Trauma Treatment | Rhythms | Pastor Jeremy Foster | Hope City

we're glad that each and every one of you guys are here i am excited about what god has done this summer um pastor daniel groves has done a phenomenal job bringing the word to our church aren't you grateful that we have a teaching pastor who can bring it honestly i deal with some jealousy pastor daniel he's tall handsome he grows this awesome beard and he doesn't just preach good he he sings good too just it's aggravating god was like let's just give him all the gifts i'm like thanks god i appreciate that i can do this look at my thumb if it's your first time here i'm the pastor and we're gonna have fun today we're going to have a good time we're starting a new series called rhythms tony david say rhythms we're going to talk about rhythm and the rhythm of life there's all kind of things in life that pertain to rhythm with time and and rhythm of parenting and and rhythm of relationships and rhythm of rest and we're going to talk about a lot of that but first i want you to understand the definition of rhythm it's a strong regular repeated pattern of movement or sound and this word rhythm comes from music and some of you have rhythm others of you not so much i want to show you what rhythm is jesus please come on out you guys give jesus a great big hand this is jesus now i want you if you don't mind i need you to understand the rhythm is the consistent repeated sound that you're getting ready to hear hit me with some rhythm man some of you are hearing it some of y'all can move to it others are you all like i watch you clapping church some of y'all can clap to it you can clap to a beat some of you are like all the white people are like i don't know where the beat is man but i feel good some of y'all watch you in church i watch you in worship you're doing this kind of movement right here and i know you were in the club last night i know you were you in church today all right but this this is the rhythm okay this is the beat that you can build everything else around if i don't have rhythm i cannot have melody i have to have rhythm of some sort in order to actually have melody that other instruments can join and other pieces can join but it's got there's got to be a rhythm locked in i want you to add a little snare bruh some of you are like oh i hear it now you can move to it you can hear it now and what's neat about that is it's all built around that kick drum right there he's got his foot going and that's going to stay the same now add a little hi-hat jesus hey hip-hop okay okay come on all right now add a little tom some little symbols in there for now see he can get it going he can add everything around it [Music] all right come on give jesus a great big hand i even think it's cool that his name is jesus because jesus has to set the rhythm of your life and if you will allow jesus to set the down be to set the rhythm then he can add everything around it here's what i want you to notice if there is no rhythm and he's just up here hitting symbols there's no rhythm you can't add anything else to it if there's no rhythm no wonder some of us have been walking by ourselves wondering why nobody can join us because there's no rhythm in your life there has to be consistency in your life the challenge is some of us want to be rewarded with no rhythm you can't show up to work every day on time for a solid week and expect a raise something's like guys i was here every day on time this week but last week you didn't even show up half the week and you think you ought to be rewarded now no there's got to be a consistent rhythm in your life so th this series we're going to talk about allowing god to set the rhythm of your life that's why we're launching 21 days of prayer for 21 days we started today you can follow us on all social media platforms we're going to put prayers out there you can pray along with us you can go to hope city.com 21 days download the prayer guide pray let let prayer be a rhythm in your life let the word of god be a rhythm in your life let church attendance be a rhythm in your life get in a group let that be a rhythm in your life all of these things are important here's why when i allow god to set the rhythm when i put jesus at the center notice the centerpiece of this kit is the kick drum that's what sets the rhythm i can add anything else i want to around it but i got to have this piece right here because it sets the rhythm when i put god at the center of my life just not at the top of some random list i put him at the center of my life and i build everything around him i want you to watch over the next few weeks what he can add to your life now many of us psalm 23 is our favorite verse of scripture it's one of the most quoted verses of scripture but i want you to notice where the rhythm is here the lord is my shepherd i shall not be in want before i shall not be in want the lord has to be my shepherd everything that happens in psalms 23 is based upon the fact that the lord is my shepherd that means if i don't allow god to lead me guide me direct me and correct me all the stuff that happens in psalms 23 doesn't happen oh i'm preaching better than you responded on a sunday the lord is my shepherd i shall not be in one he makes me lie down in green pastures he leads me beside the still waters he restores my soul he guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake and this weekend we're gonna land in verse three he restores my soul because how many of us need restoration if you went through 2020 if you lived if you were alive in 2020 you need restoration because we all thought 2021 2021 gonna be better and 2021 was like what's up delta slapped us in the face you've got to have a rhythm of restoration restoration means to return to its original original or usable functioning condition i like cars i wouldn't say that i'm a car enthusiast because i don't know a lot about cars i just like to get in and drive them fast that's true that's real i almost confessed something to y'all but i didn't confess that i had 22 tickets before i was 22. that's true but i had a friend who was an attorney come on thank you jesus for grace all right i love you rob my boy um he got me out of a lot of trouble but i like cars but if you understand cars then you understand there's something there's something awesome about a muscle car how many y'all like muscle cars there's something cool about a powerful car and in 1969 pontiac came out with a gto judge ram air 3. this thing is fast back in those days 1969 it was 123 miles an hour and it reached zero to 60 in around five seconds now i understand that your little electric car can do it in two seconds but back in the day your little electric car is like makes no noise the gto's i mean it just sounds awesome it's awesome and you could buy it with all the bells and whistles for five thousand dollars that was expensive back in the day five you paid five thousand dollars now if you drive a 5 000 car we ain't parking next to you okay because we know you're gonna ding our doors on purpose just because make you feel better about yourself you know what i mean what's funny is i just found in my research for this sermon i found a 1969 pontiac gto judge ram air 3 that sold in florida for 225 thousand dollars how that ain't restoration that ain't restored to its original purpose see we would think it's restored to its original purpose original value how could it be worth so much now because it's a restored original that means they only made about 6 800 of them back in 1969. that means you can't hardly find them and when a car enthusiast finds one it doesn't matter how messed up it is it doesn't matter how broken up it is in fact you would walk by it and go look at that all beat up car but a car enthusiast goes oh i don't care if it's got rust on it that's a 1969 there ain't very many like that there ain't very many like you in fact if god created you he broke the mold after he made you you are an original and god cannot just restore you to your original value he can increase your value and in the scripture restoration doesn't just mean reclaimed in the scripture in exodus if somebody stole a sheep from you they had to give you four back they had to give you more than before that's what restoration in god's economy is if they stole an ox from you they had to give you five oxen back that's what god does god gives you more than what you had before you can see it in matthew 6 33 but seek first notice this that's where the rhythm starts some of us are seeking third or tenth god and his righteousness listen but seek first the kingdom of god let him set the rhythm and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you sometimes we go through things and we think yeah but i'm damaged goods but god sees you he's a people enthusiast he's a purpose enthusiast he's not a car enthusiast he looks at you and you're broke and messed up life and nobody will take a chance on you and god goes oh um i can do something with that i can restore your purpose do you realize it i'm fired up today do you realize that god can take your pain and produce purpose through the thing that you thought damaged you and made you worthless joseph began with a dream in the old testament joseph we talk about it in fact they made a movie about the prince of egypt he starts with a dream he has this dream he has a dream to do great things and his brothers get jealous of his dream do you know why his brothers were jealous of his dream because he was cocky about it and sometimes in your original version you're not really ready to produce the purpose that god wants to produce in you so his brothers acted like he was dead told their father he had died threw him into a pit sold him into slavery that ain't cool and then he went into slavery and he produced so well in slavery that he got falsely accused and went to prison that ain't cool and it was in prison that he got discovered and forgotten that ain't cool and then he got remembered finally when the king needed somebody who could interpret a dream it was all the pain that joseph had went through that produced the purpose in him and all of a sudden the king is like hey can we have anybody who can interpret a dream joseph's like uh i can't through the lord's power notice he's not saying i am greater now that's what he said the beginning i have a dream that you're all going to bow down to me he's not giving himself credit he's not giving himself glory anymore he's given all the glory and the credit to god he's saying it's not about me it's about the power of god in me and god raises him up to where now his brothers who sold him into slavery actually come back because now they need him and they don't even know it's him they think he's dead but they need the food that egypt has and they come and they have to go before joseph and you know what's amazing to me is they didn't even recognize him god can restore you so much way beyond your original value he can evaluate you so much higher that the people who devoured you put you in prison sold you out lied on you talked about you won't even recognize you when they need you i love that [Applause] god loves you so much but you're going you're going to go through challenges and restoration begins with recognition you've got to recognize that you have issues turn to your neighbor and say i have issues how many y'all think you have issues raising if you think you have issues if you didn't raise your hand that's your issue some of you are sitting next to your issue right now just look straight ahead well you brought your issue to church right there you have to recognize that you have an issue that you have a challenge and sometimes it takes somebody in your life to kind of call that out i remember whenever i was i was young i was a teenager i had a i had an old 1982 ford truck and i loved my truck and i used to rodeo i rode bulls and saddleball courses and so on like tuesdays and thursday nights we'd go to buckouts at this little place called the shenandoah rodeo and we go over there and we just ride as many bulls as we can to try to get better at our craft and one night it rained it out it was an outdoor rodeo rained it out and so we just looked for something fun to do and we ended up driving down this dirt road and i'm fishtailing my truck all over the road and rolled my truck up onto a barbed wire fence thank god that that thing held and it kept kept us safe we got out of it we pulled the truck back down i drove home my dad was out of town my mom was there this is before cell phones where you just had to hope your kids were okay i drove home i came in i was muddy i was dirty mom said what happened i said i had a wreck she goes oh are you okay i said i'm here i'm fine mama i said the trucks messed up she said i don't even care about the truck i'm just glad my baby's okay she said what happened i told her i said you know i was on the way to the rodeo i hit some gravel lost control of the truck it's a miracle like angels just picked it up and mama said ah smear just glad my baby's okay she called my dad my dad said what happened see okay she's okay what happened she said he hit some gravel on the way to the rodeo he said put him on the phone [Applause] uh oh yes sir i'm okay dad i'm a little bruised and beat up but the lord is good my dad said now tell me what happened i said you know i was on the way to the rodeo hit a little gravel that's that ain't no gravel on the way to the rodeo i was like wow you know uh it's right there where the uh where you get off of the interstate you get off of the exit there's some right there on the you know there's some gravel there on the he says so you're on a gravel road he's a man of god you know now i got to decide my dad was a pastor i'm like yes sir we were you know we were on a we were on a gravel road he said there's no gravel road on the way to the rodeo did it get rained out and i was like uh yes it did did we we were on the road he said he said how fast are you going i said about 25 he said about 55 i was like i know you're a pastor but art thou also a prophet yes i was doing 55 he said you were fishtailing the truck you're playing around weren't you i said yeah yes sir i was he said you rolled the truck didn't you i said yes sir i did but daddy it was a miracle god provided a barbed wire fence has saved my life my dad said i'm glad you're okay and i'm glad the lord provided but if i was there you'd need the lord to protect you right now cause you've been lying boy you ain't gonna drive that truck for a long time i was grounded forever i just got ungrounded that's why i'm back this weekend i just got ungrounded you need somebody in your life who can point their finger in your face and say you're wrong and you need to correct that you don't just need to have people who agree with every sin you commit and all the problems in your life this is why we have groups james 5 16 says therefore confess your sins to each other some of us just confess to god and he's going i forgive you but you need accountability pray for each other so that you may be healed the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective pain can lead to restoration if we give it to god we usually have pain in one of four areas i'm going to talk about them i'm going to talk about three of them kind of quick the one in the middle the second one i'm going to take a little time on and i think it'll help you the first one is unfulfilled expectations we have challenges in our life because of unfulfilled expectations we expected somebody to do something they didn't do many of us expected god to do something that he actually never promised to do the lord will never leave you he'll never forsake you he'll never put on you anything more than you can bear how many of us have heard that before that's wrong it's scripturally out of context the bible does not say the lord will put on you anything more than you can be he won't put on you anything more than you can bear if you're going through it god's going to equip you to carry it no sometimes you're going to die like physically dead paul wrote over half the new testament and died they cut his head off that was more than he could bear so why do we believe this wrong stuff because it gives us warm fuzzies and then it makes us feel good it's a little motivational gospel sort of caffeinated christianity and god doesn't want caffeinated christianity he wants the real gospel in your life you're going to go through hard times you're going to desperately need jesus and you're not you're not always going to make it through that's why paul was able to say for me to live his christ to die is gain because no matter what you do to me i'm not living for here i'm living for beyond this life that's true enlightenment i'm enlightened to a point because of jesus that i know that i'll never be perfect enough that i've got to trust him some of you are still wondering about but i thought it said he'll never put on me anything more than i can bear it's talking about temptation it says he will never allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear but he will provide a way of escape that's about temptation not about life life is hard turn to your neighbor and say life is hard you're dissing this have a great weekend i wish we would teach our children that life is going to be hard i love it i don't give my kids an allowance you're looking like some of the dads are like see what you want me to teach them is somehow just magically people are going to deliver money to you every week oh here here's your allowance no i'll allow you to live in my house that's your allowance i allow you to sleep in the bed you keep back talking i allow you to sleep on the floor and i'll take your bed i'll allow you to turn the lights on and have electricity merry christmas somebody'll tell me here's the participation trophy i'll take that participation bro i'll kick kicking around on the ground you didn't win that everybody participated you gotta if you want a trophy you gotta win something [Applause] some of us coddle our children and we're lawnmower parents we mow everything out of the way and whenever they actually get to college and actually get to life it punches them in the face and they don't even know how to do anything because we didn't teach them that hey you got to stand up life is hard it's not going to be easy but god is good and he's going to be with you some of y'all you bring unfulfilled expectations into your relationships married people hey i didn't get to preach the relationship series so this is my part right here married people lower your expectations some of the husbands are like thank you single people lower your expectations some of y'all not even jesus would get a date with you but like i don't like his beard he hangs out with his 12 friends all the time he's raising people from the dead lady lower your expectations raise your values your expectations change as you age your values get deeper you're focusing on the wrong thing you have to know what your values are and make them primary and secondary some of y'all have expectations that nobody can meet that's why you have unfulfilled expectations because they change and all the husbands say hey man expectations change one week you want this the next week you want that i don't know what you want hey listen if our primary values are strong then we can build off of that if we value listening which is a really good primary value then we can learn as expectations change and have communication a primary value ought to be they love jesus that's a good primary value a primary value is they love missions you don't have to have that i'm just telling you maybe they love it but if you don't love missions every time they want to go on a missions trip you're going to feel abandoned y'all probably aren't congruent right now we have a couple on our staff anthony michelle miner he works for heb she works for the church and they're both neck deep in water they got their muck boots on right now they're in laplace louisiana they're at home of louisiana they're helping each other she's not like anthony when are we leaving this and going to the ritz carlton she's like hey we're going to sleep in that tent tonight all right i'll make it right hey these people need an air-conditioned unit these people need one because they have the same primary values you also need to understand what secondary values are your favorite football team is a secondary value if you're a texans fan and you marry a cowboys fan that's a secondary value that'll create a problem on game day but that's about it and if you're sitting here like no that's a primary value that's why you're still single with your cowboys jersey on all by yourself okay i'm preaching good on a sunday oh i feel good unfulfilled expectations untreated pain and this is where i want to sit for just a minute because some of us have untreated pain in our life most come from wounds from another person you said it was no big deal you said i'm fine but it's not why why are we not equipped to deal with emotional pain because most people don't talk about it even in the church we encourage you to pray about it but we don't actually talk about it jeremiah 6 14. this is not a new problem so they dressed the wounds of my people as though it were not serious peace peace they say when there is no peace oh just pray about it no no no pray about it get in a group go through growth track get on the dream team go to counseling notice we don't just say pray about it we actually give you steps to actually walk it out how many y'all let me ask you this question how many of y'all buy band-aids we buy band-aids and nobody argues when you go to cvs because they sell you a whole box of them when you only need one nobody's like no hey now can y'all just open that up just give me one because it's a little cut on my hand no no cause you know you prepare for pain so why don't we prepare for emotional pain and deal with relational pain and deal with issues in our past when we just talk about it say we're gonna pray about it no no i made a statement a few weeks ago that people asked me to dig in on so i'm going to dig in on it a little bit when i was interviewing earl and anika mcclellan i said this phrase red flags don't look like red flags when they feel like home we always talk about red flags but what if that just feels normal to me because the parental relationship that you had in the very beginning was the most foundational relationship you learned about all relationships from your mom and dad so what feels normal to you could actually be toxic and you don't even know it because it was the foundational relationship of your life and if it was unhealthy or involved emotional physical mental spiritual abuse abandonment rejection unpredictability insecure attachment here's what happens you are either attracted to toxic relationships are you ready for this or you bring toxicity into your relationships and think it's the other person's fault we've all we've all heard of a father wound i want to teach you for just a minute is that okay we've heard of a father when somebody's got dad issues they have a father when a friend of mine was talking to me about this the other day i have a father when my dad was just never there for me like i wanted him to be there for me he was around but he wasn't present and it caused my friend to become an affirmation addict he needed affirmation all the time he led a large organization and couldn't make decisions because he needed consensus he needed people to approve of him so he couldn't make a decision because he wasn't secure in himself because he had an insecurity because he was abandoned or rejected by his father this is simple we kind of know that mom and dad went there and dad didn't hug me but that didn't tell me it was cool and he just wasn't there but many of you have a mother wound that nobody talks about so i'm gonna talk about it for just a minute it's trauma that was carried by your mom and you inherited it because she never actually dealt with it or maybe your mom was emotionally unsupportive or highly critical or had low self-esteem and how your mom had relationships and and talked about talk to people and how she learned how to self-soothe all of those things her belief system you picked it up as your own and if your mom used her kids to kind of meet her needs or solve her problems or give her emotional stability she was always talking to you you became her friend you had to help your mom process her pain because she didn't have a peer to process with so she tried to keep you a child kept you home from school because she didn't feel good one day you understand some of you are just now going wow that all that all happened to me you can actually spend your adult life becoming a fixer a rescuer or an enabler and you don't even know where it came from here's eight things that come from a mother wound that wasn't healed and this can be males or females wounded by your mom you didn't even know it and you love your mom you can have an inability to set boundaries because you need your mother's permission you can have insecurity with body or physical appearance and your mom could have look at me and listen your mom could have been the most encouraging to you about your appearance but it wasn't what she said about you that caused you to get low self-esteem it's what she said about her that you took on so if mom talks negatively about her body please ladies listen to me this is so important oh i'm just to preach right now can i tell you something don't listen to culture i'm i'm gonna go there listen no back buckle your seatbelt y'all ain't ready i don't care what culture says what size you should be how you should look how you should dress how you should act can i help you understand something all that ain't sexy you as sexy as you want to be i said you're as sexy as you want to be you want to be sexy you're sexy girl some of you are like he said sexy five times i don't is this church i'm back i'm back [Music] boy a mother wound can create codependency in relationships number four it can give you an inability to regulate your emotions or self-soothe in healthy ways well i'm just moody no you have a wound that wasn't cured and you don't know how to healthily self-soothe so you take it out on other people number five fear of abandonment number six chronic self-judgment self-criticism and comparison number seven the fear of displeasing your mother or looking to her before you make any decisions parents say together kids leave but some of y'all have to talk to your mom before you even talk to your spouse i'm trying to help you not hurt you and number eight you end up with a lack of self-trust and you don't even know it you're protecting someone who actually hurt you she probably didn't even mean to you need to talk to somebody who can help you deal with this because if you don't you will either attract traumatic relationships or bring trauma into relationships and understand when you have a trauma bond you're either bringing trauma into the relationship some of some of these people who bring trauma into a relationship some of them do it purposefully because they're manipulators and narcissistic personalities do you understand what creates a narcissist somebody who never got asked how do you feel about that they were always told how to feel and if your parents always told you you're not sad you're not angry you're not hurt you're not in love that's puppy love i learned this young puppy love is very real to a puppy so if you have kids who are going through pain empathize with their pain ask them how they feel about that because if you don't you'll create some little narcissists running around but some people had so much trauma in their life they produce trauma in their relationships and they don't even know they're doing it and other people attract trauma because it feels like home and so they're in a traumatic relationship but it feels like it feels normal because there's chaos so they stay and some of you look at other people and go why would you even stay in that well look at their childhood it looked like how they were raised it feels like home and trauma bonds start they have seven stages number one is the love bomb stage you get all kind of crazy love from this person i love you so much you're amazing and it feels awesome because you've never really had that here's what's crazy you've never really had that you've never experienced that kind of love you've never experienced that kind of affirmation or you did and it feels healthy in the beginning the second stage is trusted dependency they do everything that they can to get you to trust and be dependent upon them for validation and so you begin to isolate i don't need anybody else i just need this person you become codependent and then the third stage is they become critical it's criticism they slowly begin to criticize and begin to blame you for things that happen number four is manipulation or gaslighting when things go wrong some of y'all don't even know where the term gaslighting comes from is back whenever they used to have uh gas lanterns you hear it all the time it's a popular phrase now but back when they would have gas lanterns back in the day husbands would turn the gas lanterns down until they flickered if he wanted to get rid of his wife and his wife would be like are the lights flickering and he'd say no you must be crazy and if you said it to her enough she thought she was losing her mind so they begin to manipulate you and they blame things on you they get you to believe that their narrative number five you begin to give up control you no longer know what to believe but your only way of experiencing the good feelings of stage one that love bomb phase is by just giving in and going along and doing whatever they want some of y'all know right now you're sitting in a marriage that is a trauma bond and you know if you even want to be heard it's going to be a fight let's look straight ahead right now i knew this would be a challenge i'm trying to lighten it for you a little bit then then you begin to lose yourself that's phase six when you fight back things get worse so you settle for anything to have peace and you begin to lose all of your confidence now here's what i need you to understand some of you are the one who's bringing the trauma into the relationship if you're doing it intentionally please go quickly to counseling and get yourself some healing maybe you were abused and you've become an abuser i don't hate you i'm trying to help you get some help outside of yourself maybe you were so controlled by your parents that you've become a controller get somebody to help you i'm not giving up hope on you i'm not throwing you away but i am very clearly telling you you absolutely have to have some help in fact if i'm describing your relationship and you're getting mad because i'm exposing you you have a problem and you need to deal with that or you will never find fulfillment in controlling someone else and if you're in that relationship understand me if you don't get help it'll destroy you and especially if it is physically abusive you need to get out right now you need to move out right now you need to get some help right now clap your hands because that's good because the seventh stage is addiction to the cycle you get addicted to the highs and lows so you you live in this cortisol this stress environment your body's constantly in stress and you're desperate for dopamine which causes you to have addictions this is why people go and do crazy stuff that they would never do because they're desperate for just i just need to feel good and somebody who's very successful gets a drug addiction because they're in a trauma bonded relationship and they can't get any relief and i'm not saying that's every case but that's a lot of cases you also the danger is when they take you back to stage one and they love bomb you again which gives you all the dopamine and you've never felt this way before and you believe that that's who they really are so you're addicted to the relationship and you can never get out this started with your mom and dad uh y'all paid 250 at the door today for your therapy session god bless you listen here's what i want you to understand trauma is a fact of life but it does not have to be a life sentence god can help you but he's not the only one you need to get in a group you need to get in a freedom group you need to go to counseling you need to go to counseling get thyself a counselor get somebody to help you in your life because if you're not careful this stuff will destroy you we'll skip the next two and i'll talk about them at another time but i want you to understand musicians y'all go ahead and come play a little bit of music behind me you don't have to stay this way some of you say well i'm just struggling no you're not struggling that's a stronghold and you need to deal with the stronghold second corinthians 10 says this for though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds or by say strongholds this is the word in hebrew or greek this is the word okuruma it means a prisoner locked in by deception the stronghold is a lie that you have acted on as if it were truth this is why i think the next verse verse 5 says we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god and we take captive every thought everybody say thought every thought to make it obedient to christ if you want to change your life change your mind and you have to allow god to do that romans 12 and 2 do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind notice the world has a pattern the world has a rhythm and it's not god's rhythm it's this unity it's pain it's trauma it's heartache it's struggle but john 8 32 says then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free i'm gonna give you three truths and your your part to play in this is to believe them because if you've gone through pain you've gone through trauma you've had unfulfilled expectations and untreated pain and you need to know this number one god still loves me somebody say it out loud god still loves me put it in the chat god still loves me and here's why because religion has lied to you and for some reason you still believe that you have to perform good enough to get god to love you and you think when you've made a mistake or you've sinned that god now hates you until you get good enough for god to love you and that is living by guilt and not by grace god deliver us for living for you out of guilt god help us to understand that your grace and your mercy is so good even in our mistakes you still love us can i ask you a question who sets the worth of a house some of you would say an appraiser who sets the worth of a car well kelly blue book but not really we know the house doesn't set its own worth right or the car doesn't set its own worth the worth of something is set by what someone is willing to pay for it if you're a real estate agent in here then you know we have a lot of realtors to go to our church and watch online then you know that there can become a bidding war that goes way above what the appraiser said the appraiser said that house is worth 350 thousand dollars somebody's like all right i'll pay 350 for it somebody else says i'll pay for somebody asking myself i'm gonna pay half a million somebody else's that piece of property right there is so valuable to me that i'll pay 650 000 i'll pay 700 and that's what every realtor wants right a bidding war well guess what you didn't set the value of your life and somebody walking by you didn't set the value of your life even though they try to all the time the value of something is set by what someone is willing to pay for it and the last time i checked god sent his son to die for you he gave his one and only son that you don't have to die in your sins but you can live free to the grace and the mercy of god i want to read this verse of scripture to you in john 3 16 the message version says this is how much god loved the world he gave his son his one and only son listen i love you i love all of you but i don't love you enough to give my child for you that's what god did and this is why so that no one need to be destroyed by believing in him jesus anyone can have a whole and lasting life god didn't go to all the trouble of sending his son merely to point an accusing finger telling the world how bad it is he came to help god loves you and when you start believing that you'll realize the second one that is that god can set me free i know people are saved and not set free you don't have to live bound that's why we have freedom groups you need to get we launch groups this weekend you need to get in a group because god can set you free it is a process but you have to go through it romans 8 1 says this you no longer have to live under a continuous low-lying black cloud a new power is in operation the spirit of life in christ like a strong wind has magnificently cleared the air freeing you from a faded lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of death and sin don't lose hope god can set you free and when you believe that god loves you when you believe that god can set you free you have to believe that god will restore me he's not just going to set me free and leave me the way i am aren't you grateful that he loves me but he doesn't leave me the way i am he's going to restore me and he's going to use all the pain and all the heartache and all the issues and all the challenges and all the trauma and he's going to produce some great value in my life where does this happen how does this happen psalm 23 the lord is my shepherd i got to start with letting him beat my shepherd i got to let him correct me i got to let him direct me and then he'll lead me beside still waters and then he will restore my soul notice the writer there very clearly he'll he'll make me lie down in green pastures he restores my soul he guides me in the paths of righteousness for his namesake but there's a shift in verse 4 i want you to notice watch this yea though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death i will fear no evil for you are with me your rod and your staff they comfort me you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies you anoint my head with oil notice what happened if you're an english major you did if you're not you're looking at me blankly psalm 23 verses one through three he's talking about god he leads me beside the still waters he restores my soul that's the third person pronoun verse four it shifts to the second person pronoun what does that mean in verses one through three he's talking about god but when he hits the valley of the shadow of death he's talking to god because that when you make the lord your shepherd he comes closest in your greatest moments of pain and heartache and shame and guilt and you cannot do too much to run our god oh he loves you and he's looking for you right now he's calling for you right now and he wants to save you but you've got to make him your shepherd you've got to make him your lord would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me all across this room if you know you're broken and you need jesus you say that's me i just want you to lift your hand that's me thank you hands all over the room if you're online you can put the hand emoji that's me or you can just say that's me that's me it comes from remember restoration starts with recognition i need god the next step is relief and confession he's got to believe that he can save me and confess that he will i want to pray over you and you could pray something like this you don't have to pray this exact prayer but i want to pray for you right now online at all of our campuses lord i thank you for each and every person under the sound of my voice i pray right now god that you would help them to realize and recognize that you love them so much that you you sent your son to die for them but he didn't stay there he rose again on the third day so that we can have the hope of eternal life that he conquered death hell in the grave according to scripture so lord right now i give you my life pray something like that lord i just give you my life i give you my heartache i give you my pain i give you my shame i give you my mistakes i give you my sin i believe in you jesus i believe you're the son of god and i'm asking you to come into my life and give me peace and give me joy and give me love and give me mercy and i receive your grace and i receive your love right now god even though i don't feel lovable even though i feel like i've made too many mistakes i'm going to trust that you can love me even in all of my pain and you can restore me and in this moment i'm asking you jesus to be the lord of my life in jesus name amen

Channel: Hope City

Views: 19,127

Rating: 4.9417758 out of 5

Keywords: Jeremy Foster, Hope City, pastor jeremy, jermy foster, jeramy foster, hope city church, hope church, hope city jeremy, jeremy foster, hope city silos, hope city houston, local houston church, jermyh foster, pastor jeremy foster, rhythm, trauma treatment, rhtyms, ryhthms, rhythm of grace

Id: tiNQ7Zz1MvQ

Length: 44min 20sec (2660 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021