were out last sunday we postponed the renovations for the generations of faith promises but let me tell you that i i believe in this project i believe god wants us to do this and i keep finding evidence of people who are ministered to online people that again are being reached by the ministry that we have through our live stream and archiving of our services i also got a chance to be an onliner last week i was an onliner and uh you know the only people that really show up well online are the people right under these lights where i am right now uh but the praise team and different places and the on the sides it doesn't show up very well and again there's different software for mixing uh sound and various things for our technical parts of the service that just we want to improve we're doing great we have a great staff but it's equipment we need some different lighting we need some different equipment uh different software that'll help make all that better so i'm a believer that uh when you're online as i was last week it's not the same as being here so count yourself blessed if you can be in the house of god and it's it's a privilege to be here in in person at the same time we want to make the online as good as it can be for those that were like me last week watching online and again enjoying the great ministry of of uh dwayne harris and again the coordination of mark and heather omran did a phenomenal job i we have such great people here we are so so blessed so deep and uh i just was rejoicing at seeing uh everything run so smoothly and uh so appreciate we had an online ministry uh that we could catch a service and so please remember that faith promise that is what we're gonna look at doing on a regular monthly basis will be next sunday please be in prayer about that i believe the enemy has given us some resistance but i was given a word from zechariah 3 and 3 when the angel when the devil was standing against zachariah or not zacharias actually it was it was joshua the high priest to resist him resist him doing what he was going to be rebuilding the temple let me tell you as as we build the enemy will resist us and he'll resist you and me and try to make us think that hey you don't need to give anything you just give what the lord tells you to give i guarantee you can never out give god and when you do give you'll see god do great things for you so please join me next sunday uh we're going to move forward by faith and thank god for all that he's going to do on the 23rd of may we'll have doyle dykes here this will be a great in invitation sunday for you to invite your friends sometimes you just need a special event to invite your friends and doyle's going to be bringing some great gospel music one of the greatest guitar and gospel music people in america and that will be on 23rd a great time for you to give an invitation to some family or friends and if there's anybody that doesn't know christ invite them to join us as well we're going to make sure there's an invitation given as well well they're going to put the slide up on the screen for giving and then while they're doing that and we prepare our hearts to give we're going to have the video announcements and then my beautiful wife delta is going to come after the video we have which we have our own kids here at city sanctuary on video giving some interview answers to what mother's day and mothers mean to them so get ready to enjoy that and after that video delta's going to come and give you a dynamic message today uh from the word of god and so we're excited that you're here on mother's day we're excited to be in the house of god so let's worship him with our giving today our father there are no words to express our love and worship to you today lord you are beyond description we are so blessed to know you let him that boasts boasts that they know the lord so we boast today that we know the one true god and his son jesus christ and this is eternal life so lord today will you bless us as we worship you now in giving bless us as delta comes in just a few minutes to give us the word of god the word of faith and may it reach into our hearts and may it affect our lives and change us for it is romans 1 and 16 the power of god the gospel is the power of god unto salvation to everyone who believes to the jew first and also to the greek so bless your people in jesus name we pray and everyone said amen god bless you hey good morning city sanctuary family let's take a couple of minutes to make sure you're staying connected this week you still have three more weeks to take advantage of all of our spring growth groups and classes check out what's being offered each week on our digital bulletin on facebook or our website underneath the connect tab attention all parents and grandparents sponsor your child or grandchild to attend one of our summer youth camps this summer find out more information by emailing pastor peter marcus at ignite at citysanctuary.church that email address is right across the bottom again his email is ignite citysanctuary.church for more information on how you can sponsor one of your children or grandchildren to attend summer youth camps this summer be sure to come on out tomorrow evening may 10th at 7 30 p.m as our very own city sanctuary softball team goes to the championship game it's going to be at the spurling sports complex 7 30 come out and support the team she always says this phrase she goes hi elio because i'm always doing something have i told you lately that i love you she loves me very much no never give up stop fighting i'm saying nice words probably when like she's had a hard day at work or something and i come in and check on her and give her a hug a clean house flowers um cake if i like um be good or help out with someone make something for her well she does nice things for me because she buys us stuff hangs with us does stuff for us because she does everything for me because she's always there for me that she does everything for me because it tells me a lot she does everything for us worship hang out with family watch hallmark way too much to spend time with me emotionally play with us to like value like really important things in life and the people that you love most we always do affirmations in the morning probably about the bible or about like the fruits of the spirit about being kind and stuff to walk to not fight with this one that she's caring and she's always there for me she's a good mom and that she cares for us her smile we after a long day of work or like long day of doing whatever we always like sit down like 20 minutes like at night and we just talk about our day and joke around so that's probably the my favorite part her passion for helping others i like her hugs i like my mom's hugs like a bear hug beautiful she's pretty and she loves me very much she's funny and fun kind she allows us and makes food for us she always makes me laugh she's pretty she's she's fancy haley love should be wonder woman laser eye lays it out lightning bolt the ability to make anyone love anyone making people laugh superman's powers hey i'm so glad to get to spend this mother's day with you and before we start i have to of course give honor to the beautiful people in my own life my mother is currently at westmore church of god today in cleveland tennessee where she is listening to my sister also delivering a mother's day message my niece graduated from lee university yesterday and we would have been there as well except that this wonderful virus has kind of put a spin on things for all of us and i give honor to my mother today i told her this morning that if i could choose my the person in all of the world to be my mother she would be who i choose and i mean it most sincerely i also give honor to my mother-in-law today who is a total example one that i need in front of me regularly of having a servant spirit and a loving heart and i i thank god for her and pray for her this morning very much i give honor to my two sons that i don't know if they're watching or not but that made me a mother gabe actually made me a mother on mother's day so a very special day for me some 20-something years ago and josiah is the baby which of course you know what all that brings and all of those things and my wonderful husband that i love dearly that he is the the balance of our lives and i and that's going to really be seen again those of you that have been with us for a long time now you know that i am i feel today that i am delivering a spiritual mother's message um if i am the mother of this church this is going to be a very simple three three three g's is all i'm going to give you but um i've watched american idol and and the voice and i just say where are their mothers where are their mothers why did their mother not tell them baby you can't sing do not get up there and try that you've got a lot of talent you've got a lot of good things going for you but baby you can't sing and i just don't know where the mothers of the world are that would let them do that so i am that mother okay so my husband is the balance of me being the mama bear and baby you can't sing don't you do that i'm not gonna compliment you when you didn't do a good job no you don't look good today this isn't your best day did you brush your teeth what is going on with you you know i i'm just gonna have these conversations with my children because i want them to be the very best i want them to excel i want them to exceed i don't want the world to trash them i we we're going to family talk behind the four walls of our house when i'm going to do those things now but in in public you know i'm a mama bear and you better not touch my boys you know kind of thing but that's kind of how i want to be with you today too if you are the spiritual sons and daughters of this house and i am the spiritual mom then i want to have that kind of conversation with you today where if it were my last will and testament i would want to tell you there is a god he is good and he wants you to know his glory and those are the things that i'm going to bring to you in in a spirit of a mother sometimes a little harsh but remember that it comes from a place that i want you to to thrive i want you to succeed so let's pray lord i thank you today i thank you for your faithfulness that i thank you that when i'm not faithful and when i don't have the capability lord i lean on you today i lean on the the quickening power of the holy spirit that you would guide my discombobulated thoughts and emotions today and that you would package them in a way that your truth would be conveyed to someone who needs it that they would be encouraged that they would maybe go a different direction and i asked god that you would anoint with by the power of the holy spirit that which is supernatural that which i cannot accomplish the things that i give in such a simple way and we pray that in the name of jesus amen amen so let's start with this very first topic that there is a god you see there are um in this world that we live uh 40 years ago this really wasn't necessarily in america an item of of major discussion in the streamline of of communication it has become one now and there are many many voices in fact people that were raised in christianity they're no longer even certain that there is a god they get to college and the intellectuals are telling them all of these reasons why if you believe in a god then you do not have a higher level of intellect that you are you are um country bumpkin that you are all of these different kind of things and so there are so many voices in our facebook and our social media those that we look to for perspective and they are all discounting this idea that there is a god we have come of age you know we have all of this science we have intellect we have education we have now we can go back to the course of time yes man is now developed to a point that we are woke okay and and so there is all of these expressions that self validate this idea that there is no god well that is one thing that i would like to combat today but on the other spectrum is the person that did believe in god until they were disappointed and then once you have thought god would act a certain way you were taught god would act a certain way that god's always going to come through until he didn't as i remember hearing someone very close to me say one time god's gonna show up until he doesn't is is and disappointment causes us to then back away and to draw back keep god at arm's length distant then there's the person that just doesn't know maybe they weren't raised around anyone religious and they just don't know if there is a god or not everything is just you get up in the morning you go to bed at night and you just don't know and and then there's the doubter that's a part of that and the doubter is someone who is similar to that you got to ask yourself are you an honest doubter are you a dishonest doubter because a dishonest doubter really doesn't want to know if there's a god or not right you know i just am going to say that there's not so you have these ideas of is there a god and i would like to address that first that there is a god and i would like to tell you a little tiny bit of my own personal story i grew up in a home where yes there there was a god that was never something that was questioned um i was i am third generation christian and although i didn't see the experience i've heard about the experience where my mother's father was healed miraculously and converted to to christianity to jesus because of that healing and then my father's father was an alcoholic who went to a church and came to an altar and prayed accepted christ and never had a desire for a drink ever again and a man that was mean and abusive to his sons all of a sudden turned around and i remember grandpa as roll the taters roll the taters you know kind of playing with you it's just a totally different shift in my family because of a man named jesus christ so i grew up not knowing not ever asking the question is there a god it was something that i always knew that there was i remember being five years old and my mother teaching a youth camp of children in the mountains of montana and we were worshiping at the altar and i remember being so enveloped in the presence of the lord i just began loving on jesus and he began loving on me i love you jesus i love you jesus i kept saying i pictured him on the cross and then i pictured him on his throne and the more i loved him i felt the overwhelming sensation a physical presence of a god in getting on the inside of me and he opened my ears to a point where i learned the voice of god for the first time at age five and it was his voice that guided me all the all of my life and then when i was 16 i was cleaning out a a a drawer in my bedroom and i heard that same voice that i learned at age five and it said one day you will marry mark schrade i didn't know mark schrade i knew of his family but the voice of god that spoke to me a real clear almost audible but it wasn't audible but it might as well have been because it was to the door of my heart said one day you will marry mark schrade seven years later i married mark trade it's a great story for another time all right so but i heard the voice of the lord then i went on and married him we became pastors we pastored for 14 years at a wonderful church in west virginia october 1st nov october 1st 2007 at 403 in the morning god woke me up and after two hours of spending time with him he said to me you will be moving you will get a phone call and gave me the date that we would get the phone call that next week he said you will be moving and i will establish the work of your hands i went into the bedroom i popped on the light about six o'clock it was time for me to get dressed and go to school to teach anyway and i just announced to my husband we're moving he's like ah delta and i said say whatever you want to have heard from god you know and we we got the phone call and we moved well the problem was that that i will establish the work of your hand part i took as a mandate when we moved to our assignment i was i'm i've heard god before one day you're going to marry mark schrade you marry mark trade everything's good so i got this down so you know i'm going to have them establish the work of your hand so i work like a trojan mark work like a trojan and it seemed like everything we did was a disaster area they didn't like us we can you imagine but anyway neither here nor there but it was a disaster area it was four and a half years and i loved this place i loved i loved the school my sons were going to i was loving the education i loved the friends they were going with there were so many things that i loved i wanted this to be my forever home i had imagined what my grandchildren would be like coming back to thanksgiving at our house and all of these people that we were surrounding ourselves with but the church itself was a disaster area and it it there was no establishment going on and i had announced to the church that we are here on a mandate oh god told me he would establish the work ever well that four and a half years later i told the earlier service that we found ourselves leaving there and coming here and one of the worst moments of my life was getting on the plane after having been accepted here and looking on facebook and amy methena sending me a facebook message with me sitting on this stage this is our new pastor and i felt like my world had just crashed because i felt god lied to me you said you'd establish the work of our hands i heard your voice you didn't establish what does this mean i can't trust you i can't trust you is this the way you treat people that are faithful to you is i thought you're gonna back us up how come you didn't back us up with these people that are manipulators how come you didn't back us up do you realize that my son for a pastor the worst thing you ever want to do for a pastor's family is move your children in the senior junior and senior years of their lives you don't want to do that i was doing that i was doing that to my children my son had scouts following him for football well it's a different region he had him following him for four years we got here ain't no scout nobody knows gabe schrade all these emotions i was going through and eventually i just stepped back fine god have at it you just go right ahead with your little plan i i love my husband i love my boys these good people at the sanctuary they haven't done anything to hurt me i'm not trying to hurt them but you and i god we're going to just have a distant relationship so i sat there sunday after sunday probably for two and a half years with a very distant relationship with god it got so bad that mark came into the room one day and he said delta do you consider yourself a christian and i looked at him and i said i don't know now that's a bad thing for a pastor's wife to admit on a stage some years later at the same church but i say that to say this to all of the sons and daughters that may be listening to me the disappointment is a real thing and it can interrupt your relationship with god but i don't i don't want you to stop right there i didn't so because eventually we're going to have to go through this thing god put inside of us each of us we can deny it but everyone knows that there's a day where we die right i always laugh and tell everybody every person that jesus healed is now dead we all die it's appointed unto man wants to die and we all know this and the very thing that is the most realistic reality that we're going to talk to experience we never talk about and everything is about the here and now the here and now what makes me happy what what feel what education what this that the other but nobody talks about the hereafter you know we just don't talk about that it's about right now but there's something inside of us that knows there is something with eternity god put in our hearts the scripture says eternity and so eventually we have to ask ourselves that questions because of the way we're rigged we're going to want to know about it we're going to want to know what happens and we have to come to a conclusion and you can come to i've thought about it very intently and i think you eventually have to ride through the door of eternity on one of these seats now unfortunately there is no standing room only you do have to you will be buckled in a chair one of these most likely when you go through the door of eternity now many people say well i don't think about it i don't worry about it i just don't know i'm busy with life and they think they're in a waiting room where they're just standing and haven't committed to anything the unfortunate reality is though non-committal is still committing to something you will still be buckled into this chair non-committed when you go through the door of eternity and you're betting that your lack of knowledge is going to be an excuse for you and unfortunately it is not so we've got this one right here and so then i had to ask myself well is there a god because i i had to answer this question i've been very disappointed by god is there even a god i hadn't even thought of him didn't want to talk to him you know all these different things it's terrible when your professor's wife goes through months without praying but that's where i was maybe you've been there too so eventually this thing inside of me i i had to ask so i am a teacher and i said is there a god and i began saying i'm going to throw away not throw away but i'm going to arrive at this question from an intellectual position i'm a teacher i'm an educator so that's what i did and i began to study and the more i studied the what i realized is that there is a simple answer to this question if you want to go to that next screen the a scientist was asked by his daughter daddy how do we know the bible's true and how do we know that there is a god and the scientist who is extremely intellectual i heard this man say this he he could say i could answer her with all these mathematic equations all of these different scientific proofs that we have and he said but how is her eight-year-old mind gonna comprehend it and he said so i just answered her with the simple truth that the bible is the greatest explanation for us to have that explains why the world is as it is and you can take that simple faith and if that's enough for you it's the reality of it but in case it's a not i want to talk to you about two academic approaches to that question is there a god let's start first with philosophy philosophy is the reason of man now man has been reasoning for a very long time if you look at things that you find in in furniture stores you're gonna see uh you know three elephants with the the world on their backs you know that's full philosophy how do we get to be where we are well we've got these elephants in the sky or atlas you know the greeks atlas is this is balancing the globe on on his shoulders those they're piece of art to us now but they come from a true philosophical point of view early on in man now as man has evolved and we have now different discoveries we we still have philosophies but philosophies are and they are supposedly more woke and more advanced but the problem with philosophies is that there are always the people or the culture that ha that project them and the problem with that is that changes i am not going to base my eternity on someone's philosophy that's crazy because the philosophies that are being promulgated now are somehow convincing us and they they use intellectual things and can we well i'll say that for just a second but their their their world view is changing to a point where that now it has become rational for us to somehow identify or think that it's okay for a parent to oh suppress hormonal growth in a three-year-old because the three-year-old thinks they might be a boy when they're a girl now this is philosophy this is stupidity this is what this is but this is the intellectual superiority of a culture that then embraces a thought and it's so faulty this same christian culture once embraced the idea that the bible somehow supported slavery because it was the philosophy of the culture of the day i even get and i'm probably going to step on toes but i'm mad about it i think it's stupid for us as christians to elevate anybody to a level where people don't know if we're following god or following him i i just can't do those kind of things that's where philosophy has a limit on what it it's a it's a changing perspective so to balance that out then we go to science well science are facts they're based only on matter and substance and we can make our decisions based on matter and substance well the problem with if that were true not everything that we know is matter and substance morals are not matter and substance spirituality is not matter and substance the other problem with that is most scientists on especially those areas that are not matter and substance have a philosophy behind their science you think not let's follow the science all right what are we going to follow the science with we're going to follow the science with mask really really does the science change no the philosophy behind the science change therefore the science can be tilted in any way it needs to be tilted to support the philosophy that's behind it all right now no don't hold on here now so if science is matter and substance then when you get to college and your professors are saying you are are an unintelligent uninformed individual because you have a faith and because you believe in the reality of a god then what we have to do is we have to use our own intellect to challenge those kind of things and what is happening today um is this and i'm going to skip a couple of slides and i want to go to the slide that has the three references for the sake of time you see if you only use this materialistic naturalistic that there is only a substance well that that does not account for everything and if you're going to say that you're only strict science well then time space and matter cannot they have to be infinite okay because they can be without a cause if time space or matter had a beginning then something caused them to have a beginning okay and what is happening in this book as it is explained that i've been reading there's also a summary version but if you like the intellectual i challenge you to get that book the return of the god hypothesis because so many discoveries starting with the big bang now prove that there was a beginning and if there was a beginning then time matter and space had a cause and so what now happens is these intellectuals who say they're based in everything on science they're not they intertwine their philosophy and they are trying to come up with all of these philosophies and proposed hypotheses and theories that are going to then say well because they hate the idea that they're being a god that's that's the whole behind it they cannot stand the idea that there is an intellectual being behind them so then well we've got the multiverse we've got all of this is very intellectual but what it amounts to is the fact that there are so many discoveries right now that are happening that are proving the fine-tuning of the universe the uh the beginning everything matter of time and substance has it caught all of these different things that all these scientists are doing all of these discoveries and one of them to explain it like we're all these intellectual scientists performing all these experiments math equations we're pulling ourselves over the horizon and the top of the cliff and what we're discovering is a whole field of feast that are already arrived where science keeps proving they have to go now i'm going to give you this one example of how the fact is that these two chairs they keep they they can't make up their mind and so when they don't like what science says they change their f they they change the the the information to fit their philosophy so let me give you an example dr crick who is one of the developers of dna we all know what dna he is so convinced that evolution is not an answer to our problem it does not define the origins of life it can give us the survival of the fittest but not the arrival of the fittest and so therefore it does not answer one of the core elements of life and as a scientist he is also an atheist and because he realizes that evolution is not the answer and he has to give an explanation for where everything originated his answer was that a martian deposited some substance here now that is the truth that is the truth so we have to understand don't you be intellectually uh condescended to every single one of these right here these two things right here there is a jumping point where its faith as much as anything with religion is faith nobody was there when when the earth was created science only goes so far and with every new discovery they're returning to the idea that there is a creator and an intellectual designer so if you're gonna write through eternity on one of these it's very dangerous so i came to that conclusion when i came back to the lord and i drew closer to him it was not based on emotionalism it was not based on the fact that i had been reared in a christian home although those were influences i came back because it was the most intellectually smart decision after i examined the information it's an intelligent decision don't let anyone ever tell you any any way otherwise now now that i've answered the question is there a god i had to find out which one he was go to that next slide so you got willy wonka right here and he's like oh so your religion is the right one right and then you've got the other slide that says all of the religions are good oh oprah let's all just embrace i love world peace unity well the problem is that's not the reality the reality is that truth in and of itself tells us that something is false all world religions can be false but not all world religions can be true because the very tenets of many of these faiths are contradictory we cannot have all of them being true they can all be false but they cannot be all true so if i am going to ride through the door of eternity on religion which one am i going to do well i better do one go to the next slide and it says this any world view that cannot account for the phenomena of origin of the universe the origin of life the existence of consciousness the nature of free will and object morality ultimately fails to describe reality to accept any other reality is to create one that doesn't exist it seems irrational to adopt a belief system that has been created in the same mind which also created a world that doesn't exist only to defend the system the one created that's deep but it's true it appears that such an effort is made to offer an alternative since the stronger argument and worldview insists that there is not a god but man is god um go to the one with the four the four uh the slides with four things so if you're going to talk about a world view and a religion where did i come from it better answer that question it better say what is your purpose for being here it better give you a morality of what is wrong and a destiny of what happens after you die now the next slide will tell us that wikipedia says that there are 4 200 world religions now when i was seeking to see i know there is a god but which one is he well there's 4 200 of them which one is the right one well the thing that i knew from experience is i knew i didn't want a god that was invented after america was invented right so we've got some mormon people we got some jehovah witness people that everything became real when you know their leaders started that my god better have been a long time ago existing so i mean i just am you know we're we're not going to go to colts we're not going to go to any of those those those newer things so you know is reincarnation a thing is what is all this other you know is buddha is good buddha wants world peace you know is that the reality what is what is the reality which religion is right i knew intellectually they cannot all be right so one is gonna be right and the ones that say everywhere we are one and there there were all the way to god i knew that one was bad too because it's not intellectually accurate so you can dismiss a bunch of those immediately but as i began to study those 4 200 i learned that all 4 200 of those religions can be put on a spectrum of of of you know two ends on the one end is the spectrum where only the universe exists this is the core belief of the naturalist of the atheist and varying degrees of the belief that nothing exists except matter that's dis that is intellectual dishonesty it is these very opponents that that offer that as the answer to all of man and if there is a god it's intellectually dishonest because they will not recognize things like morality when in every culture through every timeline mankind still exhibits the same morality it is not right to steal it is not right to kill it is not right to take another person's wife all of these same things can can you imagine a world where someone is praised from for running away from the battle courage is a moral thing that is attributed for in every society so there is and there are none of them intellectual properties they're not materialistic properties so every single one of these people that is truly materialistic they die as an atheist of a most miserable thing they have no hope there is no god there is no right and there is no wrong there is no future there is no hope you want to sit on that chair so then you know that they're marrying these two right here in between and then sometimes they throw in this religion one because they're gonna mix see the the what's happening in our work woke society is people are cherry-picking religions they're saying i like a little of this one and i like a little of this one i'm going to take what the origin of life from this perspective and then i'm going to say purpose is from this religion but your problem is you can't do that you can't jump ship halfway through the sea you got to get in the boat and it's got to go all the way across the sea to be a true experience and to be true you can't do that it won't get you across it is intellectually dishonest so when i see this naturalistic on this side where everything is of matter and the other polarization side where all is one all religions are true we're going to reincarnate the spirit is good and matter is bad any pantheistic belief is originating in there and now what they do is they slide or they mix their own combination of that and they create their own god the scripture is very clear that they create their own god that's called idolatry when you worship that which is created rather than the creator i am not going to base my eternity on the changing and combinations of things that when taken from one into the other are dishonest intellectually do you see why it is a solid argument do you see so one side is this materialism the other side is the spiritualism did you know that of the 4200 world religions the only ones that believe in both and incorporate them into their tenants and their beliefs are all based in the old testament that is judaism islam and christianity those are the only three of all 4 200 that give reality to matter as a universe and spirit as god and when i learned that i've just narrowed it down to three forty two hundred to three is there a god well which one he is he's one of those three and in some ways they all go back to jehovah we know that judaism is jesus is the fulfillment of the promise of that religion and they will come to faith and they are coming to faith we know that islam is the perverted version of what happened between the two children of abraham ishmael and isaac and therefore when i learned that i buckled in i buckled in this mama bear heart is crying to some intellectual young man or young woman who has been deceived to believe and the philosophies of man the intellect of man is greater than the philosophies of god you see christianity has a book that has been in existence for centuries now if the old testament goes back many many centuries and our new testament there are even apart from it being supernatural there are more um copies and transcripts of of the new testament than any other book we have in all of antiquity and therefore we can verify that the script we can have confidence in what god has said down through the ages and his message doesn't change according to the culture now there's some difficult things in there to swallow and it it goes against the grain of the society we're in right now it just does sometimes it's hard to do but if the gospel is to be true it has to be true in the year 600 as well in the years 2021 the message has to preach the same in america as it does in africa it can't be something that applies to this kind of a people and not to that kind of a people it's applied across and i have come to the conclusion intellectually that the bible is the standard if you're who's going to give you a standard everybody's going to live by a standard and that's the problem we're in right now is because the standard keeps changing we can't decide if we should have a male and female restroom because the standard keeps changing we can't decide if a transgender boy should play the same sports with girls because the standard is changing i am telling you that god provides a standard that doesn't change i'm thankful for that because you know what happens when the standard changes you know what happens the weakest person is always the one that gets the raw deal because whoever has the most power whoever has the most force gets to uh uh bring down the hammer and push and pull and prod their way into society till everybody is under that control what is the standard well i'm gonna live my way well that's great you just continue to live your way you do that i'm gonna live my way and my way says i want your purse right here thank you very much and you're gonna give it to me well i wanted to steal something and you're gonna how long are you gonna sit there amy don't you understand that the whole idea is i i'm gonna live the way i wanna live but the way that i wanna live affects the way she lives and eventually there has to be a standard that says delta you cannot take amy's purse there's got to be a standard there it's intellectually dishonest to not have a standard to live by what standard are you going to do and it has nothing to do with science you can't prove a morality with time space and matter it goes to the fact that we are a spiritual being as well as a physical being and only one of three religions marries those two ideas and gives them thought and answer for our beginning and our end and the fall of man in between so what am i going to do move on into that god is good so i've decided intellectually this is the one i'm going to buckle into but have you ever been an ai in bethel so we talked a little about now abraham so abraham was called of god to go to a land where he didn't know and he picked up and he went and he found himself in between bethel and ai bethel means the house of god a.i means a heap of ruins have you ever found yourself between bethel and a.i between the house of god and a heap of ruins well sometimes that's kind of like life would be described i'm between a heap of ruins and a house of god i'm i'm journeying that's what i'm doing but i'm going to do it in this seat right here what are you going to do well genesis 12 8 says that abraham traveled south and set up camp in the hill country with bethel to the west and ai to the right so when you find yourself in between the house of god and a heap of ruins you buckle in and you say i'm setting up camp this is my decision i'm another version says he pitched his tent he staked his tent he's staking yep this is where i've landed this is where i'm staying now this idea up to this point in time has been an intellectual decision for me but you see god is more than just matter he is also spirit in our spirit area is where we have our emotions and all of these other things and then my will you see my will is god a good god i i i now intellectually recognize him but is he good well you see when i come to a place where i'm going to accept the goodness of god i am now going to fellowship with him you see the bible says that you must believe in god intellectually and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him so the belief is an intellectual quality but this idea that god is good is the part that ties it to my spirit that makes a difference in the way that i walk that says that i'm going to build a friend abraham was called the friend of god because i'm going to choose to believe even in the heap of ruins and the house of god as i'm doing this journey that god is good i'm going to choose to believe that even in horrible sorrow god is good i'm going to choose to believe that god who created all things has a bigger plan than what i can see and i'm not going to jump ship because i don't understand it in my little six-month radius so god is good what's the second thing i'm going to do well once i've decided i'm going to sit in this chair right here the other thing i'm going to do i know i'm going to get through eternity in this chair right here i'm buckling in i'm leaning in when life gets hard i lean harder i strap in what do you do when when you're going against a bumpy road do you unbuckle your seatbelt no you make sure it's on the ride's gonna get bumpy lean into god lean in he's good you don't look good right now god it doesn't look good it doesn't look good i'm leaning in god i'm leaning in i'm trusting thank you god that you are good i'm leaning in i'm not gonna be dissuaded you can't talk me out of this i've all this but then the next thing it says what did he do when he was between bethel and ai there he built an altar to the lord and he dedicated it to the lord and he worshipped the lord so while i am through ai and bethel i begin to worship now you see when you worship god is good right but god's goodness is associated with his glory now the goodness of god when you begin to worship it brings the presence of god and the presence of god is also associated with the glory of god i've always you know and sometimes even going through rough times you think what is god as an egotistic person that he's got to have us oh worship you almighty god you know oh we'll praise you oh god get the big head what's wrong with you that you need to be praised well it's just like opening the curtains for the sun you see when we worship we're opening the curtains of our heart and we're allowing the rays of god's sunlight his glory to fill our rooms it's not that he's an egotistical person he is like the sun rays how many of us enjoy the sun rays it's the glory belongs to the sun but i sure do love to bask in the glory of those rays i love to wake up and say what a beautiful day i love to lay out in the sun i love to go to the park i love to go to the the on a walk i just love the sunshine coming into my house i'm not i'm a realtor i'm not buying a house that don't have no windows i want the windows open and when you begin to worship the lord you are opening the windows of your spiritual soul and allowing his race to overwhelm you and flood you and this is where it stops being intellectual and it becomes personal we have a personal god we don't just serve god because of intellect we serve him because he knows us by name he created your dna he has a wonderful plan for your life and when you begin to worship him it allows the glory of god to fill your life so we worship the lord when we're on this journey between bethel and ai the last thing we're going to do is we're going to walk it says abraham continued traveling that means to walk to live a manner of life by stages towards bethel and they pitched their tents between bethel and a.i and when where they camped before and this was the same place where abraham had built the altar sometimes life is long sometimes there's just long seasons where you gotta just continue traveling you gotta keep on traveling you walk walk in the word is associated with obedience i i don't i don't necessarily when my boys were younger i really didn't care if they felt like clean in their room they're going to clean their room i didn't care if they felt like not talking back to their mama you're not going to do that not my house and you live here in my house you know obedience doesn't have always something to do with feelings and i'm thankful for the standard of the word of god that we walk in obedience to that you see obedience is that thing that not only gets us from the here to the there because when you walk god has a plan and you walk in obedience but it is also that thing that gives you confidence that you're not mixing a whole bunch of these chairs together i unfortunately have family members that are mixing philosophies and they're excusing sin and they're saying god doesn't do this and god doesn't do that and i can do this and i can do that well what you just done is you just create your own chair god has a standard and it is what it is and we walk in obedience and when i walk in obedience what that does is gives me confidence before god because this isn't my journey anymore you called abraham to go on this journey and he continued walking but it was the journey you called him on to a land that he was going to that you told him that you would show him so it's not his walk anymore it's your responsibility to get him where he needs to go so therefore when i'm walking in obedience i can be confident i'm not walking to my own i'm walking in you right do you see we got to walk we got to walk in obedience we cannot deceive ourselves you see and that is so and very important we grow in obedience having faith with a sovereign god when i know god is sovereign and he asked me to do something difficult i go ahead and do it because i know his ways are not mine and he's bigger and smarter and has a plan so i trust him i'm not going to switch chairs when i don't like the plan because he's sovereign we grow in obedience by waiting on god's timing i only got 80 years here god interesting uh you know abraham was called out at 75 but he didn't have uh isaac until he was 100 that's 25 years in between there that's a lot of walking continuing to walk that's a lot of times he worship that's a lot of times of not having the promise there it's a lot of time that you see god uses time to purify his word i thought that when god told me he would establish the work of his hands that it was a mandate for that church that we were going to change the world god was going to establish the work of our hands and i told everybody that i got up and that was my that was what i said until he didn't and then it took me years here to realize that god that was no mandate delta that was a promise to you that when your life felt like it was falling apart that i'm still going to establish and make something good out of it it was a promise it wasn't a mandate you see god is faithful but we have to continually walk we have to seek his timing i'm still waiting for the restoration of some of those things life is not fair it isn't fair to i haven't suffered abuse like some of you in here i i heard this testimony of this lady who had been trafficked actually and she came to christ and she was trying to live right and get over drugs and all this other kind of stuff and she was you know having a horrible time being a single mom and god spoke to her and said i want you to give me six years you gave the devil six years to get you in this mess give me six years to get you out of it and now she's got our own ministries and helping people come out of this lifestyle and all these other things but we've got to give god time obedience is the the action that shows that we have confidence in the sovereignty of god now we continue and we say we continue to grow in obedience by refusing to subject god's plan to the common sense reasoning of the world sometimes he'll ask you to do stuff that just doesn't make sense i remember a favorite dress i had in college oh i love this dress yellow with white polka dots and it was so stylish had a shirt and this cute little skirt i felt god tell me to give it to this this um uh this student that came from another country she was you know poor and did not have a lot of means and i felt god speak to i was like are you kidding me let me just go buy her a dress and and he's like no that's the one i want you to give her well i gave it to her in obedience she has no idea that i did who i just wrapped it up put it on there and then i saw her on campus and bless her heart she didn't have a clue how to wear it she wore the yellow polka dots with something i don't know stripes or something and red and everything and i thought are you kidding me this is what we got we're going to go on this right here and i can you know i mean it doesn't have to make sense another day i pulled up and was running errands and i felt god say to me you need to do this aaron first this air in first and this air and after that i'm like are you kidding me what's the point of that i'm here i am right here i just need to go in the door and all right and so we go a different way why are those little things important because that's how you learn to hear the voice of god that's how you learned in the small things obedience to walk so that when the big decision should i move should i take this job should i marry this person should what should i do i'm comfortable with the the relationship that i have with god in obedience so that you know when it doesn't make sense i can still say i i surrender to your sovereignty and the last one is we grow in obedience by promptly responding in obedience acts 7 says that the god of glory appeared to abraham how am i going to do all that how you can't do it unless god appears to you in some kind of a personal glorious way if you've ever heard the voice of the lord i love my husband i love my boys i love my parents i love my sisters but i don't love them like i love to hear the voice of the lord when i hear that voice all earth stops everything changes it doesn't matter i still i tell people i know that i heard god on october 1st 2007 and he said he would establish the work of my hands that's a promise that i can take with me on that shared eternity i don't necessarily know what it all looks like but when the god of glory calls you out personally and he says i want to walk with you between bethel and a.i and we're going to get to the promised land nothing else matters in fact it gets lonely when you don't hear that voice and so that's why it's so comforting as i read abraham people that don't read the old testament i just don't understand it because god keeps showing up to encourage abraham he keeps showing up look at the stars look at the stars abraham that's how many descendants you're going to have it's been 15 years ain't got no isaac don't worry look at the sand you're going to have that many as your descendants abraham you see this land i'm going to give it to you as far as your eye can see in every single direction the promise of god the glory of god his personal revelation is what keeps you in that walk of obedience the personal relationship with god not the intellectual the personal relationship with god is what keeps you in that walk with [Music] obedience our focus is not of this world hebrews 11 speaking of abraham says and others all these people died still believing what god had promised them they did not receive what was promised not while they were walking this earth the bible says that abraham lived in the land that he was promised as a foreigner and as a nomad now imagine that now just imagine that now i'm all about claiming what god has given you but sometimes it don't matter if he gave it you you're still a foreigner you're still a nomad you you ain't living in that established place necessarily but that was okay because it continues because it says they did not receive what was promised but they saw it all from a distance and they welcomed it it's not just about you abraham you're going to have a son and he's going to be the father of many nations and these nations are going to go throughout the whole wide world and one of them is going to be called israel and out of israel i'm going to bring my son jesus and jesus is going to save the world so that there will be a door that we can get from the physical to the spiritual they agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own if they had longed for the country they came from or of the chaldees they could have gone back there it says it could have gone back if he was longing to go home he could have gone back but he didn't but they were looking for a better place a heavenly homeland that is why god is not ashamed to be called their god for he has prepared for them a city our life here is not just 80 90 100 years old there is listen to me the greatest reality that we know is that there is a day that is going to knock on your door that will be your last day and the chair you're sitting in will be the one that takes you through that door and only one of them has a good experience on the other side this mama bears heart appeals to some young man some young woman don't get caught up in the woke philosophies of the day the intellectual super heads find a place where you can know the god of the universe and that you can hear him speak your name we have a speaking god he gave us the holy spirit that lives inside of us so that we can hear and we can know and we can walk this mama bear says there is a god this god is good and he wants you to know and live in his glory let's pray lord i thank you today i thank you for the word of god i thank you lord jesus that you are faithful when we're not faithful i pray that lord even when we walk between bethel and a.i lord if we buckle in if we say i'm going to the end with you help us lord to walk and worship help us to walk in obedience help us to walk in relationship let us not exchange the wisdom of god for the wisdom of man but lord let us truly seek first the kingdom of god let us know that you do have a good plan let us know that you will establish lord jesus that we give you the time we give you our lives you we surrender to the lordship and the sovereignty of god lord we thank you on this mother's day and every other day that we can count on you and we thank you for this in the name of jesus christ amen delta straight giver god bless today amen awesome deliberate soul amen praise the lord let's stand together beloved we always like to give everybody an opportunity to accept the lord if you're here today or you're online today and you're sitting in the wrong chair as has been so powerfully predicted you can sit in the right chair by buckling into jesus today and for some mom or grandmom here you might take this message and be able to share it with a family member a child and you might find yourself winning them to christ getting them into the right seat so please whether you're online or here you might want to consider taking this message to them how many will believe for god to save all of our family members today amen amen amen she gave us proverbs 22 and 6 train up a child moms as you have and the way they should go and when they're old they won't depart thank you mama bear for giving all of us a great mama bear message [Music] to really get a hold of your faith amen praise god amen let me pray with you and you can accept christ [Music] right now when we pray this prayer and i'm going to pray over the moms today as we're dismissed father we give you praise thank you that jesus is the answer for the world today we praise you lord that we've seen it powerfully predicted in the chairs on the platform powerfully testified in our hearts so today if there's anyone here anyone online that doesn't know you may today they buckle into jesus christ may they confess their sin that they haven't been following christ maybe following philosophy maybe following science maybe following religion maybe just fallen to their own personal doubts but today they say jesus come into my heart save my soul we claim the children and the spouses of every mother present today and every mother online listening we pray god that you would save their loved ones their family members in jesus name that every household will be a household of faith that every family member will be saved and they'll be buckled into the right chair as they go through life and as they leave this world we claim them lord our families lord as for us in our house we choose this day that we will serve the lord so today in every way lord make this a great day for every mom bless them i pray in every way and may the lord keep you and may the lord cause his face to shine upon you moms may the lord lift up his countenance upon you and be gracious unto you and give you peace in jesus name amen and amen happy mother's day have a great lord's day god bless [Applause] [Music] oh i will of the sing you

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Length: 119min 57sec (7197 seconds)

Published: Sun May 09 2021