Rejecting God | Sandals Church

[Music] welcome sandals church i'm morgan and i'm so happy to be with you today as we learn from god's word and worship together our vision here at sandals church is to be real with ourselves god and others it's the heartbeat of who we are and it's really what we're all about if you're joining us today for the first time it would be really cool to connect with you and say hi so let us know a little bit about you by going to sandalschurch.com next and we will personally reach out to you in the next couple of days you can also say hi in the chat let us know where you're joining from it's our place of community in this digital space and we would love to hear from you so every week we spend a dedicated time singing to god this isn't just a routine or a protocol that we do here but we believe that this time of worship is good for us and we believe that it's beautiful to god so as we get into that time now get into the mindset that god knows you like the innermost deepest you he knows your battles and your struggles he loves you and he is fighting for you so from that place right now let's sing he church we're so excited that you've joined us today hey i'm believing that god is going to fill the space that you sit in right now [Music] while [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] that'll be [Music] [Music] oh [Music] for jesus [Music] [Music] is [Music] be [Music] [Music] nothing can stand against the power [Music] nothing can stand against the power of [Music] you shine in the shine [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] [Music] i get so pumped up singing with my family especially lyrics like that nothing can stand against the power of our god if you're worshiping and doing service right now with kiddos running around we'd love to have you share our kids service with them at kids.sandalschurch.tv so go ahead and get them set up as we're gearing up for service and another note on our kids ministry we've got some really exciting news for those of you that are local to our california campuses pastor matt is going to share that with you right now hey sandals church i got some exciting news man it has been almost a year since our church has been open to our kids ministry so starting february 27th and 28th we're going to begin reopening kids ministry super excited look this is one of the most important things we do as a church is teaching the next generation to know and love jesus we're going to do everything we can we're going to follow cdc guidelines the cdc is now saying that schools need to reopen and that includes our religious education for our students to learn to know and love jesus so in order to do this we're going to need all kinds of new volunteers i know some of you are new to sandals church some of you have never even attended sandals church yet but you've been watching with us online if you care about kids you care about education you want to see kids fall in love with jesus and learn to follow him i want to encourage you to sign up today look if you've had covet 19 if you've been vaccinated or you're in a low risk category you're the kind of person that we need we're not asking you to risk your life or anything like that if you don't feel like you know this is for you or you're in high risk category this is not for you but we want you to be able to participate in this and we know especially a lot of our young people who we know are not at risk are able to teach even younger kids and to be a part of this so if you're healthy you've had you've had the uh covid or you've been vaccinated come back to church and help us begin teaching our kids all the information you need is that move dot sc forward slash kids i love you guys and i'm super excited to see kids back in our campuses learning about jesus so many of you with little ones have been waiting almost a whole year to get your kids back to one of our campuses we're so excited that this can now safely happen we know from research that kids desperately need to be in a healthy and positive community kids mental relational and spiritual health are linked to their overall well-being we recognize this importance and love to offer opportunities for kids to connect in community not just locally in california but anywhere in the united states or around the world if you have kids and decide to begin or join one of our sandals church anywhere locations you get the chance to see them grow in their faith as they engage in a church community too these gatherings are seeing kids take huge steps in their faith and we would love to see that happen more and more if you and your family want to experience relational health and spiritual growth through community take the step to join or become a sandals church anywhere location by going to sandalschurch.com anywhere well we're in a few weeks into our when in rome series and pastor matt is going to be sharing today on what happens when we reject god we'll get into that message right now [Music] [Music] hey santa's church i just want to welcome you today we're in this series called when in rome how to follow jesus in a culture that doesn't and today i want to talk to you about the consequences of rejecting god but before we do that we have to talk about the reality of being offended all of us today are way too offended and and here's the problem whenever we talk about something or anything that matters with someone we love maybe it's a roommate a sibling your boss a friend maybe it's uh you know somebody on facebook the nature of offense tends to rise and so i just want to encourage you to know that it's okay to be offended when we're talking about things that are important especially when we're talking about the word of god because oftentimes we think about what offends us and what god wants us to think about is what offends him and so i'm just going to juggle some hand grenades today while i'm talking to you and there's going to be a lot of things many things that maybe you agree with and many things that you don't some things that you might find offensive for others and some things that you find personally offensive to yourself but i just want you to know that when my wife and i we sit down and we talk about money we talk about sex we talk about kids we talk about god by definition when it's an important issue it's easy for me to offend her that's one-on-one so what happens when i as your pastor i i don't talk one-on-one but i talk to 10 people how many people do i get to offend now what if i talk to a hundred what if like last weekend i spoke to 31 000 people who watched the sermon by definition some of you are going to get offended and i want you to do the hard work and work through this so that you can really hear what god has to say so let me pray for you let me pray for for us that i wouldn't say things to be offensive but i would say things for us to become awake and aware of the consequences of rejecting god so let me pray for you as you get your little offensive seat belt on and you just prepare yourself for a rough message about the consequences of rejecting god heavenly father i pray in the mighty powerful name of jesus that you would anoint this message that you would bring clarity to why god we need to not only acknowledge you but to honor you and to live for you in your laws awaken our minds lord not to look at what the world is doing but to look at what you have called us to do god right now there are families marriages and futures that are at stake and i pray that today we would make a decision that would forever alter our family our friends our soul's future for the better we pray this in jesus holy name amen now are you scared you should be okay here we go we're jumping right into romans 1 one of the most difficult just thundering chapters in all of the word of god paul says in romans 1 28-32 we're just going to look at four verses today but these four verses will rock you he says and since they did not see fit to acknowledge god that's the culture that we live in some of you think god's ridiculous god's old-fashioned you think religion's made up you're going to live for yourself some of you have made up your own god some of you denied god some of you ignore god the bible says and since they did not see fit to acknowledge god listen to me there's a consequence when you choose to make up your own god when you choose to become your own god when you choose to honor or worship the wrong god the bible says god gave them up to a debased mind a debased mind you see when we have wrong thinking about god we have wrong thinking about life when we have wrong thinking about god we have wrong thinking about marriage when we have wrong thinking about god we have wrong thinking about our children when we don't see god clearly we don't see ourselves clearly and since they did not see fit to acknowledge god god gave them up to a debased mind to do listen to this what ought not to be done some of you are living your lives in a way that you should not be living them and you say well my friends think it's okay my parents says it's okay the media says it's okay well my professor in college says it's okay none of those people are god and here's the consequence when we go our own way when we choose to reject god and we say you know what i'm gonna make this up as i go along and by the way many of you the reason you're all in counseling is your parents made it up as they went along they didn't know what they were doing they didn't know and they didn't listen to god they were filled listen to this the consequence was they were filled with a manner of unrighteousness i know a lot of our young people you march for social justice here's the word unrighteousness it means no justice when we reject god we reject justice because we lose moral clarity we lose the ability to see what is truly right and wrong you see you and i without god you know the way we see justice we see justice through the lens of the color of our skin we see justice through the lens of our gender we see justice through the lens of our political persuasion and that's in the world we live because we've rejected god we've rejected god left and right we've rejected god and so we live in an unjust world because justice listen to me flows from the throne of heaven not from your heart unjustice unrighteousness comes from you justice flows from the heart of god they were filled with all matter of unrighteousness this is evil evil is real it's real i know disney's trying to recreate every single you know bad character with a backstory listen to me some things are just bad awful we can't redeem the devil we don't pray for the devil he's evil he's evil look at this next one covetedness a desire a lifestyle fixated and focused on what you don't have when you're scrolling through instagram are you looking for all the people who have been blessed the way you have or are you looking at all the people who've been blessed with what you don't have you're coveting the way someone else looks the way someone else lives the way someone else makes money you're constantly coveting looking in jealousy and envy and what's happening as we look to instagram and we turn from god isn't it interesting that instagram calls you a user and god calls you a child turn back to god turn away from all that crap turn back to god covet this look at this next word malice right the desire the desire to do what's wrong maybe you haven't done evil yet but it's stirring in your heart you want to you want to well i'm going to give them a piece of my mind i'm going to i'm going to let them know how i really feel and you've got all this self-talk inside of you because you've turned to your own heart and you've turned away from god it says they're full of envy full of envy constantly being jealous constantly being insecure of the giftedness the beauty the talent the wonder that god has given someone else instead of looking at what god's given us we're mad at god because he gave something better according to our standard to someone else somebody's prettier happier younger smarter thinner and we're constantly jealous and angry at others because we've looked at our own securities instead of god next murder look at our culture we keep track of the lost life that counts to us covet counts abortion doesn't we choose the lives that matter we choose and god says when we turn from god right murder multiplies strife just this this constant desire to create chaos relational personal political i mean look at what's happening all around us i mean it's just constantly looking for ways to stir up strife deceit lying i mean none of you even know who to believe anymore you don't even know when to believe a scientist you don't even know when to believe a doctor you don't even know if you can believe your parents or your friends some of you don't even know if you can believe your church because we live in a culture of deceit you see there's a consequence to rejecting truth you invite lies and then just maliciousness right just maliciousness and it gets worse they are gossips they're gossips slanderers haters of god insolent constantly looking for ways and somebody like i don't even know what that word means it means rude rude haughty that's just a fancy word for prideful they're boastful they invent evil hey parents listen to this one they're disobedient to their parents listen to me when you reject god you reject authority and god put parents in authority foolish faithless heartless ruthless this is the consequence of rejecting god this is the consequence of going your own way though they know god's righteous decree you see all of us know inside we know inside that there's a way we should live but we don't they know god's righteous degrees you know what's right and wrong human beings have an internal compass placed there by god where we know what's right and we know what's wrong though they knew god's righteous decree that those who practice such things they deserve to die listeners but they not only do them but they give approval to those who practice them look the world may be celebrating your behavior but in the day of judgment god will hold you accountable for what you did god will hold you accountable so what happens to us as a culture when we reject god you see when we reject god we reject his authority here's the truth here's why people are atheists because they don't want someone telling them what to do i don't want to be told i want to go my own way i want to do my own thing i want to be my own person romans 1 28 says this and since they did not see it fit to acknowledge god they're not going to acknowledge god they're going to go their own way they're going to do their own thing you see right now as i speak you are living your life based upon something truths that you hold to be self-evident things that you believe things that you've always thought all of us are living our lives on a foundation the apostle paul is writing romans 1 to you with the foundation of genesis 1 genesis 2 and genesis 3 in his mind he's not just making this stuff up he believes this he's lived his life based upon the foundation that god created you me us and we owe our lives to the god who created us and we don't live for ourselves we live to him you see when we reject god's when we reject god we reject his authority we reject his authority i don't want somebody in charge of me if we go all the way back to genesis chapter two it says then the lord god took man listen to this and he put him in the garden he put him in the garden to work it and to keep it god gives you purpose god gives you meaning god gives you blessing and the lord god commanded the man listen he commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree in the garden isn't it interesting that when everybody thinks about the first commandment that's given to adam we all think about what god said not to do but none of us focus on what god said we get to do we start with the no and we skip the blessing god doesn't want to ruin your life god wants to bless your life he wants to give you work he wants to give you meaning he wants to give you blessing he said you may surely eat of every tree in the garden look you you have a run of the place you can almost do whatever you want i've created the earth for you i've created it to bless you look if you're a scientist you know that the earth is a very special place and as far as we currently know listen to me there's no other planet like it in the universe there might be we haven't found one yet it's that you neek he says you may surely eat of every tree in the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die let me ask you a couple questions have you ever thought about why this tree is off limits and then i want you to ask you another question have you ever thought about why it's called listen to this the tree of the knowledge of good and evil why is that what's off limits for adam we don't have eve yet we just have adam why is that what's off limits for him why is that why is it that god says look you have the run of the garden you can enjoy it i've created this earth i've blessed you with everything but in the middle of the garden in the midst there's a tree and it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you don't get to eat it here's why i believe it's the knowledge of good and evil here's what i think god is telling adam adam i've i have created you as an incredible human being you are almighty you are powerful you are incredible you you reflect me in many ways but listen to me adam as god and god alone i get to decide listen to this what's right and what's wrong you don't eat of the tree of what's good and evil you come to me for what's good you come to me for what's evil i think the reason that many of you are rejecting god is you don't like what god said you don't agree with god you think you get to make up your own mind you get to go your own way you get to do your own things and like adam and eve you find yourself staring at the tree where you decide what's right where you decide what's wrong now some of you you say well no i believe god but the truth is you really don't you really really don't like in your mind you acknowledge god but in your behavior and your practice you deny him every day by your behavior jesus asked this question why do you call me lord and not do what i tell you and not do what i command you here's the thing i want you to know god and god alone has the authority to know what is good and true you don't i don't our professors don't our politicians don't your parents don't god and god alone knows what's good right and true jesus was asked a question by a rich young man who called him good listen to the words of jesus very carefully jesus said why do you call me good listen to these words no one is good but god alone the only perfect moral being in the universe is god and god in god alone has the authority to judge what's right and to judge what's wrong and as christians we have to decide am i going to go with what my culture says is right and wrong or i'm going to go with god am i going to do with what i feel is right or am i going to do what god has said is right but here's the way it works when we reject god's authority we question his integrity we question right we reject god but we do so because well i'm not sure i'm not sure if that's god i'm not sure if that's what he said we begin to question things and so immediately we go from the commandment to adam to the confusion of eve in genesis 3 chapter 1 verse 6 it says now the serpent was more crafty than any of the other beasts in the field that the lord god had made this thing is unusual this thing is brilliant and apparently this thing can talk i don't understand it okay this is an episode of harry potter apparently pre-fall we had an ability to communicate with animals okay sometimes i feel like i can communicate with my dog and then sometimes i got nothing like i got nothing it's not working at all but he said to the woman listen this did god actually say here's what the devil does in your life in my life he questions the authority of god how does he do this he questions it with the history of our religion well and that's what many of you have done when i talked on homosexual homosexuality last week you asked about interpretations and translations well maybe we got the words wrong is that really what god said and many of you have done that i'm going to try to talk about that in the debrief as soon as i can get back to that show and we'll talk about it more more extensively but isn't that interesting the first thing that we question is the command and some of you said well this is just you know this is misogynistic scripture and once again we have women running everything no no listen why is it that eve is tempted with what god said why is that here's the answer whether you're a man or a woman a husband or wife listen to me we are all eve and do you know why that is none of us receive the command directly none of us adam received it directly adam told eve what the command of god was guess what for all of human history all of us are eve we all have to trust whether or not this command is in fact directly from god and so what's the first thing satan does is that what he really said is that what he actually said he said did god actually say you sure you got your translation right you sure that your your religious organization has practiced this with integrity for thousands of years did god actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent we may eat of we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden but god said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in its in the midst of the garden underline this i think this is the first invention of religion neither shall you touch it this is where religion gets crazy right god gives a command and then we build a fence around the command and then we think the fence is the command god didn't say don't touch it god said don't eat it don't eat it what she does is she adds to what god's already said and that's why a lot of you have rejected god you haven't rejected what god said you've rejected what people have added and they may have good intentions but it wasn't the commandment of god you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden neither shall you touch it lest you die lets you die but the serpent said to the woman you won't you're not gonna die that's not that's not that's not what happened for god knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like god knowing good and evil now in english our word to know means like i know that two plus two equals four maybe i know you personally but in hebrew the word yodeya it doesn't just mean like factual knowledge it means intimate knowledge the word to no means i know two plus two equals four and the word to know yodaya means this adam knew his wife and she became pregnant he knew her listen this he experienced her and so what satan is saying is kind of true god is trying to protect you listen to me from the experience of knowing good and evil the most dangerous lie is the one with a little truth and so here we go so the woman saw that the tree was good for food listen this and that it was a delight to the eyes and that's where so many of you are right now so many of you are you're on the brink of choosing a sexual path that dishonors god because you you got a friend they got married they're happy they're raising kids it looks good there's nothing that can be wrong there nothing can be wrong the culture says it's right looks like there's no consequence at all let me tell you this if you're a person struggling with same-sex attraction nothing that breaks the heart of god can ever fulfill yours nothing so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food it's good for food god wouldn't have given me the desire for this tree for this fruit if he didn't want me to eat it why would god have created the tree if we weren't supposed to eat it you see god has created good and evil for you and i to choose i pray that you choose good so that you can choose god the woman saw it the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one wise you see some of you believe this if i reject god i'm gonna be better smarter stronger i'm gonna be more fulfilled and you're listening to the snake who whispers in your ear is that what god really said is that what he really said and so what happened she took off its fruit and she ate and she gave some to her husband who was also with her and he ate and he ate and let me tell you something your life and my life has never been the same it feels unfair doesn't it well i don't understand i don't understand why i have to suffer because of what someone else did i want you to know i haven't shared a lot of this with you guys because i have to be careful you know just what's public and what's private i have to manage my own emotions and my own feelings but some of you guys know four weeks ago i got sick with covid and at first it was it was a very mild infection very mild infection and my symptoms were you know awful but not not the end and then at some about some point day 12 something radically changed in my body things went from not not so terrible to absolutely awful and about day 12 of my infection i realized i was in deep deep trouble and the infection had gone from my sinuses to my lungs and i developed pneumonia now i've got to be honest with you as i was lying in bed hours at a time hours at a day and my goal every day was to stay out of the hospital that was my goal i had a lot of time to think and a lot of time to pray it didn't it didn't seem right that in some lab in china with individuals that i'll never know and i don't know that we'll ever know the whole story isn't it nice to know that god at least tells us what actually happened and what actually went wrong there's no cover-up in genesis some individuals made some choices with a virus and that virus spread from one person or two people and all of a sudden it has wreaked havoc on the entire world that's just the nature of relationships and the nature of human beings what you do doesn't just affect you but it affects all the people around you and the people that you love and listen to me some of you who reject god it's not only going to affect your salvation forever but the generations that come after you it doesn't feel fair but it's what happened it's what happened adam and eve chose to dishonor god and they chose to go their own way and it affected all of us all of us in a very very profound and powerful way and we've never been the same as human beings and we've been trying to fix it ourselves ever since number three when we reject god's morality we invite cultural insanity it says the eyes of both were opened and they knew they were naked in an instance what knowing good and evil meant is they knew there was something deeply profoundly wrong with them there was something wrong with him and so guess what they did they covered themselves you know prior to this they'd been naked with each other never even thought about it all of a sudden they sew fig leaves to cover themselves as a married couple they've been naked since they've known each other all of a sudden that's not okay there's something wrong listen to this young people with my body i'm not beautiful enough i'm not strong enough i'm not good enough i'm not talented enough all of a sudden you know there was intimacy and now there's just confusion and insecurity and they cover themselves they won't even look at themselves they won't look at each other they hide from each other and they hide from god and this is what we try to do in our culture we say shame isn't real guilt isn't real insecurity isn't real and we try to cover it by pretending it's not there and what's happening in our culture is people are going crazy when we reject god's morality we we are inviting cultural insanity cultural insanity like you know what's right we know it's wrong in our universities today and i don't mean to be controversial but this is happening in our schools your students you're sending them to colleges and universities universities places of learning and they're being taught that there are more than two genders and every professor of biology shoot a seventh grader knows when they take biology there's two there's two now if you're a trans person that doesn't mean i don't love you i don't care for you it doesn't mean that that i don't want to minister to you it just means there are two genders and that's the reality but we've gotten so confused we've gotten so far away from science right because who invented science god god he organized everything everything is organized according to his plan when we rejected his moral code we've adopted an insane code and now people are struggling with what gender am i we're struggling with our sexuality we're struggling with our purpose we're struggling with our meaning and unfortunately we just keep getting further and further and further away from god and here's what happens when we reject god's moral standard you know what we do we create our own and that's what many of you are doing well i'm not that bad of a person you know why you created your own standard you create your own standard and you judge yourself based upon the standard that you've created but the rejection of god is the rejection of his standard romans 1 32 though they knew god's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die they not only do them but they give approval to those who practice them we're not just not saying right is right and wrong is wrong we're actually celebrating the prophet isaiah prophesied he said woe to those who call good evil and evil good and those are the days in which we live we live in a world now where we're so morally confused we celebrate what's actually wrong god's calling us back to celebrate what's actually right and some of you you know you consider yourself a christian and you run around and you say things like this well who am i to judge well let me just tell you who am i to judge no one who is jesus christ to judge listen to me the only one the only one i know some of you you know you have varying degrees of biblical understanding but i want you to know this so much of the feedback that i got from you last week and our message on sexuality so much of the negative feedback were some of the horrific things the church has done in history and let me just say this last week my intention was not to praise western civilization my my my desire was not to praise colonialization my desire was not to praise the way that the church expanded in the last 400 years none of that was my point my point was merely this all cultures without god become dark and confused and we need revelation here's what i want you to know about the christian church that you haven't been taught the christians church started off as a beautiful movement because it wasn't political and it wasn't powerful and it saved souls and it preached the gospel it reached people of all genders of all races we know from first corinthians that it looks like that there were trans people in the early church the doors were open to everyone who was willing to repent and confess their lordship to jesus christ but over time things changed and the church became powerful and the church became very political and i want you to know for almost a thousand years many of our catholic priests were illiterate they couldn't read they couldn't write they never saw scriptures in their life they never even saw them they had no idea that's why when you go to old churches there are stained glass windows everywhere because nobody can read nobody knows the word of god and one of the tragedies of gentiles and jews splitting is jews had a passion for literacy jews had a passion for the word of god jesus could read and write not because he was rich but because he was a jew and when jews left the church and the church became more gentile we stopped learning to read we stopped learning and we put our bibles in museums and we built castles around them and all of a sudden they became for a very very few rich and powerful people and nobody actually knew what the word of god said and so guess what happened christians in the middle ages they followed christ not as a christian they followed christ in the midst of their culture and they just did what everybody else did and they just said what everybody else said but in the midst of that there were a group of catholic priests who thought you should know what the word of god actually says do you know they died many of them died and they gave their life so you could know the word of god in what it actually says and there were beautiful moments there were beautiful moments of christians throughout history who stood for what was right who stood in the face of what was wrong who preached to an audience listen to me who did not want to hear its message they were beautiful saints the saint by the name of saint patrick who was sold as a slave to the romans who became educated and came back to my people who sacrificed children sacrificed one another right worshiped fairies in the trees knock on wood that's where it comes from and he preached the gospel and he delivered us he delivered us there were beautiful catholic priests like father damian in hawaii who spent his entire life ministering to lepers and he died with him in the name of jesus in our own california we have father junipero serra what the spanish did to american indians were terrible tragic awful and evil but juno pero sera loved his brothers and sisters and he preached the gospel to them he was never a man of affluence he never adorned himself with wealth but he slept on a wooden cot and his heart was with the people of california i want you to know that western civilization is just like every other civilization and you know what that means we owned slaves every society on earth has come to power through conquering rape pillaging and slavery every people group on earth do you know why slavery was ended in the west one man who was a pastor his name was william william wilberforce and he spoke to the culture he railed against the culture and he railed against the powers that be in the name of jesus christ and he called people to repentance and it began to change the horrors of slavery but these things happened because these people knew the word of god and they lived it here's what's tragic some of you are surrounded by scriptures every day you know today you don't have to be rich to read the bible you don't have to be powerful to have a bible you don't have to be the right skin color to have a bible you have it right in front of you you have the word of god and here's what it says acknowledge god acknowledge his authority repent of your sins believe in jesus and listen to me god will bless your life god will bless your life and stop getting caught up in all this cultural crap some of you ladies why why didn't god just tell eve listen to me ladies because women are almost never the problem do you know what the problem on earth is dudes that's why god told adam hey hey we're going to start with you most men ladies if you're married you know this we're not agreeable we tend to not go our own way we tend to get it wrong that's why we're the most incarcerated that's why we could commit suicide the most struggle with depression the most and struggle with addiction the most and most of us are homeless god started with us because he knew we were the problem but let me say this to you parents you are not only eve you've not just received the command you're also adam and your responsibility is to teach your children and to tell them listen to me what god said what god said and i know so many of you you struggle you struggle the teachings are old-fashioned the teachings are out of date listen to me one of my favorite passages in scripture is when jesus said if any man wants to be a part of me he must eat my flesh and drink my blood if you're jewish that's weird like that's weird like right now that's presently weird but it was extraordinarily weird two thousand years ago and jesus said it listen to me if you're young gay trans confused questioning and you're ready to walk away from jesus you're ready to walk away from the word of god jesus turns to peter and his disciples and he says are you two going to abandon me do you know why that was because what he just said was really hard and peter says no lord listen to these words because you alone have words that lead to eternal life listen to me there's a better way to live there's a garden right here right now that god has for you he wants to teach you to work it he wants to teach you to keep it but for that to happen you have to acknowledge that he gets to decide god and god alone decides what's right and what's wrong what's right and what's wrong so many of you are trying to figure out life and jesus said that the way we find life is by ending our life he said whoever seeks to save his life will lose it listen to this but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it god wants to bless you but it's different than everything our culture is saying and everything our culture is doing and even if you call yourself a christian right now here's the thing that's terrifying you and i are a whole lot more like our culture than we probably are like jesus and we need to stop we need to turn it around and we need to get our lives right with god today i know these teachings are tough but these words and these words alone can save you because they're the words of god let's pray together heavenly father i know lord that these words are difficult these words are challenging but god help us right now in this moment to acknowledge you as god as the supreme authority of what's right and what's wrong as a supreme authority for for the directions of our life and the supreme authority god for what we will do and what we will not do god let us not make our desires our god but let us claim you as god today we pray this in jesus name amen the consequences of rejecting god are so real and to be honest it can be really hard in our culture today to navigate what's true and what isn't while it's so confusing it's also incredibly important because our souls are literally at stake we know that we need real relationships and true community to process these kinds of conversations and work this stuff out for us here at sandals church that's through sandals church anywhere communities take a step into relational health in a real authentic community by going to sandalschurch.com anywhere these communities are for all ages from adults to little ones and even youth and we've recently learned that since the pandemic hit 70 percent of teens have reported struggling with their mental health while this statistic is staggering we were so encouraged to hear from grace she's a sandals church youth and she shared what it has been like for her as she's navigated this season walking with sandals church online youth ministry grace told us this she said i personally liked online church on wednesday nights because i was there listening to the message while being at home even though i wasn't with my group in person i still loved online church because it made me feel connected to god and others it was a little difficult in the beginning because of personal circumstances but the message always spoke to me and it encouraged me i'm glad that i have online to stay connected to my friends and community to those of you watching i want you to know that grace and so many other teens here in california across the country and around the world have been able to escape being a part of this statistic because of our generous and faithful givers we really can't thank you enough for investing in sandals church and helping us serve people like grace if you're hearing this and want to join in on how god is moving please go right now to give sc by taking that step of faith you become a part of offering hope to the next generation so thank you so much let's join our worship team and sing again to god right now he loves to hear our voices so let's sing loud as an offering to him [Music] and now my life is yours [Music] us you deserve the price jesus you deserve the praise [Applause] [Music] and now my shame is [Music] [Applause] [Music] and on [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] your glory fills this place you alone deserve our praise you're the name of all names be as your exhausted fills this [Music] as your place fills this place [Music] you alone [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he really is the name above all names and he deserves the highest praise you know one of my favorite um it's a vision really in in the bible in revelation it talks about when jesus returns he'll return on a white horse behind him as angel armies dressed in white linen on white horses i mean what a picture it's incredible but what i love really about this is it says that on his robe that's dipped in blood and down his thigh it says king of kings and lord of lords what could be more powerful than that [Music] but i love that we don't have to wait as believers we don't have to wait for our king to return to know that he rules and reigns and that he's the king of kings and the lord of lords above everything we're about to sing a new song it's called rain above it all and he really really does the thing about that though is we don't have to sit in anxiety or stress or money problems we actually can lean on him and hear his voice and hear his tinder touch because he reigns above it all [Music] the rain of darkness now is [Music] you're the king of my life [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] it's jesus [Music] there is [Music] hallelujah [Music] you sent the darkness [Music] you sent the darkness right out of an empty [Music] you sent the darkness [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] jesus [Music] yes [Music] oh bring your peace [Music] you over the universe [Music] jesus [Music] as we sing about that god that mighty god that prince of peace let's worship today [Music] peace [Music] jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus you silence fear jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus [Music] jesus and call [Music] you these the darkness jesus jesus in jesus jesus you make the darkness tremble jesus jesus jesus you make the darkness [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] okay jesus jesus [Music] jesus jesus [Music] your name is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] jesus [Music] man sometimes all we need to do is call upon the name of jesus speak his name over your weak as you go speak his name and your best moments as praise and call his name in your lowest moments when you feel like you're struggling to even move forward if you know of someone who needs to hear the message today please share this with them let them know that you love them and are on their team as you do so and one last thing if you are part of our sunday evening service we want to give you the heads up that in a couple of weeks on the 21st we are ending our live chat experience on that 5 p.m pacific time service however you can still absolutely watch and worship at that time thank you so much for tuning in today everyone you are loved and we will see you right here next week

Channel: Sandals Church

Views: 6,523

Rating: 4.8796992 out of 5

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Id: Ke09uFHOsHs

Length: 70min 57sec (4257 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 06 2021