Sermon Transcript

Hey, thanks for praying and having everybody kind of bow their heads and close their eyes so they didn't see how slow I just moved up those stairs.

We played the men's ministry.

We played some flag football yesterday.

I'm moving a little slow.

Moving a little slow, but it was fun.

Hey, if any of you guys missed it out there, we're going to do it again.

It was good.

It was a good time.

It's good to win.

It's going to win.

I wasn't going to say we won.

I wasn't going to brag about it.

Hey, second place is good too, all right?

I love you guys, all right?

You just had to bring it up.

Quaid's going to come after you for that.

We still ate food.

We ate food after.

It was good.

No, it's good.

Hey, let's just jump right into the word today, okay?

Psalm 92, 12 through 15.

The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.

He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

They shall still bear fruit in old age.

They shall be fresh and flourishing to declare that the Lord is upright.

He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

we want that for people we want that for people we want you to be fresh and flourishing we want your family your friends we want fruitfulness in your lives and so we've been going through this series called revival culture where we just keep talking about the values of this house there's certain values that i felt like the lord has just been teaching us ever since day one when we started about five and a half years ago

And it's just things he's been showing and teaching and just saying, hey, this is what revival looks like.

We all need revival.

Everybody needs revival.

Everybody needs to come back to life, from dead to life.

That's what we want to see.

We want to see people go from dead to life.

And there are people who think they're alive, but they're the walking dead.

There's no spirit.

In fact, even today, I feel a little bit of stagnation.

I feel a little bit of dryness in the room.

I just feel like there's a little bit of, it's just like, it's a little tough right now.

It's a grind.

And I believe he wants to walk you into an easy place, a place where you're flourishing, where you're, another word we say is prospering.

from the very beginning of this church, he just kept showing me things that I thought I knew and I thought I understood before, but it was only through the lens of religion.

It was only through the lens of the church I grew up in.

And so there were things that I kind of ran away from or I steered clear from that I never actually dealt with in scripture.

And one of them was prospering because all I'd heard growing up was the prosperity gospel, the prosperity churches, you gotta stay away from them, they're the bad ones.

And I didn't really know.

All I heard, just all these people that were older and teaching and all these things.

I respected them.

And I was like, all right, I'll stay away from it.

But I was never in a spirit-filled church growing up.

We knew the truth.

We knew the word.

But we did not know the Holy Spirit.

I got filled with the Holy Spirit five and a half years ago.

I began to learn to listen to his voice.

I began to learn how to discern and understand what he was saying and how it lines up with the word.

He's not contrary to the word of God.

And one of the things he began to show me was he desires his people to prosper.

I grew up in a poverty gospel church, not the prosperity gospel, the poverty gospel.

It's better to be poor.

It's better to be broken.

It's better.

It's better.

And some of that was just people taking scriptures and just kind of taking them out of context.

But I didn't know any better.

And I just heard these people say, oh, it's better this way.

It's better this way.

And I just began to see five and a half years ago, no, no, no.

Our God wants us to prosper.

Sometimes prospering doesn't look like what we think it will look like.

And so I want to help us understand what is the true gospel.

What's his word actually say about prospering and prosperity?

So we're going to look at that today.

Let's pray one more time.

God, we love you and we just invite you in.

Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just lead us and that you would lead us

everything that we do in this church, that you would be the leader of us.

You're the spirit of wisdom, and so we just ask you for wisdom today.

We ask you for revelation.

We just ask you to guide us.

God, any place where we've been grinding and working hard and striving and just working out of our own power, I pray that we would just submit to you today and that we would just be led by your spirit.

So God, I pray right now that you would give us eyes to see what you want us to see, ears to hear what you want us to hear.

God, take away anything from me that you don't want said and give me everything that you want said today.

Carry me along, please, by your Holy Spirit.

God, where there's a spirit of stagnation and stillness, stiffness, pride, a refusal to move forward, we just command that spirit to leave in the name of Jesus Christ.

We want to advance.

We want to prosper and move forward into what you've called us to and what you've created us for.

So, Jesus, we...

love you, and we desire to honor you as we move forward into everything you've created us and called us for today.

In Christ Jesus' name, amen.

3 John verse 2.

If you want the notes today, text REVNOTES, all one word, to the number 94,000.

You can get all the scriptures, everything right there.

3 John verse 2.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper.

For a guy that grew up in a church that said the prosperity gospel is the worst thing ever, for me all of a sudden five and a half years ago to come across that verse and be like,

This apostle wants us to prosper?

Well, my pastors and my teachers at my Bible college told me that's a bad thing, so they must know more than the apostle.

I did not say that five and a half years ago.

What was happening?

The Holy Spirit, when you're filled with him, all of a sudden he begins to bring enlightenment to you, and he begins to lead you to different places where you thought you knew and you thought you understood, but you had no idea.

You were just going off of the traditions of men.

I was going off the traditions of men.

You know what some of those traditions were built off of?

Some of them were built off of fear because some people had corrupted the message of the Bible and corrupted the message of prosperity.

And some of them were built off jealousy.

There was a lot of preachers, and there's still a lot of preachers and a lot of churches that will say, and they'll talk bad about the prosperity gospel, and they'll say this and this.

Oh, it's terrible.

Those guys, the only reason they're growing as a church is because they're a prosperity church.

Those guys are, a lot of times, they are jealous.

That's a spirit of jealousy, not the Holy Spirit.

And so I grew up in that.

And for me, all of a sudden, I came across this verse, and I was like, wait a second.

This is the apostle, the one whom Jesus loved.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things.

All things.

Everything.

Everything.

every area of life, all things, and be in health.

Well, shoot, that sounds like the health and wealth gospel.

Like the apostle John wants me to be in health, he must be a false teacher.

No, he's an apostle.

Like I'm telling you that, I'm telling you, I'm just admitting to you, this was my own pride and arrogance and foolishness, thinking I knew all these things because somebody had told me.

Listen, we have the Holy Spirit.

We

When you submit to Jesus and you give your life to him, guess what?

You can be filled with his Holy Spirit.

And so the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells in you.

So you have the spirit of wisdom.

And in 1 John, it says you actually don't need anyone to teach you.

You don't need anyone to teach you.

You have the teacher inside of you.

And so if you would get into a quiet place to be alone with him and submit and say, Lord, please teach me today what you want to teach me, he will begin to teach you.

That's all I've done.

That's all I've done these past few years.

I've just gotten into a quiet place, and I've said, Father, please teach me.

What have I missed?

What did I not understand?

What did I think I understood, but I actually had no clue on?

And that's all he's been doing me.

That's the culture of revival, submitting to the Holy Spirit to be the leader of your life, to be the teacher of your life, to be the counselor of your life.

That's why some people get mad at me sometimes.

They're like, well, you've said some things.

You're kind of harsh on counselors and, you know, you say things like that.

And I'm like, listen, I'm not against counselors.

I'm friends with people that are counselors.

I think we need good counselors in our life.

I don't like when people are so quick to go to a counselor or a therapist before they ever go to the Holy Spirit.

That is what I want for our church.

And so I've said some off-the-cuff remarks sometimes, and people get kind of offended and hurt by it.

Let me be really clear.

I love counselors.

I think therapists are probably fine too.

I don't know.

I mean, I think sometimes we're so quick to just diagnose and drug everything rather than go to the Holy Spirit and discern everything.

We don't need to diagnose.

We need to discern.

That's it.

If you're taking notes today, write that one down.

That's good.

Stop diagnosing and start discerning.

How do we discern?

We go to the Holy Spirit.

We get into his word.

There's an answer for everything in here.

You don't need medicine for, once again, I'm going to get in some trouble for this.

You don't need medicine for your anxiety.

Some of you, you're here today and you've been told you need this, you need this, you need this.

He wants to set you free.

He wants to set you free from worry, from anxiety, from everything that people told you you are.

People labeled you.

People spoke this over you.

And because they spoke it over you, you began to believe it and you began to speak it over your own life.

And when we speak it over our lives, it gives the enemy legal authority to take up residence in our life.

And so some people have told you, you're just an anxious person.

I will never say that over you.

I will never say that over you.

Because anxiousness is just fear.

And God did not give us a spirit of fear and timidity, but a spirit of power, love, and of a sound mind.

So don't believe that you're just an anxious person.

You're a spirit-filled person.

You're full of the spirit of power.

That's what you're full of.

Man, that's better.

That's better than, here, take these pills the rest of your life.

No, I got the Holy Spirit.

And he's going to heal me.

Because why?

God wants me in health, in my mind, in my body, in every area.

And so you might be here today and you might just be starting out and you might be like, I can't give up my pills.

Listen, I'm not saying you got to go throw them down the drain today.

But that's where God is going to take you.

Because he's the God that wants to prosper you.

To prosper means you advance.

You advance forward.

Does your therapist or counselor have a plan for you to advance forward?

Let me tell you something the Holy Spirit does.

I know, boy, some of you could be like, here comes the conspiracy theorists.

You know what Big Pharma wants?

They want you on those pills the rest of your life.

They don't have a plan for you to get free, but Jesus does.

He does.

They want you on that the rest of your life.

You weren't meant for that.

You were meant for more than that.

He wants to advance you, to prosper you, to set you free.

That's what he's doing.

Sometimes freedom comes in one big moment.

Then guess what?

There's more.

There's more territory that the Holy Spirit wants to take you into.

And so some of you, you've been in the church and you had that moment and you thought, that's great, I've arrived.

I've had some people like that.

I've had some people like that leave our church because they're like, no, I'm good.

I got everything figured out.

I'm perfect.

I got filled with the Holy Spirit and I'd never sinned again.

Liar, you just sinned.

Like, don't do that.

Like, no, no, let me tell you something.

He begins to give you more authority.

He begins to give you more freedom.

And you begin to get set free from things that you never thought you'd get set free from.

But guess what?

As you move forward and you take more territory back from the devil in your life,

He begins to give you new eyes, and you begin to see things that weren't as big before.

You had some big enemies as you entered the promised land, as Jesus set you free.

You had some big giants, and Jesus slayed the giants in your life.

But as you keep continuing on on the path into the promised land with Jesus, you begin to see, oh, there's some more enemies up ahead.

Well, let's go fight them.

You just didn't see him before because you had the big giants in front of you blocking your view.

You couldn't see what was five miles down the road.

But as you keep advancing, you begin to see, oh, there's more he wants to set me free from.

There's more.

He's going to set you free, and he's going to keep setting you free and free and free until the day he comes back or until the day we come to him and we're in paradise.

Let me tell you something.

There's more for you.

He wants to prosper you in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.

There is an order to the prospering.

I think what happened with some of the negativity from some of these churches about the prosperity gospel is they began to see an emphasis on the order, but the order seemed to them to be reversed.

It seemed to be that people would prosper in all things.

and in their health, and not so much on the soul.

But no, what he's saying here is, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.

That means, that language right there, that order that he's saying actually means, above all else, he wants your soul to prosper.

You are a spirit, you're a soul, and you're a body.

You're three parts.

You're three parts.

You understand that?

The body, that's the shell.

You walk around in it.

It's the flesh.

It's the flesh.

Your spirit, when you become a believer, that's where the Holy Spirit comes and resides in you.

Your spirit comes and lives, like the Holy Spirit comes and lives within your spirit.

And then your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions, your feelings.

That's your soul.

There's a lot going on in there, right?

Guess what?

That's what he wants to prosper.

So we're talking about anxiety.

We're talking about fear.

He wants your soul to prosper.

He wants to set you free from fear.

He wants to set you free from anxiety.

He wants to set you free in every area of life.

He wants your soul to advance, to move forward, to prosper.

And then, guess what?

As your soul prospers, every other area of life begins to prosper, to advance.

That's what that word means there.

It means you're advancing.

I love this.

It's a journey on a particular road to go on a prosperous journey in the Greek.

We did this series a while back, and we called it The Road.

Because there's all these little passages that kept standing out to me that the Lord kept highlighting to me.

They just talked about on the road, on the road, on the road.

Jesus was on the road a lot.

And this word road in the Greek means hodos.

That's the pronunciation of it, hodos.

And it's actually a part of the word prosper, prosper.

They combine it with a couple other Greek words.

So you're on a prosperous road, a prosperous journey.

That means you're advancing.

You're moving forward.

You're not stagnant and still.

You have not arrived.

Sometimes we get that idea like, I had this idea when I got baptized.

I was like, great, I've arrived.

Like, I'm going to go to heaven someday.

I got baptized.

This is great.

Now I can live however I want.

And I did.

And then my life kind of turned to hell because I was living however I wanted.

And I was like, God, what happened?

I thought I gave my life to you.

He's like, you think this is what that meant?

Like you're doing whatever you want.

You're not really following me.

You're not advancing.

You're not moving forward.

I've got more for you.

But right now, you're living for yourself.

You're living for the flesh.

You're living for your soul.

You're not living in the spirit.

The spirit-filled life is what he wants for you.

So let me tell you something.

You're three parts.

You're a body.

You're a soul.

You're a spirit.

Who is leading your life?

You can be led by the body.

You can just feed the flesh all the time, whatever you want, when you're hungry, when you want something, when you crave something, and you just go get it.

Or you can be led by your soul.

And whatever you're feeling on that day, well, I just, I feel like this, so this is what I want to do.

And I feel like this is true and this isn't true.

And I'm just, I feel like doing whatever I want to do.

That's being led by your soul.

Or you can be led by the Spirit.

If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you can go to him and say, Lord, what should I do today?

And he will speak to you.

He'll tell you.

Some of you, you know this.

He's already speaking.

When he's convicting you, when you're in a moment and you're doing something or about to do something that you know you should not do, but you feel something inside of you saying, don't do that thing, that's the Holy Spirit.

You can hear him.

You can hear him.

Now submit to him.

We've all heard him, but will we submit to him?

How do you do that?

Just start to ask him simple questions.

This is the culture of revival.

You begin to ask the Holy Spirit to lead your life.

And so you begin to ask him, even on the small decisions, the little things, things that you don't even think are that big of a deal.

Start to ask him, should I watch this?

Should I go here?

Should I spend time with this person?

And you'll kind of feel either a no or a yes rising up within you.

And you'll know right away, that's the Holy Spirit.

And a lot of times, I tell people this all the time, you know how you know it's the Holy Spirit?

It's typically not what you want to do.

It's really not.

Like you'd rather just keep doing what you've been doing.

But where has that led you up to this point?

It's led you up to a life of secrets and shame.

And everything is beginning to collapse around you.

And you're kind of starting to figure out, maybe I'm not the best, most qualified person to lead my life.

You're right.

You're not.

That's why Jesus said, it's better that I go so that he will come, the helper, the Holy Spirit.

I used to think all the time, if Jesus was here, then I could be a better person.

I did.

I was like, if Jesus was here in the flesh, if I was like one of the disciples and I was walking around with Jesus, like I'd be doing so much better.

Judas walked around with Jesus, right?

Right?

Like think about that.

No, no, Jesus said it's better.

Trust him at his word.

It's better that you have the Holy Spirit living in you.

This is better.

You just got to learn how to listen and submit.

That's the culture of revival.

If you want to advance, if you want to move forward, you have to learn to listen and submit.

Many of us listen.

Many of us hear.

Many of us know the word.

Some of us come in and we hear the word every week.

And then we go out and we do the opposite.

That's submission, saying, Jesus, your way is better than mine.

I'm going to do what you say to do.

I'm going to live my life the way you've told me to live it.

Start to test him and see, taste and see that the Lord is good.

That's the culture of revival.

We kept going to the word over these last few years and saying, well, let's just take him at his word.

Let's try this.

Let's do this.

And we kept seeing his goodness and his faithfulness and how he's shown up.

In fact, even in this year, let me tell you something.

Even in this year, we sowed one of the biggest seeds we've ever sown.

Why?

Because the Bible says over and over to be generous.

And, like, let me tell you something.

This church, like, since day one, financially, God has blessed us.

And I believe that is because we have done everything we can to follow his word, to be obedient, to walk with the Holy Spirit.

And so this year, I believe he told us this is going to be a fruitful year.

And sometimes even I, as your pastor, get a little caught up thinking, oh, man, the fruit, it's going to be so good.

It's going to be all the...

We're going to prosper in all the things.

And I was kind of struggling with that.

And then all of a sudden, all these things started going a little sideways and a little crazy.

And I was like, Lord, what is going on?

This is not what I thought fruitfulness would look like.

And he kept reminding me, what's the fruit of the Spirit?

What am I bringing an increase in in this season?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Because why?

First and foremost, he wants your soul to prosper.

Some of you, we've had to learn this year, oh.

I thought I was all those things.

He's leveling me up because I got to be more loving and more kind and more gentle and more patient than I've ever had to be in my life.

Why?

Because people are crazy, and they will do crazy things, and it will make you want to do the opposite of being loving and kind and patient, right?

Some of you, you're parents.

You got kids, and the Lord has tested you this year, but guess what?

You've grown in your fruitfulness.

You've become more loving.

You've become more kind.

You've become more patient.

You've grown.

I'm telling you, the devil wants you to believe you haven't grown and you're the same person.

No, no, no.

You have advanced this year.

You're a better mom and a better dad and a better husband and a better wife and a better friend and a better coworker than you were last year.

I'm telling you, if you've stayed planted in his house, believe that.

He's advanced you.

He's prospered you in those ways.

So here we are as a church, and I'm just thinking like, oh, he's going to prosper us.

And instead, what's he do?

Well, about 25% of our church left in the past year.

And that means about 25% of the people that gave to this church left in this past year.

And over these last five and a half years, this church, God has only advanced us up and to the right financially.

He's always blessed us, and we've been able to be generous financially.

And so at the beginning of the year, we were thinking, let's try to be more generous.

And we sowed this big seed into the kingdom of God.

It was the biggest gift we've ever given, over $30,000.

And we sowed it to church planters in Europe and Jamaica and Australia, like all over the world.

Like we sowed this big seed to sow into the kingdom of God because we trust God as provider.

And so here I am.

We sowed this big seed this year.

And all of a sudden by June, we're looking and we're like, well, shoot.

Okay, that doesn't look good, but let's just see what God does.

And then even a couple weeks, no, just, yeah, two weeks ago, we sat down, our Kingdom Builder team, we look at the finances and we just, we pray through and try to make the most discerning and wise decisions that God wants us to make for this church.

And we were sitting there and what we had budgeted for this year, we kind of looked at and we were like, well, shoot, we're about $30,000 behind what we had budgeted for

And it's really easy for the devil to come in in that moment and be like, well, if you hadn't given that gift, and you might even think that's the Holy Spirit.

No, no, that's the devil.

The devil wants you to doubt.

He wants you to doubt obedience and faithfulness.

He wants you to doubt the life that God has called you to.

And so I was sitting there with these men of God, Pastor Andrew and Josh, and

And I was sitting there, and I was like, I was just reading in 2 Kings 6, you guys.

I was just reading in 2 Kings 6 this morning as we're looking at this deficit in our budget.

And I said, it says in the Bible in 2 Kings 6 there was a siege around Samaria, and it got so bad.

that people were spending 80 shekels of silver for a donkey's head to eat.

Or they were spending five shekels of silver for dove droppings.

They were in a famine.

And that's what they had resorted to eating to.

That was all they had.

They had donkey heads and dove droppings.

And people were paying for that to try to feed their family.

In fact, there's even a story in there about two families that said, hey, listen, we're going to die if we don't do this.

Today, we'll eat your son.

We'll boil him and eat him.

And then tomorrow, we'll eat my son and we'll boil him and eat him.

That's how bad things were in this famine, in this siege that Syria had done to take them

And the king and his messenger, they go to the prophet Elisha.

And the prophet Elisha gives them a word from the Lord.

And he says, look, at this time tomorrow, at this time tomorrow, wheat and barley will just be a shekel of silver.

And those guys are like, in fact, the guard, the king's guard right next to him says, how can that be?

That'll never happen.

That won't happen.

He doubts.

And Elisha says, you'll see it with your eyes, but you'll never taste it.

And that night.

The Lord put a sound, the sound of an army coming, and the Syrians, they fled their camp and left everything.

And it says four lepers went out, and they found everything.

They found all the food, the provisions, everything you could ever want or ask for.

And they went and they told the city, and the city went out, and they went out to see what it was, to see the miracle of provision that had taken place.

They went out and they saw the miracle.

And as people were rushing out and everybody was cheering and celebrating, there was the guard.

And he saw the miracle.

He saw the provision.

He saw the wheat and the barley and all the supplies.

And he got trampled by the crowd.

And he saw it, but he never got a taste of it.

And I told those guys that story.

I said, God can change the economy overnight.

We're going to be men that see it and we taste of it.

We're not going to doubt what he's done and what he's doing and what he will do.

I said, I'm believing he's going to change the economy overnight.

He's going to change what's going on, what's happened here in this house overnight because that's who he is.

If you sow, you'll reap.

We sowed a good seed, church.

I believe we're going to reap a harvest.

And so I got up that next day and I went to the mailbox and

Found a lot of political ads and a lot of bills and, you know, things like that.

I was like, all right.

Okay, well, maybe tomorrow.

Nothing.

Maybe tomorrow, nothing.

Listen, a day for the Lord is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day.

So sometimes if it doesn't happen in a day, you've got to still hold on faith.

And finally, last Monday, I walk out to the mailbox, and I open it up, and I'm like, this one looks different.

This is a little different kind of envelope.

I don't usually get these.

It doesn't tell me to vote or not vote for somebody because they're the worst person in the world.

Okay.

And I open it up and I pull out a check for $10,000 to this church.

Let me tell you something.

He can change it overnight.

Overnight.

overnight, I don't know what's going on in your life, what the deficit is, what's going on where the devil is beating you up and saying, you better quit.

He's not gonna show up.

He's not gonna show up.

He's not gonna show up.

He's gonna show up.

He's coming.

He's coming.

He's the God of all of a sudden.

I got a realtor friend in here who's had all these houses on the market for a while, and there's been no buyers.

There's buyers coming all of a sudden in the name of Jesus all of a sudden.

You got bills that haven't been paid and you don't know how to pay them.

They're going to get paid in the name of Jesus.

Let me tell you something.

And by the way, this church, we help our people.

That's something we believe.

In Acts, it says there was none in need.

And so we specifically set money aside to help people.

And so if you need help, if you're a part of this house, you better find somebody.

Find me.

Find Pastor Andrew.

Find Pastor Steph.

Find Josh.

Find somebody.

And guess what?

This is a church that we want to make sure that there's nobody in need.

We want to make sure that people are taken care of because you're God's people and he loves you.

That's what we do with the resources here.

So when you give here, you're giving to the kingdom and you're sowing into something bigger than yourself.

That's what we're doing to make sure that there's none in need.

So listen, I don't know what it is where the devil's been saying there's a lack and he's never going to come through.

He's going to come through.

But just don't forget, a day is like 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is like a day for the Lord.

Sometimes it's in a day.

Sometimes it's in four days.

But, man, that fourth day was worth it.

I can't wait to see what he does tonight.

That's prospering.

That's advancing.

As you begin to see and understand that there's something bigger going on and that he cares more about your soul than your checkbook.

Listen, the checkbook is just a sign.

All right, God's faithful.

God is good.

Let me tell you something.

That's all fine.

But what does he really care about?

Your soul prospering.

He wants to grow faith in you.

It's taken some faith for us as a finance team, as our Kingdom Builder team, to say, hey, let's keep moving forward and trust him as provider.

He's the provider.

We don't need to do some special plan.

There's all kinds of these groups and organizations that do all these plans, and we're like, hey, we'll give you 10 easy steps to, you know, improve the finances in your church.

And it's like, we don't need that.

We just need to be faithful to the Lord because he's our provider.

I don't need a 10 quick steps to whatever.

I just need to keep going to the Lord and asking him, Lord, are we in line with your will?

Are we in line or are we out of line?

We want to submit to you and we trust you.

That's in every area of life.

Your finances, your health, all things.

Do you trust him?

He's a good God.

He's a good father.

He wants to take care of you.

He wants to prosper you, to advance you.

And so you might not be seeing yourself, your life prospering in the all things or even in your health right now, but ask him, Lord, what are you trying to do in my soul in this season?

What are you trying to level me up and advance me in?

What are you trying to increase within me in the fruit of the Spirit?

Go to Galatians 5, verse 22 through 26.

This is where he wants to advance you, that you would become more abundant.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such there is no law.

And those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

That's the fruit he wants to increase.

And I'm telling you, if you go back and take an account of this past year.

and begin to look and see and ask him, Lord, please reveal to me how you've advanced me in these areas.

You're going to see he's advanced you.

Sometimes he might show you, hey, actually, the reason you're not prospering in all these other areas, like in your health or in your finances or in your family or in your relationships, is because you refuse to learn the lesson I'm teaching you for your soul.

Ask him, Lord, what's the test

that you want me to pass to move forward and advance.

If you're taking notes, write that down.

Lord, what is the test that I am refusing to pass right now?

It might be love.

It might be you still got some people that you've been holding on to unforgiveness and bitterness towards in this last year.

It might be faithfulness.

You might be holding on to your own finances because you don't trust God as provider of your life.

And you keep wondering, well, why don't I get a promotion?

Why doesn't God level me up at work?

Why doesn't God give me more?

And he's saying, son, daughter, you haven't passed the most simple test I have ever given my people.

Trust me with 10 and live off the 90.

That's it.

That's a simple test of faithfulness and trust.

Pass that test, and then I'll know I can trust you with more.

That's the good steward.

There were these stewards that it says in the parable that the master gave them each a different number of talents.

And the ones that used their talents and advanced and leveled up, they moved forward and they were trusted with more.

The one who did nothing and just buried it.

That was it.

In fact, actually, the master called him a wicked servant.

And so, once again, people are like, they talk too much about tithing and money at this church because we care about your soul.

And if you just keep holding on to it, you're like the wicked servant.

Guess what?

The wicked servant does not make it in the end.

You are cast out.

We don't want that for you.

We want you in the kingdom.

Learn to be obedient with your finances to the living God.

Some of you, you say you have faith.

You don't actually have faith.

You trust more in this world.

You trust more in the prince of the power of the air than you do in the living God because you keep holding on to everything.

You don't have faith.

You don't really honor him.

You don't really love him.

That's a harsh word right now.

I know that.

But guess what?

I love this church.

And in a church, we challenge each other because we love each other.

In close community, we have challenging conversations.

We say it like this, love known challenged.

When there's a hard conversation that needs to happen, we typically, we tell our pastors and we tell our small group leaders, sit down with them, remind them, hey, I love you.

We know each other.

We have a relationship.

And then we tell them, ask them, hey, can I challenge you on something?

I didn't really ask you today.

I just gave you a challenge.

But, you know, can I challenge you?

Okay, I'm just going to assume I can.

Yes, perfect.

We tell our pastors, ask them, can I challenge you?

And most people are like, yeah, I can handle a challenge.

And then they actually say the challenge.

You're like, wow, that was more hurtful than I thought.

That was a little mean.

Listen, sometimes we think love is being nice.

No, love is being honest.

Love is spurring each other on.

Love is challenging sometimes.

The world says love should be nice and kind and feel good all the time.

Who's the prince of the power of the air in this world?

The devil.

That's a lie from the devil.

The devil is good at taking things that sound good, that sound scriptural even, that kind of sound like maybe they're the word of God, but just twisting them enough to get you off course, off of God's course and onto his course.

You have to be people of the word.

You've got to know the word so you can discern.

Is this from him?

Is this from the Holy Spirit or is this from another spirit?

We have to be people that can discern the spirits, test the spirits.

So how do we test the spirit?

1 John 4, verse 1.

Here we go.

John again.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, even me.

Test the spirits.

If I start saying a bunch of stuff and you're like, that doesn't sound like the word of God, you better test it.

Test it against the word of God.

If I'm saying stuff and you're like, the Holy Spirit is putting up a red flag within me right now, you need to be the one that goes to the word, that you go to the Holy Spirit and say, Lord, is there something that was off right there?

Is there something that was wrong?

Show me.

Please reveal to me in your word.

Test every spirit.

Test them.

Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

How do we test the spirits?

You got to test the fruit.

We know what the fruit of the spirit is.

There's only one Holy Spirit.

So you got to test the fruit.

Love, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Okay?

You can test the fruit.

You can start to discern, is my mom really speaking from the Holy Spirit or is that another spirit?

Is my grandma really speaking the truth of God or is that another spirit?

Because I don't see a lot of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in her life or in her language.

Is my friend, is my coworker, is my pastor, is my whoever it is that you feel like the Lord is highlighting to you that you need to test the spirits?

Test it and see.

Discern.

Become people that are discerning.

You have the Holy Spirit.

He'll teach you.

He'll guide you.

Learn to listen to him.

That's wisdom.

Hey, worship team, you can come up as we get ready to close.

In John 10.10, Jesus said, the thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

That's the opposite of prospering.

I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly, life to the full.

If I were a thief who would come to steal, kill, and destroy, I

And in the scriptures, it says that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Guess what?

That means you can be a temple of the Holy Spirit, but you can also be a temple or a house to other spirits if we're not careful.

So if I was a thief looking to steal, kill, and destroy, looking for access to a home, to a house, how would I enter?

Would I knock at the door?

Would I announce myself and my intentions?

No, I'd want to sneak in to gain access, to maximize the damage I could do to your life.

I wouldn't even want you to know I was there.

In fact, I'd want you to think that I was the Holy Spirit, but I'm not the Holy Spirit.

That way I could stay as long as I want and continue to cause little tiny cuts to your life, to your soul, so you begin to bleed more and more.

so you become more and more callous to the actual Holy Spirit, and you believe more and more that I am the Holy Spirit.

It'll cause you to bleed out spiritually.

I would want access to your mind and to your thoughts.

I would whisper thoughts to you that were not your own, but get you to believe they were your own.

I'd whisper thoughts that were full of hate and envy and jealousy and revenge.

And I'd get you to continue down a path further and further from Jesus, from the Father, and from His Holy Spirit.

I'd whisper to you ideas that might sound wise or intelligent in the world's eyes, but they don't quite line up with the Word of God.

Thoughts and catchphrases that sound nice, like love is love.

but I don't actually come into alignment with the Word of God.

And I tell you, it's okay to compromise a little here.

That was just the Old Testament.

Oh, that doesn't sound like grace.

God would say, go on, keep on sinning.

No, no, no, just do whatever you want.

You were born this way.

Do whatever feels right.

I'd say and whisper things like that to you, and you'd believe that they were right.

because you don't read the word of God for yourself and you don't actually know what he says.

But you know enough to think and believe that maybe that's close enough and it feels right so you go along with it day after day until you're so far down the road and so callous to his Holy Spirit and what he wants to say to you.

That you can't discern the wicked from the righteous.

the evil from what's good.

Jesus says we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

We need to know the word so we know the word.

He is the word become the flesh.

Get into the word this week.

Seek him out.

He's the spirit of wisdom.

He's the spirit that will guide you and lead you

He'll move you forward from a place where you've been stagnant and you haven't been moving and it feels like you never will, like you'll never advance.

He wants to move you forward today in Jesus' name.

Let's pray.

Father God, we love you and we thank you.

God, we thank you for your son, Jesus, and we thank you and trust and believe that it's true what he said, that it's better that he would go so that the helper would come.

And so, Lord, I just pray that we would sense and feel the helper today.

Where there is resistance, where there is pride, we just command it to break in the name of Jesus.

God, we desire to submit and listen to your voice.

We want to know you.

We want to hear you.

God, we want to just keep seeking after you with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength.

So I pray this week that we would get into your word, that we'd get into a quiet place, and that we would learn to enjoy the stillness and the solitude and just the time to be with you and to listen to you and to learn from you.

Jesus, please guide us as your people.

In your name we pray, amen.