September 26, 2021 | Church at Red River

jesus [Music] jesus [Music] you are here working in this place [Music] my god is who you are [Music] good morning church at road river we want to welcome you to our online experience this morning for worship in the word but i have some special friends with me because i want to encourage you about our car kids so bailey what is your favorite thing about church [Music] all right that's awesome and addie what is your favorite part my favorite part um awesome guys what this means is it's not just happening in our house this is happening in our children's ministry so we just want to encourage you this morning that god is here and he's also he's in our life so just like and share on whatever platform that we are on and make sure that your friends and family can be with you as well so this morning as we worship and as pastor eddie preaches the word we ask that you join us and make sure you're with us now for worship [Music] but so keep that in mind [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hallelujah good morning church at red river i came to call upon the name of jesus today did you come to worship today hallelujah here we go oh yeah we call upon you jesus here we go we need no other hiding place i hope you're safe within your name [Music] i love what it says here but you'll begin you will sustain this we love [Music] this [Music] is [Music] has broken everything [Music] is [Music] if we declare your victory is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] has [Music] jesus [Music] is [Music] the power of jesus [Music] [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] is strong enough to sit come on do you believe it today rise push shackles on a number for jesus [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] has broken oh sing it again [Music] rise rise [Music] hallelujah we declare the name of jesus this morning come on church he has broken every chain every stronghold everything that you may be facing this morning he is god and he is with you hallelujah [Music] is [Music] hallelujah [Music] great i am [Music] living again [Music] is hallelujah i great am am [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is [Music] am [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i am [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i am [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] there is no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the great am am [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you are the great i am you are the great i am [Music] singing my justice [Music] your graces found me just as i am [Music] i'm empty handed but alive in your hands [Music] forever i am changed by your love in the presence of your majesty [Music] [Music] i [Music] is [Music] or [Music] presence [Music] is [Music] [Music] i just wanna speak the name of jesus [Music] cause i know there is peace within your presence i speak jesus [Music] every dark addiction starts to break [Music] [Music] your name is power your name is healing your night is life yes it is [Music] [Music] i just want to speak the name of jesus over fear and all anxieties [Music] [Applause] i speak jesus [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] make every stronghold [Music] is [Music] every stronghold [Music] jesus i speak the whole name [Music] [Applause] the holy name [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] i just wanna speak the name of jesus [Music] i speak jesus [Music] you are the great i am [Music] jesus [Music] i speak my holy name [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] come on church we can do better than that let's praise the name of jesus [Music] god we shout with the voice of triumph today god we shout for the voice of victory today god we declare victory in this house today we declare victory in the house you are the great i am god you are the great i am you are jaira god you are adonai you are our abba father god whatever it is that we need from you this morning you are the great i am and god we thank you for that god we thank you for your tangible presence in this place the spirit of god is in this place god we thank you for what you're doing we thank you that you have come yet again and sat with us we ask that you continue to sit with us that you anoint pastor eddie briary as he delivers this word god open our minds our hearts and our spirits to receive it in jesus name god we do all of this for your glory none of ours we give you all the honor glory and praise in jesus name amen and amen come on church let's give him a shout out praise well uh this is where i live before you go in uh there's something i'd like to tell you oh i i really admire the way you never cast harsh shadows thank you and you weren't glaring like standard boss oh i bet you say that to all the ge soft white bulbs gloria yes i uh i love you we love you too wow i wish ge soft whites didn't come in a four pack general electric soft whites they couldn't glare less all right what is up church at red river everybody good this morning awesome man i'm super pumped about today we're gonna dive right in but i need some help i need some help and jesus is calling not the book look i've been asked and nominated by some people in the city to help the hub raise money for fighting hunger by donating money donating funds to supply food to provide food for the impoverished in our city and i believe as a representation of treasury red river we need to do our very best to support one of our partners this is what i need you to do if you want to this morning we're going to put a qr code up real quick this is going to help fight hunger in shreveport so if you take your phone out right now this is no pressure but if you take your phone out right now and you scan that qr code not that one if you scan your q that qr code with your camera it'll open up a link you can go in during the intro to the message i don't want you to miss what's going on but you can go to the during the intro of the message scan that qr code give a dollar three dollars four dollars seventeen hundred dollars whatever the lord uh lays on your heart to give that code will be up there if not dm me or email me or text me and i can send it to you directly i to represent well um in the fight against hunger and shreveport butcher so it's been pretty fun so paul so far those of you that have given thank you thank you thank you for giving uh to this cause it's a it's a great thing to be a part of so today we're jumping in i've got quite a bit to talk about so i want to jump in uh to the week two of i am last week if you weren't with us or if you caught it online a little refresher is jesus comes on the scene during the feast of tabernacles which is a which is a eight day period in jewish history um and even jewish culture today and he comes on the scene and he begins to make these very definitive statements about himself he begins to say i am x or i am blank and there are seven things that he uses to describe himself last week was the bread of life i i am the bread of life and he talks about how essential he is to human living how essential he is to life and how he's not an afterthought or a side dish or even something that you can pass on that he is essential to the core of the life of humanity and then we we we see jesus begin this this conversation right now now jesus didn't do ministry the way people thought he should do ministry right it always seems like the rub is typically not in the product it's in the process right and at the end of the day most people can agree on the end goal like if the end goal is to reach people who are far from god in more places than than ever before to to offer life freedom healing and purpose that that's our our mission here at church at red river nobody would argue that where it gets funky is the process of offering life freedom healing and purpose because everybody has an idea of how x should be done well jesus destroyed the alphabet when it came to ministry everything that was thought of him to do things a certain way he did the exact opposite of that right people like to give us young generation young gun pastors a bad rap you guys would have hated jesus right jesus didn't do anything right in the eyes of man like if you wanted him to do blue he's going to do purple because he wasn't interested to bowing his knee to the custom of the day why do we know this because he shows up at the feast of tabernacle in jewish um in a jewish land and he begins to make statements to the jewish people that essentially exposes their lack of attention to the presence of god lack of attention to the presence of god it's almost like when you are in a worship service where you know the holy spirit of god is present right you feel him tangibly feel the presence of god and you look over and there's a dude on his phone right it's like that but it's jesus physically there in the flesh and the jews are on their phone right so that kind of gives us some context of what's going on during this feast of tabernacles when he shows up conversation about bread because for eight days they're eating bread without leaven they're eating flat bread only to remember what god had done for them and now jesus continues this conversation we we pick it up in john chapter 8. but just before where we dive in today in chapter 7 we see jesus begins this teaching he begins this conversation and he begins to talk about who he is and about his identity and and about the fulfillment of the law and but didn't moses say x and then but jesus is trying to say yeah but but but i'm i'm here i'm i'm jesus and then then the pharisees come and they bring this woman caught in the act of adultery and they throw her before jesus and they're like all right kill her kill her this is what she deserves you so you're so up to date on the law well moses's law would have said killer in fact they go as far to pick up stones and give him the ammunition to take this sinful woman out so jesus doing what all people thought he should do he bends down and he writes in the sand he begins to write in the sand and theologians have debated and discussed and talked about for years and years and years what jesus is right but the truth of the matter is it didn't matter he responded he responded and the conversation goes back and forth and we see jesus in a moment of response instead of shouting or proving a point he just kneels back down and he and he writes in sin it's almost like it was a holy interruption it was a holy interruption where you didn't think the response of god was going to show up the way that you thought it was going to show up but but it did and jesus goes back to teaching and then we we we pick this up in in john chapter 8 in verse 12 and jesus says he spoke again meaning he is back in the teaching and he said i am the light of the world whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but have the light of life so jesus is finding himself in the temple courts y'all all the jews of the day have have come to the temple courts in jerusalem there are literally people everywhere and jesus is making some bold claims here claims that could get him killed here jesus is not the only rabbi in the temple but he is the only one that is god he is the only one that is the god man in flesh there are other teachers of the law here on this day but there's only one jesus let me tell you there are times in your life where you may surround yourself by a lot of things that may look the part sound the part even could potentially be the part but there is always only one always only one jesus has elevated himself above all other rabbis and essentially he steals the stage and says let me talk to you guys for just a second let me talk to you for just a second and his words are i am the light of the world because light is an important symbol in the feast of tabernacles during this eight day block of time a lot of people believe it was multiple nights but we know for sure on one night right in the middle of the feast of tabernacle there's called the illumination of the temple ceremony and all the people in the temple would gather around if you've ever seen the temple it was multiple layers right and people were everywhere and right smack dab in the middle of the temple there was called the court of women and in the court of women it could be seen from every other part of the temple so everybody is looking at this place and the cool thing about the court of of uh the court of women is on each four corners there were 75-foot candelabras that probably looked something like this so if if they lit up the temple there would be a a light here there'd be a light in this back corner back here a light in this far corner right here and a light over here now the cool thing about these lights are these weren't just small like i've had a long day i'm lighting a candle and taking a bubble bath these were ferocious flames on top of 75-foot candle operas with five gallons of fuel or oil in four basins at the top of them this was a big old flame y'all a big one and it illuminated the entire temple but you know the cool thing about it is the reason they were so tall is because jews believed that if the light of the world would ever come back again there would be no physical darkness so on this night not only was this courtyard lit but every courtyard in jerusalem was lit up because they believed if we remember the time that the pillar of fire showed up for our ancestors the light will come again and the light will guide us this is so good right here because this tells us the people were free but they're not delivered yet the jews are free but they're not delivered so many times people in the house of god the temple of god they are free but they're not delivered deliverance is the mindset that accompanies freedom they were still very much in bondage jesus knew this jesus wasn't afraid of the darkness spiritual or physical jesus knew this and he takes a moment in the midst of this scene and he says you know what this is a great ceremony but guess what i am the light of the world you see when we read it we're like oh man can we get excited about the light of the world but when he spoke it he took the biggest night of the biggest feast and he took the light off of the temple and he put the light on himself and he said i am the light that you are waiting for you would think people just fall out courtesy claws just kidding seven people thought that was fun i'm like google youtube it there's some good ones on there um anyway but you would think that people would just be elated but in reality if we go back from the last conversation when jesus said i'm the bread of life it was just a few verses later where it said many people decided to what stop following him stop following him and i asked myself the question why how many people would go from the bread of life i'm done well man now i'm the light of the world i'm done i wonder why i i wonder why could it be that jesus really is the end all could it be that jesus is the stopping point could it be that when you arrive in the presence of jesus what you need is actually going to be there you know i meet people all the time i come in contact with people all the time that are living this living that doing this and i'm like come on what about jesus oh man i ain't into all that well you into everything else why can't you be into jesus i mean you try i'm not one to say try jesus that's not i'm not to try jesus guy i'm saying but you're giving effort to everything else won't you throw some of that his way and see what he can do with it the bottle didn't work the pill didn't work the dude or the girl didn't work the finances didn't work the riches didn't work won't you throw something his way could it be that people say man i ain't gonna do it because they actually believe that he is who he says that he is and that if i try jesus i'm going to have to change because when i meet him it's going to feel like nothing i have ever experienced before could it be that everything i wanted everything i thought indeed could it be that it is in jesus name now i'm gonna keep doing me will you keep doing you and he's gonna keep doing him but while he does him he's pursuing you i'm the light of the world as a much bigger statement than we really could have ever imagined during this feast of tabernacles it involved lighting these massive candles that lit up cities and it says that the holiest the men of god the holiest the men of god would come and they would come before these these candelabras on on all four sides of the temple and they would begin to dance around it's funny when you think about it just a bunch of dudes out there rose just dancing around 2021 it'd probably be illegal i'm just saying probably be kind of weird but they're dancing around and said the levites without number have have symbols and they have harps and they have musical instruments don't you know that man they have been full-blown church right and they're worshiping and they're celebrating the time that the flame the pillar of fire showed up and led the people of god they are celebrating what they remember and what jesus is trying to tell them that if you would trust in me you can not only celebrate what you can remember but you can celebrate in what you know we're celebrating what you know you don't have to live off of grandma and grandpa's faith anymore you can experience it for yourself i'm the light of the world they're dancing around y'all they're going for it everybody is having a grand old time during the feast of tabernacles and they have failed to realize that the light that they have waited for is among them it's among them so jesus says i'm the light of the world and whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but have the light of life jesus being the light of the world brings light to those who follow him just like when jesus said i'm the bread of life he goes on to say that anybody that hunger and thirst will be filled jesus never makes a statement like this without a call to action it's so cool to me that there's always an invitation you know in the in the late late 90s early 2000s really all of the 2000s for the last two decades it's been frowned upon to invite people to follow jesus if you've noticed maybe you've been to a church and the pastor delivered a dynamic word maybe maybe maybe a word that the holy spirit got on and it was powerful and then he'll just pray out right well more than likely they're not going to think about that sir at chili's you probably should have taken a moment and let some people respond you know you should have should have took a second but it bothers me when i hear this guy spend all this time to get up and deliver the word bam delivers a zinger like all right have a good day no no no if jesus saw fit to deliver the word and give people a time to respond to it so should we because the real word of god causes a response it causes motivation inside of you when i listen to preaching and it pricks my heart there's something that motivates me to either move away from where i am or move to where god is calling me that's how the living breathing word of god is it should make you want to respond in a way and the response shouldn't be that's a good word for somebody else right so jesus says look i am the light of the world if you follow after me you will not live in darkness it's a promise it's an invitation it's in very strong contrast to what we just experienced jesus is saying look if you follow after me you won't live in darkness but what did we just experience a bunch of church people wanting to stone a woman to death because she was living in darkness you have to understand that darkness in jewish culture is a big deal all the men in this room all the men in this temple have memorized the first five books of the bible they are jews by nature and heritage and they are jewish by education they knew about darkness and light because in genesis it says in the beginning the world was dark formless and void dark formless and void it's a big deal to them they knew man when this whole thing started it was dark we don't ever want it to be dark again so what did god do god spoke and light appeared and when light appeared it spoke to the three things that were present voidness darkness and emptiness the light spoke and began to form life so in their minds darkness and light is a big deal because when it was dark what did they ask for a tangible expression of the spirit of god he gave them a pillar of fire when it was light outside they needed what a tangible expression of the presence of god so he gave them a cloud the people of god needed to see the tangible expression of god they understood light and darkness and they waited and they waited and the prophets would come and they would prophesy what did isaiah say prophesying the birth of jesus that he would come with light and the people would walk in darkness isaiah chapter 9 and they waited that this messiah that would come he would bring light and this messiah that would come he would light candles in this this messiah that would come he would be a pillar again but they didn't believe that this light that would come would be a person he would be the god he'd be the end-all be-all he would be the way which we will get to at some point in the future so every single year in anticipation of the ceremonial feast they would believe he's coming he's coming he's coming he's coming and jesus is saying i'm here i'm here i'm here the one that you are waiting for is here y'all this is a big deal it's a big deal because i believe deep down in my soul this morning there are some people in this room and there are some people watching online that you may not find yourself at a jewish feast which just ended you know we just went through the feast of tabernacle just a couple of weeks ago there are people in here today that you may not be a part of this jewish celebration but you are living your life waiting on the promised messiah to show up and i'm telling you the thing you are waiting for he is here he is present he is jumping up and down he is waving his hands he is trying to expose himself to you in a fresh new way so that there is no denying the fact that the thing you are looking for the the person you are looking for to feel whatever void you have in your life he is here jesus said if you walk with me you'll have light all the time you'll have reason to celebrate and dance all the time can you imagine the celebration once a year they had when the flames lit up can you imagine the celebration they could have every single day if they would follow jesus and the flames would light up there's an anticipation that could be brewing inside of them the people of god could walk with a fervor that they've never walked with before why because up until this point they've been walking in darkness but don't you know when you walk in darkness your life looks like you're walking in darkness it looks like it you know you know when you can see you've got a little pep in your step when you can see you walk a little bit faster when you can see there's there's no fear there's no guessing i know exactly where i'm going bam i can just move but in the dark we look like frankenstein and then you hit a lego middle of the night now you in the dark and need to repent for everything you just said then you just want to go straight to his just whip him for the heck of it because it doesn't cut your foot open it's just that easy guys walking in the light looks different than walking in the dark and that's not a new thing in fact that's a very it's a very common thing the hebrew scriptures the old testament we see a lot about light as we get ready ready to to close for the morning light is not a foreign idea to the people of god like like i said but light always has a purpose psalm 43 verse 3 says this send me your light and your faithful care let them lead me let what lead me send me your light and your care light and care light and care let them lead me let them bring me to your holy mountain the place where you dwell the the songwriter is telling us like if we let the light lead us we'll end up where god is if we let the light lead us and we let his care lead us it is hard to have care from a distance what this is saying is lord if i follow your light i will get your care and i will get your presents i think the craziest thing about this whole conversation about light that i could not land on as i prepared is the fact that they were walking among jesus and they still didn't believe the more i think about faith the more real it gets to me which is why i believe there's so many flaky christians i said that flaky when it's good we're all close to god but when we're walking through hell we look like we're walking through hell right we're just flaky we talked to this group of people and we got this kind of mouth we talked to that kind of people we got that kind of mouth we wear this say that and i know it seems legalistic but light looks different than dark it just does you all know me i'm probably the least legalistic person in this room i'm just telling you we don't look like the light of the world we don't you say why are you on because jesus would go on to say not um i am the light of the world but he was going to say you are the light of the world if i'm the light of the world following the promise that he is the light of the world there's a whole lot of responsibility on where i'm leading people because psalm says if i follow your light it'll take me to where you dwell is your life taking people into the presence of god or is it pulling them away from the presence of god it's it's that simple oh man i'm just meeting people where they are no no you're either taking them in or you're taking them out you're taking them in you come with me this is where we're going but if you follow me we could end up oh lord jesus where knows why because we're walking in the dark we're stumbling our way through life we're trying to figure it out we're filling it out and everything we feel we're touching we're trying with it but it's not it's not working i still can't see where i'm going if you're walking in the dark you're taking people through the darkness if you're walking in the light according to psalm 43 you're taking them to the place where he dwells see light's a big deal psalm 119 105 says your word is a lamp until my feet and a light into my path light always has a purpose you know the cool thing about this story it's my favorite stories your word it's a light unto my path my buddy brandon who's a pastor preacher teacher type tells the story we used to do a camp up in st louis missouri together and you could go on a cave tour anybody ever been on a cave tour i've been on some good ones this isn't one of the good ones you know the ones where you see all the stalactites [Music] those are cool this ain't that kind of tour this is like there's a tunnel into the that you're gonna have to crawl on your knees and get all muddy and everything and he tells the story about how he was he was leading this group of students on this cave tour and there was a tour guide in front of them they had a headlight on he said they're walking they're walking and everything's great and he says it gets to this point of the tour where everybody has to get on their knees and has to crawl crawl through these tunnels and navigate navigate their way he says about four people behind him it was tour guide brandon about four or five people this this little girl goes i say little she's a student goes i gotta go to the bathroom and brandon says i heard her but i acted like i didn't hurt her you know and he tells a story about how they're crawling through and y'all it i mean it's dark like you can't i mean it's in a it's in a it's in a it's in the middle of a mountain and he said that they're going and she said i got out of the bathroom and at that time the tour guide heard it and he said that tour guide stop and he turned around the best he could and brandon's right behind him and the first thing brandon saw was what his headlight that's the difference between shining your light before men and shining your light at men which is why the pharisees thought jesus should have shined his light at the woman caught an adultery but he said my word is a lamp into your what feet so he kneeled down and he rode in the sand at her feet because when you shine your light before men it illuminates the path to take twofold it's gonna hit with somebody in here you're either looking for the light you're believing god for him to show up you need him you may not know that you need them in here or online today but you need them and you're searching you're digging you're doing everything you can trying to figure it out or you know he's the light of the world you've lived like he's the light of the world but your responsibility is to determine whether you're shining it at them or before them you see we all have a role to play when it comes to fulfilling what jesus said about us that you are the light of the world we know the word is jesus in john chapter 1 verse 1 it says this in the beginning the word was the word and the word was with god and the word was god he was with god in the beginning through him all things were made without him nothing has been made in him was life and that life was the light of all mankind the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it and we know that john goes on to tell us that the word became flesh being jesus and made his dwelling among us his entire existence was to light the way unto salvation so we asked today that we would consider our responsibility in understanding and caring the light of the world i'm asking you to stand all across the room this morning i'm going to pray for us i'm going to pray us out as we do every single week and my prayer our altar team is going to begin to make their way forward they're prayed up we're ready to receive you to pray over you to spend time with you and for whatever need you may have you may say pastor eddie coming forward it's not not really my deal it's my first time here well one welcome we're so glad that you're here but if it is your first time here we'd ask that you would not only fill out one of these cards because it gives us your information but on the back of it it says how can we pray for you we're serious about praying over these needs every single week an email goes out to our prayer team with all of these needs on it and dozens of people are praying and believing god for whatever you are asking us to agree with you for it is our greatest honor and you can take this and you can walk back to the back wall and there's a beautiful cross back there and right underneath the cross there's a box that says prayer you put this this card in that box you say why there because we believe at the feet of jesus at the cross of jesus that's where these needs were met by his stripes by his blood by his sacrifice whatever is plaguing you on this doesn't have to plague you forever there is hope and there is freedom in the name of jesus and you place it in that box and we will pray over that but if you say i need something more you come forward grab a prayer team member by the hand and ask them to get an agreement for whatever the need may be we love you guys we're super thankful that you chose to worship with us this morning it's our greatest honor to get in the presence of god together i'm going to pray and as i pray our altar team's going to make their way forward father i love you god i thank you i thank you for sending jesus oh lord we're thankful for jesus this morning it seems like a very sad scene god to have all these people gather for one purpose and jesus is walking in their midst and people don't even know it the lord the more i think about it it's it's a pretty honest representation about the big c corporate church that we see now people gathered by the hundreds of thousands weekly bi-weekly daily doing all the right things saying all the right things but are missing the fact that your presence is among them and god may there be one or two in here lord that are looking for life they're tired of fumbling their way through life they're tired of walking in the darkness lord they're tired of stepping on physical and spiritual legos god they're tired of being hurt god we ask that your holy spirit will draw them to the light today and lord as these four candle arbors lit up the city of jerusalem and there was no darkness in the city on that day may it be said of our church that we burned so brightly with your light that every place we went to darkness was expelled in the name of jesus we love you lord have your way in our hearts and have your way in our minds in jesus name we pray amen amen guys if you have prayer need for any reason make your way down if not have an incredible week we love you guys is [Music] [Music] [Music] just wanna be with you i just wanna be [Music]

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Length: 63min 40sec (3820 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 26 2021