Sunday Service

Okay. What's all right? Good morning, Mount Pleasant and Christian Center. Happy Labor Day weekend. You know, it's funny. I always think back for myself personally when I think of Labor Day as a kid. That meant the end of it, the end of summer. It was over. I was going to have this last week and then have to go back to school. Well, things have changed. A lot of the kids have been in school for almost a month already, right? So, it's their first vacation time and they're excited about that.

But you know, the Bible tells us a lot about working and how we are supposed to work right again when we do that and we're doing things. And you know, God honors that work. And it's one of those things that when we think about it, we talk about working for the Lord. And in everything that we do, we're supposed to do it as unto the Lord. When we're working, when we're doing those things, when we are working and doing it not for the company, the boss, or co-workers, or anything like that, but we're working for the Lord as unto the Lord, giving it our very best, it shows itself. How many times we pray to ask for favor in what we do, right? When we are doing that, we are presenting ourselves not to our co-workers, but to God. And others around can see what it is to be a child of God.

You know, my dad taught me a long time ago, there's nothing that you can't reach for. It's like, well, I can't do that. I'm not I'm not that kind of person that can do that. You can do anything. It's attainable. Conversely, there's no job that's beneath you. I ain't going to do that. Hey, pick it up, do it, clean it. It needs to be done to keep yourself in check. And that has always, always stood with me. You know, for us here, it's important that we need to make sure in all the work that we do, we're doing it the best we can, but ultimately that what we do is pleasing to the Lord. And it's not burdensome to serve the Lord, to do the things that God wants us to do. You know what? There might be times when it's challenging. Hey, I'm not going to lie to you. There's times when I'm sitting there and I'm just tired, right? But the thing is, is I know my God is going to give me the strength and the energy to do what he has for me to do. Amen.

So, right here today, as we kind of unofficially wrap up summer, it gets exciting because we start thinking of what's next. That next part, right? And we can look back at the summer. You start thinking of all the things. Maybe you did a trip. Maybe you went camping. Maybe you went to the beach. Maybe you did all this or that. And you start thinking, "Wow, you know what? God has blessed me with that time to do those things." And now it's time to get ready to do the next. Amen.

So, right now, let's just pray. Heavenly Father God, we thank you for the day that you've given us, Lord. We thank you for the ability to work, Lord. We thank you for the ability to serve you, Lord God. And right now, Lord, as we come here together, united as a body, Lord, we just come to worship you, to praise you, Lord God, and to receive from you today, Lord. So, right now, Lord, just prepare us, our hearts, our minds, Lord God. Any distraction that might be pulling us away, Lord God, just eradicate it. And right now, let us have this time, Lord, to focus solely on you, what you have for us here in your house this morning. And we thank you for that in your mighty name. And all of God's people said, "Amen."

Bible now fresh and I can hear the sound. Something truly wonderful is happening. This is prophecy. Something really powerful is happening. Darkness bow down to the day. Now let's get up on my way. Breaking out of yesterday. I got a new day coming in my face. You're not afraid in my face. Best believe it when I say I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. To destroy the yoke to make me stronger. You got to let me know. Something really powerful is happening. Fre out of the shadow. It should be overflow. Should really power is happening. It's happening. Dark Bing yesterday. I got a new coming in my face. You're not greater than my face. Let's believe me when I see. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new. I can see you. It looks like revival and it's headed our way. I can see you and it looks like salvation and it's headed our way. Oh, I can hear a sound. The abundance of rain and it sounds like freedom and it's our way. Oh, I can hear a sound and it sounds like it's our way. Oh, I can hear it sound away. It sounds like freedom. Oh, I can see every way. And it looks like it our way. Is it your way? Is it your way? It always comes. The darkness bound after the day. Mountains get up my way. Breaking out of yesterday. I got a new thing coming in my face. Just believe me when I say I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got a new thing coming. I got the new heart fresh. I got the new work. I got a new thing. I got the new one, new heart pressure. I got the new heart now. I got a new thing coming. See, I got that new mind, new heart, fresh. I got that new life now. I got a new thing for me. I got that new mind, new heart, fresh. I got that new life now. I got a new thing. I got a new thing. I got a new. Oh, I can see you loud everywhere. Oh, I can hear every salvation. it our way. Oh, I can hear a sound like freedom away. Oh, I can hear you find it away. Sound like broken it all away. You take it away. He's coming. He's coming. He's coming. Do you hear the sound? Do you hear the sound? I can see the clouds coming and it looks like freedom and it's headed our way. Oh, I can see heaven with me. And he breaks like Jesus and he's headed all Jesus. Lord, let my life in the light up my lungs with your praise cuz I can't breathe until you breathe. So breathe over me. Let my life be an alter. Lord, let my life be an altar. Light up my lungs with your praise cuz I can breathe till you breathe. So breathe on you. Let my life be in water. This is the moment when we need fire. This is the moment. by again. Our God is consuming fire. Our God is a holy wind. Whatever you speak, whatever you touch will go to. Our God is a holy way. Whatever you speak is done. Whatever you touch will live. Come on in. Come on in. Whatever you touch with me, come on in. Come on in. So come on in. Come on in. Whatever you touch will live. Come on in. Come on in. Whatever you touch will live. Come on in. Come on in. Whatever you touch will live. Come on in. Come on in. Whatever you touch will live. Come on in. Come on in. This is the moment when we fire. Come on in. Heat. Heat. for me by again. Our God is consumed by our God is a holy wind. Whenever you see it, whenever you touch our holy way, whatever you Hey, was always with me. Always with me. Oh, you ask can I hear your voice and you hear Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Um, in the Bible it says in Isaiah 3:18, "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you, for the Lord is of justice. Blessed are all those who wait on him." This verse speaks on basically reassuring us as believers. Sometimes when life happens, as some of you know, my son was in a car accident and we lost our car. Like any normal parent, my emotions were out the roof. But God was faithful even in that moment. I didn't know. I didn't know how it was going to come through. Didn't know how God was going to provide. And I best believe I shed a lot of tears for those of my friends that know. I shed a lot of tears, but I was reminded of God's faithfulness. And I would worship and I would worship and I would worship. And I said, "God, I know you're going to come through. I know you're going to come through." And even in the worship, I still pressed. I still press a beard. I step kept moving, kept moving one foot in front of the other. And it was hard, I'll tell you. Because when your children leave for school and when they go and you're like, I can't give you a car. I can't I can't provide for you. God will provide. But God met us. God met me. You know, no sooner than God providing and making the provisions necessary, he came through for us. And he provided. He gave us a way. When I was out of nowhere, when there was no way, I had no control of the circumstances. But that's when you know that it's God. Because often times, I know I'm not the only one that likes to control the situation. I want to be in control because there's security in control. Because it's easy to be in control cuz then you know what's happening. But when you don't know when it's going to happen, faith isn't faith until it's tested. I know I'm speaking to somebody today. Faith isn't faith until it's tested. And I knew God was watching me. How what was going to be my response? Was I going to throw in the towel and say, "Dan, I can't do this no more." No. I kept pushing. And I thank God for a great man of God and my husband to remind me when I was weak. He was able to hold me up. But just keep pushing. Keep pressing. You will be victorious. You will find and see what God and who he is in your life. You will see who he is in your life. You're not just here just because the mere fact that you woke up this morning to the divine knowledge that you have purpose and there is a reason for your life. I thank God for the breath that I breathe today. I thank God for the life that I live. But I thank God most of all because of who he is. He is worthy. If I sing this song, I sing it with all authority, with all conviction, with all that I all that I can offer you. And I remembered how you proideed, how you held me through the night. And I remember how you sustained me when you stepped in to save my life. Cuz if I knew then what I know now, I would be still and let you work it out. Jesus, I was to lost in the water, but I never went up. You were always on time. Jesus, when I went through the fire, you were you always on time. You are always always on time. You are always always on time. I remember how you car when I couldn't take a And I remember how you loved me when I could myself. Jesus, I was lost in the water. the way I do. You always on Jesus. When I went to the fire, you were right there. You always you always you Heat. Heat. Heat. You're so never been a moment that you waited. There's never been a time that you didn't see me through. I worship you. There's never been a day. Never been a minute. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Oh, you're so faithful God. Oh, you're a faithful God. Yes, you're faithful. I was tossed in the water, but I never went under. You always Jesus. When I went through the fire, you were right there beside me. You are on time. Oh, we thank you, God, for your faithfulness, God. Oh, God, you are so good. And we thank you, God, for you alone, God, are faithful, God. You alone, God, are faithful, God. Oh, there's never been a minute and no, no, no. Oh, there's never been a time that you didn't see me through. God, I worship you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, come on. My God is faithful right now. He deserves all the praise. Our voice should be lifted unto him. He is worthy. Oh, sometimes it's going to take an extra step to take that step out and open that mouth and tell God, you are worthy, God. You are faithful, God. You are the great I am. Because you know what? Sometimes we have to speak to that situation that we're being faced with. Sometimes you have to stick to that mountain and tell the enemy you will not have the victory. You will not I am victorious because he says I am victorious. Hallelujah. We worship you, Jesus. Oh, we worship you. Just stay in the moment. Let's continue to worship. Let's continue to glorify his name. He's so worthy, folks. He's deserving of every song that we can sing, every melody we can muster up. He deserves it all. Amen. Hallelujah. We praise you, Jesus. Oh, we praise you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Glory to your name. Glory. Yes, God. Come on, just worship him. Sing a new song. Lift up your heart to his. Just praise him. Tell him how much you love him. Pour out. Lavish that praise upon him this morning. He deserves it all. He's worthy of it all. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Jesus. We worship you, oh God. Yes. Glory, glory, glory. Come on. It's for the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords today. Hallelujah. Hallelujah Jesus. Yes. Oh God, we worship you, Jesus. Glory to your name. We're singing Majesty. We're singing Majesty. Your grace is found me just as I am. Empty handed but alive in your hands. Come on, sing that out. Majesty, we're singing Majesty. We're singing Majesty. Forever I am changed. Forever I am changed by your love. In the presence of your majesty, we're singing majesty. We're singing majesty. Your grace has found me. Your grace has found me. Just as I am. Empty handed. world in your singing. Forever I am changed. Rather I am changed by the presence of your majesty in the presence of your majesty. Oh we worship you. You deserve all the praise. Holy is your name. Yes God we glorify you Lord. You're worthy of my praise. We glorify you, Jesus. Come on, let's sing that one last time. Majesty. Come on. We're singing. We're singing to you. Your grace has found me. Your grace has found me. Just as I am. The empty hand is put alive in your hands. We're singingesty. We're singingesty. Forever I am changed by your love in the presence of your majesty. Let's stay in that worshipful moment for a little while longer. I'm going to ask those who have been set aside to help us with communion to bring the communion forward at this time. If you would come, please holy moment, folks. Amen. It's a holy moment. We're in the presence of God. He is here. The word of God says where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them. God is in the house this morning. Amen. And he's worthy of our praise. He's worthy of the glory that we have to give. Hallelujah. And as they're as they're coming forward with the elements, I just want to say this. Maybe you've had a rough week. Maybe you've had a rough week. Join the club. Life is hard, but God is good. Amen. Life is hard. That's the truth. But God is good. That's also the truth. He is great and he is greatly to be praised. And today, whatever week you've had, whatever struggles you're going through, whatever issues you've had with family or church family or your job or whatever should not hold you back from giving God his due. Amen. From giving him the glory, giving him the honor, giving him the praise that he's so deserving of. Amen. We sing these songs. You deserve it all. You deserve the glory. We praise you. We worship you. We lift up holy hands. Are they just words or do we mean them today? If God is worthy, then give him his praise. Amen. Then give him his praise. Because he is worthy and nothing that we have gone through this week or any weeks to come is enough to hold our praise back from God. Hallelujah. Oh Jesus, we we bless you. We bless you today, God. We just want to bless you with our worship, God. Unwatered, not watered down, unfiltered, not candycoated, not based on what you can do for us. But we give you praise because you're worthy. You deserve it all. You deserve it all. Let your heart stay in that worshipful moment. I'm going to release our board members to go ahead and pass out the elements to you. Receive those. Stay in that attitude of prayer, praise, and devotion. As you hold on to those, I'm going to ask you right now, as you do that, enter into a moment of self-reflection. Ask God to search your heart. Cuz as you're receiving those, you remember from the word of God, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, how it says a man should examine himself, right? Before we partake of these elements, we should examine ourselves to make sure that there's nothing standing in our way of partaking of these elements in a worthy manner. Because if we don't and we partake of these things unworthily, then it's sinning against the blood and the body of the Lord. Amen. So, as you receive that right now, just get in that attitude of prayer. Ask God to search your heart. Let him highlight and pinpoint those areas that need to be dealt with and we can deal with them right now in Jesus name. Oh father, reveal my heart. Lord, may it lay bare before you. You say every nook and every cranny, every crevice of my heart where I think there are the best hiding places. God, shine a light in those area. Open up those dark closets and those dark corners of my heart and reveal what's there. Because Lord, the last thing I want to do, the last thing I want us to do is to let these elements touch our lips while our hearts have not been dealt with. Deal with us, Lord. Reveal those areas of our heart, of our life, of our mind, of our walk that are not pleasing to you, oh God. Reveal them to us so we can put them under the blood. We can put them under the blood today and make our hearts ready to receive worthily. We want these elements to touch holy lips, made holy by your hands. And that can only happen when we confess Jesus name. Let's go before the Lord before we even hold these elements today, before we even lift them to our lips and let's ask God to deal with those things. God, in Jesus name, I ask that Father, as you've revealed those areas of our heart, those areas that are sinful, weward God, we give those things to you right now. We lay them at your feet. We ask you to wash us clean. Let not those things stain our lives any longer. Let not those things weigh us down and keep us grounded when we're called to fly in your presence. Let not those things make our lives which you have made worthy unworthy again. We relieve ourselves of these things. We lay them at your feet. We ask that you toss them into the sea of forgetfulness as that your word says as wide as the east is from the west. That our hearts would be purified today of anything and all things that would stand in your way. Make us worthy. Say that with me. Lord, make me worthy. Come on. Make me worthy in Jesus name. Cleanse me. Purify me. Wash me. Make me worthy. We give these things to you right now. And it's in the mighty wonderful name of Jesus that we pray. Let's hold the bread together. Father, we thank you for this little morsel of bread, this small piece that represents a big thing, the broken body of Christ. Each of us has a piece, one of the whole. You told your disciples the night that you were betrayed after you broke that bread that you had at the table, you passed it around and you said, "Do this." You said, "This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." Your body was broken because of our sins. Your body was broken to open the door for our salvation. And your broken body, as I always say, became that bridge for us to cross the great divide, that chasm of sin created by the wickedness of our own lives. You became that bridge for us. Thank you. Thank you for the body of Christ. And you said, "Do this in remembrance of me." You didn't say how often, but you said, "Do this in remembrance of me." So God, we do this to remember what Jesus did. That he laid his life to gave his body to be broken, hung on a cross to make a way back to you. We thank you for the broken body of Jesus Christ. As we partake of that today, God, let it serve as a reminder and may we never forget what Jesus did for us. In Jesus name. Let's take it together. Hallelujah. Let's hold the cup where God says that likewise he took the cup said this is my blood. This is my blood shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Jesus, we thank you that the blood that poured from your hands and feet, your brow and your side, that blood doesn't stain. No, it washes. It washes away the sins that stained our hearts, our minds, and our lives. It washes away the most powerful detergent in the world. Washes away all stain of wickedness and sin and shame and makes us brand new and it covers us like robes of righteousness so that the father when he looks at us he doesn't see our sin he sees his son and if your body was that bridge then your blood paid our entrance fee we couldn't afford it we were spiritually bankrupt but Jesus you paid paid it all. You paid it all for us who did not deserve it. Broken, unworthy sinners, filled with shame and darkness. You did it because you love us. And we thank you for that today. We thank you for the blood of Christ that spilled down that old rugged cross and onto us. And as we partake of it today, may it serve as a reminder of the cost, the high price that you paid for your beloved. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood. Let's take it together. Hallelujah. Oh, come on. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus. We worship you God. Can we sing that chorus one last time? Majesty. Come on every voice. Singing God. Justice. We're singing. Your grace is found. Your grace has found me just at my ear. Empty handed but alive in your hands. We're singing majesty. for singing majesty. Forever I'm changed. Forever I am changed by your love in the presence of your majesty. Oh, we worship you, Lord. You're worthy, oh God. We glorify your name. We glorify your name. Oh, we thank you Jesus. You deserve all the praise. You deserve all the glory. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Your majesty God, we bow in your presence, Lord. Hallelujah Jesus. Hallelujah Jesus. Oh father, we thank you. Thank you for your body. Thank you for your blood. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to do that in remembrance of you. May we always do it. May we understand it, Lord, for what it is. And may we give you praise, glory, honor, and worship because of what you did. Yes. Because of what you still do. Yes. But because of who you you are even more. You are God. And you deserve all the praise. Father, have your way this morning as we move from the this holy moment to the next. From worship, from communion to the preaching of the word. That Lord, your Holy Spirit will not only remain with us, but you'll focus us. That you'll train our hearts and minds on you today. We put our eyes on you and allow you to guide us through your word. That as we talk about growth, we talk about responsibility, Father, that you would make our minds and hearts laser focused in unison. And that we would do exactly what your word calls us to do. Grow into the mature men and women of God who you've called us to be, what you've created us to be. We thank you today. We give you the praise and the glory. And it's in the mighty name of Jesus that we pray. And all of God's people said, "Amen." Amen. And amen. Come on, let's give him praise. Hallelujah, Jesus. Glory. Glory. Glory. Glory. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. We worship you, Jesus. Glory to your name. Hallelujah. Now, why don't you shake a couple hands, hug a couple necks, tell somebody how glad you are to see them in the house of the Lord today. Let's have a little bit of fellowship before we jump into the word. Amen. Thank you, worship team. God bless you. Awesome as usual. Anointed as usual. Will somebody say amen? I didn't say mumble amen. I said somebody say amen. All right, there you are. Praise the Lord. God is good. Yes. All right, we got a announcement video. Announcement video. Here we go. I love when they put it in portrait mode like that. It feels like I'm on my phone. Amen. So comfortable. Amen. Praise God. Thank you uh young adults for putting that together. Uh as you saw, yes, we will be having our craft fair coming up real soon in the month of October. So, we want you to get signed up as soon as possible. Again, this is one of those events that we like to have full coverage, meaning we want to have all of our ministries represented uh so that the people who are coming up just out of the community are are seeing who we are. We do that at our at our annual flea market. We do it uh at our uh harvest uh trunk or treat and our Easter celebration. So, we want to make sure that we are fully represented that day and we need as much help as we can get volunteer help uh to just help, you know, set up, tear down, clean up, you know, security, all that good stuff. So, if you'd like to do that, I know you can talk to Sister Elsa uh today uh or real soon uh to get involved with that. So, thank you once again, young adults, for putting that together. Thank you, Sister Elsa, for putting that together every year as well. Amen.

All right, let's get into the word. Praise God. We've been talking about growing. Growing in grace. Growing in the protection of God's grace in an atmosphere that's been created especially to grow us, but then also growing in the power of grace. Grace shown to us. So now we can operate in that grace as well. We can utilize that grace, giving that to others. And several weeks ago, we started talking about, you know, just kind of pinpointing a little area. We started talking about responsibility. Everybody say responsibility. Yeah, I know it's a heavy word, right? Some of you are like responsibility, you know, it's one of those words, right? We I I think some of us sometimes think back to those days where we didn't have the heaviness of responsibility and we feel, you know, you get this kind of carefree idea. You get real nostalgic about it when you didn't have the weight of the world on your shoulders when you do when you weren't the guy or the gal who was in charge. Once upon a time, I was a pastor at Mount Pleasant Christian Center. And now I have the heavy responsibility of being the pastor. The buck didn't stop on Pastor Matt's desk when he was a youth pastor or a an associate pastor or even a senior associate pastor. It stop it stopped at the senior pastor's desk. He was the head guy in charge. There's a heaviness with that responsibility. And sometimes responsibility can be a, for lack of a better term, a kind of scary thing. But in the context of growth, it is absolutely necessary. Growth takes place for a reason. We grow so that we can become who God designed us to be. You are not who God envisioned when he created you. None of us are there yet. We're works in progress. We're on the same road. We're becoming who God called us to be. He's growing us from where we started when we got saved to who we are now and then to who we will become. He is growing us into who he envisioned us to be when he created us. And a big part of that, a big part that's going to get us move along, move us along in that growth process is responsibility. Because responsibility grows us. It pushes us forward out of our comfort zones. I I know comfort zones, they they they sound like a very nice place. I mean, they have the word comfort in there. Comfort is good. When you're sleeping in your bed, you want to be comfortable. When you're sitting in your favorite chair at home, you want to be comfortable. When you go on a trip and you're driving in your car, you want to be comfortable, right? Comfort is not a bad thing in and of itself, but when it becomes the thing that we're after, that's where it could be detrimental to our growth. So, responsibility and God giving that responsibility to us thrusts us out of our comfort zones and forces us to grow to meet the demand. Word of God says, and the Lord tells us this, I'm going to put you in charge of small things. If you're faithful in that, I'm going to put you in charge of larger things. Amen. That that's just that's how it works. That's how God designed it to be. I'm going to give you small things to have charge over, and if you're faithful in those things, I'm going to put you in charge of larger things. That's how it works because that's how God designed it. So responsibility grows us. It forces us out of that zone of comfort and it forces us to grow. It causes us to work hard to maintain something that is beyond us, right? That is bigger than our selfish little little worlds. And so here's the bottom line. God wants you to grow. And because of that, he has put responsibility in your hands. What type of responsibility? First and foremost, responsibility for your own lives and your own actions. At the end of the day, okay, you are the only one who is responsible for how you live your life. Is that a true statement? Amen. Right? Amen is a simple word that we say when we believe something. Right? So, when I say the words, "Your life is yours. You're the one who determines where it goes and how it turns out." The church can say, "Amen." Because that's the truth. When you get before the Lord, the words, "The devil made me do it." will not apply. You cannot use it. Also, guys, you cannot say, "It was the woman you gave me, Lord." And all the women said, Wives, you shall not be blamed for what your honeys do because they're in charge of their own lives. And and likewise the other way around. Wives, you cannot say, "Did you see the husband you gave me? He made it impossible." We cannot stand before the Lord and put blame on anyone else except for who? Ourselves. Because the responsibility of our lives has been given to us. He's put that responsibility in our hands. We are free moral agents. We have a choice on how we live our lives. To go his way or to go our own way. And again, as we've talked about over the last several weeks, that responsibilities seem so heavy that sometimes when those types of responsibilities are put in our hands and they're so heavy, they're so difficult, sometimes they seem impossible, they they almost become negative in in our eyes. They're viewed as negative. They're not negative. Those responsibilities are good responsibilities. They're great responsibilities. In fact, they are holy responsibil holy responsibilities. They're for your good. But in our minds, we say hard, difficult, almost impossible, negative. But they're not. These are not negative responsibilities. They are great responsibilities. Now, we looked at a few of them in the last several weeks. We're going to recap them in in uh in just a moment, but I want you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians, chapter 4. This is the scripture set of scriptures that we've based this sermon series off of. Ephesians chapter 4 and we are looking at verses, I believe, 17. Let me get there. Yeah, in my Bible, the NIV, it says, "Instructions for Christian living" as the title above this verse. So, we're reading verses 17 all the way through uh the end of that chapter. And just follow along with me as I read. So, I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord. So, he means business. He says, "I I'm not just telling you this, but I insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge every kind of impurity and they are full of greed. Verse 20, that however is not the way of life you have learned. When you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness. Pause. Heavy responsibility. He is telling you that you must disrobe unrighteousness, apply a new way of thinking and then put on this new life in righteousness. He doesn't say God's going to come down and dress you like he like your parents did when you were just a baby. He's telling you get up, get dressed, take off your night clothes, put on your day clothes. Amen. It's time to cowboy up, cowgirl up, put on those big pants and start to live this new life. Verse 25, therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Verse 29, do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And this is what we're dealing with today. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Everybody say, grieve the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as Christ God or in Christ God forgave you. Everybody say, "Amen." That's the word of the Lord. That chunk of scripture is everything that we've been talking about and will continue to talk about to the end of this series. It's a heavy responsibility what we've been given. First week we looked at our first responsibility that could be looked at as heavy and therefore you know negative and that was you have the responsibility to change the way you walk. You have to change the way you walk. Not physically but spiritually. There needs to be that difference in your life. People have to see the change in your life. And the only person who has the responsibility of that, who can do that is you. God can create the changes in you, make the changes, but you have to let them shine. Amen. People have to see a tangible change. It needs to be seen, heard, and felt. And it needs to be quantifiable. You can't just say, "Oh, I decided to turn a new leaf." Quantifiable means you could trace it back to something. It comes from something. Your change didn't just happen because you chose I'm going to do things different now. No. Jesus is the reason why you're different. So, it needs to be evident. It needs to be quantifiable. So, we can't live like we used to. We have a new life because we are new creatures in Christ. Your speech, your actions, your thoughts, they need to change. And we can't walk like the world walked in the futility of their own minds. Meaning they're locked unswervingly and unwaveringly in their own beliefs. They walk with darkened hearts, with blind eyes, and drowning in sin. That's what Ephesians 4 tells us that the world looks like when they walk. You can tell the world by how they walk. And you can tell the true Christian, the follower of Christ, by the way that he or she walks. Amen. Your walk is that fruit that grows in your life. It will be evident in the way that you walk. The second week we looked at another responsibility that's difficult especially for some of us because we deal with this so so much and that is the responsibility of controlling your anger. Everybody say amen if you've ever had a hard time with that. Come on somebody. Hallelujah. Right. Anger is a is a tough one. And sometimes we get it misconstrued like anger is the sin. Anger is not the sin. It's what you do because of your anger that is considered sin. Amen. Aren't you glad? It's okay to get angry. It's what you do with that anger that can be sin or that can show righteousness. And here and contrary to popular belief, as we talked about it in the second week, you do have the power to control your anger. And that power comes from the Holy Spirit of God. If you are walking with the spirit, then the fruit of the Holy Spirit will be growing in your life and it will be evident in your life. And the biggest and one of the biggest and most important fruits is the one that they put right at the end in that scripture, self-control. You have the power to control your mouth, right? You have the the power to control your anger. You have the power to suppress that anger or to express it in a constructive way instead of a destructive way. The only thing that we're supposed to be destroying in our lives is the old man. Amen. We're supposed to be constructing with God a new life. He gives us the power to do what he calls to do and we do it. And we never have to worry about where the power comes from. Because as long as we're walking with him, he is the endless power source. Somebody say, "Amen." So, you have the power to control that anger. Even if you're a person who deals with it on the daily. Hi, that's me. I'm part of that club. I deal with anger so crazy. You You've heard me talk about it when I before Christ, I had a short fuse. And now in Christ, I have a longer fuse. Yeah. Looks like I didn't even move my fingers, right? Exactly. But but it's grown. It's grown. And it's growing every single day. And I have to actively police that anger so I don't let it get the better of me because I have the power to control it. And it comes through my submission to the Holy Spirit. Amen. That's how we should deal with our anger. We need to submit to the Lord. We need to humbly. Now, it needs to be dealt with quickly and constructively, but we need to do it. You can't do any of those things unless you humble yourself before the Lord and humble yourself before the thing that made you angry. Now, maybe you had a right to be angry. That's okay. You have a right to be angry, but you don't have a right to do something sinful because of that anger. So, you have to humbly submit yourself to God and bow yourself before him so that he can give you the strength and the power that you need to do right by that anger. And that is a difficult task. And that's why sometimes we see it as a negative instead of a positive. Okay? So, we got to be careful with it. But that's how you deal with it quickly, constructively, humbly. Everybody say humbly. And then last week we talked about canceling out corrupt communication. We thought, you know, controlling our anger was hard. How many of you ever been known to let your mouth get away with you? Your words. Come on. Anybody get in trouble for their words? Anybody ever told you you got a big mouth, man? Anybody ever sang that song, you talk too much, homeboy, you never shut up. Anybody hear? You remember that? We're dating ourselves now. We're telling everybody how old we are. All right, but yeah, that I mean we I think we've all at some time fallen into that category and some of us more than others. I come from a big family. We talk a lot. You heard me talk about that several times before. You had to be a little loud in order to be heard in our family. You didn't have to stay loud, but we chose to. You know, we're excitable and boisterous and, you know, and loud for lack of a a better descriptor. But just because you're loud doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. It's what you produce with your voice that can be considered the sinful thing. And so the Lord tells us that we need in this this body of text in Ephesians 4, he says that it's our responsibility to cancel out corrupt communication. Why? Because people will judge your life. It will judge your life whether you like it or not. Judgment doesn't disappear, right? Right? When you get saved, they don't just believe you and trust you. All right, he has changed. No, they're going to be watching you and listening to every word that you say, and you are going to be judged by your words. People are going to judge you. So, be careful what you say. And again, I said this last week, chances are you will never remember what you said, but somebody will. Somebody will remember and they'll be hanging on that that loose word that you let slip through your lips and they'll go, "Oh, Mr. Christian, huh? Oh, Mrs. Holy Pants, huh? Wow. Don't you hate that? It makes you even more mad. You're like, "Oh, shut up." Right? I didn't say I was perfect. You know, I'm a work in progress. Right? And that's okay. You're going to mess up. You're going to say something with your mouth that's going to be wrong. It's going to get you in trouble. You're going to become very good at sticking your foot in your mouth if you aren't already. But you know what's the change is that you recognize it. You take here it comes responsibility for it and you fix it. You admit it. You humble yourself and you admit it and you make it right. Right? Those are the times where that respect in the eyes of those who heard you kind of say some things that you shouldn't. The respect doesn't go down when you mess up, when you handle it that way. It goes up because you owned it before they could even get it. Whoa, Mr. Christian, you you you say that thing and you catch it. Man, I'm I'm so sorry. That did not need to come out of my mouth. I want to apologize to you right now. That's not who I am. I let I let my anger get the better of me and I let my lips just kind of go free. That That's not me and that's not that's not Christlike. I apologize. I tell you what, that person will be all what? Like, first of all, I I wanted to be able to say, "Mr. Christian, right?" No. Maybe they'll be like, "Wow, that's never happened before." Hey, no, it's all good, man. I know you're a human being. No, man. Yeah, I am, but but I'm but I'm better than that. I I apologize. No, it it's all good. Thank Thank you. I appreciate that. They're going to walk away going, "Wow." See, that's a true Christian who owns up to their mistakes and their issues and does the work to fix the problem. The problem is we don't like to humble ourselves. Sometimes I feel that that American Christians are allergic to humility. And I say that being an American Christian. We are some that's why I force myself. I try to force myself as best as possible to get it done because it's good for

me. Take your medicine, right? It's good for you. It's going to help you. It's going to fix you. We try to do it as best as we can.

James, we read a little uh scripture, a little portion of of James chapter 3:es 1-12. And it told us how powerful the tongue is, right? Talks about a great ship and what steers it is the rudder. That's the tongue. Talks about a forest fire. What starts it is a spark. That's the tongue. And then it had some harsh words for us in James about the tongue. It said it's a a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. That's crazy. Your tongue, if you let it, can be used for corrupt things, for corrupt communication. And that corrupt communication is talking in a way that is unbecoming of a follower of Christ. Whether it's in the words we choose to use, the topics we choose to converse upon, or the messages we choose to express. And sometimes even the way we talk remember sometimes it's not what you said it's how you said it. I could tell somebody god bless you and other person god bless you by who's which one did you feel blessed by right? So sometimes it's the way we do it. So we need to stay away from that. How can we do that? We gave you a first step. Came from the book of Psalms chapter 19 verse 14: "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." What does that mean? Pray for your mouth every day that it will get better. You brush your teeth every day so you don't scare anybody away with your bad breath, right? Well, guess what? We can get spiritual gingivitis. You know that, right? You can get spiritual gingivitis. So, you need to brush your teeth every day. Not just physically, but with the word of God. Fight those cavity creeps in Jesus' name. Amen. And cancel out that corrupt speech.

All right, that brings us to our last point. Again, this is the longest sermon in like human history. This is one sermon over four weeks. Look at your neighbor and say, "That's crazy."

All right. Lastly, we saw that the last half, the last portion of Ephesians chapter 4, it said, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. This is big. This is big. And it's so easy to do. Now, not to be confused with blaspheming the Holy Spirit, it can be very closely connected. If we are living our life in such a way we're grieving the Holy Spirit in a continuous way, it will lead to blaspheming the Holy Spirit. So, we got to be careful, especially as Christians, as Christ followers, those who are called Christlike, we need to be careful. So, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Grieving the Holy Spirit happens when we as Christ followers ignore his presence, his voice, or his leading. Grieving the Holy Spirit happens when the Christ followers ignore God's presence, his voice, or his leading. If you ignore God's presence, you can feel him. He's calling you to meet with him. And instead of walking into his presence, you step away because you've got other things to do. You grieve the Holy Spirit. If he spoke to you, his voice rang out in your ears in the spirit. Or maybe you're one of those fortunate ones who heard the Holy Spirit audibly and you ignore him and instead of coming to him, you move away. You grieve the Holy Spirit. And he said, and it said the leading. If you ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit, there are times in your life when you knew the Holy Spirit was leading you to do something. Come on, somebody. You felt that in your heart, in your gut. You felt it, even even physically. It wasn't just a spiritual thing. You felt it in your body. He was leading you to do something, to share the love of God with somebody, to give to one who was less fortunate. And if you step away from that instead of into it, you've just grieved the Holy Spirit. So, based on that criteria, how many of you have grieved the Holy Spirit ever in your life? Yeah, we need to be all of us need to be raised. Exactly. We ain't got enough appendages to raise to to be counted because I think we do that. We do it even on the daily. And sometimes we don't know it. How would we not know it, Pastor Matt? Because the more time you spend with God, the more comfortable, the more the more you hear his voice. So if you're not spending time in God's presence on the daily, you are not recognizing the leading, the voice, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen. If I only spend some time with my wife, chances are when she calls me on the phone, I'm not going to recognize her voice. If my wife calls me from a crazy number and I happen to pick it up, hello, and I hear her voice, even though that crazy number doesn't match what I have on my phone, I will know my wife's voice. If my mom calls me, I'll know her voice. One of my children, I will know their voice because I have a relationship with them. I have a close, intimate, personal relationship with them. I spend time with them. I converse with them on the daily. If we do not have that with the Holy Spirit, we will miss his presence, his voice, and his leading. And therefore, we will be guilty of grieving the Holy Spirit. That's scary. As Christians, I think, here it comes. As American Christians, folks, we're so blessed that we've allowed that blessing and that favor to cause us to be lazy and our lives are misguided. You can even see it in in our worship. Not not our worship, but our worship in Christendom. Some of you have heard me start to talk about this subject a little bit, and I think it's a serious subject because I think we're we're getting worship wrong. Worship is not supposed to make you feel good. That's a byproduct of true worship. Worship is to bless the heart of God. If I'm singing a song because it gives me the warm fuzzies, I'm not worshiping God. I'm worshiping myself. See, we have stopped listening to the voice and the leading of the Holy Spirit and we have stop started following what we feel is right and good. And we start to say things like, "Well, God wouldn't want me to do that." Do you know that for sure? I mean, God asked his people to do some crazy things. Yeah, but that was in the Bible. Well, you think it ended? You think God changed? The Bible says that he's the same today, yesterday, and forever. He is unchanging, unwavering. The way he did things then is the way he does things now. Amen. Everything filtered through the cross of Christ, through Christ himself. But God has not changed. We have changed. And we have desensitized ourself to the Holy Spirit. And we have sensitized oursel to our own leading, our own will, and our own way. We do the things that make us feel good. And it can be seen right there in our worship because most of the time we're worshiping ourselves more. We're worshiping that good feeling than we are worshiping God. If you feel great and connected to the Lord when you are truly worshiping him, that is a natural and beautiful byproduct of true worship. But if feeling good is your focus, that's not worship. I know, man. That's some heavy stuff. You're I didn't sign up for this. Too bad. If I don't tell you, then I'm I'm worth nothing to you. Our worship is misguided. We need to get it back in line with scripture. Amen. Could you imagine if somebody came to your birthday party and instead of singing happy birthday to you, they sang happy birthday to themselves, happy birthday to me. You'd be like, "It's not your birthday." Every day is my birthday. That's that's basically what we're doing. That's basically what we're doing. We're not focusing on God. We're focusing on our feelings and what moves us. Folks, that's not the aim and the goal of worship. We don't deserve worship. We haven't earned it. God has. God deserves worship. Everything he does screams that we should worship. And the word of God tells us that the rocks will cry out if we do not worship him. But I am. I'm singing the songs. That's not worship. That's a song. The rocks will cry out and give him praise and adoration. They will worship him when we fail to do the job. And I've said this before and I'll say it again. I do not want a rock, something that wasn't designed to give God glory like I was. I don't want a rock out praising me. So, I need to get my focus. I want to stop grieving the spirit and start blessing the spirit. Start lifting the spirit. Start hearing the spirit, listening to the spirit, obeying the spirit of God. That's what we need to do. Anytime we engage in anything that's not becoming of who we are and who we're called to be as followers of Christ, this causes grief to the Holy Spirit that lives within us. When we develop a pattern or a lifestyle of grieving the Holy Spirit, that's the natural byproduct. Amen. That's the natural byproduct. If we're not listening to the Holy Spirit, we're grieving the Holy Spirit, then what follows? The actions that follow become anything but holy, anything but good. So again, anytime that we engage in anything that's not becoming of who we are and who we're called to be as followers of Christ, this causes grief to the Holy Spirit. It becomes a pattern, a way that we live. So what do we do? How do we keep ourselves from causing the Holy Spirit grief? First thing we'll look at today is the easiest. Live by the spirit. Keep in step with the spirit. Jesus said, "Follow me." What does he expect you to do if he tells you to follow him? To do as he does. To go where he goes. Do what he does. Act like he acts. Perform like he performs. Right? Be covered in the dust of your rabbi. Rabbi Jesus is walking ahead. You walk his way. Instead, we're going like this. That's what we're doing. We're going any any other way but the way that Jesus is going. Follow me, not go your own way and maybe I'll show up over there. And guess what? God's not always going to go to a place. He's not always going to lead you to a place that's going to be palm trees, white sands, and warm ocean water. Sometimes he's going to lead you through the valley of the shadow of death. And he says, "Fear no evil." Why? For I am with you. He can turn that valley of the shadow of death into a paradise because of his presence. It will be as if you are in paradise because there's no paradise like the presence of the Lord. His presence is paradise. It is joy. It is healing. It is providence. It is everything that we can ever need, want, or imagine his presence, no matter where it takes us. So, we follow him. We don't lead him. So, we've got to live by the spirit. You've heard me talk about this a lot, uh, especially in this series. I've mentioned it several times. Keep in step with the spirit. Keep in step with the spirit. This means to follow him and to follow him closely. So closely that all you see is him and everything else fades in the peripheral. Watch the lamb. Watch the lamb. Amen. Follow the lamb of God. Follow him so closely that everything else just begins to fade in the peripheral. It's all black out here and all you see is the light of Christ. Nothing out here is distracting. How many of you get distracted easily? Come on. You got a little bit of that adult ADD. Amen. You sit down, you start to study or you start to do something and all of a sudden, hey, what's that? You know, something pops up on the TV or your phone chirps and so now you got to check your emails and you know, one of your family members says something to you. Next thing you know, you're going on a tangent, right? We get easily distracted. We cannot be that way when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Our attention must be trained on him. In order for us to keep in step with the spirit, we've got to continue to keep our eyes on him until everything else fades in the peripheral. Like a horse with a set of blinders on. You ever seen those horses with those things on the side of their face? That's because they get distracted too easy. Well, but Pastor Matt, what about danger? What about something coming from the side? You know what the horses do when they have blinders on? They can't control what happens out here. All they see is in front of them. So they trust in the master, the one who's leading them to steer them away from the danger that comes from the sides. Are you are you hearing me today? We've got to willingly apply the blinders on our on our own selves and put trust in the master that he will steer us from any danger that comes in from the side. He didn't tell me to look from side to side. He didn't tell me to to allow my vision to be weward and scanning. He told us to look straight ahead, the straight and narrow path. He'll worry about the stuff that's in the peripheral just as long as you are obeying him and moving forward. Does that make sense? Come on, somebody say amen if you get it. Praise God. Every day we got to willingly put those blinders on. That's faith. I'm putting my trust and my faith in you, God. That I'm not going to get distracted by what's in the periphery. I'm going to trust you to handle all the stuff I can't see. He asked me to march forward by faith. I'm going to obey and I'm going to trust that he will handle all the stuff that I cannot see and I cannot control. Because even if you did see it, what are you going to do about it? You're a horse. You can't fight a lion. I saw a horse get taken down by two pitbulls. Could Yeah, exactly. Could you Oh, but but I can see it and I can dodge it. Really? Really? How about you let God deal with that stuff and you just do what he tells you to do? But but but ah, there's your problem. You're thinking too much about what could be, what might be the peripheral. He didn't tell you to focus on the peripheral. He told you to focus ahead. Amen. We've got to control that. We have the responsibility. That's why I said you have to put the blinders on. It's an act of faith, an act of trust. Let God do that. So again, he's asked us to march forward. By faith, we're going to obey and trust that he'll handle all the stuff you can't see. Galatians 5:16 says this: "So I say, live by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." Now, the rest of the verses underneath there, that's where it talks about the nature of sin, right? All of the ugly deeds that we do because of sin. And then and then underneath that, it talks about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all the way through till self-control. And it says of which there is no law against those things, against the the nature of the flesh. The whole law is against it. The wages of sin is what? Death. But the gift of God is eternal life. Keeping in step with the spirit leads to eternal life. Walking in the sin nature in the flesh leads to death. Right? That's what the word of God tells us. So I say live by the spirit. Some translations say keep in step with the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Instead you'll be pleasing to God. Amen.

All right. Second thing that you do. So first thing, live by the spirit. Second, fight the carnal, the carnal urges that rise up within you. Fight the flesh. Live by the spirit. Fight the flesh. You You fight the flesh by keeping your eyes on the spirit. If you're keeping your eyes on Jesus, chances are the flesh won't be that big of a deal because you're not thinking about that. You're following the Lord. I'm too busy keeping my eyes on the prize. I'm too busy keeping my eyes on Jesus. Right? But when the enemy comes, when the tempter comes and he starts to tickle that flesh, fight the urge. Everybody say, "Fight the flesh." Resist temptation as much as you can with everything that is within you. Flesh is flesh. It's going to desire the things that are contrary to what God wants. But look at James 4:7. And and here's the thing before we read that scripture, just a reminder, we all deal with flesh. There is nobody in here that is so holy that you don't deal with temptation. Come on, somebody. I don't care how long you've been serving God, right? How many notches you got on your spiritual belt. I don't care who your pastor was. I don't care what programs you belong to. Nobody is above temptation. Want to know how I know that? Because Jesus, the perfect one, was tempted in every way, shape, and form known to man. Scripture tells us that. And he was the only one who can withstand it. Amen. Guess what? You got Jesus in your life. You're a follower of Christ. He's given you all his power, including the power of his Holy Spirit. And so, just as Jesus can walk in the face of temptation and not be moved by it, so can you when you call on his name. Amen. So can you when you call on his name. Let's look at that scripture in James 4:7 right there on the screen. It says, "Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." There's several parts in there. Let's look at it again. Submit yourselves then to God. That's the first part. Every good work, every powerful work that you do will always be preceded with humility. Humbleness will always have to come before anything of power because you have to let go of yourself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through you. If you're struggling against a particular sin, God, I submit myself to you so that you can work your power through me so I can break the power of that sin off my life. Come on, somebody. Are you here this morning? Yes. If you're dealing with something like that, a particularly stronghold of a particular sin on your life, submit yourself to God. God, I am powerless before this sin in my flesh, but by your power, I know I can overcome it. Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. So God, I submit myself then to you. He says when the the enemy comes and he tempts, submit yourself then to God and then you'll have the power to do what it says next. Resist the devil. Remember the devil, he don't get a capital D. He gets a little D because he's powerless next to God. Next to the Holy Spirit of God, he is powerless. You you submit yourself to God. God fills you with the power that you need and then you can resist the devil. And what does the last part say? He will flee from you. Anybody ever got verbally abused by a Chihuahua? Anybody? They do that for a reason. They're small, so their size does not intimidate anybody. It's the ferocity of their barking that usually tricks somebody into going, "I don't want my ankles bitten." So, you know, all you have to do to achieve is this. That's all you got to do. Not step on them. Calm down. Let me let me rephrase that. All the Chihuahua owners were like, "Hey, not my little Chico." We didn't have a Chico. We had Chewy. We had Chewy and we had 3PO. So anyways, I I'm a Chihuahua owner. I know this. All you got to do is stomp the ground, make a loud noise, and I trust you, they will run away from you ying with their tail between their legs. The devil, even though we call him a lion, he's a toothless lion. He's been declawed and defanged. He has no power. All he has is a roar. And all you have to do is stand up to him in the name of the Lord. And he has no power over you. Amen. Stomp your foot at him. Say, "Boy, don't play with me. I ain't got time for this." Right? He can't do anything against you because you have all the power in the universe within you. Amen. The same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead lives in me. And the enemy cannot withstand that power. So submit yourself then to God. Humble yourself before him. Right? Resist the devil. Now, with the power that you've won through the presence of God, you can resist him. And it says he will flee from you. You don't have to run from the enemy. All you have to do is merely resist his temptations and he will run from you. I'm not getting this one. I'm not getting this one with this way. And just just know this. The enemy's crafty. If he can't get you one way, he's going to try to get you another. Come on, somebody. If he can't get you with the old sin that you used to practice when you were the old man or the old woman in the world, if he can't get you there, you know what he does sometimes? He starts to mess with you, whisper in your ear, and next thing you know, you become prideful in the fact that you no longer succumb to the enemy in that area. What was the key word I just said? Prideful. You think he ain't crafty? You think he don't know what he's doing? You think he ain't been around forever practicing these ways and being real good at it? If he can't get you with the old sin, he might get you with some twisted sense of pride that you're not that person anymore. "I'm not that person anymore. I'm a lot stronger now than I ever was." And the enemy is all, "Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. You're tough. Check you out. Oh, I couldn't get you there." And all the while your pride is building until it becomes too big and you become too big for your own britches. Come on, somebody holler at me if you know if you know what I'm talking about. Come on. We've seen that happen. He is crafty and he will try. You resist him at every turn. He starts whispering your ear like that. Say, "Oh, no, no, no. Don't don't get it twisted, devil. That wasn't me. That was not me. That was the Lord. I was powerless until God gave me the strength to stand up to you." And he's like, "Man, I almost had you though." No, you didn't. Right? We know. So, we have to stay in that mode of resisting the enemy. And the word says that he'll flee from us. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says, "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you might be able to endure it." Did you hear that? God will always give you a way out of the temptation so you can never say that you had no choice. Nobody trips into sin. They walk into it head on on purpose because we decide to. Trust me, I know. Said, "God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your own ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you might be able to endure it. He will provide you with the power to stand up against the enemy and he'll provide you with a way of escape to get away from that temptation." Problem is, he can't force us to go that way. You because it's your responsibility. You have to walk that way yourself. Amen. How many you guys wish sometimes God would just push us down that road? Just come on. Right. But then it wouldn't be your choice and the next thing you'd be complaining about is that God's making all your decisions for you. Come on, somebody. That's why you're a free moral agent because it always has to be your choice. He provides the way you escape through it. You don't fight alone. That's the point. God is with you providing everything you need to be victorious against all temptation from the enemy. Period. You are not without help. God is on your side.

Getting real close to the end. Worship team, would you help me close? What else? How else do we come against this? Well, you overcome evil with good. Scripture says that good way to do that is not just stay away from evil, but also as 1 Thessalonians 5:22 says, "Stay away from even the appearance of evil." Amen. Not one. It says, "Stay away from even the appearance of evil." That's what the scripture tells us in First Thessalonians. Not just stay away from evil, but even the appearance what could be considered evil. Amen. That's how we're supposed to live. We can't allow ourselves to get duped into something that we go, "Well, that's not sinful. God knows my heart." Yeah, God knows your heart, but does brother so and so or sister such and such when they're walking by and seeing you, maybe you, you know, you wanted to make a decision to do something that wouldn't be, you know, wouldn't be one of the normal things to do and somebody walks by and sees you doing it. Amen. We got to be careful. We got to stay away from even the appearance of evil. I was a youth pastor for a number of years and most of our kids went to one of our schools around here in the area and I mean it was like June, late May. If I saw you walking down the street, young ladies and you saw me and I waved at you and you were sweating and dying and I didn't pick you up, you're welcome. Huh? Obviously, you weren't dying. Let's not get exaggerated. Okay. But, Pastor Matt was hot. You saw me. You drove by. The nice thing to do would be to pick me up. Yeah, it would. And then, sister so and so or brother such and such happens to pass by at the same time and sees a young lady getting in the youth pastor's car that's not his wife or his daughters or his mama or his sisters. And they go, "Oh, that's how he rolls." Do you know how much fun the devil can have with that thought? Do you know how much fun the devil can have with just that? Yes, the girl was in my car. I'm her youth pastor. I'm like an uncle to her. I'm giving her a ride. Her parents don't have a problem. I can justify it every which way I can. But all it takes is one thought and one person's mind and the appearance of evil just like that. And and I'm already guilty in the court of public opinion. At least in that person's mind and their sphere of influence. Come on, somebody. Right. That that's heavy. If you ever if you were here when Pastor Wood was here, you never seen him give you give you a full like two armed squeeze hug. He always side hugged you. Especially if you were a gal. He never ever put two arms around any lady that wasn't Sister Judy. And it didn't mean he didn't love you. It meant that he wanted to stay pure and holy in God's eyes and in the eyes of his congregation. He never picked up little kids in a way. My pastor went so far as if a little kid went into the bathroom, he got out as quickly as possible. If that that child was in that bathroom with him by himself, he would leave. He goes, "I don't want to give anybody any idea." They see pastor coming out with this little kid, you know, and they love pastor. They would try to hold this hand because you man, grown man coming out holding hands with this little boy that's not theirs. He goes, "The enemy, that's a playground for the enemy." And he can mess that up into somebody's mind and next thing you know, I'm a pedophile. And I'm not. You see what I'm saying? Even the appearance of evil. Pastor Matt, man, that makes things so hard. What? You thought it was going to be easy. The enemy is hard after you. He wants to destroy your life. The Bible tells he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He could do that with a thought in somebody else's own mind. He is working hard behind the scenes to destroy you. Not because you're anything. It's because God loves you and he wants to hurt the heart of God. Come on, somebody. We've got to be careful with the things that we do. You say, "Yeah, Pastor Madam, you're making me act like I can't do anything anymore." No, just be watchful. Be mindful and do your best to stay away from even the appearance of evil. Amen.

Next, do what Ephesians 4:1 says. Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Everything you do, may it be for the calling that God has placed on your life. May it be for what he's called you to do. Number one, you're a son and daughter of the most high God. Live like it. Number two is your specific calling. Who he's called you to be. Children's leader, worship leader, pastor, missionary, whatever you're called to be. Hospitality ministry, greeters, let it all be for that calling. If it gets in the way of that calling, if it can tarnish that calling, don't do it. Stay away from it. Because the most important thing in your life besides your relationship, your intimate time with God is what he's designed you to do, who he's called you to be. 1 Timothy 4:12-15 tells us how we can do that. Now, generally, this is a a a scripture that youth pastors love to speak to their youth, right? But we're all young at heart in here. Amen. Wow. All right. Look at what Paul says tells Timothy before this. He says, "Let nobody, don't give anybody a reason to look down on you because of your young." Now, we're all the disciples of someone. We're all disciples of Christ, and we all have a mentor above us. So, pretend your mentor is telling you right now, do not let anybody look down on you because of your because you're of your youth, because you're young. That could mean young in the body, right? You're young. Or it could mean young in the heart where you haven't been following Christ very long or or or you know compared to all these other people you you you're not as well established. So don't give anyone a reason to look down on you because of that. He says on the contrary he says set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. Five things he says to be an example in. If you're focused on being an example to everybody around you in those five areas, you won't have time for anything else, even the appearance of evil. Amen. What areas does he say? Speech. By the way, we covered that. In conduct, by the way, by how you walk, you're controlling your walk. We covered that in love. The fruit of the spirit. The first one is love. Followed by joy, peace, patience, and all the way through. But love crowns them all because love is the ultimate motivator. So he says in your speech, in your conduct, in your love, then in your faith, let your faith be so substantial that people go, "Yeah, that guy's not walking in sin. He's totally walking in the spirit of God." Look at his faith. Even if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, if it's well-placed, the Bible says you can speak to that mountain, be thou removed, and it will move. Come on, somebody. It's not the me the measure of your faith that you've been given. It's where you invest it, where you place it. And if that mustard seed faith is invested in Jesus, then guess what? There's nothing that's impossible for you. And then he says, impurity. That's your walk again. That's your actions. You're doing your best to stay pure as possible before the Lord. It goes on, "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift which was given to you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you." You say, "Well, Pastor Matt, that's not about me. That's more about you." Why do you say that? Well, because it talks about public reading of scriptures and preaching and teaching. Folks, if you're in this room, you are called to be a minister of the gospel and you will preach and you will teach and you will read the scriptures in front of people. And if you say to yourself, "I didn't sign up for that." Yeah, you did. You just didn't read the clause. Wait, wait, wait. What? Yes, you were saved. You were given new life. What do you think he gave you that life for? So that you can be a living, breathing, walking, talking example of what Jesus can do in a life that's willing. Go preach the gospel, make disciples, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach all that I have taught you. And lo, I will be with you always, even till the end of time itself. You've just been kned. You are a minister of the gospel. You may not be a full-timer like me behind the pulpit Sunday to Sunday. But your pulpit is your workplace, your cubicle, your desk at school, wherever you go. And you are to be that living, breathing, walking, talking example of God's grace, his mercy, his love, and his power to use even me. Amen. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you. Moving on. Be diligent. Everybody say, "Be diligent." Be diligent in these matters. Give yourself holy to them so that everyone may see your progress. And then he says, "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." That's powerful. That's powerful. Be diligent. Give yourself holy. Why? So that everybody can see that God can work even through me. And if he can use him, if he can use her, then man, there's no telling what God can do in my life. And lastly this morning with this, we'll close. Do your best. Do your best to be your best. That's your last responsibility that I'm going to cover. Do your best to be your best. That is a responsibility worth its weight. I got some scriptures on the screen I want you to look at. If you want to, you can write them down. Memorize them. Hold on to them. How do I do that, Pastor Matt? How do I do my best to be my best? Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work hardily as for the Lord." You know what hardily means, right? With all your power, with all your might, work hard as for the Lord, no matter what you do, because everything that you do is going to be a testimony. 2 Timothy 2:15, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved." Do your best in the word, in prayer, in his presence, in worship, in service, in serving, in everything. Give your best. Remember that spirit of excellence. That's part of our core. Amen. Community, outreach, relationships, all those things done in excellence. Do your best. Ecclesiastes 9:10, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might." All of your might. Not half of it. Not a quarter of it. Not 99.999% of it. 100%. All of your might. Do it with everything that is within you. Glorify God with all that you do and with all that you are. And lastly, 1 Corinthians 10:31, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." Wait, I can I I can glorify God by how I eat and how I drink? Yeah, you can. That's a whole other series. You can glorify God so much by what you don't put in your body than than even what you do. But he says not just there. Don't focus on the eating and the drinking. That's only a portion. But in everything, whatever you do, he says whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Because that's why we exist to give glory to the father. Amen. Put those blinders on, folks. Every day. Every day. Put those blinders on. And move in the direction that God told you to go. He'll worry about the peripheral if you focus on what's in front of you. Following Jesus. Amen. God. With a life like that, there's no telling what God can do. Just get ready. Take a seat. Buckle up. Hang on. Because God is going to use you in a mighty, mighty way. Amen. Let's stand to our feet this morning. I'm going to ask our prayer partners to come quickly if you can. Deacons, elders, your spouses, please come just in case anybody has need has a need and wants to pray with somebody. But I want you to receive this message this morning. And I'm praying that God is speaking to you and he's wanting you to act on what he has spoken today. Because this is God's word, not mine. So if you are, you're saved, your heart belongs to Jesus, but you can't honestly say, "I'm living by the spirit. I'm watching my steps and making sure that they're falling in line with God." Or maybe you're here and you need help kind of fighting carnality. You find yourself kind of tripping into sin every once in a while, right? Remember, we're not tripping. We're walking into it. But you can get your head right and your heart right. Maybe that's you. You're saying, "I'm having a hard time fighting those carnal urges." Then this is this is where you need to be this morning at this altar. And we're going to pray in a moment and I want to release you to come to this altar. Maybe you're here today and you're saying, "Pastor Matt, I felt that tug on my heart to serve God." And this follows in in in exactly what we were talking about, overcoming evil with good. The more good you do for God through his power, the more you're conquering the sin and the shame that was present in your life before. The more good you're taking in from God and producing from your life, the more bad you're pushing out of you, making more room for good. Amen. We can do that. We can overcome evil with good. Father, in Jesus name, you've spoken this message to your people and now the responsibility is theirs. Maybe they've heard something today and that's where their heart is. That's where that's where they're at. And God, you're speaking right to them. Maybe they felt that today. Well, then the best move for them to make is to res to respond, to reply. You're calling them, God. You're calling out to them. You're calling them out in Jesus' name with the best of intentions so that they can come down to this altar. They can let go of all those things that are dragging them down and they can be set free in your presence. If that's you today for any one of those things that we talked about today, if that's you and you want to get alone with God or you want somebody to pray with you, step out of your seat right now. Don't delay. Don't hesitate. Come down to this altar. Let God deal with your heart. Let God deal with you. Let him urge you forward. Hallelujah. Maybe today that analogy of the horse and the blinders spoke to you. It's not God putting those blinders on you. It's you. You have to willingly shut off the peripheral so you can focus on God. Maybe that's what you want today. Come down to this altar, get alone with God, link up with one of our prayer partners, pray through. Let God get you there so that you can be that spiritual powerhouse he's created you to be. Come on right now. Don't delay in Jesus name. Step out in faith. Step out of that seat. Step up to this altar and step into the presence of God and let him do what only he can do today. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now, if you have to leave, we're going to we want to pray you out and then the worship team is going to lead as people pray. But we want to release you if you have to go. Father, in Jesus' name, we thank you for this day, for this word, for this moment. God, we thank you for this people. And as they've received it, now the responsibility is in their hands as they leave this place today. God, may they go with the thought, the idea, and the decision to apply this to their life that they can overcome all of these things so they can they can walk the path that you've placed before them. Give them the strength this week as they leave here starting now. Don't let it fade. Don't let it become under attack. Even if it is God, may they stand strong in your presence because they've been given the Holy Spirit. And may they walk this walk for you. And not just it will be good for them, but God, they'll win souls because of it. Their life and the choice that they make to live this life according to your word will win souls for your kingdom. God, bless them today. Give them rest for this day. Prepare them for the week to come. And again, may they make an impact in the lives of those that you bring before them. Father, we thank you. We give you the praise. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. And a amen. You're released if you have to go. Worship team, would you lead us this morning? Worthy of every song we could ever sing. Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. Worthy of every breath we can ever breathe. We live for you. Jesus, the name above every other name. Jesus, the only one who could ever say, worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you, holy. There is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes in wonder. Show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. And I will build my life upon your love. It is a foundation and I will put my trust in you all and I will not be shen and I will build my life upon your. It is a firation and I will put my trust in you and I will not be shen. I will build my life upon your love. It is a perfect foundation. I will put my trust in you alone. I will not be shen and holy. There is no one like you. There is none besides you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me. Holy, there is no one like you. There is none beside you. Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are and me with your heart in your love around me. Heat. Heat.