The scripture we started off with, and the story we started off with was this kind of vision, airy statement of the church being this light in a community. And people going out from that filled with the light of God to be light in the community wherever they are, this concept of if we could spiritually see into our city, the spiritual lights in our city. What we're talking about so much on Sunday morning is what would you look like? The last couple weeks we'll talk more about what the church should look like and what kind of things we have to do for the church to be a bright shining stadium light in a community.
But internally we're talking here about what we need to do for when people come into our fellowship for them to sense the light of the gospel and to be attracted to the things of the gospel. We don't want our lives to get in the way of the gospel. We want our lives to invite people into the gospel. Amen?
We want people to come in and feel driven away from the gospel. We want them to come in and see and sense a people who are doing the right things because we have the right light in us. The right, this isn't an act. We're not talking about putting on an act.
We're talking about getting a culture in us that we understand right and recognizing where our nature is wrong and being transformed into the right nature and the right culture. It's why we talked a couple of weeks ago in one of the services about this fact that feeling sorry for yourself gets you nowhere. That's not the spirit of God. Things may be tough.
They may be rough. Feeling sorry for yourself is not how you get out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself is how you stay in it. Feel sorry.
God, if God, if the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord, they're ordered by the Lord. So if I'm doing what's righteous, I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and he leads me into a place that's hard. He's led me there. Trust him and keep going.
Don't feel sorry for yourself. Look for the glory that's going to come out of it. Are you hearing me? If you got into a place where it's hard because you made unrighteous decisions, repent and get out of it.
Don't sit there and feel sorry for yourself. Don't blame everybody else. Listen, there comes a point in time when you're a little kid and you're growing up and the home is full of the devil. There's nothing you can do about that.
You got treated badly. You got talked too badly. Maybe you got abused or something happening. That's bad.
That's terrible. It's ugly. God wants to heal you. When you become an adult, you can wallow in that for the rest of your life and say, look how bad I was treated.
Look how terrible it was. Or you can become filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He can raise you up out of it and your life can be forever different. To use that for the rest of your life, to blame your life on that day forward on all those things that happen is to deny the power of God.
It says God isn't powerful enough to redeem me and to rescue me and to set me free. And I refuse to believe that. Whatever's happened to me, what other people have done to me, what other people do to me today or tomorrow, God is big enough to rescue me. That's why you need to read the Psalms.
That's why we're telling you to read the Psalms. Look at the messes, these guys, these guys got the enemies that were around them. The enemy that was attacking them, which is a sign of the spiritual enemy that's attacking us today. And God rescues them again and again and again.
Amen? I don't need to worry about it. He's praying for God to kill people. No, we're supposed to be seeing that he had literal enemies that needed to be killed.
We have spiritual enemies that need to be silenced. Are you with me? So don't feel sorry for yourself. That's not the spirit of God.
Don't sit and blame where you're at on all these other things. Just start digging out. Start being the command of a woman of God God called you to be. Oh, I'm so wounded.
Okay. Come to the altar and get prayed for every Sunday until that wound heals. Pray every day for the spirit of God to heal you until that wound heals. It doesn't mean you forget what happens.
It means you're redeemed. Redeemed means this. That's as if it did not happen. You're brought out of it.
It has no lasting effect on you anymore. When you're still in it, it still has lasting effect. You still hear the hateful words and your heart is still wounded by it. You're still filled with insecurity because of it.
You're still wounded by it. But when you get redeemed, you hear the voice of God. You realize that what was told you before was a lie from the pit of hell and you are a child of God and you have the greatness of God living in you and you can overcome. You can be filled with God's joy, filled with God's peace, filled with the anointing power of God and you can overcome whatever comes in front of you.
Don't live in that junk of the past. Don't live in those lies. Don't live in that abuse. I'm going to get free from this.
I'm going to be free from this. I'm going to walk in the power of God. Amen? And when people come into our church, guess what?
That's who they need to meet. They need to meet people filled with the spirit of God. They need to meet people who don't see the way they're dressed and have some impression made because of that or see their haircut and have some impression made up on them because of their haircut or see anything else about them, even the way they talk. What they need to see, what they need to meet is people who see them as a valuable child of God who's going to love them and love them right where they're at until God transforms them and what he wants them to be.
People put their arms around them, be patient with them, speak the truth to them, not compromise with them but love them right into the kingdom of God. That's what they need to meet when they walk in our doors. They don't need to just meet the pastors. They need to meet the church.
This is why we tell you something. When you come in Sunday morning, don't come in and sit down in the chair and wait for church to start. When it's over, don't get up, run out the back door as fast as you can, try to beat everybody else to the place you're going to eat lunch out. Let God lead you.
Let God direct you. Be led by the Spirit of God. Don't surround yourself with your four buddies. Let God lead you.
Look for it. Say, God, what do you want me to do today? Does somebody want me to encourage today? Does somebody want me to speak like today?
I'm supposed to be encouraging people. I'm supposed to be helping people. God, does there somebody want me to go over and meet today? Say hello to somebody who wants me to take to meet one of the pastors or somebody who wants me to take to meet one of my friends.
What do you want me to do today? Does that scare you? Shouldn't scare you. It might be an introvert.
I can never do that. Yes, you can't, but the power of the Spirit of God. Don't be wired by the sin nature. Let's be wired by the nature of God.
Amen. If I'm arrogant, I need to be wired in the humility of God. If I'm filled with fear, I need to be wired into the courage of God. I need to recognize.
I want to be what God, I want to be the nature that God would have me to be. That's why we started this whole thing on this passage in Proverbs 11 verse 30 where it says, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life which refers back to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden. Now think about that. Adam and Eve will give them permission to eat from all the trees in the Garden.
All of them have anything they want except one. Except one. And we all have that nature in us of this day. Because what do we do?
We do the same thing. Adam and Eve did. Adam and Eve did. You tell your kids you can play with anything in this room.
Don't touch that. And why do they want to go touch? I had one of my kids. I said, don't touch that.
And they'd walk over. They would stand next to it and they would look at me and then take her a little finger and go. I said, if you touch that, there's going to be a big trouble. I'm not kidding.
You don't touch that. And they get their finger just as close to it as they could. And we'd be standing there for five minutes looking at each other. Because the sin nature of the sin is going after that when you're not supposed to go after.
Now think about this. Right next to the tree they weren't supposed to eat of was the tree of life. We all want to eat the tree of life, don't we? They could have eaten the tree of life.
That's the reason they got thrown out of the Garden is because God couldn't allow them to eat the tree of life with the sin nature in them. Now we have the opportunity to walk in the spirit of God to live in righteousness and be a tree of life to other people. And we have to learn how to do that. We have to learn how to do that.
So we've been talking over these last weeks about what does that nature look like inside of our church. And it's all supposed to be about the culture of the church. What do we do? And this room of people, you can impact it.
This room of people can impact what the church feels like on Sunday morning. I love it. I stand here so many times on Sunday morning out in the entryway, especially in between first and second service and people are coming and people are going and the place is packed and people are standing around and talking. I'll call people over and do this every once in a while.
This is exactly what we wanted to have happen. Look at this. Look at all these people talking to each other, building relationships, building friendships, seeing each other. Now if we learn how to encourage each other, if we learn how to speak about what's important in life, if we really learn how to love each other, now we really got something going.
We got something going. And this group can begin to impact that. If we come into the church and we worship God because He's worthy. Not because it's my favorite song.
Because He's worthy. If we come in and we say God's worthy, I'm going to worship Him. I don't care if I like the music. I don't like the music.
It doesn't matter. God's worthy. It doesn't matter if I had a good day, bad day. Good news, bad news.
God's worthy to be praised. God's worthy. That is the fundamental first reason why we worship God. He's worthy.
And He says nature cries out to that truth. So every man is without excuse. When you walk outside today, you look at the stars in the sky, they said everyone looks out. God did that.
He should be praised for that. And so inside of a healthy culture church, there's going to be freedom of worship because He is worthy. And all of our arrogance should just go, I tell people over here tell me. I don't raise my hands and worship God.
I say, well, why not? Well, the way I was raised, that's not the way we did it. Well, forget how you raised it. What does the Bible say?
The way you raised it is understanding faith and conduct. What the Bible says is that the Bible says is that the God didn't say that all the good singers say, he says that everything, that breath prays the Lord. Yeah, breath. Do you have breath?
Yes. Okay, then praise the Lord. He says, sing unto Him. He says, shout unto Him.
The voice of triumph. Do what the Bible says is because He's worthy. Not because of how you feel. Let me tell you what happens.
When you begin to worship God because He's worthy, it's not long until you feel like worshiping God. What we want is we want to be a church that when lost people come in that the Spirit of God is so heavy in the middle of this place that they get compelled to come to Christ. That when sick people come in, faith is built and people get healed. That people that aren't baptized in Spirit get filled with the Spirit.
That God does His work in us because we are worshiping Him. And you know what the good news about that really is? He'll do His work in you as well. But that's not up to that.
That's not up to that. That's not up to that. That's not up to that. That's not up to Dan that cheerlead you into that.
The worship leader has to compel and charge people to worship. He shouldn't have to do that with any of you. If you're a mature believer, he shouldn't have to do that with you. Is that right?
I understand it. With my kids I've got to tell them. Go clean up your room. Usually you're going to have to clean up your room.
Can't have anything to clean up. When they get older and you grow up and you have your house, hopefully nobody has to clean up your room. You do it because you're an adult. You go to college and I had this talk with all my kids and go, listen, nobody's going to set the alarm for you.
Nobody's going to call you in the morning and say, get up and go to class. You're going to have to do that on your own now. Here comes a point when you begin to transition into adulthood, you have responsibility. Same thing in the kingdom.
Here comes a point we should transfer into adulthood. Nobody should have to compel me to worship anymore. Nobody should have to compel me or charge me to pray anymore. I should do it because I'm a mature believer who understands it and I do it.
Amen? Some of you are looking at me like, I'd rather be compelled. You're going to have to make me do it. But just think about this.
Think about what happens when a believer walks into this place and doesn't, an unbeliever walks into this place. And a half a dozen or a dozen people have recognized that they don't know that person. They've gone over and said, hey, welcome. We met before.
I don't know if I know you. How long have you been coming to Calvary? Oh, this is your first Sunday. Remember that's the right answer.
How long have you been coming? Not this is your first time. How long does this your first time? Sometimes you'll meet somebody that's been coming for five years.
Is this your first time coming? We're so glad you're here. So glad you're here. So glad you're here.
He's about five or six, seven people who just kind of loved on them when they came in the door. Then they come in the middle of this place and the worship starts and three, four hundred, five hundred people just begin to sing for the glory of God's kingdom. Worshiping God. Do you think that maybe the spirit of God will compel them?
I think so, don't you? I think so. I think we set this culture that giving is good. It brings a blessing to God into our life.
It helps people all around the world. And we're excited about doing it. It compels other people to get it because we set the culture. And that's what we're talking about.
It's about having a culture that is bright in our church. And every one of us, listen, every one of us set the brightness. If you come in this Sunday, you know, if I came in this Sunday and I've had a bad week, you know, Renee's been mistreating me like she does so many times. I can say that.
She's over on Jefferson Street. I come in and I'm pouting about something and I get up and, you know, I'm kind of talking, but I'm kind of miserable. With that set of brightness to the day, it was set of dullness to the day, wouldn't it? I mean, what's my pastor today?
And that was a downer. The worship team's choir came in. They all stood out there, glory to God in the highest. Yeah, glory to God.
With that set of tone, not the tone we want, would it? But when they walk out and they're filled with the spirit of God and they begin to sing under the anointing of God and they rejoice in God no matter what's going on in their life because God's worthy to be praised and we get up and we speak in faith. Even if we've had a bad day or a bad week, we speak in faith about who God is and what He's going to do in our life. That's a whole other term.
That's just from the platform. What happens when the whole church says, when hundreds and hundreds of people in the church come in and we have faith in God. Does that mean I don't walk down to an altar and get prayed for and I have a need? No, I come and get prayed for and I have a need.
But I come and faith. I come believing. I sit in the chair believing because I'm a mature believer. When I'm a little kid, I have to be compelled to things.
When I'm a mature believer, I'm a mature person. I don't have to be anymore. I'm in faith looking towards the next thing. This is one of the great lessons.
When God has met you in the past, need to be remembered in your life so when you face the next obstacle, you know what God's going to do. You need to remind yourself of times in your past where God delivered you and set you free. That's what we talked about Sunday morning. Your children need to know your spiritual story.
I'll sit with my children many times. I did it in the last few weeks and I said, let me just tell you, your great grandfather was raised a Catholic, had no knowledge of a personal relationship with Jesus. And if he would have stayed that way, all of our lives would be different today. But when he was an adult man married, circumstances began to come into place.
His wife at that time that would eventually die had tuberculosis. The doctors that go up in the anorandic mountains, that's where the air is clear and pure and she'll be able to breathe better and she would go down to the Spirit-filled Methodist church. And he would sit outside because it was a mortal sin to go into the Protestant church. But he'd sit outside and listen to him saying, God began to do a work in his life.
That's your heritage. God taking this Catholic boy and intervening in his life, even in tough circumstances. Changing the trajectory of his life and eternity. You need to know that.
I mean, I try to tell them stories of what God's done in our life and done in our family. I want them to know, I want them to have that foundation in their life of what God has done. We need to talk about those things all the time. We need to share them.
And I'll tell you this, it's one of the reasons why sharing your need in a group is important. You know, this isn't a what was me time. It's a, hey everybody pray for me, I need to have a fight. Why?
I'm going through this. The next thing you know, you'll have five people around you going. I've been through that. Let me tell you how God met with me through that.
Let me tell you what took place in my life when I walked through that. And they'll speak words to you that'll build your faith. It's why when you hear somebody going through something you've been through, it's important for you to go to them and say, hey, I hear you're going through it. Can I tell you what I went through that?
Let me tell you what God did for me. And we speak words of life. We become that tree of life. That's what we're talking about.
This nature of who we are. Being this people who are, who are ministering to others. Where the church, where I transition from being a church, a 10 D. To being a church member.
A part of the body. I don't just attend here. I'm a part of the living organism here. And I'm using what God has done in my life and flown through my life, in my responsibility to minister to others.
And they are to me as well. So that's why we've talked about this. Worshipping God, coming early, staying late, inviting new people into your C2 group. Don't be coming in, groaning your C2 group.
But inviting other people in and asking them to come and be a part of it until it busts through the walls. And you have to divide and have two groups. So we can fill our city with groups. We can all be ministering the glory of God's kingdom.
When we're touched and moved by God, we want to share it. We want to be a part of it. We begin to build a relationship with others. And we talked about praying for pastors and for church members.
And we just can tell you, we need to pray for our city, for our community. God let our community be hungry for you. Let it be hungry for you. And then we need to use our resources for the glory of God's kingdom.
We'll talk about this in the first or second week. God didn't give you the things He gave you just for you. He gave you the things He gave you for the glory of His kingdom. Thankfully, we get to enjoy Him.
Amen. But we're also supposed to share Him and use Him for the glory of God's kingdom. You know, whenever I have somebody who's a right church and say to somebody, hey, can you pick them up? Man, if I pick them up, I'd have to get up 15 minutes earlier and write 10 blocks out of my way.
Yeah, you would. Jesus went to the cross. What do you think? He went to cross for you.
He didn't have to do that. He could have taken a turn off of that path anytime he wanted to. Think you could drive a few blocks? Think you can pick somebody up?
They can't get to church? Oh, that gets in the way of all my plans. You want to be your plans? What do you want them to be?
Somebody has to think about how we're going to live our life here. We're going to challenge ourselves. How are we going to live our life here? And so it becomes this interesting thing for us to understand that we are called to care for each other and to make, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, making prayer common in our hallways and common in our lives and to speak up against the evil and to say something that is righteous and true.
So I just want to challenge you in all of this. Let's be a bright and shining light. Amen. And I want to challenge you in this.
Be, you're going to be a part of the brightness. Or you're going to be a smudge against the brightness. And sadly, there's been times when I've had people come, I can't believe. What's that guy all day?
Listen, listen, he's got some struggles. We love him in the grace of God, but he's got some struggles. Just kind of steer clear of him. What are we saying?
He's so immature, so full of himself that he's a smudge to the light. We think he saved. Grace of God is great. But yeah, he can be a little gnarly sometimes.
I don't want him. You want to be that guy? I don't think anybody in this room is that guy. I certainly hope not if you want me.
Look around. I think we're doing pretty good in this room tonight. Okay? But you may know some of those guys.
And listen, if your friends with him, you need to challenge him. Where's the light of the gospel in your life? Where's the hope of God in your life? Where's the peace of God in your life?
Have you ever been around somebody that they always had a crisis? There's always a crisis. There was a youth evangelist that was preaching a camp. I'd been down to hearing three or four times our kids were down there.
And I turned in three or four times. And he was always telling a story about how a friend of his got killed in some horrendous way. I mean, he had the worst stories I could ever heard in your life. People getting killed.
His friends getting killed. And the decap at the time was a good friend of mine growing over one night. The decap, this guy still laughs about this and tells people the story whenever we're together. And he brought Sam over to me and Sam and our good friends.
He brought Sam over to me who was telling these stories. And he said, I don't want to be his friend. And Gary said, what are you talking about? Mark, what's wrong?
I said, listen, I've heard all the stories about what happens to his friends. I do not want to be his friend. Casual acquaintance is about as close as I want to get. You know, I hear what's happened to his friend.
But you know, there's some people that they just want to live in this guy's story. They just joke that some people live in a perpetual state of crisis. They live in a perpetual state of hopelessness. You know, if you tell a story that you need something to be prayed for, they'll have three people.
The same thing going on in their life that we'd be prayed for. I think we should live in a perpetual state of hope. Doesn't mean we don't share our legitimate needs. But boy, if I'm in crisis all the time, something's wrong.
I want to share our legitimate needs and we live in a spirit of hope and faith. And so I just want to wrap this up tonight with just this one last word. Let us be filled with the spirit of God and let us love people. Amen.
Let's be filled with the spirit of God and let us love people. And if we'll do that, that'll compel you to get to church a little early and look for people to love on and to care about and to speak to. You live in the spirit of God. It'll lead you to talk to people and to share things with people and to go talk to people.
And you'll become part of the ministry process of the church that makes the church stronger and healthier. But if you spend the lifetime looking in the mirror wondering why somebody isn't taking care of you, you're going to feel bad the rest of your life. But when you get away from the mirror and start taking care of others, the life that God flows through you and you begin to minister to others and he begins to minister to you. Has this been good?
I mean, give the Lord a clap off for tonight. I had a gal who was coming to church here years ago and I was sitting with her one day and I said, why did you start coming to Calvary? And she told me about a business man in the church. And our family was going through such an issue.
This thing was going on in our life. We needed some help. We brought this company in to help us. And this guy came.
Came to our home, visited with us, talked with us. And he was so kind. And the things he said to us were so helpful. And the things that the company that he worked with did for us really, really helped us.
And to the pastor, frankly, there was a Sunday that friends said, hey, come to church with me. And I walked in the door and that guy was an usher. And when I saw him as an usher, I hadn't heard a song yet. I hadn't heard a message yet.
When I saw that he was an usher, I thought, this is a place I can trust. I can find God here. And since I've been here ever since. Why?
Because somebody out there was the light of the gospel. That's the light of the gospel, amen? Stand again. Let's pray.
Father, I believe in men and women in this room. I look at them and I know they're invested in your kingdom. I know, Father, they want to be used with you. I know they love you and care about you.
And I pray you just let your light shine within us. Let it shine within us so brightly. The other rough edges of our life that aren't what you'd have them to be. Let them fall off.
Let it stop being what you wouldn't have us to be. And Father, I just pray that you'd have more and more of the people in the room that experience the leading of your spirit to speak life to somebody else. To experience the leading of your spirit. To pray with somebody else.
To go out of their way. Father, I pray we'd experience the leading of your spirit to welcome somebody, to be friendly with someone, to reach out to someone as they come in the door of our church, to get outside the comfort zone of their friends, and to be inclusive in their small groups, and to be inclusive in their relationships, and to bring others into their life, and to minister to them so the body will become stronger and healthier. Let us be mature, Father, no matter how we feel this Sunday morning or the next Sunday morning, and worship you freely because you are worthy. And Father, as we worship you freely, let your spirit fall upon us and touch every man, woman, boy, and girl in this place.
Father, fill us with your Holy Spirit. Babtize us afresh and anew. Let the prayer language flow through every one of our lives. Let the gifts of your spirit flow through every one of our lives.
Let the fruit of your spirit grow in every one of our lives. And let us become a shining light. Let us up the wattage of our lives. Let us go from 50 watts to 100 watts.
Let our light shine brighter and brighter throughout the day, we pray, as we walk upon this earth, and let many be attracted and discovered you because of the way we live, because your nature is in us. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen. God bless you. I love you.
Go on the name of the Lord.