Lisa Harper | "The Story of RE-demption" | Social Dallas

[Applause] we need to wait a little longer she just said and want god to do a little longer two years after i brought my seat home from haiti god started telling me to take her back i was like no sir no i'm not going to take my baby back to 80. missy's first mama marie who i cannot wait to meet in glory and say look at what god has done with her girl she died of aids and aids is uh so stigmatized in haiti that they hit her for the last few months of her life the people where missy was fed didn't even know missy had a mama and uh i got woven into her story two weeks after marie died and most of the people in missy's village thought missy had died too from a real small rural village and very few of them have electricity much less the internet and so when god started telling me to take her back i was like no sir now i'll go back to haiti and i'll send money to haiti but my baby almost died in haiti and they wouldn't touch her at the orphanage because they were afraid that they would catch hiv from touching missy and hiv is so stigmatized in haiti that they thought she had a voodoo curse over her life and i was like no sir i'm not i'm not taking her back i don't know if you've ever said no sir to god um i'm older than most of y'all and probably dumber than all of you and it takes me a long time to learn that's why i so identify with peter he's my favorite of the disciples because he was such a train wreck um and after i fussed with him for a little while i said lord miss he almost died in haiti and he said that's the point he said i want you to take life back to a place where all too often death wins and i had a funny story to start with tonight because i don't know y'all i'm here because of pastor honey um we met i think three years ago pastor in dc and i didn't know robert was her son i knew he was really gifted i love to hear him preach i had no idea he was her boy i just saw jesus dripping off her she just radiated the lord and i thought i want to get close to that woman i want to get as close as i can to that woman so i wouldn't all up over robert i was all up over his mama and then when i found out that the senior and pastor honey worshipped with taylor and robert i just started blowing up taylor's phone like can i come can i come can i come i want to be around your family i want to be around what god is doing here so to get to be here with y'all is a gift but i was going to start with a funny story because i knew y'all were mostly young and i knew i was going to stand up on the stage and i forgot my spanx so i thought you know i've got to distract y'all i don't want to scar y'all i want to be cool and i'm going to start with a funny story and as the holy spirit was so thick in this place that we all felt him even if you don't know jesus you know something just happened and i was just asking god what he wanted to do and he said i want to bring life to where too often death lives and so i think there's at least a few of you in this room who have labored with an orphan spirit for a long time now my baby doesn't have an orphan spirit never did god did something in missy's heart when she was a little girl just never had an orphan spirit i had an orphan spirit grew up in a christian home my dad left us when i was five years old a few weeks after my dad left us a pastor my mom took us to a little baptist church i'm baptistal now my daddy was assembly of god mama was baptist and so when i was younger i didn't wiggle as much as i do now but she brought us to a church where the pastor started talking about how god our heavenly father is the kind of dad who doesn't walk away from his children and i was itty bitty and we had pews how many of y'all are actually under 30 baby pews or long wooden benches we used to have in church you remember pastor senior remember those long did y'all have pews and now you remember you had them in arkansas didn't you taylor and in the summertime you know when we didn't have air conditioning it's like oh please just finish worship please it's about my rear ends getting numb but uh i was holding on to the back of the pew standing up after the pastor talked about how god is a father who doesn't leave his children and they started singing this old hymn called just as i am they sang it over and over and over again and finally i just couldn't stay where i was standing i walked up a center aisle and i told brother jimmy that i wanted to give my heart to jesus because i wanted a dad who would walk away from me and so i came to know jesus when i was really really little but y'all for decades i didn't think god liked me very much i felt like he had lowered the bar to allow me into relationship with him because he's a good god and i understood as best a little kid can that i needed god and a lot of what taylor just said and talked about being broken i knew i needed god i just didn't think he could delight in me i thought he delivered me from my sins and i just wanted to work really really hard so that he wouldn't be disappointed and the fact that he had allowed me into relationship with him and so i walked around with the smell of death all over me even though i knew jesus and it's amazing how many christians in our culture know christ and still smell like death who don't have freedom who don't believe who actually don't think he can bring a miracle when missy stepped off the bus we went back to haiti all these people around this bus began to shriek because they thought missy was a ghost because they thought she had already died and so they couldn't understand how this healthy beautiful child was standing in front of them and then when they realized she could actually walk and talk they all began pointing at me and they all began saying that i was a high voodoo priestess because only that kind of magic could redeem a child like missy who they were sure had died back to this healthy kid and i said no no no no jesse jesse jesse jesse is yeshua in creole it's jesus jesus jesus jesus and it was unbelievable how many of those women actually found their hope in jesus christ because they saw a miracle and what god said to me god said to me over and over again in haiti lisa you need to raise the bar you need to raise the bar you have allowed miracles in your life to die because you didn't believe big enough you didn't wait long enough you didn't allow yourself to sit in a place that's a little uncomfortable it doesn't look exactly like church and i really believe that's what he's doing tonight i believe he's going to resurrect miracles i believe that some of you who have not had the freedom that you sing about that tonight god is going to lift the lid off your off your life not because i am a good bible teacher robert and taylor are incredibly kind and have given me honor that i have not earned or deserved but our god is a great god and our god uses weak and foolish people to reveal his goodness and his kindness and he's not going to let us miss it tonight psalm 84 11 no good thing will he withhold from those of us who are stumbling toward who he is he's not going to let us miss it tonight and i just i'm excited i feel like we're on the cusp of a miracle if you brought your bible i want you to turn to the old testament because we're going to dive right in maybe next time i come back i'll tell you a funny story but i just i want to have a family meeting tonight i don't have time for entertainment tonight so i wanted you to turn to hosea if you didn't bring your bible um just find somebody around you with a bible or flip to bible gateway on your phone i want you to see this story i want you to know it's in here it's important for you to see this story because i think the church has forgotten redemption i know robert's been talking about the power of re and i think we've forgotten that we are redeemed that we've been bought back from the pit that we are no longer dead and this story is all about redemption plus it's a love story and i am a sucker for a good love story all too often people think this is a rule book or a collection of morality tales this is a love story it is true from cover to cover y'all need to know up front i'm not going to bait and switch y'all i'm a cover to cover bible girl i believe every single word in this supernatural book but i also believe it's a love story it's a real story this really happened this is not metaphor metonym analogy this actually happened and it's relevant today and he's good from cover to cover when we see him as a unibrow librarian in the old testament is because we don't get the socio-historical context if we would actually take the time to get to know this love story we would see he has always been actively working for our good and our redemption and he always will be until we see him face to face he is a good god he's not a bad god in the old testament and jesus would break girl hair extensions in the new testament that's not who he is he's not a bipolar god he has always been and always will be a redeemer and y'all i'm so tired of people in this culture talking about well jesus said i'm like are you a genesis 1 26-27 our god is a triune god everything in the old testament jesus breathed it wasn't god in the old testament jesus in the new testament has always been god the father god the son god the holy spirit doesn't have to be read for jesus to have said it so anyway sorry that was my little message hosea hosea is if you'll go to matthew and then head back about a half an inch unless you have an old study bible and then it'll be an inch but if you'll head back about a half an inch from matthew you'll find hosea hosea is 12 books from matthew it's the first book of a 12 book section called the minor prophets now i used to think they were called minor because i thought they were on keto i thought they were like little bitty guys and skinny jeans but that's not who they are the minor prophets are called minor because their prophecies are short they were not nearly as long-winded as isaiah and jeremiah none of these books more than four chapters so they're short prophecies but they pack a punch and hosea was written when god's people had lost the faith that he could redeem they were singing just like we do but their hearts were far from god they had lost their first love they were looking for love in all the wrong places and if i was god and i know that's heretical but if i was god these people were so rebellious i would have fried them into a grease spot of oblivion and just created a whole new people group i mean it would make sense if he had because they had lost it y'all they had lost it and they were not faithful they were just basically prostituting their affections and what our god does he's such a redeemer what our god does is he sends in this guy named hosea really really good guy now we don't know much about hosea until he lives his story but because we're told he's a good man he's a faithful man i picture him as being a little bit square picture him as kind of hot water khakis you know he's got a flip phone he's wearing the t-shirt under the button down you remember when guys do that i love it did you do that at ou robert did you wear the white t-shirt under the button and i just thought gosh i'm a sucker for that i'm 57 and single um so it's a whole nother story i was a train wreck when i was younger but i am just a sucker for a guy who opens doors and drives a truck don't give me a little skinny jean prius boy no i'm not trying to throw shade but i need a boy who can pick me up but anyway hosea he's a good guy he's an honorable guy and god says to hosea this is in the bible people tell me the bible's boring i'm like no our culture tells us that the populist boy it breaks my heart because so many people y'all's age are just leaving church in droves because you think in order to be to believe this is authoritative that god is mean and we have to be too and it's not true it's not true our god is kind he's always been kind and as his beloved we are called to a kind of compassion that will wake this world up that'll shake this world up anyway sorry i'm going to get to preaching so he tells hosea i'm going to use your life as an illustration to woo my people back to me they are worthy of all kinds of discipline but i love them i love them so much and so i'm going to through your life tell the most unlikely love story and it's going to woo my people back to me so he goes hosea i know you're a good guy i mean i know you're such a good guy you were too shy to even ask a girl to prom but i'm going to hook you up with a girl whose name is all over the boys locker room her name is gomer and she is the loosest girl in town and i'm going to have you marry gomer and then i'm going to use your marriage to this girl who's nothing like you as a metaphor for my people and what is stunning in this story and i'll just want you to know i'm not taking too much liberty with the text hosea chapter 1 verse 2 when the lord first spoke to hosea the lord sorry verse 3 no verse 32 i have to wear spanx and i need glasses when the lord first spoke through hosea the lord said to hosea go take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children afford them for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the lord that doesn't make sense doesn't it he's a good guy i mean he's basically robert an old testament he's a good guy great lineage faithful guy so it makes sense if god said yeah i want you to marry taylor i want you to marry lauren daigle i mean some cute girl loves jesus pure high metabolism the whole deal you've earned it you've been faithful son so you get the dessert with a cherry on top that would make sense makes sense if he gets some kind of old testament cinderella but god says i want you to marry the girl you wouldn't pick she's a girl with an ac dc tube top she's got daisy dukes i mean this girl is just been with everybody and hosea that's who i want you to give your heart to and what's stunning y'all is the next three words in the esv i can't remember what it comes from in the hebrew the next three words in the english are so he went do you know what that means he obeyed when he couldn't see around the corner you know why he was able to obey when he couldn't see around the corner because he'd spend enough time with god to know that god's ways are always good he knew even if i can't see around the corner whatever my god leads me to will ultimately be for my good and for his glory so we went so he went he didn't ask questions he didn't google it he didn't wikipedia it he didn't anoint it with oil he didn't pray about it he just went god spoke yes sir so he went man i'd love to see that kind of obedience in my own life how about you when god says go just say yes sir you don't have to tell me anymore just i'm i'm going so he went so he goes to the bank he gets out all of his money he's earned driving uber eats during a global pandemic and he goes to the mall and he buys the biggest diamond chip he can afford and he goes home and he gets his daddy's suit and he puts on that suit he slicks back his hair and he slathers himself with axe and he drives across town to a rough part of town can't you just see hosea he's driving a beat up ford good guy really good guy gets out of that car walks toward this dilapidated trailer and just starts knocking on the door got a little velvet box in one hand bouquet of roses and the other he picked up at the grocery store starts knocking on the door he can hear the ball game coming through the door it's so loud he eventually has to pound after a few minutes the door finally swings open big old redneck standing in the door wearing a wife beater holding a bud light got queso stains all over his shirt y'all seen him haven't you what you want boy hosea says good evening mr diblum my name is hosea jose a good guy and god told me to come over to your house and ask for your blessing because he told me he wants me to marry your daughter boy what you talking about boy somebody got a gopro around here you are punching me this is me on insta stories have boys like you come to our house no sir no sir i'm not punking you uh god told me to come here and ask for gomer's hand him at gomer mike gomer well boys about you come around this house boy you playing me no sir i'm not playing you after a couple more seconds of mr diblum looking go hosea up and down he just turns around and goes gumo gomer some little skinny boy out here wants to talk to you gummer's been back in her bedroom watching the real housewives of jerusalem [Laughter] she's listening to metal so she can't hear daddy real well pulls out one of her beats and goes what you want daddy and he goes girl there's a boy up here at the door for you she leans down to look to see who it is and it's hosea and she recognizes hosea he was her algebra too the school set him up in a peer tutoring program when she was failing and she met him at the library every thursday during lunch and she remembers him even though it was her junior year she dropped out after junior year she remembers him because he's one of the few guys in school who never looked below her face no matter how low-cut the shirt was that she was wearing jose always treated her with respect she remembers him she remembers how kind he was to her in the hallway and just when her heart gets soft she kind of recovers that self-protective veneer of sarcasm she goes hey what you doing slumming in our neighborhood hoes selling magazines for the boy scouts and isaiah goes no gomer god sent me to see you and god told me to ask for your hand in marriage so would you do me the honor of becoming my wife and she's so stunned she can't reply right away her dad's so stunned his mouth is hanging wide open and what falls out of her mouth next shocks him it shocks herself shocks the whole town when it starts trending on twitter she says sure okay whatever and they get married by justice of the peace and they go to galveston for their honeymoon and they move back home and he gets a job at dallas love field helping in the baggage department because he's so determined to provide well for his little family this family god told him to start remember the context god said i want you this really amazing guy to marry this really really wild girl and i'm going to use your marriage as a love story to remind my people that i'm a redeemer to remind my people that i bring life out of death to remind my people that i'll never walk away from them they'll never see my back she gets pregnant really quickly and god's voice re-enters the story a couple of verses into chapter one and he says hosea i want you to name your first son jezreel jezreel means scattered and he said my people have scattered and so i'm going to name your son jezreel and it's not that unusual during this ancient era for a daddy to name a son it's hard for me not to keep looking at y'all honey because i love nigerian names nigerian names are like this is my son and the lord's favor is set upon his face and he will prophesy to many i love nigerian names our little puny american names just don't hold them justice i love a name that says i believe god's going to perform a miracle and in this context god says hosea i'm not going to have you name your son a joyful name i'm going to have you name him a hard prophetic name because that's what's happened to my people people they've scattered and so he names his first son jezreel she's fertile myrtle she gets pregnant really quickly again and she's pregnant a second time with a daughter god's voice enters the story and he says i want you to name your baby girl hosea lo rouhama which in hebrew means no more mercy god says i love my people but i love them so much that i'm going to encircle them with discipline i'ma bring them back to me because they are so nuts that they are going to run off a cliff and kill themselves and so i'm going to encircle them and bring them back toward myself i'm not playing anymore god is kind but god doesn't play then she gets pregnant a third time god's voice reenters the story and essentially he says hosea here's where the rubber meets the road this third name is going to eviscerate you because you need to name your third child your second son lo a me which means not mine and that third child didn't look anything like hosea because at that point in the story gomer had gone back to her wild ways very beginning right after she married hosea she tried to do it right she went to steinmart she replaced her tube tops with sweater sets got involved in a book club she was trying to live right she was so undone and this good guy actually cared for her that had never happened before that she she tried to live right but pretty quick she went back to her old ways i don't know how many of you are in recovery but be careful about old friends be really really careful if you're walking in the light about going back and flirting with the dark be careful isaiah went back to her i mean gomer went back to her old ways and she got pregnant from a guy she used to party with and she has this little boy lo and me and the story gets worse y'all because she abandons all three children and hosea just walks out it's hard for me to imagine a mama who would leave behind three babies but she did hosea was left to be a single parent he's the one who went to parent-teacher meetings he's the one who went to soccer games he's the one who took loruhama to walmart when she turned 12 and said baby i know this is a little embarrassing to be in this aisle with your daddy but i'm so proud of the young woman you're becoming it's a good man gomer just got worse and worse and worse after guys stopped paying for drinks she started selling her body after they stopped paying for her body she was forced to sell herself as a slave and at the end of chapter 2 you find gomer representing god's people standing on a rock standing on a boulder in the middle of a slave auction if you studied historicity or josephus if you studied anything about ancient slave markets they were even uglier than they were in america they would put all the slaves on stones so they were elevated they would strip them naked only men could bid on slaves at this point in history and they would walk around those slaves and examine the merchandise wanted to make sure if they were buying a man for labor purposes he was strong wanted to make sure if they were buying a woman for you can imagine that she was either still fertile or still attractive and so you can probably imagine what those men encircling gomer said surely some of them said things like why should i pay for her i've already had her for free hey auctioneer can i sample some of this merchandise before i fork over good hard cash for can you imagine what she was thinking it's easy to vilify her at this point in the story it's easy for me to go how in the world could she leave three babies until i remember my own story it's not quite as colorful i didn't have a child because i was so stupid in my 20s and 30s i knew jesus but man i was drawn to abusive men abusive men and carbs i didn't lose my teeth to meth like some of my friends i've never been incarcerated but i know what it is to be an addict i know what it is to give my love away to the wrong things i know what it is to raise my hands in worship and prostitute my heart the rest of the week i know what that feels like so i can kind of imagine standing on a stone and thinking how in the world did i get here i spend a lot of time volunteering at a place in downtown nashville for women who are in recovery and many of my friends have solicitation on their records almost all of them came from tpw tennessee prison for women and many of them like gomer sold their body and you know what has been really interesting for me as i've grown to love these women and their stories of redemption is not one single woman that i've met who walked the streets asked for a prostitute barbie when she was little girl not one none of them saw that in their future most of my friends were abused when they were little girls they had men do things that men shouldn't do until you're married and even then they should do it with kindness and that abuse set them on this journey and they begin to medicate to numb those memories and then they got to a point of needing to pay for that medication and they found themselves 20 years down the road going i never thought i would be here when you think of it in that context you go golly i can identify with gomer i know what it feels like to find myself in a place that i never thought i'd be i went to a women's conference when i was 40. and one of the speakers started talking about adoption she said there were 147 million orphans in the world as we know it today and she said many would die because they didn't have access to pretty simple things like clean water malaria nets and the lord just started stirring in my heart and i thought you know maybe god would allow me to adopt one of those kids i don't know if i can i'm single i'm 40. i don't know if even that's cool theologically but god just started stirring my heart so i thought i'm just going to start praying about this and pray for god to direct my steps and i thought i'm not going to tell a lot of people because in nashville sometimes women disguise gossip as prayer requests i thought i'm just going to tell just a few girls just like you would at social i'm just going to tell three or four women what i'm praying about and three of them said we've got your back and one of them a girl i knew from church she said lisa if you have time later on this week i'd love to process this further with you and talk about what you're praying about and i was like that'd be cool now y'all this is free and so don't come back on taylor or robert but if a really hateful looking woman tells you she wants to meet you for coffee because she has a word from the lord for you y'all need to just play dumb and take a friend don't go by yourself meet with people who think they're prophets and are hateful that's usually profit doesn't go with hateful but i just wasn't that smart i went by myself after a little bit of small talk this girl said you know lisa i want to be real direct with you the bible says the wounds of a friend are better than the kiss of an enemy that is in the bible it's amazing how people who claim christ can still use that as a club god never intended this to be used to beat people over the head never he woo sinners toward himself he disciplines because he loves but he is not an unkind god perfectly holy and perfectly compassionate so accessible loves his people she said i just want to be straight with you and tell you that i don't think you should be a mom she said you told our small group that you were sexually molested when you were younger and i know you've been to christian counseling and all that but just in case you weren't fixed you might unwittingly transfer the trauma you experienced as a child onto a child of your own so she said i don't think you should be a mama i know you want to nurture something so my advice would be for you to go to the national humane society and adopt a dog because you're really good with pets y'all i was 40 i told you i came to christ when i was five i should have known better i should have recognized what's falling out of her mouth is not congruent with what is in this book what's falling out of her mouth is death what's in this book is life i need to be kind to her but i don't need to heed what she's saying but here's the thing about the death that the enemy speaks the words of death he speaks usually match the bruises in our heart he's not stupid he's defeated but he's not stupid he's cruel and he is strategic and the reason that some of y'all are not seeing miracles and not walking in life is because some of the lies that have been spoken over you smell so familiar to what you're hearing today and you're still hanging out with people that are just like the people who ripped your guts out when you're a kid and you don't understand why you're not free god's voice is different god will not shame you he will not speak death over you even when he disciplines you it is always with kindness always with kindness his discipline is braided with mercy as a 40 year old woman i had printed out an adoption application thinking maybe this could represent a miracle in my life even though i've been so dumb with men maybe just maybe a child who's facing death a fluffy single woman in middle tennessee maybe i could be an option there and i took that adoption application representing a miracle and i put it in the very back of my file drawer and the next day when i got off work i drove to the nashville humane society and adopted a chocolate lab named sally with bladder control problems my third dog that season i love dogs y'all she was not what god had for me how many of you have settled for something that is mediocre when god had a miracle how many of you have settled for half truths instead of real life how many of you are still limping when god wants you to run it was seven more years before i was brave enough to dip my toe back in the adoption pond seven years because i didn't believe he could perform a miracle in my life i believed he could do it for you i could preach it i could wrap an acrostic around it i went to seminary and learned just enough greek and hebrew to hide my shame but i did not believe that god could redeem all the dumb stuff i've done gomer's standing there the auctioneer says let's start real low with this one because she's been ridden hard and put up wet who will give me ten shekels for this one and the men are saying horrible things lewd things and all of a sudden over that cacophony of shame there's this clear voice and she recognizes the voice she doesn't see who's speaking at first because she's just looking at her feet but she hears this voice and he says i'll buy her and i'll give you three times what you're asking i'll give you everything i have i'll buy her because that's my wife and hosea he's cleaned up nice doesn't look square anymore been to nordstrom rack got a suit that fits he's got a tight haircut he walks through that crowd of shocked bitters he walks up to this broken filthy rebellious woman standing naked on a rock and he lifts up his hand just like he did when they were 17 and he asked her to marry him he lifts up his hand and all those years that she abandoned her family and all that shame and all that sin disappears when he goes come on honey it's time to come home time to come home and she steps off a rock and he puts his robe around her and they walk away and it's in the bible and god put it at a point in redemptive history when his people were running away from him instead of zapping them into oblivion with lightning bolts he said i'm going to wrap my arms around them and i want to woo them back to myself i redeem i buy back i restore i love my people i love my people i love my people y'all it's cover to cover that's what he does even in discipline he redeems cover to cover he's a good god how many of y'all are waiting on your miracle honey can i get you to come down front with a senior um when taylor so graciously introduced me and you knew that god was doing something else i thought there are people here who waited for a while for a miracle and then you thought it's like everything else in my life it's not gonna happen and so i'll just step back and settle for mediocre and every now and then i'll get whipped into a frenzy of belief again when i come to social when robert preaches when i'm really engaged in worship but then i'll go back to monday and i'll go back to mediocre and i'll stop believing him for a miracle because it hasn't happened for me i was 50 years old when i brought myself maybe 50 years old my ovaries are raisins do you think i really had a shot at being a mama the doctors in port-au-prince said missy i had two months to live two months my baby girl is 11 years old she's healthy as a horse she's she's just joy personified y'all i didn't believe that god could do it please don't be like me please don't wait till you're 50 years old to see your miracle he's so good he's a healer he's a husband he's a provider he is so good i want you to stand up if you're still waiting on a miracle just stand up i don't know what the mirror is i know the holy spirit has told some of y'all it's time for you to believe again i want to resurrect belief in you um i know we have to be careful with covid and i don't want to get social in trouble and so honey i wish that you could lay hands on every single one of them but what i'm going to do is guys i'm sorry i'm wrecking the technical stuff but can somebody get a mic to pastor honey thank you lori laura laurie beautiful tiny hometown um honey will you come up here so they can at least up front um those of y'all who are sitting around these saints standing for their miracles their miracles represent marriages that need to be restored women who've been wrecked with sexual abuse who are standing up saying i need god to make my heart whole again i need that redeemed there's a few parents standing up and they need a miracle in the form of a prodigal head at home some of y'all have received really bad reports [Music] and you're believing god is going to turn it around [Music] several of you lost your jobs a long long time ago and you feel worthless and you're embarrassed that you live in your parents basement your life right now doesn't look anything like it did when you graduated those of you who are sitting around these saints who are believing again that god could do it would you just extend your hands toward them don't touch them unless you know them unless you've been quarantined with them i want you to extend your hands and i want you to begin to pray my friend chris kane often says don't pray if you don't have faith if you have faith i want you to pray i want you to pray right now that god is going to begin to part red seas that we're going to feel healing in the room and he can do it in a moment where he can do it through chemo he can do it any way he chooses to do it it's our business to believe it's our business to take his hand and step off the rock if you do not identify with gomer i would suggest you don't really understand the gospel because the love that has redeemed us it is a radical unlikely amazing kind of love that causes beautiful blonde pastors to fall on a stage and not care what somebody is facebook living it's a wild redemptive wonderful restorative kind of love so if you believe a little bit of that you keep praying for the saints around you and honey i'm just gonna i'm just gonna turn it over to you i believe that the worship team is gonna close us pastor robert or pastor taylor thank you thank you thank you thank you for the honor of getting to be with these saints and god's doing something new y'all he's doing something fresh i think our whole country is terrified of what's going to happen tuesday one way or the other and i think man it is time for the house of god to go my hope is stronger than it's ever been it doesn't matter who sits on that chair in dc and i'm not being flippant and please hear me i wouldn't want in any way speak shame but your conscience but i've seen fear rippling through the house of god over politics and we are not supposed to wear that coat we're different we are sojourners in this place we belong to a higher power and we are to be great citizens and we're to vote and we're to be kind and we're to bless not curse but whoever is in power on tuesday that should not make my hope wax and wane because my god is on the ground and my jesus is a redeemer and he took me off the rock and he's not going to make me stand up there again he's good he redeems honey will you pray and i'm just gonna ask y'all um i'm not gonna ask you to bow your heads but close your eyes just out of respect for the saints who are standing those of you who are standing if your miracle is physical and you may be standing for somebody in your family you're standing because there's a lump in your breast you're standing because you have some type of what a doctor has called a disease something that needs medication maybe it's anxiety you just can't sleep if your miracle involves physical healing would you just raise your hand because so honey could see it keep your hands raised and honey will you pray for healing [Music] i thank you father for your word your word that comes to heal thank you and father you see these hands tonight lord i pray that you would touch them from the top of their heads to the soul of their feet father you see you know the condition father lord they don't even have to speak it you know it god and i thank you father that you are touching you are healing right now in the name of jesus thank you that your word says that by your stripes we are healed and i speak that now in the mighty name of jesus and we will give you the glory we'll give you all the honor thank you in jesus mighty yo we're not going to keep you a whole lot longer there's just two things that but i he can do a miracle in his time um and uh golly i don't want to step on what god is doing by being worried about time i want to be respectful to y'all if your miracle involves a relationship you need restoration relationship you need wisdom where there's been a breach you need forgiveness where you've been wounded you need to stand up where it's time for you to actually walk away from something that is not for god's glory or your good if your miracle involves another person and you've got to have wisdom you've got to have healing you've got to have restoration something that involves a human relationship parental or with a marriage or a friendship would you just raise your hand so honey can see yeah yeah yeah yeah i feel like there's prodigals that are gonna turn tonight prodigals are gonna come home tonight product was going to step off rocks tonight honey will you pray will you pray for marriages to be restored for prodigals to come home before yeah yeah yeah before restoration god in marriage is god lord i pray of blessing god over marriage is god that you would heal these marriages god lord i pray for unity i pray for love in the mighty name of jesus thank you jesus that you are restoring these marriages you are restoring renewing more love in the mighty name of jesus so be it in jesus name marriages be restored thank you father thank you lord we give you the glory we give you the honor that you are doing it now in jesus mighty name thank jesus um god just gave me a picture because some of y'all have thought that if only my daddy would reach out his hand and help me off this rock i'd be healed if only my ex-husband would reach out his hand and help me off this rock i'd be healed and you're putting your emotional needs on the shoulders of somebody else and they can't hold it y'all good men cannot fill all your emotional needs great brides not gomers but good girls men cannot beat your fantasies jesus is the only one who can give you the perfect love that your soul is desperate for if you think somebody else has the strength to carry you off that rock you're going to crush them and you're going to be disappointed they can't do it it's only jesus don't put your husbands on the cross don't put your daddies on the cross quit thinking if only they would do this for me i would have peace and security they can't give you what you need only jesus can give you every thing you need and when your stability is jesus i promise you there will be peace and reconciliation in relationships that you've quit praying for if you put your hope in jesus it takes the pressure that a human can't take off their shoulders and puts it squarely on what he's already accomplished on the cross last thing we're going to pray for actually we're going to do two prayers quick um there's a whole bunch of beautiful women in here tonight who are have been crushed by sexual abuse and some of y'all look so clean on the outside and you feel filthy years ago my counselor told me that the first person who touches a little girl inappropriately it's like making a handprint and wet cement and that hand print sticks that god is a redeemer god is a healer but we are human and what i've learned is when it rains in my life some of those handprints in my heart still hold water and so i've got to consistently turn back to jesus and go remind me that i'm clean remind me that i'm pure remind me what your blood did for me and some of y'all are walking in death because you were sexually abused and somebody took from you what they hadn't earned some of you have had abortions you were hit by boyfriends and you feel like gomer even though you're singing like taylor and today god is saying you're not gonna have to pose in church anymore you're gonna feel as clean as you worship gentlemen i apologize that i'm being so straightforward i know have not earned the right to be that straightforward in your house i know i'm here as a guest but if i can be bossy for just one more moment can i um ask you to please close your eyes out of respect for the daughters and the sisters and the mamas in this house so gentlemen if you'll just close your eyes for a moment out of respect for the women women those of you who need a miracle maybe that's not why you stood but you need a miracle with regards to being clean you need to actually feel like you're clean i want you to raise your hands taylor i want you to pray for these girls you are absolutely beautiful song of solomon 4 9 says with one glance of your eyes you captured god's heart the man he's called to be with you is gonna be so blessed by you and he's gonna see you as pure you are gonna be a beautiful beautiful bride and if it's the second time you're going to be as pure as wind-driven snow god is going to clean the things that you weren't sure anybody could clean from your mind the memories and from your body the trauma and so as taylor prays right now will you please just put your hands palms up and the posture of receptivity and believe that's not what about half of y'all stood for but i believe god is going to god is going to purify some daughters tonight in a way that you stopped hoping for you thought you'd carry this for the rest of your life you're going to set it down tonight you're not going to carry it anymore this this mantle it's not a mantle it's a robe of dishonor it no longer fits you're going to take it off tonight you're not going to put it on again jesus jesus jesus father loving gracious jesus father jesus jesus jesus jesus you said come to me all right jesus jesus that you would give us rest so today i call out on behalf of my sisters jesus on behalf of your daughters jesus that you would reach down to the deepest parts of their souls to the core of who they are peeling back the layers of shame peeling back the layers of guilt and condemnation and insecurities god i peel back those layers and those titles and the heavy clothing that they are are wearing today and i say holy spirit breathe the breath of life into the dead places [Music] you are loving you are kind and you're so very sorry [Music] that it happened god you want them to know that you're so very sorry that you turned your face when it happened thank you thank you thank you thank you jesus thank you jesus thank you jesus and yet you came down into that moment [Music] and although they felt abandoned god you were there yes yes yes and as the enemy has come to try to attach himself to their hearts and entangle them with the lies of shame and guilt and it was your fault all of those lies god tonight we dismantle the tactics and the plans of the enemy he has no authority no authority this will not be something that goes forward into their future but this will be a moment tonight where you invade their hearts and you invade their lives and their destinies and their stories you are writing this story and you are a god who makes all sense new your grace is sufficient your grace is accessible your grace is true and your grace is real and it's alive today so god in your grace and in your kindness would you come down [Music] what the enemy has tried to use to destroy my sisters the accuser you are dismantled you are taken off of your throne tonight jesus you establish your glory and your victory in their lives moving forward they will never be the same in jesus name they will never be the same in jesus name we lay it down we give you the authority and we say thank you hallelujah for all that you've done and all that you're going to continue to do thank you jesus thank you jesus truth jesus no more lies truth and the truth sets us free in jesus name thank you jesus we haven't really even had coffee together yet and i'm asking y'all for a kiss because i'm asking you to be honest and i know in my spirit some of y'all were invited here by a friend and [Music] you've wondered for years if this was all for show [Music] and you decided in college after you started reading sartre and philosophers that religion really was just an opiate for the masses and you lean toward being an existentialist but you came here because you have a friend who's been nothing but kind to you and they said this is different this doesn't feel religious this doesn't feel like normal dallas church just come it's an honest place and you almost left about 15 minutes ago and you just found yourself just thinking i'm just i don't know say a minute more this woman's whacked stay a minute more and god has been speaking to you in a voice that you you can't deny and he's saying come home son come home there's four or five of y'all who've been wounded by people who are professing christians you've been wounded in a religious culture and tonight you're gonna meet jesus face to face pastor robert is going to introduce you to the jesus that you said you didn't believe in really recently because you thought he was just a religious metaphor you stopped hoping that a god like that really could love a man like you so there's three or four of you and again i know that i'm a guest but i'm old enough to be your mama and so i want to ask you to come forward and pastor robert's just going to lead you to jesus and so i'm going to ask you to come forward um there's three or four just come forward robert's an honest kind man some of y'all went to camp outside of dallas when you were young and you sang the songs you've seen some of these stories in church but you walked away when you're in college and god's saying come home i want you to know me for real this isn't religion anymore y'all come up to this area right here we want to celebrate you there's a couple of really amazing men there's a there's a couple more um you are you are a mighty man i saw you earlier [Music] i don't know your name but i'm going to hear what god does through you in the years to come your story is to cause it's going to cause others to come back home there's a couple more there's a a couple women a couple men i i'm not a prophet years ago when i was studying the life of solomon i just thought wow how audacious of king solomon to ask god for a specific gift he asked for wisdom when i was studying the life of solomon i said lord if i could have one gift it would be that when i'm in a room with people who think there's no way a god like that could love someone like me i want you to quicken my spirit and let me know if there's any there who longed to be loved by jesus and so i don't see names or faces but i feel a quickening in my spirit when there's people in the house that god is wooing and so i won't belabor this i don't want to manipulate y'all but i believe in my spirit there's two or three more and everybody you came with thinks that you are a follower of christ and you know who he is and you know a lot of language about jesus and you might have even had a faithful season in your life but you have been wandering for a long time you kept thinking as soon as i clean my life up i'll go back and you just you've gotten so far that until tonight you weren't sure how to get home to jesus and he's just saying come on i've been waiting for you i believe the reason we're waiting is because god loves you so much he doesn't want to say amen until robert prays with you so i just believe there's one or two more please um we'll go if you don't come he'll call you one way or another he's like that he's good but um if the lord is willing you robert's going to come and pray with these but if if god's ruined you would you just come up front in the next few seconds so that you have a loving shepherd who will put his arm around you and escort you toward jesus thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you brother father son your brave brave godly godly man [Music] [Applause] thank you jesus

Channel: Social Dallas

Views: 125,356

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Id: bi22HHLBuwQ

Length: 63min 23sec (3803 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020