Wednesday Night Service 9-8-2021

all right how's everybody doing [Applause] [Music] big hello to everybody who's watching online we're so glad you guys are here as well uh tonight we're uh we're honored host of our guests from teen challenge from stanford once you guys give them a hand so they're gonna they're gonna share the uh they're gonna share the night with us and then we'll jump into first thessalonians chapter three as we consider continue our study through that this is ryan buck he's program director over at teen challenge yeah go ahead give him a there you go so uh ryan's gonna run things here for the next 20-25 minutes uh tonight's offering obviously is going to go to teen challenge they'll you'll have a much better idea of what they do if you're unfamiliar by the time it's over so you can text to give you can give to your app there's buckets at the end of the aisles out there before you leave the door you can drop it in there multiple ways for you to be able to give and support an unbelievable ministry so let's pray and then we'll get started god thank you for the rain uh today for the cleansing power of a good rain uh we're grateful uh for it uh we're uh we're grateful for this place that we can gather that we can be encouraged that we could be reminded that the building is not your church that the people who fill these halls and contribute to the mission they're your church but we're grateful for a place where we can gather we can be encouraged uh we can be motivated and so lord we pray that you would do just that tonight father would you open our minds and our hearts to the work that's going on at team challenge father would you simply continue to put your hand a blessing upon this ministry as they as they spend a lot of time in the ditch with people and they get down and they show your love to these people in real and tangible ways and so we pray tonight father as those stories those testimonies are shared lord that you would use them in a powerful way to move us to be encouraged not only by what you're doing but how you can continue to use us so father we just give you all the thanks we give you all the praise and we give you all the glory and all of god's people said amen like pastor said my name is ryan i'm the program manager at team challenge we just want to uh thank you guys for having us you guys make us feel very welcome and we really appreciate it um it's for those of you who don't know we're a 12-month long faith-based program that helps people with life-controlling issues people come in with drug addictions gambling addictions internet addictions any kind of you know life-controlling thing that you can think of it's not just drugs and we're not teenagers obviously we have a men's center but tonight you're going to hear testimonies from some of our our students in the program and they're going to tell you a little bit about what they went through to get to teen challenge [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] good evening church just wanted to say thank you for letting us come out here and share what god's doing in our lives my name is chris engel i'm 33 years old i was born in georgia and i grew up on the east coast of florida i'm definitely a georgia fan not a gators fan so go dogs but i spent 10 years as a firefighter eight of those were in the united states air force and in 2010 i had a knee injury that required an operation the doctor put me on oxycodone for eight months while i went through my rehab and refilled me anytime i asked for it and at the end of those eight months he was ready to take me off of them and i wasn't ready to come off of them so i then pursued him in the streets for about nine years i was chasing after an addiction lost and threw away two careers a marriage all sorts of things in the process and then uh in the beginning of 2019 i was introduced to heroin for the first time and uh within six months i was at an all-time low i uh was living in my car with my four-year-old son in the back we would sleep in a walmart parking lot and shower on a public beach late at night and i wish i could say that that was enough for me to want to get help but it really wasn't and the truth is you know god really needed to speak to me in that moment so he used my drug dealer at the time one night he pulled me to the side and was just like what are you doing dude you're better than this if you could just get clean and find god you'd be all right so a week later i found myself at teen challenge i opened up a bible for the first time got introduced to the love of christ i did my sinners prayer i was transformed you know i was on fire for seven months i came to rallies actually my very first rally was at this church two years ago so it's nice to come back i got it right this time but uh seven months into the program the same family that was supposed to be protecting my son was causing a great deal of harm he showed up to a family day with two black eyes and i asked if i could leave the program did everything they could to try to get me to stay and help me stay but i felt called to leave so for the first two months from leaving the program i was absolutely on fire i went to i enrolled into a school for ministry and like i said within two months like everything that i had ever prayed for i had i had my school i had my son a house a car he even brought me a beautiful woman that's now my wife um yeah oh thank you thank you um but it was at that point that i got complacent and i took my eyes off of what god was doing and i started boasting in it like it was me and the moment i tried to take control of my life back i started a downward spiral so for the next year and some change i walked this double life where externally i was this happy family man who had everything but internally there was something missing and i was still seeking to feel that with pain pills again and my wife is a psych major so you can't hide anything from her and she called me on it one day and told me hey if you want to get help and you're serious about it i'm going to hold down the fort and you go finish those 12 months because there's something you obviously missed so i reached out me and ryan buck came through in 2019 he's now the program director uh he's awesome great friend of mine and they uh they opened their arms for me to come right back in man like like i had never left so i'm back i'm getting it right i only allowed a surface level relationship with jesus the first time and this the second time around i'm i'm surrendering it all having all sorts of revelations uh i keep hearing wake up wake up and you know there's hope it's jesus christ and you know he's using places like teen challenge to really save people's lives so i appreciate you all hearing our story tonight hey hey y'all my name is uh cody sperlin i'm uh 29 years old and i come from a small town on the west side of florida called dixie county florida grew up there my whole life born and raised there my story kind of begins in my earlier childhood had a great family growing up had a great childhood my parents loved each other very loving my father and i were very close and my little brother were very close it's kind of one of the root causes to where my addiction would eventually lead but uh my father ended up dying of a massive heart attack when i was 15 and uh me and my little brother just kind of my mom was just kind of you know left with you know life and all the bills and everything else you know my mom's a steadhome mom so kind of uh didn't really you know know what ought to do so at this point you know me and my little brother we athletes playing football in high school doing really well in football our father and us our relationship was was so tight-knit you know it was like losing a best friend um at the time pain pills had uh kind of exploded in our high school and uh all my friends were doing them and trying them you know i had already began drinking you know and um before i knew it um with this big void in my heart and this big loss um seeing my mom struggle just my little brother looking up to me the whole town you know expected me to be just like my father at such a young age there's a lot of pressure um you know just i just dove right off into the pills and partying and did great at football graduated high school um began immediately working um helped my mom with with the bills and with the house payment you know we had a our father had actually actually died building her dream home and uh so uh had a big had some big shoes to fill you know um but uh very quickly you know began feeding my addiction more and more making good money you know it was good but it was bad at the same time before i knew it you know i was i was just going down this downhill hill spiral so so fast when the party life and all my friends and and something always seemed to always seemed to affect me worse i always seemed to catch the worser end of things and always seemed seem to to come out worse on the other end than my friends they could just do something one weekend and rebound and be fine um looking back on it now i thought was just bad luck but looking back on it now it was just part of a master plan orchestrated by the father to bring me closer to him and it's really been a blessing how he's how he's done it but but through my addiction um i'm married to a beautiful beautiful southern girl and uh i met her in my addiction she was in an addiction similar to mine and we kind of run the streets together and party together and uh got married very fast very quickly decided to get married we got two beautiful daughters a five-year-old a two-year-old and they are are my life but uh we still we always managed to do right by them i always provided for my family but uh i was always using it i was always functional you know and uh um eventually it got to the point where you know the addiction had started to seep through into both of our lives to where our whole family could tell you know started you know missing work started bouncing from job to job um but uh when we had decided finally decided it got to the point where we couldn't do it no more we had both decided we needed help and uh we decided to both come into teen challenge and uh since coming to teen challenge um i always do i always knew christ my family was with pentecostal you know and uh southern pentecostal and i always knew christ but and i always knew was there and looking back now he's intervened so many times in my life and i see that now but but now since coming to teen challenge he's used it as a tool to reach me and to and to pull all the hurt and everything i've been through out of my heart and to fully begin to mend and restore my relationship with me and my wife my family my brother my mom and all my daughters so uh it's pretty it's pretty amazing what he's done in this little amount here of tom i've been here and uh i graduate two months my wife actually graduates this month and uh he's fully restored our relationship and uh it's just it's a blessing and it's uh it's a miracle really but uh thank you all so much how are you all doing tonight my name is brandon lee i'm 37 years old i'm born and raised in dunedin florida i now live in orlando um where should i start my younger years i don't really remember much of my youth what i do remember is an abusive father being abused myself and my mother being abused he was severe alcoholic i don't remember when they got divorced but after that i grew up in a christian household we were in the church we were active it was a good part of my life i um some of the memories i do have is around halloween i would hand out the candy to any of the kids that said that they loved jesus i would pray for my mother when she was sick with my sister praise and worship it was amazing i was a military brat so my stepfather he was in the air force and he got stationed over in riyadh saudi arabia and it took six months we had to get vaccinated and everything we eventually moved over to saudi arabia for four years so we started underground churches we turned into missionaries and at the time the transition was difficult because i would believe all my friends that i had made at a young age and transfer over to international school into a country i had no idea of any of the culture it was different so i got bullied a lot trying to fit in was difficult but i fit in at the school but i didn't fit in with my friends on the compound i was continuously bullied so i stuck close to my family and my church because god was always there for me and so was my family we spent four years there we traveled the world i've been to many different countries seen many different cultures and when that ended we moved back to the united states i was 13 years old and another major transition in my life had occurred i moved from an international culture back to the united states and that was completely different everybody's unified in an international school but when you move back to the united states everybody's they've got their own their own little sex i guess you could say so once again i didn't fit in i'm getting bullied in school and then on my family my mother and my stepfather get divorced so i'm getting bullied i have a separation in the family and i'm thinking that i'm no longer in the grace of god something i did something wrong and i can't figure it out it's a struggle i'm struggling with my school i'm getting bullied the only thing that i can think to do is how do i fit in something's not right inside so how do i fit in what's the best way for me to stop getting bullied and to feel loved so what i do at 13 years old i turned to drugs and alcohol into people that were cool smoking drinking any any drugs started of course i didn't start with marijuana started with roofies so we go into high school i joined sports i'm on the wrestling team the weightlifting team football team at age 16 i get arrested in front of the entire wrestling team for drug possession and paraphernalia i wound up not graduating high school i dropped out later on got my ged got a large group of friends that i was hanging out with for many years we started causing problems around the town that we lived in which eventually led to a lot of violent crimes i've got 12 to 15 different arrests criminal activity violence lots of drugs there was a lot of stuff i'm not happy about it really affected me in ways i wish it hadn't but yeah so after after everybody started dying and going away i'm still doing drugs i've left all by myself doing drugs i isolated myself from my family from my god and from everybody that loved me i found myself running from my mother who all she wanted me to do was to come home and come back to the lord i couldn't do it i said no she gave me she offered me a bed to sleep in food i said no i'm going from couch to couch living with people i barely even know in the middle of my addiction the lord calls me and tells me says brandon wake up wake up wake up scared me right right into his arms i was running after him i was on fire i felt his presence everywhere i went so i kept seeking more and then when i couldn't feel his presence because i wasn't rooted in the word of god i fell back into my addictions because it made me feel so three addiction or enough three addictions i'm sorry three overdoses later two a week before i came into teen challenge one of those cost me my life i had to be revived this was in front of my mother i died twice in her arms in a week so after that i they gave me my cell phone in the ambulance i called a detox center i told him i need to i need to cut this out i prayed to the lord i said if you don't intervene now and do something i'm gonna die and you're gonna lose your child first thing he did was he put me into teen challenge i had no clothes i came in hospital scrubs socks i entered into teen challenge as soon as i got to my bunk all i felt was peace it was a piece that i've been seeking for 20 years and he fulfilled it in the doors of teen challenge i got there and jesus saved my life so ever since i've been to teen challenge i've been giving him what life i have now to stand here today and testify my story to all of you that's what i got thank you [Applause] man give it up for these guys again man that's right now i've watched every single one of these men come in here and i and i've seen how broken they all were when they came in here and i'm so proud of these guys like that's that's what proof what god can do for somebody's life you know um and as you see i wasn't always just a good guy that became a program manager as you can see from this picture um a little bit about myself uh you know i came from a good family um had you know the the everything in life i had the best of life but that wasn't good enough for me i guess i ended up uh running with a gang when i was 13 years old and was exposed to a lot of crime and drugs and drug sales i started getting arrested when i was 13. i've been arrested 36 times in my life i've done about 15 years in jails and prisons i've been in prison four times i had children and that didn't stop any of the stuff that i was doing you would think it would but it's sad to say that it didn't i was addicted to cocaine and heroin for a long time i believed in god but i didn't know what it really meant to be a christian man what it really meant to have a relationship with god and i called myself a christian but uh but i really wasn't i'll go to church on sunday and i'll leave it there at church and uh as most of you know it takes a lot more than that it takes walking it out outside of church too and uh you know one day i'll never forget it i was sitting in a hotel room and i have my oldest daughter she didn't want to talk to me for six years because she was old enough to knew to know what i was doing and i was sitting in a hotel room and now i know it was god speaking to me to reach out to her and i reached out to her and she basically told me she didn't want anything to do with me that she knew what i was doing and she said maybe if you go get some help that maybe i'll talk to you again well i didn't realize till now that god used her for that the very next day i called teen challenge and i came into teen challenge and god has restored my life like i can't even explain what god has done he's restored my relationship with my children most importantly he has given me a beautiful godly woman he has restored my my family my relationship with my family and you know he used somebody like me like that to to be the leader of these men and trust their lives with me and i say that not to brag of what i've done but to brag of what jesus has done in all of our lives you know i know everybody almost everybody knows somebody in addiction and you know i'm here to tell you that nobody's ever too far gone to be saved by jesus jesus says come to you as you come to him as you are and i used to be scared to come into church people would try to give me to come to church and i'd be scared thinking i'm not worthy enough but jesus god wants people like us he wants to fix people like us we're walking these men are walking testimonies of what god can transform god takes the broken and he does miracles with these guys you know and we're here today to to spread the word you know and we know most of you guys probably know somebody in addiction man come talk to us we want to help we want to help you we're going to have a table out there um we make some crafts and woodworks that our men make at our wood shop on campus and come talk to us we want to talk to you pray for you and help you in any way we can you know that's what we're that's what we're here to do so plea please come talk to us and i just want to end this in a prayer for you guys um father god uh we just thank you for this opportunity in this beautiful church to welcome us with open arms father father we we we thank you for the work you've done in many people's lives lord we ask that you just bring somebody to us that needs to speak to us father god and we hope that you touch somebody in this room tonight lord we just want to thank you for the miracles you're doing what a wonderful god you are to have every single one of us standing up here talking to you today when we didn't deserve it father we thank you we just thank you for everything you do in in this lifetime in jesus precious name amen [Applause] honestly it's uh my favorite wednesday night of the year when teen challenges come and be a part of it uh we're so inundated at times with negativity the negative the struggles the despair the anguish it's a good it's good for us it's good for you to be reminded that god is still in the business that ryan said looking looking for people who are broken and in need of him and so thank you guys so much for being here once you guys give him a hand again thank him so we uh we're studying first thessalonians if you're uh just now picking up with us those uh sermons are available on our website they're also available through the church center app uh to catch up but we've been talking through this this letter that paul wrote to what is arguably his favorite church in the new testament uh of all the letters that paul wrote this letter wasn't written out of anger wasn't written out of frustration wasn't written uh because a certain issue had been er had arisen in the church paul writes this letter completely out of heartfelt gratitude and appreciation for the people in thessalonica and so we get a little bit of a different perspective and what i've tried to do is is i've asked god to give me one word to sort of focus on for each of these chapters in the first week it was underestimate right there are things that that we can't underestimate and paul reminds us in his writing there are there are aspects of what god does that we should never underestimate and then last week we talked about priorities right to to make an impact to make a difference for god we've got to keep the main thing the main thing right there are priorities that paul addressed in chapter 2. this week we're going to we're going to talk about the word correlation right everybody say it with me correlation did anybody say anything there you go i couldn't tell right correlation right the definition of the word correlation is a mutual relationship or connection between two things right correlation here's a funny one i got a graph for you right check this out here's a correlation between the amount of ice cream sold and murder increase they sort of go together do you see that it's supposed to be funny church okay it wasn't funny i'll give that to joe to use on the weekend right but there's all kinds of funny funny correlations right so husbands and wives right husbands and wives in here online anybody ever fight right listen i don't know if you know this or not but there's a correlation between an argument between a husband and a wife and how stupid the husband is did you know this i've got yes right i've i've got a couple i've got a couple stories to just prove the point check this out right husband the last fight was my fault he said because when my son asked me about my wife and his mom i said you know i'm married miss right and the son said no i didn't he goes i just didn't know her first name was always right correlation between right stupid husband in a fight how about this one my son asked me right what what how would you describe marriage and the dad who said the last fight was my fault said i described to my son that it's about a three-ring surf circus right it's an engagement ring a wedding ring and suffering i see the correlation between the two right the last fault fight was my fault the husband said because my wife asked me what's on the tv and i said dust okay so okay so that one's too much is that that okay that's the line fair enough fair enough how about how about this one right the last fight was my fault the husband said because my son asked me is it true dad i heard that in some parts of africa a man doesn't know his wife until he marries her i said to him that happens in every country son you see the correlation right that one's not too far right that's funny how about this one the last fight was my fault because i said to my son the most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once some of you are like man i need to some of you are like that's good advice right how about this when the last fight was my flight was my fault because my wife overheard this conversation between me and my friend my friend said my wife's an angel my my reply was you're lucky mine's still alive oh okay too far all right all right two more right the last fault fight was my fault right because i gave some advice to a friend that my wife overheard and i said to him if you want your wife to listen and pay undivided attention to every word you say talk in your sleep can i get an amen ladies and the last one see if there's a correlation the last fight was my fault the husband said because i was telling this story that there was a man who said i never knew what real happiness was until i got married and by then it was too late right correlation right and listen if you want a copy of that i'll just send it to you right right but things that are are are in a mutual relationship and a mutual connection and at the end of chapter two and the beginning of chapter three and throughout the chapter paul gives us what i think are three correlations in this text now the text is a little bit long so we're not gonna just we're not gonna stand and read it all together we'll read it as we go through it but here's the first correlation and again always you version bible app click on the three dots it says events click on tomoka the notes for the weekend the notes for uh tuesday when we get back on october the 5th and the notes for wednesday are always available there here's the first one the first correlation that paul points out is there's a correlation between satan's efforts and what we really should measure right satan's efforts and what we should measure here's what paul says first thessalonians the end of two but brothers when we were torn away from you for a short time in person not in thought so paul was a thessalonica planted the church there was a lot of persecution paul left to go to berea when he was in berea the jews from thessalonica heard they showed up there eventually paul was taken away and ended up in athens to get away from the persecution so he was taken abruptly from these people that he loved he says out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you for we wanted to come to you certainly i paul did again and again read this with me everybody online everybody here but satan stopped us right he goes on to say for what is our hope our joy this is paul what is our hope our joy not my joy my hope but our hope and our joy or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our lord jesus when he comes read it with me is it not you is it not you listen part of the struggle for any christian and especially for the corporate church is what in the world are we supposed to measure right what do we measure i've got a buddy who started his first ministry he's 52 he spent 17 years running from god's call and eventually god won out and so he started his first ministry he has spent a lot of time being discouraged because he still measures weekend attendance as to whether he's being effective or not listen you know what joe said it in here we've read it joe and i've read it the average christian attends church 1.7 times a month right so guess what there are weekends we're going to have 4 000 people between online and in person and there's weekends we're going to have three thousand and here's what we've learned at tomoka when the race shows up in town some of you don't come correlation maybe right bike week happens twice a year around here when bike week shows up whereas what some of you don't come right listen when labor day happens some of you don't come listen when we get into measuring the wrong thing we can get into trouble right i i've said this before jokingly but internally i'm crying right i i struggle sometimes trying to keep my weight in check right because i like sugar anybody like i like sugar right i as a matter of fact there's a box an empty box of twinkies sitting on my counter right now do you want to know the just just decide you know the greatest thing i found in the world air fry that twinkie for two minutes oh thank you jesus that's thing that is that is don't deep fry it air fry it it is anyway right so i've been doing keto whatever you know it's just my my my thing right i tried it i hated it because i didn't understand it right certain amount of carbs certain amount of fat certain amount of protein i ain't got time for that right the pandemic hit i found tick-tock just so much better than youtube okay and here's what i learned from tik-tok i learned how to do keto because stupid people like me were figuring it out and then they were sending videos of what they ate to lose weight and so i learned how to do keto through watching tick tock and here's what i've learned about keto right there's a certain amount of carbs that you don't want to take and listen when i was 23 and burning carbs like just getting up you didn't need keto right you just needed carbs but when you're 57 and your metabolism packed up and left right you can't afford to eat all the carbs because you just don't have the energy or the time or space to burn all of that stuff so keto is about depriving yourself of some of those carbs right and making your body consume enough protein right that you have energy and then eventually your body will burn the fat it's a great system right but you got to learn how to do it right because otherwise it's just stupid but here's what i've learned about keto i can go i can go a whole listen i can go a day and not even consume a car but i can also eat 4 000 calories and it won't matter how many carbs i took in if i don't measure my calories keto doesn't work you get me right but here's the thing i only measure both of those because i really want to measure the thing that matters and you know what matters to me is that i never ever have to put on my size 44 pants again right like here's what i measure about weight loss i get up i put on a shirt and i go crud that is still too stinking tight right because i want to measure how i feel and look in a mirror regarding the clothes i wear yes i measure calories and yes i pay attention to cars but because i measure the thing that matters i don't want to come out here wearing a tent right i i've got that pair of 44 pants in the bottom of my drawer just to remind me of what it can look like if i don't pay attention to what matters and it's not calories it's not carbs it's that right calories and carbs are necessary here's the thing about being a christian what are you supposed to measure what are you supposed to pay attention to here's the thing i love about tomoka is that we measure the only thing that matters all the time and that is are we reaching people who are far from christ that's it right paul says what is our hope what is our glory what is our crown if it is not you in the lord jesus christ that's why we say our mission is to make it hard for people to go to hell from our generation because that's all we want to do now do we measure lots of other things absolutely we measure those in relationship to how we're doing in regard to the real focus and here's what paul says when you measure the thing that matters the most satan's going to show up listen to these verses first look listen to luke 15 i'm going to read a couple verse some few verses here the parable of of the lost pearl right the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the lost son jesus told them this parable this is uh luke 15 3-7 suppose one of you has a hundred sheep oh i said coin right suppose one of you has 100 sheep and loses one of them does he not leave the 99 in the open country to go after the lost sheep until he finds it okay keep that right there all right you see what's happened how many sheep did he start with no no how many sheep did he start with everybody say 100. listen you got to keep that number in mind how many sheep did he start with 100 how many did he lose and that left him how many 99. so what do you think he's going to do the bible says does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it why because the most important number that god's measuring is what 100 right why listen if i get 99 pennies in my pocket and i lose one of them do you think i'm going to scour the ground for that one penny not unless 100 matters to me because if somebody gives me 100 penny and says you better bring me 100 pennies back if i lose one what do you think i'm going to do i'm going to go find that penny if i don't have to account for 100 pennies i'm not going to care about that one penny the only reason that one matters is because the number that god's measuring is we started with a hundred and we can't afford to lose how many none we talk about this parable we focus on the one sheep is the one sheep important yeah because we went to find him but why is the one sheep important because god cares about 100. you know how many people god cares about second peter chapter 3 says god wishes how many to perish none everybody say none but for all everybody say all all to come to repentance so you know what you want number god's measuring right now 7.3 billion do you know how many people we measure that way we say things like ah that's fine right they're never gonna turn to jesus i'm not wasting my time on them right you can say that when you don't care about 7.3 billion people but when you care about all you can't afford to lose none so he says next verse and when he finds it he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home and then he calls his friends and his neighbors together and here's what he says rejoice with me i have found my lost sheep why because now i no longer have 99 i have how many and that's the number that matters because god cares about all right not willing to lose any rejoice something i found my lost sheep listen to this you want to know why satan's here i tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents then over what 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent man it's great to measure church attendance right it's great to know that 3 000 of you will participate this weekend but you know what really gets god going is when one sinner repents why because god cares about all listen to what he says in luke 15 10. in the same way i tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of god over one sinner who repents and then this is the story of the lost son and the father speaking to his son but the father said to his servants quick because the son said i'm not worthy to be your son here's what the father's response was to that quick bring the best robe and put it on my son put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet identify him as my son bring the fattened calf and kill it and let's have a feast and celebrate why for this son of mine was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found so they began to celebrate right listen you want to know why one matters because the god all matters does everybody get that like listen the focal of one is because it's in correlation with how many god once saved god wants them all saved he wants them all to come home he doesn't want any to perish so do we celebrate one yes or no yes do we celebrate 10 yes or no but do we celebrate zero no because we got to measure what matters and so listen to what he says in luke 8 look at this is a parable of sower luke 8 11 and 12. this is the meaning of the parable right the sower went out to sow some seed spell on the hard ground the seed right is the word of god those along the path are the people who hear the word of god and then the who the devil comes and he takes away the word from their hearts why so that they may not believe and be what saved listen you want to you want to engage in spiritual bat listen we give you know i thought about just preaching one point tonight because i could lose my mind at this point like we we give satan so much credit for stuff he has nothing to do with listen i don't know if you know there's not but the bible makes it clear that your flesh is is corrupt and evil and wants nothing to do but wrong stuff all the time can somebody say amen right the works of the works of the flesh are evident and you and i are tempted when we get carried away by our own desires somebody say amen listen ain't the devil don't be given the devil credit for the fact that your flesh is corrupt and rotten the devil doesn't have to deal with you when it comes to you struggling with the sins of the flesh that's not a spiritual fight you want to engage in a spiritual fight get focused on the mission start trying to see people come to jesus because every time you preach the word or show the word to people who are far from god you're in a spiritual fight because the satan has no interest in you hearing the word and believing and be saved because he's trying to be god and the only way to be god is that people follow you and if he loses people to follow god because they believed in jesus he's going to put up a fight and maybe you didn't do well yesterday maybe you struggled with drinking or maybe you struggled with your mouth or maybe you struggled with your your mind maybe you struggled in your anger guess what that's a flesh problem and the bible says there's only one way to deal with your flesh paul says i get up every morning and i discipline my body and bring it into subjection that's just a fight you're going to have to have every day because you got a bad roommate but you want a spiritual fight start focusing on what matters because there's a correlation between measuring what matters and satan's activity right how about this one titus chapter 3 verses 9-11 avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law right stop fighting about dumb things right because these are what everybody read it with me listen here's the thing most of you if you practice this would just take your facebook down right you just take your facebook down because it's unprofitable and it's useless right but he goes on to say this warn a divisive person once and warn him the second time and after that have nothing to do with him right listen satan's you can you may be sure that such a man is read it with me warped and sinful he's self-condemned listen there's only one thing that satan cares about and that's keeping you and i separated from the true mission that god has for his church right because the word blocked in the greek there means to cut off right to cut in half as a matter of fact the the writers who used the greek language took that word right which comes from the greek word copto which means to cut and they took that word and they made it they made it mean mourning or grief and the implication was or the inference was that the cut is so severe and so painful the only way to deal with it is to grieve that's satan's activity he's trying to block us or cut us off from the real mission because there's a correlation between the efforts and the work of satan and focusing on the mission you want to know wait to make a christian church spends a lot of time under spiritual attack it's not because you struggled with your anger yesterday it's not because you were a handful of the last church service it wasn't because you didn't get along with your wife yesterday it's not because of whatever those are flesh problems right those are fights that you've got to have to have the reason this church is under spiritual attack is because we spend every waking minute talking about who we can reach next where we can put the gospel and if you want to know why you're under spiritual attack it might be because you've decided to get in on the conversation and be a part of the front line it's just going to happen man because there's a correlation between those two here's what jesus said in john 17 here's his prayer as he's preparing to be crucified he says my prayer is not just for the disciples the men right in front of me he said my prayer for also for those who will believe in me through their message how many of you have believed in jesus because of the word of god that you were spoken can i see your hands so guess what he's talking to you to those of you online that raised your hand he's talking to you so he says this i pray that all of them may be what just one just one not two not four but one father y just as you and me and i'm in you why that they may also be in us why unified why so that the world everybody read it with me may believe i mean look at the power of all of us being focused on the right thing you see some of you know people and they just don't give any credibility to the word of god why aren't they believing your message well maybe because there's 350 000 different churches in north america you want to know how how to make a message complicated anybody in here a parent a kid to a co-parent a kid husband's wife's mom's dad raise your hand anybody okay let me start over how many of you have children thank you right how many of you raising a child have disagreed on how to punish discipline raise a kid and how many of you have ever done that in front of your kid right you think the kid's confused by the mixed message you want to know how to be effective as a parent be one you want to know how to make the gospel effective stay one and you want to know what you build it around you don't build it around we like certain kinds of music and you don't build it around that that that we're a woke church or that we're a political church or that we're a king james version only church you build it around one thing you build it around reaching people for jesus amen that's what you build the church around right verse verse 23 he ends it up by saying this i in them and you and me may they be brought to complete unity why to let the world know that you sent me i mean man the world needs to know that jesus came for them amen right and and have loved them even as you have loved me i mean how many people in the world do they need the needs to know that jesus came for them and that he loves them unconditionally you know anybody like that listen you want to make that message effective let's be unified and stop being unified over silly things right i don't like listen joe's one of my dearest friends but i don't like serving with a guy that likes the st louis cardinals right i don't like it at all i think there's something just fundamentally wrong with him okay i just do right i don't like the fact that one of my dearest friends in this church is a green bay packer fan i i just i just sorry is that too far okay all right now let's move on all right correlation between those two things right the work of satan and measuring what matters how about this one trials in our faith right there's a correlation between trials and our faith listen to titus 3 1-5 paul writes these words in in the in the third chapter of titus he says so when we couldn't stand it any longer he's in athens dying dying because he wants to know how the church is doing and he says so we can stand no longer bring that back up i'm sorry we thought it best to be left by ourselves in athens so we sent timothy who's our brother and god's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of christ to strengthen and encourage you and your faith so that no one would be unsettled by these what trials you know quite well that we were destined for them in fact when we were with you we kept telling you that we would be persecuted and it turned out that way as you well know for this reason when i could stand it no longer i sent to find out about your faith why because i was afraid that in some way the tempter read satan might have tempted you and our efforts might have been in vain right produce nothing listen there is a correlation in scripture between our faith and trials let me let me show it to you let's talk about the power of our faith just listen to these verses i'm just going to read them back to back to back right ephesians 2 8 9. you can read along with me it's by grace you've been saved through you get that you've been saved by what but you access grace by what man is your faith important yes or no you bet it is next one how about a romans chapter 3 21-22 but now god has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements law how many of you are grateful that god made it possible for you and him to be in a right relationship and you don't have to be perfect anybody here grateful for that all right listen here's what he says as was promised in the writing of moses and the prophets long ago we are everybody read this with me everybody online read it with me if you're driving say it out loud we are made right with god is faith important man it saves you it puts you in a right relationship with god how about this one romans 10 8-10 but what does it say the word's near you it's in your mouth and it's in your heart he says that is the word of faith that we are proclaiming that if you confess with your mouth that jesus is lord and read it with me and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead is your faith important absolutely how about this one hebrews chapter 11 verse 6 for it is for and without faith it is impossible to please god listen is your faith important listen you have got nothing from god through jesus without faith is it a gift yes you didn't earn it you didn't buy your way into it you didn't stumble across it because you're a great person right you got faith and or you got salvation because god gave it as a gift through the offering of his son somebody say amen but how do you access it how do you make it yours faith faith faith faith faith alone faith alone as martin luther said it is faith alone that puts you in right standing with god by accepting jesus christ now if you're the enemy and you want to be god and these people are following god by putting their faith in it where do you think satan is going to attack your why man listen there is a direct correlation between your faith and trials listen to what he says listen to what the bible says is the priority of trials some of you have read this verse and you hate it i i didn't like it for years consider it pure what now when you read that word don't read the word happiness okay listen if you're going through a trial and people think you should smile all the time you need better friends right listen i know you love jesus but don't say those things to people who are suffering man it's a trial you should consider it all joy there's a huge difference between having joy in my heart and having a smile on my face right sometimes it's not easy to be happy about what you're going through right but you consider it joy right my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds why because you know that what's happening is your faith is being tested and that faith develops perseverance right the ability to to hold up underneath the weight and perseverance has got to be present and it's got to finish why so that you may be mature complete and lack nothing listen there is a correlation between faith and trials and guess what god is in the business of testing our faith by what by trials man that's that's a tough correlation is it not like listen the most difficult thing about a trial for me is and this is something i've just had to learn right the most difficult thing is i measure a i measure at trial by the faith by the favorable circumstances right my faith is generally bolstered when god comes through you're never going to guess what god did man it was awesome right i needed this and i prayed and god gave me that how many of you like that equation right but how about this your faith brings you a trial because god knows you need more perseverance and maybe the outcome won't be well maybe the trial won't make a favorable result are you willing to consider that joy in exchange for perseverance because perseverance when it actually completes its work makes you mature and complete and you like nothing as a christian man there's a powerful correlation between faith and trials and then real quickly there's a correlation between faith and love there's some verses in the notes i just want to read 1st john 3 11 and 14 and listen to what john writes about the correlation between faith and love paul said or john says this is the message you've heard from the beginning everybody read it it has nothing to do with how you feel this isn't a word about feeling it's the word agape you and i should practice sacrificial love for who one another right we know listen to this we know that we've passed from death to life meaning we we've gone from being lost to found unsaved to save everybody got that how because we what you you want to know a real test of whether you're a christian ask yourself this do i practice sacrificial love do i practice sacrificial love to the people around me that god puts in my path you see that's a much greater evidence of your faith than your struggle with sin guess what how many of you in here and how many of you online struggle with sin only half of you let's try this again right this isn't listen this isn't the weekend where your friends are visiting for the first time and watching you right this is family how many of you in here online struggle with sin thank you aren't you aren't you grateful aren't you grateful that god doesn't measure your christianity simply based on your struggle and success with sin man i am but you know what god does measure he measures whether or not your faith being passed from death to life actually practices love to one another you want to know how you've passed from death to life i know i didn't struggle at all this week i didn't say one curse word right i didn't do anything wrong i didn't have one bad thought i didn't do this i didn't do that and listen do not interpret what i'm saying as freedom to do that stuff if you do you're missing the point you need to listen to pastor joe but we just got to measure the right thing and that is this we know the evidence of our life that gets passed from death to life is that we love one another and then the bible goes on john goes on to say let me show you what love is jesus laid down his life because you know what love does love doesn't always lay down their life but you know what love does love considers others more important than itself you want to fix your marriage treat your spouse more important than you and stop whining about it right you want to make your you want to make your home better start treating your kids more important than yourself right you want to make your neighborhood better start treating your neighbors better than yourself you want to make the country better start treating others more important yourself and stop whining about it listen the reality is that when love appears the bible john says that love is so powerful that when you express love to people a god who they've never seen they'll believe in because anybody who has seen a christian love the way jesus loves has seen god nobody drives by this church and goes oh man those people are so godly the problem is most of the people drive by know who's in here and they work with you they've been in line with you at mcdonald's right they stood up to you in the dmv they've seen you at the soccer field screaming like a crazy person and cussing at the referee aren't you grateful that your christianity isn't based on those failures but your christianity certainly is measured by whether or not your faith produces love and here's the way paul says it to wrap it up galatians chapter five it's for freedom that christ has set us free aren't you grateful you're not under bondage to law come on man these are the only people that care about being free from law anybody else aren't you aren't you grateful right aren't you grateful to be free from the fact that god said here's 100 things you got to do and you got to do all these things right every single day anybody else glad that you don't have that burden right absolutely that's what we're set free from we're set free from that bondage of sin and death here's 900 i did 99 i got to pay we're free from that that's what jesus came to take away from us now he says stand firm right stand firm in that don't give that up don't let somebody take that from you right and don't let yourselves be burdened again by yoke of slavery slavery what save you to that stupid equation god expects perfection and i wasn't perfect this week so i'm not okay with god you clearly don't understand the gospel but listen when he says for in christ jesus neither circumcised neither circumcision or uncircumcision the stupid stuff of the law has any value the only thing everybody say only thing the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through you want to make a difference right you'll make a difference you want to make sure that there's a right correlation in the world today make sure that your faith correlates with your love because if your faith simply correlates or correlates to coming to worship and love and worship and love and joy with loving the preaching not enough it will make a difference in the world make sure that your faith expresses itself in love right my daughter my love my youngest daughter my last of five kids has moved out and she's in college right and the one thing that i have enjoyed about my kids going to college is is i get to root for new teams all the time so harmony went to ucf and i became a huge knights fan right we won a national championship no matter what anybody else says right we did right now i'm a usf fan because my daughter kayne is a bull in tampa there's a direct correlation between her being there and me now becoming a bulls fan right listen there's got to be a correlation between who you are as a christian and what that how that gets expressed to the people around you make sure that your faith make sure your faith expresses itself in love let's pray father thank you for you know thank you for the writings of a man who was who was burdened and anguished over his love and concern for fellow believers that when we read the writings of paul we see a human who's in the middle of the fight who fights the same things that we fight i'm thankful that these writings these letters have been preserved for our benefit for your glory there are things in this world that are completely in correlation to each other some of them are silly and some of them make all the difference in the world so they help us not to miss the correlation between measuring the most important thing and satan being unhappy about it help us not to miss the correlation between the trials we experience and the outcome upon our faith and god please make us a church that doesn't miss the correlation between growing in our faith and loving our neighbor we pray in jesus name amen god bless you church [Applause]

Channel: Tomoka Christian

Views: 123

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: HkQqM1EucGo

Length: 67min 26sec (4046 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021