Lift Off - Life Is A Team Sport

[Applause] cbg gosh it's good to see you hey give it up one more time for our musicians and anthony evans with us in the house gosh he is so good what a brilliant choice you made to be with us today with you here all the time or here for the first time if you're a newbie glad you're with us whether you're in one of the rooms or you're watching online right now anywhere around the world but especially in one of america's prisons when you give it up to our folks right now thousands of people watching via the app in one of american prisons listen i know you're not where you want to be but thank you for being with us you're part of our church family today and you and i say around the world i mean around the world via the internet and uh television we're on tv in 51 different nations including we're still on television in afghanistan right now so if you're watching right now in some difficult circumstance god bless you our prayers are with you uh i want to pick back up the conversation we began last week you missed last week we launched a new series entitled liftoff liftoff it's a it's a parable apparent jesus would use this teaching technique called a parable it'd be a story a creative illustration about something that didn't seem to be spiritual at all but recognizable cultural but it taught something profoundly spiritual he would teach a biblical idea without letting people know he was using the bible so we're doing this it's a parable i'm using a nasa and something called the space race from the 1960s if you remember that part of american and global history uh there's a probably unhealthy competition between the the soviet union and the americans it's the cold war and the soviets surprised the world and especially the american scientific and military communities by launching history's first satellite 1957 sputnik so america forms an organization called nasa and they start to recruit astronauts and the astronauts are incredibly famous and there's this race for space and the dream the big dream is who will put a man on the moon guess what that's a big dream you're staring at me that's a big dream think with me how long have human beings dreamt about the moon i wonder if in ancient times that people looked at the moon thought if i could get to the top of a mountain could i touch the moon could we ever as a race be on the moon well john f kennedy in 1961 january announced his audacious vision his dream he said that america would put a person on the moon now incredible because in 61 we had not yet put a person in orbit around the earth it was an audacious dream of vision humanity to have a man on the moon by the way we did accomplish that dream in 1969 neil armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon now luke chapter five luke chapter five we began a conversation about a jesus miracle in luke's chapter five and this too embodies a dream by the way this story is so good find luke chapter five find luke chapter five open up your bible turn on your bible hey if you're watching online find your bible right now luke chapter five but this story is so remarkable it shows up in uh see matthew chapter nine and mark chapter two as well as luke chapter five each one of these authors brings a unique perspective and different details to this beautiful biblical miracle but there's a guy in in this this story and he too has a dream his dream might seem smaller in scope and scale than to put a man on the moon or to walk on the moon his dream is simply not to walk in the moon his dream is simply to walk the bible says he's paralyzed is he paralyzed from the waist down or the neck down we don't get that detail but we know he cannot walk in that day and time you'd be stigmatized you'd be marginalized you'd live your life in poverty there's a 99.9 chance your occupation is a beggar so no doubt he dreamt that no one in history to his knowledge had been able to regain you know the ability to walk when you were paralyzed he'd been paralyzed probably for years or decades but he dreamt of walking hey so today's talk is dedicated to the dreamers i hope you are a dreamer the bible teaches me that god honors people who have big god-sized dreams so you check out daniel or joseph or the pride give it up for the dreamers in the house not selfish daydreamers but people who dare to dream god size dreams and and maybe you don't have god-sized dreams you should you know why because god has a dream for you god has a bar the language from nasa god has a has a mission for you i don't i don't know you i know maybe it's your first time to be with us in our church or log on but certain things i know about you i know that god loves you and god made you and god gave jesus to die for your sins and he wants a relationship with you and when you die he wants to take you to heaven when you die it's been forever with him in glory and in this life this god has a dream with your name on it god has given his cosmic genius to mapping out a supernatural plan or mission for your life how do i know that i believe my bible anybody believe the bible invite bank on the bible i believe my bible so you stayed in luke chapter five say in luke chapter five i want to bounce the old testament briefly and show you the one place where god declares the fact that he has a plan or a mission or a dream for your life i want to borrow this promise i know that god spoke this promise originally through jeremiah to the ancient congregation of god to the hebrew people but guess what i think we can appropriate this promise there's some bible teachers get weird about this guess what if god meant this for the old testament people of god it also applies to the new testament people of god it applies to the hebrews it applies to the church of jesus christ amen so we can borrow this promise jeremiah 29 11 is on the screen behind me i've highlighted one of the pronouns just one it's a little one just three words when we get there read it loudly okay it comes up several times for i know the plans i have for look who the spokesman is declares the lord plans to prosper you and not to harm you plans to give you a hope and a future this is not just powerful it's personal it's personal god says i know you better than you know yourself and by the way i'm a genius god says i know all information past present and future and by the way just for fun i love you more than you love you and the maker of the universe has given his cosmic genius to mapping out this mission or this dream or this plan for your life chase it down with all you have chased it and i don't know i don't know everything that it encouraged because this dream dream is multifaceted it's divinely inspired uh it's detailed it's detailed so i don't know god's divine details for your life because this dream is customized he's not a one-size-fits-all kind of god his dream for you is different in his dream for me right so every single dream is personal and powerful but i know this god's dream of your life is probably going to be big it's going to be big don't stare at me y'all being quiet today man you need to drink some caffeine go to bed earlier on saturday night put your hands together i'm telling you the god who made the universe has a mission or a dream for your life that's phenomenal and i'm willing to wager is not small because god trafficks in big in fact let me break it down it is so big it require other people i don't care how resolved you are how talented you are how smart you are how much you're willing to grind it's going to require the spiritual synergy of other people brothers and sisters in christ will stand with you shoulder to shoulder other people on your team who believe in god and believe in you god's dream is that big it will require a team god's mission for your life will require a team by the way you're staring at me that's the one point in the one point sermon today god has a dream for your life it's gonna take a team let's bounce back to nasa so in the 1960s one of the first things they did they recruited and trained astronauts i mentioned last week these first seven astronauts became very famous in the day back in the 1960s they were household names they were celebrities and all the attention and the focus was on the astronauts but nasa didn't stop with astronauts they recruited talent they started to hire the best and the brightest we had engineers mathematicians physicists technicians they hired thousands upon thousands of people whose names you never heard never heard because they wanted to build a team and so last week i talked about the people you hadn't heard about before i talked about those people on the team fact i gave you three brilliant examples three remarkable women who are part of the teams they were mathematicians and engineers and supervisors i told you last week about mary jackson and i told you about catherine johnson and dorothy vaughn and their story was beautifully documented in a movie called hidden figures if you've not seen the movie hidden figures do yourself a favor go rent the movie hidden figures but these remarkable women in the 1960s in langley virginia working for nasa had to push by all the pushback of racism and sexism and jim crow and made invaluable contributions to the space program in fact katherine johnson was the chief mathematician they were afraid to launch the rockets in 1961 until she ran the numbers because the rockets don't blast off until someone has done the math so the series is kind of about the work behind the work meaning this like you can have a god-sized dream but if all you do is daydream what you do is sit there in your basements on your bean bag and pray big prayers god said i'll do my part after you do your parts you got to do the work you got to do the work you got to do the work so uh i i'm celebrating so nasa and the rock is the attention was only the astronauts and and the liftoffs and the blast-offs and the space flights and the moon walks right that was all the attention all the glory all the spotlight but the thousands upon thousands of unsung heroes behind the scenes those engineers those technicians those mathematicians unless they did their job nothing happened the dream would not come to pass so what is your responsibility what do you need to see this dream that god has you become your reality many things again if you missed last week go check out last week by the way explain the fact i had shoulder surgery last week so if you're wondering why this is why the sling that's i'm klutzy i got hurt again so anyways anyways i explained all that last week but there's one big idea i think embodied in luke chapter five that's so important and it's obvious you don't need to be a bible scholar if you know this famous story if you missed the story what's happening is we have this this impaired guy this this paralyzed guy lives in the town of capernaum it says in mark's account of the story that jesus uh came home to capernaum now that's confused now that jesus home was nazareth or bethlehem true true but the home base for ministry starting age 30 was capernaum it's a little uh village on the shore of the sea of galilee you might recall that 18 or 33 of jesus miracles happened in or around the sea of galilee including this miracle and so this guy has no shot he's marginalized he's likely a beggar he cannot walk but he has what a team four remarkable unselfish phenomenal true friends and it says in the story they literally carried him to church they carried okay i know in really a church building those didn't happen until the fourth century but jesus was in a room he was in the house and i would argue anytime there's there's a gathering built around jesus and his word you're having church and so uh and by the way church was so good that day and the crowd had heard that jesus was back in his home base his ground zero from ministry capernaum that it was crowded in church man people had shown up and the crowd was thick and the crowd one room by the way one room probably one door one window one room and people are pressing in so if you came late by the way it's always problematic if you come late still come but if you come late to church you might find there's too many camels in the parking lot and the child care was full there in capernaum and so here these brothers come in maybe one skinny brother might snake through the crowd before guys carrying another grown man one translation says on his bed i hope it's not a california king because god how in the world and their praise this impassable and impossible crowd but here's here's the way it's analogous to nasa they don't stop these four friends are problem solvers they think creatively they do something rather unorthodox i would say rather radical they climb up an outdoor stairway to the flat roof and they do what they dig a hole in the ceiling of the house again if you don't think it's a little weird imagine that happening today in church mid-message someone starts digging a hole in the ceiling it gets small too big and they lower a brother in front of me that would distract me didn't bother jesus don't do that because that would mess me up with jesus jesus was fine with that and jesus heals him he heals him but here's the obvious point this guy had no ability to get to jesus without the assistance encouragement aid of his team they carried him to jesus and as an aside may i point out we're all carried to jesus if you're hearing your christian by the way whether you're watching online whether you're watching in nebraska or nepal or you're at lake worth or a homestead campus or you're here at sawgrass campus if you call yourself a christian you do not bring yourself to jesus i'd argue that someone brought you to christ somebody didn't physically carry you but somebody helped you in your jesus journey that no one i know you're smart and you're very very spiritual but no one led themselves to christ amen okay if you're watching online a lot of these folks are staring at me right now nobody and there's thousands of people in our rooms by the way we had the best crowd we've had during the tires since covered last week great job inviting people last week at church by the glades for the launch of all this stuff uh was a best crowd but of the thousands of people in the rooms watching online nobody has this testimony no christian can say well i i led myself to jesus i was in a hotel room rather sad and kind of alone i found a little night stand and opened up the drawer and there was a bible and i picked up the bible and i found it by myself in my bible i found john 3 16 then i found romans 10 9 then i found romans 8 28 then i led myself in a sinner's prayer and after i i saved myself i then baptized myself in the bathtub nobody has that story right nobody nobody your story's probably well a bunch of people helped bunch of people prayed for me and encouraged me and invited me and and shared with me i mean i got saved as a punk kid i'm nine years old and i got saved but even in that early part of life many people poured into that they helped carry me to jesus my parents literally carried me to church one time i was a small boy my sunday school teacher spoke truth into my life my pastor preached biblical message when i was nine i went to like a little christian camp where we have camps here for our kids i went to a camp and one of the counselors took me aside and he shared the gospel he shared how i could give my heart to christ and he led me in a salvation prayer but he's not the only person who carried me all those people carried me i didn't get to jesus by myself this guy dream of walking no ability to get to jesus without these remarkable friends so you're going to need an entourage of encouragement i want to talk about relationships relationships why because relationships i argue are the most precious thing in life life is not what what you have life is who you have and i i don't mean to be offensive but a lot of us don't do very well choosing intentional encouraging relationships for a lot of us the people you hang out with that's your achilles heel you just hang out with other people who don't make good decisions i told you last week stupid is contagious so i want to help you be very intentional when it comes to relationships because these friends are remarkable what they do not stopping when they saw the crowd because again they were feeling discouraged i mean we finally got this brother to church and now here's this crowd that's impossible and impossible they didn't stop right they were so committed to his healing they wanted to see a dream for him happen so badly these friends were the catalysts for a miracle so let's talk about what true friends look like what true friends do take out your phone take some notes on this and we'll move quickly based on this text and luke chapter five what do these true phenomenal iron sharpens iron kind of friendships look like i wrote those down on my notes i wrote them true friends don't bulk at your brokenness true friends don't bulk they don't bail at your brokenness because this guy he's broken he's broken physically and he's broken spiritually now most friends are your friends because of who you are true friends are your friends because of who you are and sometimes in spite of who you are amen because we're all messy we're all messy put your hands together if you acknowledge you're messy put your hands together right now yeah if i could clap my clap too loudly we're all messy and and true friends uh they love us in spite of the mess so i look at the story carefully i don't think this guy's paralysis had been his whole life i think he was born paralyzed why do i believe that as i study the text a couple reasons one is when someone does have an issue from from birth the bible says so so check out for reference john chapter 9 it says there's a man born blind he's born blind he's never had the ability to see he doesn't say this about this brother in fact what jesus says as he begins to heal him is remarkable because jesus doesn't at first say when he's lowered through the ceiling by his four faithful friends jesus doesn't say uh i heal thee in my name or stand and walk he doesn't say it at first when he says verse 20 verse 20 is what jesus actually says it's on the screen right now it says when jesus saw their faith he said friend your not your body is healed but your sins are forgiven so it tells me his issue was not first and foremost physical it was spiritual so lin so when did things go south when did his body fall apart when did the paralysis happen the paralysis happened after he made a sinful choice so how old was he i don't know but he was old enough to make a sinful choice i mean this he wasn't a newborn baby babies are not born guilty of sin babies are not born guilty of sin now as babies we have a sin nature right i mean this did you have to teach your child to be selfish do you have to teach your child to be all about his or her needs no that baby ever think i'm not gonna cry at four in the morning because mom looks tired mom seems to know babies we're inherently sinful but we're not responsible for sin when we're babies or even children so so when did this guy choose sin so significant that it affects not just his spirit but his body i don't know i don't know maybe as a teenager probably as a young adult but at some point he made a series probably of such spiritually toxic decisions it doesn't just affect his spirit it affects his body so jesus addresses first and foremost the utmost issue spiritual forgives sin and tells about his friends he's friends with his friends not for 15 minutes but for 15 years or longer and they'd probably sadly watched his slow slip and demise into paralysis they knew him before when he was healthy they knew him before and perhaps he was the life of the party they knew him before when he had a whole lot to offer right when he pick up the check he's not picking up the check for anybody right now he's destitute and it may seem when you look at him he has little to offer you yet nonetheless a true friend is not in it for what you do for them but what they can do for you not what i get from you but what i want for you and can i just say this the vast majority of relationships stay with me don't log off the vast majority of relationships there's a subtext of what they're getting from you almost every relationship at some level it's what you bring to the table for me now you think it sounds kind of dark and kind of negative and pessimistic no stay with me uh and you're thinking yeah you're terrible people that way like toxic people like you david the users and the abusers man just try to use people and manipulate people and you're right those are toxic people and we can preach to some of the boundaries but i mean there's some other people in your life and not necessarily bad people but their core agenda the relationship is what you do for them what you do for them you're stared at me let me define these people i call these people because they're not necessarily unhealthy relationships i call them as seasonal people seasonal people they're in your life not forever but for a season now these four friends are forever friends but let me contrast right now to help you understand the difference because i want to dial up your relationship iq between a seasonal person and a forever friend because they're not the same thing a seasonal person is not necessarily a bad person but they're not with you forever so why are they in your life they're in your life because they like where you are going they like the trajectory of your relational rocket ship so what they do in your life is they uh they avail themselves to your relational energy they take advantage of your relational network they spend your relational capital they're not bad people but here's how you can tell a seasonal person when you change the course of your relational rocket they offload that's not always like a big fight or a blow up they just kind of drift away they drift away you've had this in your life haven't you if you're older than like age 25 you've had this already in your life that somebody used to be your friend and you didn't have a fallout didn't have a fight all of a sudden they used to be really tight and you got all the time they're just going to disappear on you or maybe it was a business relationship you thought you were in this thing forever going to change the world forever but they got a better offer from someone else and they didn't cheat you or steal from you they just took the offer and wished you well that mean that a bad person just means they're a seasonal person the difference is vital listen listen some of you all married seasonal people thinking they were forever people i hit too close to home i'm not judging i hit too close from home [Applause] these people are only damaging to you if you misread who they are see if i think you're investing in me forever and you're not prepared to make a forever deposit just a seasonal deposit that's on me that's on me i'm expecting you to deliver a payload you're not prepared to deliver that's and that's when they break your heart that's when they break by contrast like these four remarkable friends because my guess is this guy's old friends when he was the life of the party and able-bodied man they've drifted away by now but these four guys they are committed to him see a forever friend is called by god to be part of your life they are captivated by the gravitational pull of god's grace and work in your life and they couldn't leave you even if they wanted to so you have this precious person in your life but they drifted away and they weren't there and it kind of makes you sad guess what if they were indispensable to your divine destiny it'd be impossible for them to leave but for the fact they did leave your life that shows me they weren't a forever friend just a seasonal friend and you don't need them to hear where god wants you to be you're okay and don't be bitter if you see them be nice and just know you are a seasonal friend you with me so the forever friends are rare you won't have dozens of forever friends you'll have a few two three four i'm talking about biblical examples like uh jonathan and david jonathan and dave read the story of jonathan if jonathan didn't love him protect david jonathan would have been the next king not david but he cared about david and god's plan for both of them i think joshua and caleb probably have this kind of forever friendship this called to be each other have each other's back no doubt naomi and ruth you need just a few people like this in your life how about a second idea here i i wrote this down true friends true friends fight for your freedom true friends are all about your life emancipation they they fight for your freedom and propel you towards the positive toward towards the positive so again i don't think this is the first time these four brothers carried this guy of places no doubt because he's paralyzed they carried him what every day back and forth from home he had no ability no mass transit right uh no wheelchairs so they carried him back and forth from home to maybe back and forth to the marketplace maybe carried him every day back and forth to his favorite street corner to beg this day where'd they carry him church they carried him to church so the subtext about these guys you know these guys right these guys are believing men they're carrying him to church they're carrying them to jesus i would say they're clearly optimistic people they're believing people they're committed people they're faithful people they are positive people i mean they're going they know what he's up against no one's been healed in human history of an impairment like this they're gonna take him to jesus they heard jesus fixes people like this that's optimistic i've told you before that optimism and faith are not the same things but their first cousins they're positive you need positive people in your life you need to be a positive person i if you know me if you're if you're uh if you're married to me or know me by family or are you working me on the team the team will tell you i'm a positive person i'm a crazy optimist you need to be that way listen there's negative people all the time negative people show up in the story remarkable jesus heals this man after probably decades of paralysis and somebody goes negative on the screen right now we'll pick up the story in verse 21 luke 5. the pharisees and teachers of the law began thinking to themselves who is it because jesus said i forgive you of your sins didn't say i heal you he said i forgive you who was this man who the fellow speaking blasphemy who can forgive sins but god alone get ready jesus knew what they were jesus knows what you're thinking jesus can read your mind and he asks why are you thinking these things in your hearts which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or get up and walk with you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sin he said to the paralyzed man i tell you get up take your mat why waste a perfectly good man love the detail take your mat go home immediately he stood up in front of them all took he'd been lying on and went home praising god verse 26 everyone everyone was amazed and praised god and filled with all and said we've seen remarkable things in church today yeah think about this this is a small town everybody knows bob the beggar right there's no mistaken identity there's no no smoking mirrors here everybody including the pharisees says this guy's not able to walk in jesus he's walking but their first response is negative are you kidding me well he performed a legitimate miracle but i don't like the way he did the miracle are you kidding me i'm gonna show you a future week and a chapter to the right like i don't like the time he did the miracle he did great miracle wrong time about missing the point negative people negative people they're everywhere right you can't get away there's negative people in the room right now negative people watching negative people so here's question negative people don't answer out loud negative people why are you so negative why are you so negative you don't enjoy it we don't enjoy it why are you so negative answer is this you're negative because you tend to hang out with negative friends you tend to invite negative attitudes uh you want to go to negative environments biggest thing is you foster and harbor negative thoughts by contrast positive people like the four phenomenal friends do what uh they hang around positive people they invite positive attitudes they go to positive environments like church by the grace positive environments uh and they they think on positive thoughts can i interrupt my own sermon can i take 90 seconds to interrupt my own sermon please can i do that can i do it can i do that can i chase a rabbit can i chase a rabbit please say yes i'm gonna do it okay okay thank you all right all right if you right now you you you tend to gravitate and wrestle with thinking negatively you're a negative person or critical by nature or you worry i think if you're an anxious person sidebar i think you should think about what you think about stay with me this might be the reason god brought you to church today don't log off don't look up i think you should think about what you think about david how do i even do that i can't help the fact i have negative thoughts i can help the fact that i have worries and i worry all the time it's been night just worried and anxious and i can't sleep and i'm stressed out and i'm taking drugs i can't right right all right couple verses put these in your phone if you're a worrisome person put get out your phone that's everybody get out your phone all right what's the bible say about what we think about to start with philippians 4 8 philippians 4 8 no extra charge for the sidebar sermon right here philippians 4 8 it's on the screen right now here is the imagine this verse is like the bouncer outside the club with a velvet rope and a thought a random thought wants to get in your brain get into the club of your brain right and it has it has the guest list there on the ipad here's who gets in on the guest list as far as the thoughts you permit in your brain it says by that resonated with one person thank you you've been new club only honest person in the house thank you right there finally brethren whatever is true whatever is honorable whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is of good repute meaning good reputation uh whatever is uh if there's any excellence or anything worthy of praise let your mind dwell right doesn't say have a casual thought dwell fixate focus on these kind of things well david how do i do that oh let's cross reference this with another great scripture go to second corinthians chapter 10 verse 5. this is something the bible says that every believer should do ready it says and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to christ amen so here's what the bible is describing right so all day long you're bombarded with mental stimuli all these random thoughts and some will be negative and some will be anxious and some will be worrisome what do you do well this verse says you take that thought captured captive when that thought enters your brain uh you you stop it you appraise it you arrest it right if it doesn't meet the threshold of philippians 4 8 whatever is right whatever is true whatever is just whatever is pure oh that list just meet that you reject that thought you booted out the door now why are the pharisees so jealous unhappy they miss a miracle why are they so negative well let's jump now to matthew's account the same story matthew is the briefest account but here's a delicious detail in the bible so matthew chapter 9 verse 14 when jesus calls them out for their criticism in their mind because he can read their thoughts i love what it says here chapter 9 verse 14 on the screen right there say jesus said why do you oh the only time the word shows up why do you entertain evil thoughts why do you entertain anxious thoughts why do you entertain that why do you entertain then say what do you have what do you entertain i like that you know it's so instead of rejecting arresting entertaining some of y'all with that negative thought or that worrisome thought comes your brain you you entertain it like hey come on in here's a nice seat kick your feet up let me get you a pillow how about a beverage [Music] some of you like a little water entertainment like let's have a party hey negative thought let's have a party we'll crank up the music negative thought invite your other negative buddies to join us and so so pessimism comes to your life and negativity follows him and stress follows him and anxiety come on in right a hate join us fear we gotta see for you right and then you have you have a negative thought party in your brain you don't reject you don't capture you invite you entertain make yourself at home eat my food break my stuff drink my liquor here's what it works the way it works right you're laying there at night for me it's always worse at night bad things feel bigger at night and so you're there at night and you feel this stress you have like a real thought like a real thought because you know real thoughts come in your mind real thoughts all day long thousands of thousands so the real thought is this but i never heard back from that client that's real but then i start to speculate right that's one thought that's kind of negative i i i entertain it it starts to bring his negative friends in so that's followed by uh negativity like oh my gosh i'm thinking that client probably chose my competitor and then paranoia joins oh my gosh if if the uh client chooses the competitor the boss will be mad and the boss if she's mad she might fire me and she fires me i won't get paid if i don't get paid i can't pay the mortgage i can't pay the mortgage we lose the house we lose the house i go bankrupt we lose a house go bankrupt my wife will leave me my kids won't respect stop it pump the brakes take every thought captive i think you should think about what you think about i don't know how man i'm just wired to be negative i just stop it capture that thought reject that in jesus name example example uh you you can't stop a thought from penetrating your brain it's do you dwell on it do you dwell on it do you retain on it do you entertain it do you fixate on it so anthony and i are anthony came down a little bit early i took him to the keys i love the florida keys and he's like a texas guy he rides horses and stuff he's like a cowboy i'm a florida guy so what do we do florida let's go feed some sharks let's find some sharks so we find like this restaurant they have like some fish food stuff some some bait and these sharks and tarpon and so anthony's throwing this and just watching sharks at his feet eating this stuff and here's sharks and tarpon and jacks and of course birds are bombing us there's all these these pelicans and these seagulls and there's so many of these birds we're ducking them i thought at any moment you know a bird could land on my head a bird could land on my head i could not stop that bird if it really wanted to from landing on my head but if that bird landed on my head and built a nest and laid eggs and raised chicks at some point it's not on the bird it's on me you're letting those negative worried thoughts land on your head that gets that happens but you don't shoe it off and take a captive in jesus name you let it build a nest and raise his chicks and mess you up i think you should think about what you think about no extra charge for that that's i got to close quickly third thing and i close with this true friends are committed to your health yes true friend they want to get him healthy right they didn't make me know he was seriously sick they thought he was physically impaired but true friends are committed to your health so let's stop and think about your friends people you hang with i'm not being judgmental but if you're friends all you do your friends is get hammered and hung over and make regrettable life decisions with they're obviously not committed to your health people who um in life because we all have dysfunction we all have brokenness right but people who deny your brokenness or people who facilitate your brokenness or sadly some people benefit from your brokenness those people are not committed to your health i don't care who they are i don't care it's been your friend forever or your best friend or your codependent friend or your friend with benefits they're benefiting from your dysfunction they won't own it acknowledge it right they'll deny it why because people that benefit from your dysfunction will always fight against your freedom it's usually some people like this committed to your health people want to see like these four friends i want to see you healthy spiritually i want to see you healthy physically i will see you healthy financially i want to see you healthy relationally notice all those life groups have a topic have a theme or trying to get you connected with good friends but help you get the information you need to be healthy jesus wants you healthy you need friends that care about your spiritual health somebody saying these old other old friends if they're friends and all you do is make bad decisions i'm gonna say you kick him to the curb you had to restructure the social situations and environments you go to with those friends amen saturday night i'm now in church all the time i can still play flag football with you right we still hang out the house i'm not going to the club with you because i just make dumb decisions i make decisions i regret the next day you're still so my friend but i gotta i gotta restructure this friendship and then god give me some forever friends some true friends that'll help me be healthy in every way that matters a true friend wants to see you free so these guys carried him in fact i love in the story i've read all three accounts carefully many times there's no indication they actually asked him for permission to take him to church they didn't tell the guy okay i love that strategy by the way hey where we going to the marketplace today where are we going to the street quarter today are we going to starbucks today no starbucks but they have free coffee church by the way we're taking a free coffee that strategy and because of what they did their dream his dream of walking because he met jesus came to pass one thing i love about the story too uh a lot of anonymous you don't get names you don't get names you don't get names uh the name of the man has never mentioned any of the three accounts uh the name of the homeowner has now a hole in his roof has never mentioned in the accounts they don't mention the name of the four friends we don't get hey it was it was it was bob biff theodis and joaquin we don't get their names they're anonymous you know nasa back in the 60s all the focus is on the astronauts not to diminish the courage and contribution of the astronauts but the team nasa hired 500 000 team members mathematicians scientists physicists technicians everyone had to do the work for the dream to come to pass you're gonna need a team gonna need a team but i like the team in this story this team's not about hey make sure make sure i'm the story hey jesus if you post this please tag me i'm one of the four friends in fact the only name we get in the story is what name jesus jesus hey church by the glades i could give a rip whether you know my name anthony doesn't care if you know his name the techs don't care the band doesn't care the teen big year it's all about one name so if you're thinking through your friendships ago i don't know where to start man my friends are a mess my relationship grid is so toxic start with the best friend the true friend jesus it says in proverbs 18 24 a man of many companions you have a bunch of dumb friends you come to ruin have toxic friends they will mess you up but this says but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother interesting prophecy because the writer here is solomon he's not talking about himself he's not saying why would he be a friend with every subject my kingdom no he actually pointed to the future said messiah is going to come messiah is going to be the king the king of kings and the creator of the universe and the heel of the restorer the gift of salvation he's gonna be all that stuff he wants to be your friend see jesus wants nothing from you he wants something for you a relationship so if you don't know for certain and sure you have a relationship with jesus make your move today let me pray for you the prayer partners will be the edge of the stage or text the word salvation is the number you see on the screen it's going to take a team because god's dream for you is huge father god thank you so much for who you are thank you for this great story thank you father for this example of four sensational friends unselfish friends committed friends true friends help us find friends and be friends like that by choosing first and foremost a friendship with jesus make this prayer in jesus name amen

Channel: Church by the Glades

Views: 569

Rating: 4.8000002 out of 5

Keywords: church by the glades, cbglades, fort lauderdale, coral springs, tamarac, margate, sample road, lake worth, miami, broward county, church, church service, sermon, creativity, music, south florida, message, fun

Id: SYL93Yn8tHo

Length: 38min 58sec (2338 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021