Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.
You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.
We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the
cross. Now let's join the service.
Good to be here tonight. Would y'all turn?
Somebody turn the lights on in the nursery please, in case the
visitor there need it and get to have them tonight.
Heavy Bibles going to be in John chapter 16.
Galatians 3 and Galatians 4 had this thought a while back and
you know, I'm getting to the age if I don't write them down or
put them in my notes on my phone or forget the thought.
You ever do that? I was like, man, I thought
something good the other day and now I just got to remember it so
I can preach on it. But I was looking through some
notes and I found this and I begin to recall the setting that
I received it in. And I titled this tonight.
Sometimes what you see destroys what you thought you had.
Can I say that again that that let that sink in.
Sometimes what you see with these eyes, it can destroy what
you thought you had anybody ever been there in a relationship and
a job and career, whatever it is.
But you know, I was looking around when the Lord give me
this thought and I was looking at some calves.
Cattle prices are really good. And I was looking at some calves
and thinking about how thankful I was for what they was going to
bring when I sold them because I've, I've sold some.
It didn't do very well in past years.
But I begin to looking at the caves and thinking about how
they were going to do good at market and bringing over 5-6
dollars a pound. And then I begin to look around
at the rest of them. I thought, you know, I had some
of these cows a while. Some of them is getting old and
they wear out. Tay man.
And while I was looking at this, I just begin to think about that
sometimes what you see can destroy what you thought you
had. We know it's so true in this
life. But you know, when we look at
that, when I looked at that cow, I thought, you know, without
that cow, I don't have that calf because it wouldn't be here.
She wouldn't nurture it. She wouldn't raise it.
It just it wouldn't be possible. So in the near future, I got to
start replacing some of those things or what I thought I had
can begin to crumble. God give me that thought.
And then I did. And then I turned it right to
the spiritual. What we see destroys what we
thought we had. You know, I know when I was in
the drilling business for a lot of years and doing those things,
I look around, I'd have some new equipment, new things, and all
of a sudden, three years later, you're looking at, man, where
did it go? It's wore out.
I got to replace it. I got to, I got to get new to
keep rolling. And that's the way it is
spiritually. Because see, when trials of
sickness come and financial struggles, job problems, anybody
got those broken relationships, friends that's betrayed you,
anybody got those? A contract that's gone bad in a
business deal, The list goes on and on.
Vehicles breaking down that are out of warranty that cost
thousands to fix today and for many it's the addiction that
they thought they had under control a man and it begins to
creep back up and I want to share some things tonight.
This, this message is really real to me because sometimes
what you see can destroy what you thought you had.
I come in the other day and I told my wife, I said, I can't
find this heifer and I went to look for and she's coming two
years old. I've raised her up two years,
got several of them I have. And she's about to have a calf
in the near future and go down there and can't find her only to
find her dead $3000 loss. And you know, my wife's going
through those things that she's going through now with cancer
and things. And she said, she said sometimes
you feel like job, don't you? And I said we do in life, but we
always know that we have a God that's working on the other end.
And see this thought hit me. Sometimes what you see destroys
what you thought you had. It can happen that way.
In John chapter 16 and verse 25, Jesus said he was talking about
overcoming the world. And in John 16 and 25, he says
that these things I have spoken to you in figurative language,
but the time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in
figurative language. He had just got through telling
the disciples that he was going to go away.
And you know, I was reading that today and he said I'm going to
go away. I've been with you for a little
while, but I'm going to go away for a little while.
It doesn't seem like a little while, but yet his time frame is
different than ours. His day is 1000 years and he
says I'm no longer going to speak to you like this.
But I tell you plainly about the Father, in that day you will ask
in my name, and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father
for you. For the Father himself loves
you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came
forth from God. I came forth from the Father,
and have come into the world again.
And I leave the world, and I go to the Father.
And his disciples said to him, See, now you're speaking plainly
and using no figure of speech. Now we are sure that you know
all things and have no need that anyone should question you.
By this we believe that you come forth from God and Jesus
answered them and he said, do you now believe verse 32 and the
hour is coming and yes has now come, that you will be
scattered. Each one of you, His own will
leave me alone. And yet I am not alone because
the Father is with me. You're not alone tonight.
And in verse 33, he said these things.
I have spoken to you. And this is a very powerful
passage of Scripture because it is just as the promises of God.
It is a truth of Scripture that Jesus said these things.
I have spoken to you that I'm with you is what he was saying,
and that you may have peace, but he automatically changes.
And he said in the world which we live in today, in the world,
you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer.
I have overcome the world. What a promise.
Say man, in this world, we will face trials, we will face
tribulations, but we have overcome the world.
I preached a message one time. The storm's blowing.
What happens? Our faith walk must continue.
We can't stop, we can't lay down, we can't quit.
We will have tribulation, but be of good cheer because I have
overcome the world. Let's go to Galatians chapter 3.
We're going to read some more about this Galatians chapter 3
and verse 26. Apostle Paul here was preaching
on some things to the church. He was telling us some things.
Galatians chapter 3 and verse 26, he says for you are all sons
of God, how? Through faith in Christ Jesus,
for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ. That's what water baptism is, is
putting on Christ. Everything about it.
There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free,
there's neither male nor female boy.
That rocks some people's world about women preachers, doesn't
it? He said.
When we put on Christ, we don't see those things.
For you are all one in Christ. I like that we're all one in
Christ. And if you are Christ, then
you're Abraham's seed boy. This gets really good right
here. And your heirs according to the
promise, go read what he promised Abraham.
I don't have time tonight, but it's a lot of blessings.
It's a lot of it's a lot of great things.
And in chapter 4 here, in verse 1, he says, now I say that the
heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ from a slave,
though he is master of all, he owns everything, but he's a
child, right? He's a heir.
He's referring to us here, but is under guardians and stewards
until the time appointed by the father.
What is that time until we grow, right?
We're an heir of a lot of promises.
We're a heir of a lot of things. Over 7000 promises in this Bible
that we've been promised. And in verse 3 it says Even so
we when we were children, we're in bondage under the elements of
the world. Anybody remember when you was in
your little Christian walk and you first started and and you
were a you were a babe in Christ and you were still wondering how
the thing work. But when the fullness of time
had come. And what he's really referring
to here is the babes that in Christ that were walking around
under the law, right? And all the things that they
could not keep. He said when the fullness of
time, when you read that in the Bible, the fullness of time, it
was the IT was the completed time designated by God, God that
should elapsed before Jesus came, before the Son of God
would come to the world and see God sent forth his son.
It was God who acted. When we were under the law, we
could not keep the law. Aren't you glad God acted?
See, the law required. What did the law require us to
do? It required man to act.
It required us to do something. If we were still under the law
today, a lot of Christians wouldn't make it.
Amen. They wouldn't make it if we
because they don't really want to do anything.
But man could not keep the law, so Jesus came.
Now we just have to have confidence in what he did at the
cross. And so many people don't have
confidence in what he did at the cross or they would have more
faith in God. See we have to.
I like the word confidence. To me it means confide in to
walk in the newness of life what Jesus did at the cross, paying
the penalty and freeing us. What an awesome God we serve.
And in verse 6 here he goes on to say or read the rest of this.
It says let's go to verse 4 Galatians 4 when the fullness of
time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman, born
under the law to redeem those who were under the law that we
might receive the adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his
son where into our hearts. The Spirit of the Son lives
within our hearts crying out ABBA Father.
Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son and if a son
and heir of God through Jesus Christ.
We have many privileges as I preached Sunday about the Spirit
and the gifts of the Spirit because see, we're his sons.
And, you know, sometimes I think I get some looks on Sunday
morning about, you know, the people that that does the way
that I make some churches out to be ignorant of the things of
God. I preach that y'all gather that
sometimes that I, that I, that I feel like some churches are
ignorant of the things of God. I, I had a call with a guy that
a guy that I know a friend of mine and, and I was simply being
truthful about what I preached on Sunday morning and got to
talking about the gifts of the spirit and about people that
have not heard that. And it's a huge charge.
They go to way bigger than we are and do a lot of great
things. And he said, I don't know that
I've heard that mainstream denomination church doesn't
preach on the gifts of the Spirit.
And it's just, it's astounding to me that that, that that
happens. But see when, when you realize
that you are his Son, that God has sent forth his Spirit and
it's been placed in our hearts because as we as we preach
Sunday morning, no one can even say that Jesus is Lord, except
how by the Holy Spirit being within us, a portion of it.
And as we realize that the Holy Spirit's in us, he says we can
cry out ABBA Father, because we are his sons and the Holy Spirit
has been sent to take up permanent residence within our
hearts. Aren't you glad of that tonight?
See, in the Aramaic, when they cried out ABBA Father, it was a
close, trusting, intimate relationship with God.
It was more than, you know, when your kid says, hey, dad, as I've
said many times, and then they come up and they say, daddy, you
know, they're in them. You know, they're wanting
something more. They're wanting your time,
probably your money, right? They're probably wanting some of
those things. When they say, hey, daddy, and
you know, we're like, I just want to be dad for a while.
Let's forget about daddy. But God never does that, thank
God, right? But we cry out ABBA Father.
What happened when it becomes a close and trusting and intimate
relationship with God and see what this means is that the Holy
Spirit, because it's within us, it says we can't even cry out
that Jesus is Lord without the Holy Spirit being within us.
So that tells me we have a portion of the Holy Spirit and
we begin to cry out ABBA Father, and we long for that trusting
and intimate relationship with our heavenly Father.
What happens? The Spirit is actually doing the
crying, right? It's crying within us.
The Bible talks about that. There's something within us.
There's a hole how many tried to fill in the world.
There was a hole that you could not feel.
No matter how deep you win or what you did.
You could not feel that hole with the worldly things until
you found Jesus Christ. You were empty and alone.
Why? Because the Spirit does the
crying to the Father on our behalf.
You know, I begin to think about this so many people that that
that pray and don't enter into a prayer language of the Holy
Spirit. It's there.
You just got to learn to walk in it.
Praying in tongues is evidence of this crying to have a father
because there's something in you that's crying out repeatedly.
And we cry out to the Father in Romans 8 and 26 says that when
we know what, not what we ought to pray, the Spirit intercedes
for us and makes intercession with groanings that we can't
even express. So don't grieve it, just receive
it. Don't worry about or pay
attention to the sound. Just cry out to God.
Just cry out, ABBA. Father, let the Holy Spirit cry
out. If there's anything that's
lacking in our churches today and in our homes today, and we
need fixes today in every area of our life, it's because of our
lack of simply crying out. Amen.
You're the problems we have. God can fix them, but it's on
his time frame, right? We just have to cry out to God
on a daily basis. And when we do, it says that
we're no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, an heir of
God through Jesus Christ. But what I see and what you see
and what many people see, it only destroys what we thought we
had. You know, I was reading this
today and the Holy Spirit just flooded my heart with this
because there's so many people that get saved and they've
they're told they're saved. They pray the sinner's prayer
and then they walk out into a cruel world.
And, and many of the churches are just watching on our many
Christians. Let me not say churches are
watching on for them to fail. Anybody ever felt like that when
you was a young Christian? Many of us have to think back a
long time ago. And then when you do fail, you
had condemnation. Everything that you wanted to do
was fun, fun. And everything that was fun, the
church said you couldn't do. So you begin to battle in your
mind, right? And you begin to to weigh those
options and what you could see destroyed what you thought you
had. And then you would step out and
you couldn't do what you heard being preached.
You couldn't do what was being read in the Bible and what you
were reading. And it destroys what we think we
have many times. And Satan has become the master
of this. He destroys everything that we
think we have because we're looking with the fleshly eyes.
Ever heard anybody say, well, when I see it, I'll believe how
many found out? That does not work spiritually.
You got to believe it before you see it.
But many take that as a truth. Well, if God would just do it
and I could see it, I would believe it.
Keep watching because you're probably not going to see it.
Amen. Because God is a faith God, and
He does not change the principle of faith for anyone.
But see, when you realize that you're a heir to things that you
can't see, we just read that we're heirs and joint heirs with
Christ, but we can't see heaven, right?
But yet we're an heir to it. We can't see the promise of the
Holy Spirit until we receive it and hear the mighty rushing wind
coming through the through our life.
But I'm an heir and a joint heir with Christ.
Let's go to 2nd Corinthians 5 and 7, 2nd Corinthians chapter 5
and and verse 6. I'm going to start in six.
It says so we are always confident knowing that while we
are at home in the body, you know, a lot of people are at
home in the body. They think it's their home
forever. We're absent from the Lord while
we're at home in the body. You ever had that that just that
just hit me today. While I'm in this body, I'm
absent from the Lord, but yeah, we spend it in our entire life
trying to stay in this body right.
I envy the old people that didn't have doctors back then.
I really do. I envy him.
You lived your days out When God got ready, he called you home.
You didn't You know we go through a lot of pain today.
I believe because we don't just live our lifeout.
We've changed a lot of things. Landry could bout she when my
wife the other day to the reconstructive surgeon and my
wife said about made her sick to see a lady's face that come in
there and her lips were all pooched out and there.
I guess that was the deal and she was worried about when she
could put her lipstick back on. I don't know about you all but a
busted lip hurts me. I'm not going to go get my lips
cut on to affect the way that I look.
You can go up there. You see some crazy things.
You know, I, I fear for a lot of those folks because when they
get to heaven, God may not recognize them.
That's not what I created. Who are you?
Just a thought. I know He can recognize this.
I know. But you know, we do things that
God never meant for us to do, right?
So while we're in this body said, we are always confident
knowing that while we are at home in this body, we are absent
from the Lord. What's the truth?
Isn't it in verse 7 what I really want to preach to you
tonight? When what you see to draw
destroys what you thought you had?
The problem's not with God. It's with us because we're
seeing with the wrong eyes. Because right here at the
apostle Paul says what he says. For we walk by faith.
What is faith? The substance of what we're
hoping for described in Hebrews, the evidence of what we cannot
see. So we're walking somewhere we
cannot see, right, Right. A lot of people have a lot of
problem with this kind of walk because they want to see where
they're going. But it says for we walk by, say
it with me faith and not by sight.
We are confident, yes, well, please, rather to be absent from
the body is to be present with the Lord.
What a promise. We walk by faith and not by
sight. But sometimes what you see
destroys what you thought you had.
That's why I got to walk by faith and not by sight what I'm
hoping for, but with that which I cannot see.
And that gets confusing for a lot of people.
But when what you see destroys what you thought you had, I want
to give you a few points here. What to do #1 We must trust God,
oversight. We must trust God, though we
cannot see. And rely on God's Word instead
of what we see, what we feel, what we think, and many times
what we hear. Because a lot of people aren't
hearing the voice of God. Because God will never
contradict His word #2 we must learn to take action without
full understanding. And we live in a world of
understanding. Today we all are quiet, I said.
We live in a world of understanding.
If you don't understand something, what do you do?
What? I'll say I'm in a different
situation. Because if I got to understand
what I preach to you and I Google it, could it be false?
Can I preach Google and be a truthful preacher?
So what I got to do? I got to pray what to preach and
when I pray and God gives it to me, I can't Google it.
I got to fast over it and I got to realize if what I heard was
from God because I'm going to be judged on a higher level because
I'm delivering it to more people a few times a week.
I can't Google what I preach, but yet some of my friends are
getting sermons Googled to them and it's a lot easier.
It's not very stressful for though.
They just that you can get them set up, you can get them Googled
and and, but I do Google some things and usually the things I
Google, they don't understand. We Googled about the coin that
was in the fish's mouth one time, you know, Jerry said.
I Googled that because I was preaching about the tithe is not
about the 10th as much as it is about the coin in the fish's
mouth, right? About obedience.
And you need it when it's there and God's supplying your needs,
right? And he said, Google said that
it's not possible to go catch a fish out of a brook or a pond
and there'll be a coin in his mouth.
That's what it said, right? Jerry?
I didn't Google what he did, but I just thought, I'm going to
see. I'm going to see what this said
when what you see, I want y'all to get this tonight.
When what you see destroys what you thought you had because it's
happened to me many times in my life going through some things
Now you know when you when you know when you're when you're
going through a trial and and you're preaching the gospel
every week. Sister Linda said she battled
every time she got up here and got this mic, somebody in her
family got sick. And she said, I'm just going to
wait a little while past her, you know, and you go to hearing
these things about what's going to happen if you keep preaching
the God, the devil just keeps poking.
But see, I know that voice. I know that's not God.
But when what you see destroys what you thought you had, Google
says you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often
sudden dismantling, dismantling of your reality, a phenomenon
sometimes called reality fragmentation.
You know what I got out of that? You messed up.
It's intense. It's traumatic.
See, they're right. When what you see destroys what
you thought you had, it's going to get intense.
It's going to get traumatic in your life and it's isolating
experience where your brain struggles to to reconcile boy
like this. This will preach because many
Christians are in this right here.
Let me back up and read it again.
When what you see destroys what you thought you had, Google says
you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often sudden
dismantling of your reality that happened at salvation.
Salvation isn't reality. Hey man, it's the truth.
It's not a reality, your reality and trying to live real and to
whatever you're trying to live real and to say you got to throw
all that out when you are believing in something and a man
that died 2000 years ago that made a blood covenant that can
wipe away every sin you ever committed and cast it as far as
E is from the West and bring peace to your life.
Hey man, that's not reality. That was a sacrifice.
But you're experiencing A profound, traumatic and often
sudden dismantling of your reality, a phenomenon called, I
can't say some of these words, reality fragmentation.
It's intense, it's traumatic and an isolating experience where
your brain struggles to reconcile past trust with
present contradictory evidence. Can I explain that?
What it's saying is you get so caught up in the traumatic and
the sudden dismantling of your reality, and the enemy gets you
to look at what you see and think that it's destroying what
you had. And you got to back up and say,
wait a minute, just like David did.
He said, I killed a lion and a bear that was threatening my
life. I can face this giant, I can
whoop. I recall all the past victory.
But see, the enemy wants to get your eye off of the past
victories that God has done and make you think that God can't
pull you through where you're at right now and it messes.
You'll trust up. But when you begin to trust a
God that's never failed, it shouldn't be hard.
He's never failed. He's come through every time.
But see, he reconciles the past trust our brain becomes unable
to do that. I believe that's true for a lot
of people. Grief for the future you thought
you had, wasn't that true? Grief for the future you thought
you had. We see this in marriages a lot.
You know, the little petite lady that marries old great headed
man that's got a fat wallet and they go to the funeral and they
cry like they really loved him. Hello, I watched the show 1 time
and you know what he did? He didn't leave her nothing.
He had it all to his kids. She was grieving for the future
that she thought she had, right? A lot of people are like that.
They come to Jesus Christ because some preacher told him
how he's going to make them rich and bless them, you know?
And then they have grief for the future because it wasn't
thought. It wasn't what they thought they
had imagined, right? The safety you felt and the time
you invested lost. That's what Google says.
When what do you see destroys what you thought you had?
Be careful on Google. You must learn to take action
without full understanding, was the second point I made.
Like walking in the dark. Anybody ever do that?
I don't know why I'd do it. My kids are grown.
I think I got in the habit of when these little babies try not
to wake them up. And you know I try not to.
I just don't like to be woke up when I do get to sleep.
Hey man, do y'all. But some people don't care.
They'll just walk in there. I think it's really rude, you
know, cuz sleep is a special time for me cuz I don't get to
do it a lot. But some people just walk in
there. My wife's good at it.
And I tell her, I tell us I respect when I come in at night
and, you know, should we go to bed a different time?
I said, I'll be really quiet. I walk around in the dark.
I said in the morning you need something.
You'll just flip the light on if you're up before me and just
wake me all up. And I said, I said, let's have a
little respect. You know what she said You
should have went to bed earlier, but walking around in the dark,
you ever done that? I do it all the time.
I mean, I'll go in there, she's asleep, her bathroom doing I
won't turn the lights on, brush my teeth in the dark.
I might have a little night light on, but then when I leave
there, I turn everything off and I don't like the light shining.
And I'm I'm, I know where that counter is and I can follow that
counter. See, I can follow that counter.
It's dark, but I know where I'm going because I've been there
before. I know where the door is at now.
Sometime I may go because the door is shut.
I may hit my head because the door is shut, but I know the
door is there and I got to back up.
That's the way I got it. I might have to back up and open
the door and say, all right, Lord, what I need to do
different. That door is shut.
But I read a scripture that said just keep on knocking.
Hey man. And as I keep on knocking, he
said, the door can be open. But see, that's kind of like
walking in the dark. You're holding on to the wall or
the balance. You know that the doors there,
you don't been through it many times.
See, we must learn to take action without understanding.
I may not know where I'm going, but I know he's leading the way,
right? You don't have to know that.
You don't have to know the future.
You just have to know who holds the future.
And, you know, sometimes they're stumbling blocks.
You know, I was walking through there one night and I've been
through that door many times, But my wife sitting this little
chest out there, it's about that tall and it's got a corner like
a razor blade, and it loves to catch little toes.
You want to test where you're at spiritually?
My son-in-law Ty, I thought he'd come a long way and he would
stay at her house one night and he caught that thing.
He said I had to repent. I said, brother, I caught it one
time too. And I said, oh, thank you Jesus.
It didn't break it. See, I never, I never knew.
I never figured out what doing any good would to cuss
something. It never did anything.
But when I said thank you, Jesus said it didn't cut it off and it
it felt like it just broke it in half.
But see, it felt better when I said thank you Jesus instead of
had I called it a blah, blah, blah, blah.
That didn't do nothing. I ain't curt.
You know, do you ever see anybody's have a custom fit
today? And you think, man, I used to
look like that, I used to act like that, but now the Holy
Spirit's in me and I've learned to take action without full
understanding and I don't have to do that no more.
The third thing, focus on God's plan.
People looking everywhere for God's plan.
You know what His plan is to get you to heaven.
That's God's ultimate plan. And the sad part, I ain't going
to say it's the sad part. It is kind of sad because I want
to go in the rapture. I want to see what the rapture's
like. Hey, man, I want to go in the
rapture. I don't want to go by the grave.
But we don't get to choose. We don't get to set the way that
we go, but focus on God's plan long term spiritual, his
spiritual reality see is over our temporarily earthly
challenges. He's much more focused on the
future Scriptures full of examples of faith in God's word
over rather than visible evidence.
We love the evidence. What would have happened if Noah
would have just simply said it never rained here?
What would have happened? What would have happened?
The fourth thing there would well, there would never been an
ark. That creation might have been
destroyed. We don't know what would have
happened because Noah obeyed even in the midst of a place
that had never reigned. Isn't that awesome?
God spoke to him. What's God speaking to you
tonight? Though it's never happened
doesn't mean it can't happen to you #4 have confidence in God's
promises even when the outcomes are not yet visible.
We have to have confidence in God's outcome even when we don't
see a way out. I'm going to recap these and see
some of your writing. But when what you see destroys
what you thought you had, you must trust oversight.
Trust God oversight. Rely on God's Word instead of
what you see, what you feel, or what you think.
We must learn to take action without full understanding.
We must focus #3 on God's plan, which is getting us to heaven,
instead of our plans and what we can see.
And #4 as you stand tonight, have confidence confiding God's
promises even when the outcomes are not yet what visible.
Trusting in the dark, knowing that God has a plan.
I want to read the rest of that Second Corinthians as we close.
I meant not Corinthians, Galatians and four and eight, it
says, but then indeed, when you did not know God, anybody
remember that time? It's been a long time for some
of us. We did not know God.
You serve those which by nature are not gods.
But now after you have known God, or rather this got me today
when I read this, or known by God.
Isn't that awesome? After you have known God or
rather or known by God. So he says it's the same thing
there to know God. And when you know God, you're
known by God. And then he asked this question.
He says, Paul says, how is it that you turn again to the weak
beggarly elements? But we're good at doing it time
and again. When we begin to walk, when we
begin to walk by what we see, when we begin to walk by sight
and not by faith, we'll become weak and beggarly.
To which you desire again to be in bondage.
You observe days and months and seasons and years.
Look what he said right here. He said I'm afraid for you, lest
I have labored in vain. Thanks for listening to the
Cross Power Church podcast. May you know that true hope,
peace, and salvation can only be found in Jesus.
If you're near Campbell, TX, we would love for you to join us in
person. You can find service times at
crosspowerchurch.com.