Well, I'm excited to be here with you.
It goes without saying in Ephesians chapter 2, verses one
through three, our first call, it says, And you were made alive
who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked,
according to the course of this world, according to the Prince
of the power of the air, the Spirit, who now works in the
sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted
ourselves in the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of
the flesh and of the mind. And we're by nature children of
wrath, just as the others. So important for us to recognize
that at some point we were all dead in our sins and trespasses.
We were all lost. And God called us.
He reached out to you. He made you alive.
Amen. I love in the baptism today and
what I love about doing baptism on Sunday morning, it's such a
reminder for us that it's a cutting away of the old nature
of sin, that you'd be dead to sin, but alive under God and
covenant relationship with Him. Isn't that powerful?
God has called us to be in covenant with him that we would
operate in the fullness of his his potential and that there'd
be a separating from our old way to the new way.
Dead people can't help themselves.
Amen. We got to remind ourselves that
you didn't help you, you didn't get you to where you are.
The Lord set his affections on you.
He called you forth and, and he reached out to you and said,
this is my, my one that I've, I've chosen my beloved and I, I
think it's such a powerful thing.
And Sunday or, or Friday morning when I was on my run, I was just
to overcome with it. Really.
I didn't know exactly what I was going to be talking about today.
I hadn't hashed it all out. I had ideas bouncing around my
head. And as I first started my run
and got to the top of our subdivision and the sidewalks
are now clear. So I'm able to get out of just
doing loops. And as I was out there just
running, I, I was ever so mindful.
God called me before the foundation of the world.
He said his affections on me, on us when you were dead in your
sins and your trespasses, when you were living in the in the
Prince of the power of the year, where you were a son of
disobedience for whatever reason, he called you and it
wasn't because he said, boy, that one's got potential.
He looked at you and said that one's a mess.
That was a basket case. That was a head case.
That was a this, that one's a that.
I called them because dead people can't help themselves.
And as I was running, I just kept this thought occurring and
I started worshiping the Lord and just reminded of the gift of
life that we received. How precious is this gift that
the gift that woke us up, that literally pulled you out of
darkness. And I don't know if anyone does
this, but I listen to music. I love music.
It's a it's a favorite for me. And so I will find a song that I
love and I'll just play that song over and over and over and
over. So I'm driving a few of you can
relate to that. Others you're like, what is
wrong with this guy? There's a lot wrong with this
guy. So my brother was in the
hospital at Providence Hospital and, and Ashley, we have a
Thursday team meeting and she was sharing some songs with us
and she shared this song with us in our in our team meeting and
he's in the room is the name of the song.
You may or may not know what it's one that not one that we do
here. It's a gospel song.
And we always thought, man, we should do this song.
We should do this song, but we're, you know, the pieces
aren't in place for it to happen.
And so I literally left here to go see my brother and from here
to Providence Hospital in Novi, which is not quick drive.
I listen to that song on repeat the whole way there and then the
whole ride back and the whole time.
And, and I don't just like listen to music.
I mean, it's all the way up. I'm practically off the wheel.
My hands are in the air, tears are streaming down my face.
I'm shouting it out. And there's a part where this
woman comes in like the guy sings a song, like he'd sing it
in my tone. But then this woman comes in and
she pierces it and I'm like, sing in the hot.
No, it's with me, 'cause I'm in my car.
Am I the only one? Maybe I'm the only one all
right. But as I'm singing this song,
she says at one line. She says that when he fills the
room, everything that's dead comes to life again.
Church, you were dead in your sins, in your trespasses and the
light of Christ shone upon you and pulled you out of your
captivity and said it's time to go.
I've got something for you to do.
We've got to remind ourselves that first call and and in
Ephesians chapter 2, building on that, it says for by grace
you've been saved through faith, not of yourselves.
It's what it's what. It's a gift of God, not of
works, lest anyone should boast, for we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared
beforehand that we should walk in them.
God chose you. He extended this a credible
gift, a gift to believe. That's the gift of faith.
The gift of faith is the the gift to believe.
God chose you. And he, he isn't just looking
for a bunch of alive people. Yep, got another alive 1.
Got another alive one over there.
Look at all the alive ones I got.
He doesn't just want to make you alive, he wants to make you
alive, that you do something with this life that you've been
given. When I was 14 years old, I, I,
my parents, we were in a, in a traditional church and my
parents started visiting churches and at 14 years old, I
was born again. And there was this sweet woman.
She was a grandmother, She was an older woman, her missus
Sutherland to me. She would come up to me all the
time and just say and just, she would just prophesied over me
like every single time I saw her.
And I'm like, does this lady not know who I am?
Like none of these things can surely come to pass because
like, I got Sunday Jesus, but Monday Jesus, Friday Jesus,
definitely, in a way, Saturday Jesus, uh huh, we're waiting for
Sunday, Sunday Jesus come back around.
And so I just was on this circle of my life, even at 14 and 15
and 16 years of age. And so I, I had this born again
experience. I, I remember getting bought or
baptized and everyone got filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke
in other tongues. But me, I didn't get that.
So I was like, well, gosh, is there something wrong with me?
And I, I remember praying with my mom and, and I got it.
I started speaking another tongue.
So it wasn't even like I was, you know, I wasn't spirit
filled, but I was caught in this battle, this battle that I had
this flesh part of me in this mind part of me.
And I was caught in this warring in my members.
When when Paul writes, he says there's this part that wills to
do the things I'm supposed to do in this part that doesn't want
to do those things. And I feel this battle going on.
To me, it's like enmity. And when I read that for the
first time, because at 1415 and 16, I didn't read the whole
Bible, didn't read the Bible at all.
But when I read that and I read about this enmity, this
grinding, I was like, oh, I know that.
Yes, I can relate to that. I needed an awakening.
I, I, I needed to stop sleepwalking.
See, for me, I thought church was just something that you did
to check a box went check, sang the songs.
Check. Put out my hands.
OK, you guys want to put out your hands.
OK, check. Do that, whatever those little
things were right, Just check, check, check, check, check.
I took care of all my Sunday responsibilities and the Lord
woke me up when I was in college, right when I was
graduating. He began to wake me up and said
there's more. And I was ignoring that voice as
much as I possibly could because I had a plan.
We're going to do it this way,
Jesus. And so I still had this battle
going on and the word, the Lord came.
I've been at Mount Zion literally last month for 33
years and Amen, Amen. I don't say that as if I did
that. It was what he called me to, and
He gave me the grace to operate that.
So I love that grace, but that grace was an awakening.
It woke me up. I came here and it was like
blinders were taken off. That church isn't a place that
you just go to check boxes. It's a place where you become to
be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you'd be transformed,
that you'd be empowered, that you would do the good things
that God has called us to do. You can give the Lord a praise
on that because there's a purpose for our life.
There's a fulfillment that God has for every single one of us.
And, and here's the news flash, and I don't know if it's a news
flash or not, but God didn't awaken you for a political
battle. Somehow we're all caught up in
the politics of things right now.
And I'm not saying we can't have some political vantage points
and viewpoints. I'm not, I'm not disgracing or
discarding anyone's political vantage points.
But we weren't born to be part of a political Kingdom.
We were born to be part of a eternal Kingdom.
And we've got to make sure that we understand what the Father is
doing in this hour and not just get caught up in these fights
because there is a purpose to what God is doing and there's a
there's a fulfillment that he's calling us to.
So Pastor Lauren shared this verse, Lisa shared this verse.
I love this verse. Ephesians chapter 5.
Therefore, take heed, awake you who sleep, arise from the dead
and Christ will give you light. Paul was literally dead in his
sins and trespasses. And this is the call.
He literally says, you guys need to do this.
He had to do this first. He walked in this first.
And he's now writing to all of us.
He's saying wake up, wake up. I hear it.
It's time to us to awake. Don't be drowsy in your seat.
Oh, it's Sunday and getting my word.
What's he talking about? Now?
You got to wake ourselves. We got to get out of that drowsy
state. How many guys use an alarm clock
to get up this morning? Show of hands, anyone?
How many guys use an alarm clock to get up during the week?
So I'm a little different. I'm a little wired, a little
weird. I have soft wake ups.
So I have a soft wake up at like 4.
I have a soft wake up at like 5:30.
I have a soft wake up at about 6:15.
I'm just hitting the snooze button.
Some of you are like, man, that's a nightmare.
There's another nightmare. The nightmare where you're so
asleep and all of a sudden this now you're like, what is going
on? The house is what's heaven, All
right? It's my alarm, right?
My wife has two alarms and they go off 4 times.
It's just the differences. I'm not throwing her under the
bus. It's just our differences.
Alarm clocks, they come to, to get us out of our rest.
They come to get us out of our our sleepiness.
And the Lord, he's, he's awakening us that we wouldn't be
sleepy anymore, that we'd wake up to these things.
Now I didn't say I never use an alarm clock.
I just very rarely use an alarm clock.
I have clocks in my head that go off and I hit my own snooze
button. Now when I go up north, it's a
completely different vibe. We go on vacation with a bunch
of family and friends from the church here and us guys, we get
up to go fishing and we get up at 5:30 in the morning and we're
on the water at 6:00 in the morning.
And if you fish, you know what I'm talking about.
If you don't fish, you're like, that does not sound like
vacation. That sounds like a nightmare
because we stay up till like 11/10/11, 12:00 at night.
And the, the place we stay in, it's not a luxury cabin.
It's more rustic than that. And so the mattresses creak.
And so my wife, she's party girl, she likes to stay up late.
Two different spectrums. The Lord brought us together.
He knows what he's doing. So I am asleep trying to sleep
in this rickety bed that's making all these crunchy noises
while you turn. And at about 1/30, 2:00 in the
morning, my gazelle of a wife tries to nimbly go over me as
she's crawling on top of me and the bed is creaking.
And so now I've just got a wake up call at like 1/30, 2:00 in
the morning and the alarm clock's going to go off.
I went to bed at too late, then the alarm clock goes off.
It's like what this happened to me.
How is it already time to get up?
How many guys have that when your alarm clock goes off in the
morning versus the soft snooze, right, we're all wired a little
differently. The Lord's calling us to wake up
and to arise. He's calling us to arise.
So we can't not now. I'll I will tell you this not
I'm not better different. My wife, she gets up.
She's you know, so I like when I wake up and like doing soft
snoozes. The beds warm.
It's cozy, right? Like it's the perfect
temperature now. Like I got too hot in the middle
of the night, got too cold when I first laid down, you know what
talking about? But right now it's just right.
So I'm all snuggled in and feeling good and I don't want to
get out of that bed. Sometimes we can be walking
through life and we don't want to get out of the things that
we're in. And the Lord is calling us to
arise to get out of them. That would embrace what He has
for us now. Paul's on the road to Damascus
and he has got letters in his hand from the leaders, the chief
priests that he can persecute. Any person that's of the way.
Anyone that's of Jesus, anyone that has received him and is
walking in him and sharing his message, He's got these letters
and anyone that he can find, he can round up and take him to
jail, to prison. And then whatever happens, he's
done his part. So on the road, he gets knocked
down and the bright light shines.
It shines upon him, and the bright light speaks to him.
And what does it say, Saul? Saul, why do you persecute me?
Not my people, not my leaders. The things that you're doing
aren't about them. They're about me.
What are you doing at this time? He's also preparing a man in the
city that Paul's going towards. His name is Ananias.
And on his way, Ananias is like, this guy's coming.
His name is Paul. You want me to talk to him?
He's got letters. He can literally persecute me.
He can put me in prison. And the Lord says to him, I want
you to talk to him, and I want you to tell him this word.
I'm going to show him how many things he must suffer for my
kingdom's sake. Who?
Hallelujah. You guys know if that's a
prophetic word you got for someone, that's not a word you
want to give to anybody. Because I'm going to put him
before kings and Gentiles for my kingdom's sake.
See, before, before the wake up call, he thought he knew the
Lord. Before the wake up call, he
thought he was doing the things that God had called him to do
before he got knocked down. He thought, I'm doing everything
I'm supposed to do. I'm in the right place.
I'm living in the right box. And after he got knocked down,
he realized I got bad alignment. I'm off track, I'm going the
wrong way. I've been doing this all wrong.
The Lord wants you to awaken this morning.
He's reaching out to us and he's saying arise from the places
that you find yourself in. I want to give you this light.
Paul literally wrote this to us and it was the word that he had
to walk in. And I started thinking about
this until Jesus. I always remember your life
until Jesus and some of you in this room, you don't have a life
until Jesus because your parents raised you in the church.
You came here and you didn't really have an until Jesus, but
you did. Because even my own kids when
they went to camp, they had their until Jesus moment.
And so we have this opportunity to realize I'm not just fill in
a box. I'm not just checking this
thing. I want to receive everything
that God has for me because until Jesus, I live like this.
But now after Jesus, I want to live like this.
I don't want to be who I used to be.
I don't want to operate in the things I used to operate in.
I want to operate in the fullness of this Kingdom, and I
don't want to leave a single, single door unturned.
Amen. I want them all.
Lord, You spoke and I want it. Let's enter into it.
So in Isaiah chapter 52 verses one through 2, it says awake,
awake. Put on your strength, O Zion.
Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city for
the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to
you. Shake yourself from the dust.
Arise, sit down, O Jerusalem. Loose yourself from the bonds of
your neck, O captive daughters of Zion.
Awake, awake, put on your garments.
We need to put on our strength, Church.
That's what it means to put on our garments is to put on our
strength. God's calling us to wake up and
to put on the strength to operate in the things that He's
called us to. And here's the thing, You're not
going to put on your own strength because you've already
figured this out, your strength, but it's just not enough.
Your strength is not going to get the job done.
So the strength that we're going to put on is our confidence is
not in me. My confidence is in the Lord.
My strength is not in me. My strength is in the Lord.
And, and so this is about walking with him and, and
receiving the promises that he's working in us to make us strong.
I said make us strong because we have this idea that I, I, I love
where Jesus says the truth shall set you free.
You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
How many guys know That's beautiful.
At some point in my life, I was like a cage bird and I made the
cage beautiful, all the little trappings in it had all the
little things I liked. And it's going to be this when
this happens in the cage, it's going to be so good.
And this happens in my cage. But I didn't realize I was in my
cage. I thought I was actually out
flying around. I thought I was actually doing
something. No, I was in captivity.
And one day Jesus showed up and he opened up the door and he
said, get out of there, stupid. What are you doing?
I ain't called you to live in there.
Get out of there. I started flying around and I'm
like, wait a minute, this is this is it.
This is something. So I love the truth and the
truth shall make set you free. But guess what?
The truth isn't just going to set you free.
It's going to make you free. And that's what this is talking
about when we put on our strength.
This is about the Lord doing things in your life to exercise
you, to prepare you to mature you, to put on the strength that
He's called you to operate in. So we've got to get dressed.
We got to get dressed. We got to put on our garments.
We got to stop living distracted.
We got to stop putting on the wrong garments, and we got to
start putting on the right garments.
While the right garments are priestly garments, kingly
garments, garments of authority, garments of of servant
attitudes, garments where we're believing what God can do in US
and can do through US. Dress is pretty important to us,
right? Fashion is a thing.
Yes. OK for like 4 of you.
All right, bad reference. So I see that fashion is a
thing. We when we get dressed, we think
like we're look in the mirror. We're like, all right, I like
that. So I'm going to talk about this
shirt. I bought this shirt for my son
in a different size, let's be honest.
And I wrapped it up and I'm just he is going to love this shirt.
This shirt is killer. My wife is like cocking her head
a little bit. She's like, we should have
Brooklyn. Take a look at that.
If you have a Brooklyn, which means you have a daughter, she
comes in with her opinion. And if you've got little kids,
just know they're cute right now, love that moment.
But they're going to show up with their opinions and she's
going to tell you what's cool and what's not cool.
And so she just looks at that shirt and she's like, that is
not cool. And I'm like, this shirt is
awesome. What are you talking about?
This shirt is not cool. I knew the sweater he was
getting for Christmas. And I'm like underneath that
sweater with the collar popping and the tail sticking out, I'm
like, boom, that's the shirt. That shirt.
Wow, that's it. My wife is like, I don't, my
daughter's like, definitely not that shirt.
Christmas morning comes. Presents are being opened.
I'm on the edge of my seat because I bought.
I don't, I don't, I'm not, I don't do the presents.
That's not my thing. I don't my wife, that was her
gig. And this year I'm like, I'm
getting them this, they're getting that.
I like this. I think she'd wear that.
And I'm just buying, buying, buying, buying.
I'm having a ball and I'm waiting for the shirt.
I'm like sitting on my hands. I'm like, he's coming open the
shirt. I'm going to prove them wrong.
I've got taste. I know what I'm talking about.
Brooklyn's like that's like an old man shirt.
You, you, you want him to dress like he's 50 something like what
are you? What are you talking about?
And I'm just like, he's going to love it.
He's going to love 50 something dress shirts sitting on my
hands. He opens it up and he holds it
up. And I could just, I look at his
face. I look at her face, I look at
his face, I look at my wife's face, I look at Brooklyn's face.
I'm like, this is not going my way.
So I took that shirt back and I bought a different shirt in my
size because for 50 some years old, this shirt is cool.
And if it's not, don't tell me because I think it is.
I jest with you this morning. I tell a story like that and be
dramatic about it. But we've got to get dressed
church. And here's the thing, we're not
putting on the clothes we want to put on.
We're supposed to be putting on kingly garments and Prince
priestly garments. We, we get so caught up wanting
to blend in and be like the people around us.
We got so caught up thinking I got to dress like so and so I
got to look like so and so. I got to speak like so and so.
I got to have what such and such has and, and all these different
things. And I'm not trying to blend in.
I'm not trying to go back. I'm trying to go forward.
I got another example for you. I like sugar.
Does anyone in the room like sugar?
I mean, sugar just calls to me. I can just hear it now.
I know where it's at in my house.
It's beckoning me now, Rich, you know where we are.
Come home after you're full with lunch and have a little bit of
sugar. You deserve it.
You preach today. Now, I'm not comparing me to any
of you. I'm talking about me.
When I eat sugar, I start adding on pounds.
You can look at me like, Oh yeah, right bro, you got you
could use a few more pounds. We're all different.
I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, is that I
start eating sugar and I can't stop myself.
My wife buys these Brookside blueberries covered with
chocolate. If you go to Costco, just stay
away from them. Satan lives inside that bag and
I can just get a handful of those pomegranate blueberry
encrusted chocolate delights just and then I go back from
war. I don't even sit like simply
we'll just give you portion control, right?
That's the problem. Sugar says no portion control
will go crazy. And some of you can relate to
this because if you have diabetes or you have, if you've
had a heart attack or some other medical issue, the doctor says
if you want to live, you got to do these things.
So what happens when people have open heart surgery?
They come out of that surgery, they're like, I'm eating
carrots. No more white bread in my life.
Celery's my friend. I'm not eating dessert anymore.
I mean, I've seen everyone does it, and I'm not throwing you
under the bus because I just threw myself under the bus.
We think we know or, or, or, or we say this is what I'm going to
do. But this voice draws us back.
And before you know it, you're eating all the stuff or doing
the things you know you shouldn't be doing.
Church. We got to get dressed.
We got to put on our royal garments, and we got to close
the door on those former things. And we got to move forward
because you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, His own special people, that he may proclaim the
praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light, who were once not a people, but are now the
people of God who had not obtained mercy, but now have
obtained it. We have a new identity.
We got to shake off our dust. We got to shake off our
humiliation. We got to shake off our
captivity. That former, that last verse
talked about. We have this new identity.
If there's one thing that I could, if I could shake every
young person in this room, every young person, you need to know
who you are in Christ Jesus. Because as a young person, all
your friends, all your peers, all the stuff, all the
commercials, everything around you is calling on you is trying
to get you to recognize you're not chosen, you're not royal,
you're not special. It's trying to lie to you to get
you to not identify with your Father in heaven who called you
as a person that was not and said you are.
He brought you forth and so now I even speak to you that are
more seasoned Saints. You're a chosen generation.
You're a royal priesthood. The Lord is calling to all of us
saying you've got something to do here and I've put something
inside of you. Stop going back.
Stop looking back. We're the now generation pastor
Lord and talk with us about last week.
He shared with us all the different denominational things
and how all of it's changed and how his generation, the Buber
generation, has literally broken the captivity, the cage that
kept us all in mainline denominations so that we could
come out and experience the fullness of God, a heartfelt
relationship with Christ. That's all we've ever wanted.
That's all God ever wanted for us to have that heart
connection. It's time for us to go in a new
generation that's arising, the now generation.
I don't know about you, but that's what I want.
I want to get there. And that's not age specific.
That's open to every single one of us, this opportunity to go in
and possess this land and, and to bring our kids and our
grandkids and our great grandkids.
I I want to see generational blessing in this.
And so gay men give the Lord a praise.
So Peter Ricey says, beloved, I beg you as sojourners and
pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lust, which war against the
soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles,
that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your
good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of
visitation. Paul writing the Church of
Ephesus, Peter writing the church, they're both saying the
same thing, that we were created for good works, that there would
be something about us. Paul's writing us and he's not,
He's not commanding the people He was as their pastor, as their
shepherd. He was, he was, he was pleading
with them. I, I urge you, those who I love
so dearly, I, I urge you, I hear the Father saying I, I, I love
you so much. I urge you, don't get caught up
in these things. I implore you, I have something
more for you. We have this flesh that's that's
warring with us in it. It wants to clutter our
identity, wants to confuse us, wants to pull us back, wants to
lull us back to sleep again. I don't want to be lulled back
to sleep. I don't want to go backwards.
I want to go forward. I want to walk in all the things
that God declared about my life and and my potential and who
he's called me to be. You are loved.
Live like who you are. Your Father in heaven loves you.
You're his son and his daughter. Do you live like that?
Do the people see that? Because it's easy for us to get
caught up in the world and it's trappings.
It's things. We're sojourners.
We're pilgrims, a sojourner is literally someone that is
transient. They're moving through.
A Pilgrim recognizes like I'm not putting in a, a, a permanent
foundation here. I was created for eternity.
I am not going to live forever, but I was created for eternity
and I know the things of my life will come with me.
Those things that I've done under the father, they're going
to be brought before him and he's going to say, look what you
did. I want to live my life in a way
that he looks at that and says, come on, rich, come home.
I've called you. Well done.
Amen. So we can't settle and create
permanent dwellings here because identity changes how I conduct
myself. It changes how I look at myself
and look at things. I'm not trying to fit in to the
systems of the world. I'm not trying to fit into these
things. I adjusted about a shirt, you
know, adjusted about these things.
But I want to be part of a different Kingdom, and I want to
make sure that the garments that I'm putting on represent the
king and his Kingdom. So in Matthew chapter 6, Jesus
says, therefore do not worry, saying what shall we eat?
What shall we drink, what shall we wear?
For after all these things the Gentiles seek, I love Pastor
Lauren. Two weeks ago on a Wednesday, he
said, don't act like the Gentiles.
You're not a Gentile, you're a chosen one.
You're a beloved 1 For after all these things, that's what the
world is seeking. For your heavenly Father knows
that you need these things. But what?
Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things will be added to you.
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow we'll
worry about His own thing. Sufficient for the day is its
own trouble. Food, drink, clothes, those were
Jesus. That was it.
I know I've shared the scripture on many occasions.
It's one that always resonates with me.
I, I'm not saying that there aren't some people that are,
are, have some food instability in their lives.
By no means am I saying that I know there, you know, that
people will call the church and ask for food baskets or food
things and food pantries. And, and so I, I know that even
in our society today, you might think yourself, gosh, how could
that be? Well, it happens.
Food insecurity is still a real thing.
But here's the news flash for you.
You can go to a faucet anywhere in this church and you can get
all the water you'd ever want to drink.
And here's a bag of news flash for you.
The bottled water that you're drinking probably came from
another state where they opened up a tap and ran it through a
filter and filled those plastic bottles and then gave them to
you so that you could drink them.
And probably made them worse for you than the water that you were
originally drinking out of your faucet.
No, the plastics. Right.
OK, just not preaching to you that way.
There's something we should contemplate.
Maybe just fill your cup up, save yourself.
There's your retirement plan. There you go.
So food, drink, clothes. No, you know, it's aren't your
three. Maybe you're like, man, I got
all the food, drink and clothes I need, right?
So what is it for you? What are your three?
That's my question. Is IT security or or or maybe
status? Is it control?
Because all of those things are about me in the same way that is
food, water, right, and clothes. It's about me.
It's easy for us to get caught up in me and not trusting that
God has an awesome plan that He's going to bring to pass that
we think that I've got to go out and make my security.
And I love my retirement account.
Don't get me wrong. I like checking on it from time
to time. And I manage part of my own
funds. And not to be braggadocious, but
the funds that I'm currently managing are making 15%, which
means I could be a hedge, hedge fund manager.
And I didn't know it. I'm a, I'm a minister in
disguise. I'm actually a hedge fund
manager. If that's a joke, that's very
serious in this room. So we've got to realize that I,
I can look at that and I can get all my security.
I got to make sure I've got enough.
I got to do this. I got to do this.
We got to, got to, got to, got to control this.
I got to manipulate this. I got to make this.
And I love control. I mean, I love control, right?
My wife is in the back, like nodding her head, man, it's 30
years. I love control.
And Jesus is telling us all, are you going to be like everybody
else in the world? Are you going to be running
after all those same things? Are you going to put on these
new garments that I've called you to?
Are you going to trust in me and trust in what I've got?
Because until Jesus came, we ran around doing crazy and stupid,
and now we should be looking at this in a whole new light, that
we should change what we're seeking after and what is our
satisfaction that we should have in a little alignment because
this identity changes what I'm looking for.
Amen. So in first Peter chapter 2, it
says there therefore to you who believe he is precious, but to
those who are disobedient, the stone which the builder rejected
has become the chief cornerstone and a stone of stumbling in a
rock of offense. They stumble being disobedient
to the word to which they also were appointed.
So what do you believe is he your cornerstone?
Did you put him as that original stone to say I'm going to build
this is going to set the line true.
This is the rest of my house is going to be built on the
cornerstone. Christ Jesus, have you made that
decision that this is the most important stone in my life?
Or he is just a rock of stumbling and a rock of offense
because I've lived with both and you can't have him at the same
time. He's either your cornerstone or
the offensive one and you just keep tripping over him.
It's not one or it's one or the other.
We've received this incredible gift from God to walk in the
Word, to be people that walk in the Word in discipleship tonight
as I'm reading that preparing for tonight and preparing for
today and the word all kind of gets jumbled together.
One of the things that comes up in tonight's group, for those of
you taking discipleship, and if you haven't taken discipleship,
here's a shameless plug. We're going to do it again in
April. You can join me, see me after
church. If you have not taken
discipleship and you're like, man, I know I need to do that.
We're going to start in April after Easter and we will do for
13 weeks and we'll go through the summer.
But discipleship, one of the things that comes up is the the
Kingdom of heaven is governed by principles and concepts.
That's what it says in the book, that the Bible is literally a
book of principles and concepts that govern this Kingdom.
How many guys know that's like a cheat code?
How many guys like cheat codes? That makes sense, right?
If just do this, you get this, have this, do that, right?
It just makes sense. And so these principles and
concepts is God calling us to be doers of the Word and to be
people that have the Word working in US and abiding in our
relationship with Christ. Amen.
These are some basic principles and concepts and so God wants to
to be that people that walk in this word and in my closing
Scripture today is really that it says.
Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy
and envy and all evil speaking as newborn babes desire the pure
murk of the world that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have
tasted the Lord is gracious. We have food to eat.
Church as this now generation, the now generation isn't the
young people in the room. The now generation is every
single person in this room. God has something for all of us
to do and to be a part of. And so as part of this, we've
got to recognize our right identity because if your
identity is in the wrong things, you're not going to get there.
If you think your satisfaction is going to come through the
things that you eat, the things that you wear, right, the things
that you drink or your security that you've made for yourself.
Or maybe you're, maybe you're getting 22% in your hedge fund
managing, you know, you, you think you've got your own
satisfaction in what you're doing.
Our identity is in him. It's hidden in him.
And I hear him calling out to us, calling us to grow up and
did start to do the Kingdom exploits that he's called us to
that this wouldn't just be about an identity, but recognizing
this identity is so that you can launch forward.
And how are we going to do that through the word?
We've got to be a people of the word.
We've got to know what the word says so that we can eat that and
be alive. I remember my my kids when they
when this is something about baby moments.
I loved when my kids were just little itty bitty peanuts, like
brand new, you know, they just, you just wrap them all up super
tight and they're like a little heating pad and they smell so
good. And when they want to eat, you
know, just they eat. They just eat and eat and eat
and eat. At least our kids, it's like
you, they just eat and kept eating.
And the more they ate, the more they grew.
The word of God is our nutrition church.
As we partake in it, we're going to grow.
We're going to mature that we can do the exploits that He's
called us to do, or we can stay sleepy, we can stay slumbering
in our seats, and we can miss the opportunities that are right
in front of us for family, for loved ones, for friends.
I'm convinced there's people around us every day that need
you and the good news that God did in your life, but you've got
to be willing to share it. Some of you has given very
creative ways to do that. Others of you are just going to
have to speak words. The Father's calling us the now
generation. Amen.
I'm going to close if you guys close your eyes and just bow
your heads for a minute before you start grabbing our
communions because there's a depth that the Lord wants to
work in us this morning. You've got to answer the
question, what's your satisfaction?
I'm not saying you can't have stuff, but the stuff is not the
satisfaction. The stuff giver is the
satisfaction. Thank you, Father, Lord, we just
open our hearts to you today, Lord, before we receive this
meal. Lord, there's a work that you're
wanting to do in US, Lord, that we would eat this word.
Lord, when we were babies we needed to be fed.
But your word declares that when we grow old, when we age up, the
meat is to do the will of the Father, to do the work.
But I pray for every person that's listening today, for
those that are home listening, Father, that we would see, Lord,
it's time to do the work. It's time to eat the meat.
It's time to become those mature ones in the House of the Lord in
this day of awakening. Lord, as messengers of this
Kingdom, oh we pray in Jesus name, Amen.
This is Pastor Lorne Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.
We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect
with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and
following us on social media. God bless you.