I really have the pleasure of introducing really one of my longtime friends. I'm kind of consumed, you know how when you watch things on TV you kind of get like it shapes your thinking at least, you know what you look at what you listen to, really shapes your thinking. So I've been watching a lot of the Olympics, so it's really, it's been shaping, why is that funny? It's funny that I watch the Olympics, what are you saying about me Jen?
But you know I'm just thinking about you, the athletes and that's funny, like last, I think it was last Sunday night or Monday night, Kristin and I were watching swimming. I hate watching swimming, it's just boring to me. And so Kristin goes, I just love swimming. I love watching swimming.
I look at her with similar cats and like, what do you love about watching swimming? She goes because it's just one of those things I could never do. And I looked at her and I was like, so tell me of the 100 events in the Olympics, which other ones could you do? Like, oh swimming I couldn't do, but the javelin and shot put and in the 1500, oh yeah I could do all this.
I was like, wow, swimming is the only thing you can't do, but nothing's holding you back. But then there's athletes called decathletes. It's just not the javelin throw, it's just not the shot put, it's just not the 100 meter dash, it's 10 events that they have to compete in over a two day period. Some would say maybe the most exhausting, well rounded type of individual and really as I think about Aaron Sandmeyer, Aaron's a decathlete of the King of the God.
If you read his bio, it'll say he's a husband, he's a father, he's a nurse practitioner, he hosts a podcast, he's the author of a book, he's a follower of Jesus, well that's only six. But then I think also he's a missionary, maybe God didn't want you to hear that. My head was getting too big. Aaron has a good story, he's not going to tell today, but he told me about how it's had got too big.
I think he was the epitome of world traveling, I didn't quite paint out the way he thought. I'll let him tell you. But I do want to recognize today we have Dr. Aaron Sandmeyer and Heather, his wife, been good friends of ours for a long time.
I'm not sure how many years ago you guys went into become full time missionaries, maybe 20? Twenty two years ago. When I met Aaron, he was in Madagascar, they're currently in Kenya. They have really two ministries, one is I think it's called Africa Care House or House Care.
They oversee I think 17 countries in Africa or the whole continent. 17 countries, 14 teams and 12 national churches. Just like dealing with caring and taking care of the needs of missionary families. And then there are also area directors for what the whole continent of Africa, correct?
With the assemblies of God. Aaron's just a great man of God. We're excited for him to bring the word. Let's give him a big round of applause.
Thanks for the opportunity. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be with you here today and just yeah, I enjoy being here. Getting to worship and to be with friends and get the opportunity to share God's word which is super fun.
So as Pastor Fred shared, my name is Aaron Sandmeyer. I was born and raised in the Waleford West Virginia at the Grand Metropolis across the river. And at a young age, God called me to be a missionary, felt that call. If I got, you know, boys in Waleford can't necessarily speak English, how are you going to go to another country?
And shared the love that you described to people, followed through with that, graduated. I went to nursing school at ACC where Dr. Susan Taster was one of my, Weaver, sorry, Taster Weaver was one of my professors. And then from there went to southeastern where I met Heather and convinced her I was good looking and we could do great things.
And we got married and then went to France. That's where we had our daughter Isabel. We learned the study and we spoke French. And from there we went to Burkina Faso where I worked with women that had HIV and AIDS to help prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child.
From there ended up in Madagascar. We were in Madagascar for 14 years. And that's basically where we raised our kids. And when we got there there, there was an orphanage and they said you guys look young and that's before we had gray hair.
And they gave us 43 kids. And they said we want you to be responsible for these kids and help grow them and they're walking with the Lord. And when I worked in a clinic and Heather taught, it was just a man, there's a lot of stories in those 14 years but God was faithful. And then in 2020 we ended up moving in 2021, January 2021.
We moved to Kenya and then it's past a friend shared. We started something called Africa House Care and that's where we help provide permissionaries. So missionaries plan healthy churches if they're healthy. If missionaries aren't healthy they call us hurt.
And so, and I think that's probably applicable to all of our lives. If we're healthy, if we're walking in the love of Jesus Christ, we can back and flow. But if we're hurting and we're not steady, sometimes what comes out of us is not Christ like. And so we walk whether that's emotional health, physical health, safety and security, sexual health is faster, Fred shared, relational health missionaries will never fight.
You can laugh at that. And spiritual formation sometimes is a missionary. You get to the field and you have a theology that works in Wally Ford, West Virginia. And then you're confronted with something whether that is a work of Satan, whether that's a work of the enemy, whether that's pain and suffering that you would have never fought or imagined.
And all of a sudden what you thought of God, how do you reconcile this in your heart and mind. And then working in that and walking in that and growing in the servants. And so we help people when it comes to spiritual formation so they can be healthy as they plant the church. And so most recently we stepped into a role and we're now East Africa area directors and that's the 17 countries, 14 teams and 12 national churches.
And basically we are helping, we want to see a healthy church within walking distance of every African. Not just any church but a healthy church within walking distance of every African. And many of you that have been to Africa, there's a mosque within walking distance of pretty much every African. There's a mosque in every community.
We want to see a healthy church in the community sharing the love of Jesus Christ. And so that's our vision. And how do we go about that? We go about that by planting and nurturing and partnering with national churches.
And we do that in basically three ways. One is called live debt. Live debt is going into communities that are 99% Muslim living in those communities and sharing the love of Jesus Christ through relationships. And so we pray for a team.
We asked for prayer last year when I was here. Young couple Devin and Ruthie have just moved to an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean Basin and they are our first missionaries to live in that country. And they're going to share the love of Jesus Christ. So we pray for them.
It's an exciting day for them to be there. We are hearing of stories of people coming to Jesus in places that we have prayed for 30 years. We started something called the legacy prayer group taking the older missionaries that have retired and grouping them up with the younger missionaries. And you can see the tears flowing from the missionaries that have prayed for 30 years for just one person to come to Jesus in some of these countries and then to hear testimonies about the rain.
It's one of the missionaries shared. He said one of the new converts said it's like we're beginning to hear the pitter patter of rain and we know that more is coming. And so those are exciting days when it comes to live debt. The other thing we do is called urban tribes and that is planting churches in the urban gateway cities of Africa.
The majority of Africa is not lions and giraffes and elephants and rhinos. It's urbanization. So we live in Nairobi. It's a city of 5 million people.
Everything that goes of a city of a city of 5 million people is where we live. And so that's where the influencers come from the bush they come in to be educated. That's where your politicians come through the city and if we're not able to reach them then we're missing a generation. And so these churches are planted in gateway cities like Antana Norevo, Madagascar, Addis Alberba, Nairobi, Kenya, Dara, Salaam, we're going to plant one in Kampala and these churches are planted for the focus of reaching these people that are influencers in their country because we believe in reaching the cities.
And the last thing is what we call national church squared and that's a partnership between a missionary and a national church. So with the assembly of God we don't go to a country and say we're going to come to this country and then the Americans are going to tell you what to do. It doesn't work like that. You have national people that live in that country, that they form a church, they form a leadership group and then they lead the church and we partner with them.
And so it's taking the national church from America, the national church from Lesse, Kenya and how can we partner together to see healthy growth. And one of the focuses and what we really are in need of is we are in need of people that understand and can teach the Bible. It doesn't sound exciting and interesting but we need churches to be healthy. And if they're not rooted in the word of God then you have a church that's not healthy, you end up with false doctrines and then it can go crazy.
I'm Pentecostal born and raised as somebody's a God so I'm a Pentecostal. Sometimes we can drift and sometimes we can drift and then we can drift and we need solid theology so that when pastors are training and teaching they are creating solid churches and solid believers so when they're confronted with things that aren't true then they're able to stand on God's word and say that's not true. That's not what God's word said. This is let me point you back to that.
When it comes to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit what it means to be filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit what that means, what that looks like in our life. When somebody gives a different idea of that or a different interpretation of it they can come back to the word and say no this is what the word says. We also want our believers in the church to be grounded in the word so that they know hey when someone comes in or they're confronted with something that they know this is what God's word says and we want to see that go forward. Just in the last few weeks one of the exciting thing is getting materials translated into local languages so pastors can study.
That is a challenge. It's not everywhere that speaks English that's not everywhere that speaks French but getting so kirundi is the language of barundi and we have some of the first books being published in that language so that the pastor there are able to study and when they go out to plant a church they have materials in their local language that they can refer back to. That's just a little bit about what we're doing. Another exciting thing that we've seen in the last few months is the beginning and registration of the South Sudanese assembly of God.
For a while North Sudan separated from South Sudan so you have South Sudan will be Darfur and you've probably heard that in the news and for a long time people have been praying to have a national church a place where they can begin to form and plant churches around Sudan solid theology and so that's just partnering with the Ethiopian church, the American church a missionary named Doug Lowenberg they've been going in and out of there and finally they received the registration just this week. I got a picture of the registration of the church and the church is registered in its exciting day in South Sudan. So be praying for that is we walk through that. So this is a large learning curve for me so I'm a nurse practitioner I can help you with your rash planting a national church in South Sudan that's a little bit outside of my skill set so pray for me that God continues to give me wisdom as we walk in this that God will give us discernment he will give us insight that he will give us is you know I pray Psalms 32 8 more that probably than ever have God God in direct me in the way I should go counsel me with your loving eyes upon me I probably play that 12 to 10 times a day just because that's what I really need I need God's direction I need him to guide and direct me in the way I need to go and I need to counsel him with my loving with his loving eyes upon me.
So pray for us pray for we'll be here for about a year or just I just graduated from high school and so we'll be transitioning to evangel we're taking our kids both ismo and just I to evangel in the coming weeks and we'll be home for years we itinerate and raise our support to head back to Kenya next summer so anyway that's a little bit about us Heather didn't want to share so I hope I summed it all up and at least give you some idea about the Santa Myers and what we're up to it's faster French here I do host a podcast we're about 300 episodes into that and we talk about a breath of different things last week was 10 deadly sins this week I think we're talking about apostolic work in the church and the function of that in each and every week we go through different topics that we want to see clarity and life and mission and then it's pastor Fred shared I've written two books one's called a caring life and the most recent one that come out is called a caring family I really believe that the caring family is a book that I wish I would have read 20 years ago a book or conversation that I would have had I've pursued spent a lot of my life pursuing power prestige position education all of these things and at the end of the day when I go to Chick-fil-A they still charge me the same amount from my Southwest real chicken salad whether I have a doctorate I have an MBA or I've written five but they don't care what I've done they're still going to charge me the same right and so sometimes in life we get so focused on these things that seem really really important but walking with in a family and how we can be present in our families with our children our grandchildren our nieces our nephews how we can walk and have a healthy family in that encouragement it's not a prescriptive book it's not do these seven things and you'll have a happy family we all know that's just not true it's the reality of it is these are some things that I've seen that I wish as a father I would have more focus on in our family so that we could have a caring a more caring a caring world I believe our world is drifting I'm away from the things that we used to do naturally we used to naturally care for people we used to naturally have compassion for people and we're drifting away from this this is kind of a clarion call to come back to say this is what Jesus Christ has called us to do in our communities is to care for one another and so anyway so that's just a little bit about those things let's jump into God's work we're gonna talk the last time when I was here I spoke from Psalms 90 on the Psalm from Moses today we're gonna look at the Psalms 24 and it's a Psalm of David so I will read to show you that West Virginians can read so I know that was a lot of your your your your your wondering if Aaron can read but let's let's do it so Psalms 24 will start at first one the earth is the Lord's and everything in it the world and all who live in it for he found it it upon the seas and established it upon the waters who may ascend the hill of the Lord who may stand in his holy place he who has clean hands and up your heart it does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false he will receive blessing from the Lord and vindication from God a Savior such is the generation of those who seek him who seek your face who got of Jacob verse 7 lift up your heads of o you gates be lifted up you ancient tours that the King of glory make him in who is the King of glory the Lord strong and mighty the Lord mighty in battle lift up your heads o you gates lift him up you ancient doors that the King of glory make him in who is he this King of glory the Lord Almighty he is the King of glory let's pray. Heavenly Father I thank you for the opportunity to open your word to read your word for the opportunity to share from it so as I share today Father it's not the things that I say they're gonna be important Father it's what you're going to do in our hearts so Father I pray is your Holy Spirit presence is in this room I've since it since I came in the front of the door Father we sent your presence here today and so Father as I share as I've been wrestling with this personally God some things that I've been wrestling with personally as I share what I've been wrestling with Father I actually do to prick each of our hearts for her father for each of us to say how does this apply to me God what are you saying to me from this Psalms Father what are you saying to me God that I need to hear today so Father it's not Aaron Santa my words that are important but Father it's your Holy Spirit that speaks to our heart Father you are our light and our salvation and Father you are our stronghold of our life and we pray all the name of Jesus the strong son of God so the first thing we see is we look at the Psalms we the first few parts of it there's three sections every good sermon has three parts right three sections so the first section we see is is the greatness of God we see is the Psalmist's right is David is writing he is seeing that is he abides in Jesus he is abiding in the greatness of God and sometimes what I've been wrestling with in my personal life is is that my abiding time my spending time with Jesus says become kind of quick like I rush in giving my things rush out and move on but what does it really mean to abide in Jesus and this is how in the last few weeks I've been spending time with him is coming into my time and presence with him in recognizing that I'm in the presence of the creator of the world I'm in the current I'm in the presence of the one that is created everything I'm in the presence of the one who created me when I'm not feeling well physically he's my master physician when I look out and see the trees and the place where staying has a very very small creek in the back in the little fish in there I'm amazed by God's creation like how did those fish get there when did they come when we're the first fish that got there where did the water come from all in God's creation he put all these things in place he gave us the oxygen debris all the things that are in place that's our God that's the creator and that's the one that I have the honor to spend time in his presence and so as I've come in spending time with him it's not the Russian and giving my demands because in the last weeks leading up to it was a lot of disappointment discouragement you know disappointment is just one event discouragement is when you have several events and you begin to have an idea of mentality that it's things are not going good and I was just giving a lack of confidence God you do you see all these things that are piling up God you see you've given me this role as East African director do you see all the things that are going on God I really need your help and God I don't know you know are you gonna come through and I would come in with my list of demands and things that I would just say God you I just need you but God in the last few weeks has just been calling my heart to say Aaron you're in my presence I'm the creator of the world I've created though just as this ground has a solid foundation I get that foundation to your life you don't need to come in my presence and panic you don't need to come into my presence wondering if I know what's going on I know what's going on I've given you your breath to believe I'm the God that owns all this I created this and you are in my hand when we were getting ready to do in the process of coming from we came from Kenya and that's a story I won't share the the carry on story today but we get there we end up in Springfield we're coming back we're going to move into a place and so I reached out to Pastor Freddie put me in touch with Curtis and some of the gentleman here from the church were so kind to come and help us load up the stuff that we had stored and to get into a moving truck but the back story of all that was this so I don't like to drive I mean I can drive a car and I can drive straight I was never gifted with the gift of backing up you know so backing up is this not reverse it's not my thing you know one or two feet maybe but like a moving truck backing it up not not you know so when I'm looking for one I need a rent one I'm getting I'm online I'm doing all this from Kenya I picked the closest one to the storage place and I think man this is a win this is a win so the morning of we're getting up you know I'm spending my time with Jesus I share with Pastor Fred also I try I have a a gift thing or maybe I don't know what it is of trying to put about six days of work in one day so I have my date that if everything goes awesome it's awesome but if in the beginning of the day things start to move then I got trouble so I wake up that morning and I get a message from the moving truck place that says your location of pickup has been moved so and it's and so I look at it and then and within the next like 30 minutes it's been moved again and I'm like no no no I booked this moving truck a while back you know I prayed about this God I was supposed to pick this moving truck up we need to do this today the guys are coming from city reach I need their help I can't shift all this it got I need this I need this moving truck and it says it's only two miles from your original location now if you're not from this area two miles doesn't sound like it by the crow flies you get a lot of places in two miles right but by the road it meant about a 15 minute drive and on a road that I knew that I was not too comfortable in driving a moving truck on because I don't like to back up I don't like to pull out this is not my gift thing driving big trucks and everybody has a limitation I can help you with the rash not with your big moving truck so I go and get there when I show up there's no one there and then I'm thinking come on I got the they're coming to help me this is not going on the time this is not the way it was going God what is going on discouragement disappointment frustration lack of confidence I'm thinking God come on you know I've put all this in the place I'm afraid about this the guy finally he goes in I go inside he doesn't speak English and so I don't speak Spanish very well I speak French so I'm speaking to him in French and he's picking out the words in Spanish and so we're communicating back and forth and so trying to get this truck and he's like well and then they put a guy on the phone and he speaks English and he tells me how I'm supposed to do it and I'm supposed to go out on my phone and take these pictures and I'm telling you shh and I'm thinking come on God this is not the way I thought my day was going to begin this is not how I wanted it to be discouragement I am not thinking that I am serving the creator of the world I am not thinking that this is the one that is in control of my life so go out and they said you're gonna have to take pictures of the moving truck of all the scratches I'm thinking this will take like two seconds you know there can't be that many scratches well the moving truck I got had a lot of scratches and a lot of this and then I'm thinking this thing even gonna work is it even gonna make it to work it out if they give me one that doesn't run doesn't function is that I'm taking those pictures I'm taking them and asking me to review the pictures so I'm going through reviewing reviewing reviewing and I get to this one on the side and it probably doesn't mean much to you at all but it was God spoke to me in that moment stand on the side of 220 I'm in control and I have you it was a picture of what's called the ghost working which is found in the south Florida and if you know me I love work it's I maybe it's an odd thing for guys to like but I love flowers I love work it's and so there it was and I took in a picture of it not realized it but as I'm going through it it was God saying I know where you're at I've worked it straight this day I'm with you I'm the creator of the world and just as I created the working on the side of this you haul truck and it's been put there long in advance I put this on the side of this truck so when you were gonna be here this day that you were gonna know that I was with you and in that moment the peace of God came over my life the rest of the day couldn't win however it was going to go I knew God was with me and when we come into his presence you might think well it's okie coke theology I don't care what you think I know in the solitude 220 God the presence of God I felt the presence of God come over my life and say I am with you I'm with you in this moment I had this all I had this day all in my hands rest in me you can have confidence in me you can trust in me we're together and so the rest of the day the guy show up they loaded the thing quick my I could have added a three more events in that day because they hope we were done in like 25 minutes and guys went quick got it all in there their professionals drove up and working out unloaded the whole thing but there's been my encouragement for you is God is speaking he is speaking to your life and sometimes we rush in we rush out and we don't have the time to recognize that God speaking for me it's orchids I give you ten stories of when I've been discouraging down and and and they're in work and shows up and has been put in that place one time I was standing under a tree in Kenya frustrated and irritated with some things and and honestly as I'm praying and walking and trying to praise God but I'm discouraged and I just felt him saying sensing him saying look up look up I don't know what look up you know your scurries I don't know look up you know what ways you trying to tell me and I look up in a tree look up in a tree and there's an orchid that was about 30 feet up and full bloom and God spoke to me in that moment and said you know what that work just didn't start there that day and I that work has been growing for years and I work a straight things and put things in place because I know the continuum of time the God who created the earth knows the continuum of time and he puts things in place knowing that in 20 years it's going to speak to your life he puts things in place knowing that this is going to need to grow this is going to need to mature because when you're in a moment where you're lacking in your discouraged and you're lacking confidence in him he's going to speak to you if we're listening to say I'm in control I have you so much that I put something in place a long long time ago so you can see it the first thing we see in the scripture is that the greatness of God he gives us a foundation even when we're even when we're disappointed we're discouraged we're down he gives us that foundation the second thing we is he moves into the second part of this he talks it begins to talk about repentance and the needs to be to be be cleansed verse 3 who may ascend the hill of the Lord who may stand in his holy place who can have who has clean hands and up your heart who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false so clean hands right that's right motives pure heart I mean clean hands is right actions pure heart is right motives who does not lift this so up to an idol that means we don't have under but we are loyal we're not divided in our loyalties we're solely loyal to Jesus and following him we do not swear by what is false every word we say is truthful now that's a hard thing to measure up to I don't know anyone in this room could say that my whole life I've had a pure heart all of my motives have always been pure for the goodness of the world and the goodness of humankind and Jesus maybe if you are I want to shake your hand after you know the right actions that everything you've ever did was always for the best Christ like intention you've never had divided loyalties where you were like me sometimes doubting whether you thought you knew better than God but but walking in that but the Psalmist is saying the only way the only way who can get to the Lord who can get one to his holy place the only way we get there is through the blood of Jesus there's no one of us that has clean hands pure hearts undivided loyalties and always speaks the truth without the love of Jesus Christ that's the beauty of following Jesus other world religions say that you have to ascend the hill in other world religions in places we live you have to ascend the hill that's what your whole life is is about ascending a hill climbing a mountain and trying to get to God and you do that through good works you do that through proper behavior you do that through giving this and being obedient and saying prayers certain amount of times of the day all trying to get up on the hill walking your way up on this hill so you can get close to God but the beauty of following Jesus the beauty of being a Christian is we get a Savior that came to us he died on a cross so that we can have clean hands up your heart that we can see if you look at Romans 3 21 and 22 what's it talk we get the righteousness of what Jesus has done a lot of times we've been Romans 3 23 for all of sin and fall short of the God glory of God but with 21 and 22 what he talks about the righteousness we get from Jesus dying on the cross the only way we have clean hands up your heart only way that we do not have divided loyalties and speak the truth is with the love in blessing of Jesus Christ one of the things that God has been speaking to me about this in June our T kind of came and spoke to the missionaries I got to interview him for the podcast and it was a phenomenal time he wrote a book about called total forgiveness and as I have been spending time spending in the greatness of God then the next thing I've been doing is confessing and asking God or the things in my life that I need to that I need to confess and ask you God to cleanse in my life so that I can have clean hands up your heart God giving that I know when Jesus died he died for my sins past present future I know that but I want that daily cleansing that he's cleansing my heart cleansing my mind so that my motives and my actions are in him and one of the things he's brought to my mind is RT Kendall spoke is there was some areas of unforgiveness in my life there were people that I had let some areas of bitterness whether that was not getting things didn't go the way I thought and I was not happy with some people here and you know I said I said orally that I forgave them but my actions in the rumination on it said that I really didn't and there was some bitterness in my heart there was some bitterness in things how they didn't go and I was ruminating on those things and as RT Kendall spoke he said if you want the anointing in your life if you want the anointing in your life you can't be walking in unforgiveness so then my my mind thinking about hey but RT you don't know exactly what's been done to me RT you don't know and then he goes down that road and he says and I know some of you are probably saying you don't know what's been done to you and so he goes down and walks through that in that message and in his book he walks through what total forgiveness means no I don't know if you're here today if that resonates with you but if you have bitterness I invite you to walk this journey with me in walking in total forgiveness now forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny what happened to you it doesn't mean you excuse it away it doesn't mean that you justify it it doesn't mean you ignore it it doesn't mean reconciliation means that you one person and another person agree to make peace sometimes that can't happen because you need two people if you're one person at once peace and you've forgiven and the other one hasn't you can't make peace there you can't reconcile it doesn't like I said it doesn't mean denying it and saying that never happened and it all those things what it does means is you acknowledge that something's happened you recognize what has happened and you say this has happened to me and God I'm going to forgive I'm going to forgive that person I'm going to give that group of people it's where if it's if there's been a crime committed it's not saying I'm not saying that's not what we're talking about okay but while I'm talking about something that somebody's done something to you and you've been hurt sometimes that happens in the church sometimes that happens in a place of work sometimes that happens in your family and there's something that's happened to you and you're snaking you've been holding on to that my encouragement to you is begin to walk in total forgiveness and saying it's been done what has been done to me was not right but I'm going to choose that I want to walk in the anointing I want the anointing of God in my life what does the anointing look like God has given each of you natural talents acquired abilities and spiritual giftings if you want to walk in those and sometimes when I walk in the anointing things are going smooth things are going smooth because the anointing of God's in my life if I have unforgiveness in my life ah those things might happen the man it's like you know sucking a cement through a straw it just takes a long time right it can happen but you're gonna be tired like Miss Kristin which is blowing up all those inflatables tomorrow you're gonna be winded tired we're out from doing all that but walking in the anointing saying God this is what's happened to me and God I want the anointing I want your presence in my life and God I need you to help me to forgive and totally forgive and what I'm realizing is I had a conversation with RT the other day was this it's a daily thing because I might say today I totally forgive you and I want to walk into total forgiveness but tomorrow I'm a human being and I wake up and I gotta say today I'm gonna walk I want to walk in total forgiveness and I forgive that person for what they did to me on that day and then the next day I gotta wake up and say I forgive that person for what they did because it comes back and we are human and it's not a one and done time where you say I've totally forgave them I move on and then you ruminate and you walk in bitterness and the next time you see that person it grows up inside of you but it's making the choice to say I want to walk with clean hands I want to have a pure heart I don't want to have divided loyalties and when we're walking in unforgiveness sometimes we have divided loyalties because we're saying I want to hold on to that I'm gonna hold on to that God I'm gonna serve you but God I'm gonna serve you I'm gonna hold on to that and that leads us into the third point the third point is is this idea of doors in our life now the psalmist is writing lift up your heads lift up your heads oh you gates we lift it up you ancient doors now we know the doors and gates they serve a purpose they separate so in the first part of the song it's about the greatness of God the second part of the song was about the person trying to get the God they can't get the God the only way we get the goddess through the blood of Jesus Christ but here now it's God trying to get God's trying to come in but there's gates and there's doors and there's things that are blocking God from coming in and that means that we made areas of our life that we've said God you can have all of my life but you can't have these two God you can have say and how I do this this and this but God I'm keeping these two to myself or these three areas God these are for myself and as I thought about stories with gates and doors and if you would come to our house in Kenya you would you drive down a road and you would pull up and there's probably a 10 foot barbed wire on top I mean our house is great for keeping thieves out not so great if there's a fire there's a fire you're gonna be stuck and it's not gonna go so well but the first time we went to Kenya our kids were young we went out to dinner with a group of people and we actually went to their house and so at the end of dinner they said there's some things we need you to know about driving home I'm like okay and they said if anybody tries to stop you on the road don't stop run the motor oh okay you know I'm like twenty twenty five I'm like oh okay and they said and you know if there's a speed bump don't slow down just drive through because that's the things will jump out they'll attack you they'll steal your car and they'll kill your family I'm thinking okay you know and I just had this good meal and I can begin to feel the indigestion already because I got a 20 minute drive and they said so when you get close to the place you're good up to that gate you need to start hitting the horn because you don't want the guard to be slow and open that gate you probably sleep it but you need to hit the horn so you can just pull right in because if he doesn't open the gate the thieves are gonna jump out they're gonna kill you and I'm thinking what in the world why do we not do we choose to do dinner and that was gonna be this hard to get home and I was gonna be worried from another can tell you I mean we were driving like a little forward what would that be like Fort Escort and so I'm driving flying over and Kenya speed bumps are real speed bumps and so flying over these speed bumps and I'm telling you probably a half mile away from the house I mean everybody in the neighborhood knew I was coming because that gate I knew of when I got to that gate that gate was only that thick but I couldn't get in unless that guard opened the gate and said come in Aaron I want you to come in that we didn't get Rob is about you know made it that she was probably only like one and a half of that happened but idea it's a block if you can't get in it unless someone gives you access and there's areas of our life unless we open the gate and say God I want you to come in I invite you to every area of my life I want you all aspects of my life he's a gentleman he talks about in Revelation right he stands at the door and knocks that means that he's there he wants to come in and I think the thing we see in the scripture is is we're not just inviting him in so he can know we're inviting the King of glory in we're inviting the one that's strong in battle we invite him into we a lot of times in my life I've held areas because I think God I can handle this better than you can God there's areas in my life that I can do this better than you but when we're inviting the King of glory in we're inviting the Almighty and he wants to help us win those battles in our hearts and our minds and our soul and our spirit we invite him in by opening the door he's not going to knock it down one time when Josiah was a kid in Madagascar right up into the house and the doors would lock the bathroom doors would lock and I don't know why we did it that way anyway he got in there he shut the door the door locked and had a key so there was no the key was on the inside we didn't have a key on the outside the key was shut the door there's no way to get him out so we're like talking underneath you know the little this Josiah you know trying to give him encouragement to turn the key to get out there was no way to get out we go to the window try to encourage him because he didn't know how to open the door to let us in we have called our neighbor he brought us all we began to cut one hole it's a wood door another hole another hole to finally we can reach our key in there and unlock it and sometimes when we walk in like we need to invite other people because we've closed doors and sometimes we say there's doors in my life that I want to open that I want God to come in but I don't know what to do I don't know how to I want to invite God in I want to ask him to be present in this but I don't know what to do there's people at this church that want to help you as you see that you have areas of your life that are closed off that you want to invite him in all you have to do is ask him walk with me as I begin to open these doors and I open these doors in my life and that's God to come in the King of glory the God Almighty the one that can change the one that can rule and change I think sometimes in our life we keep these areas of gates and doors and we keep them blocked because we want to hold on to them and the thing about life is sometimes when things are blocked off we don't realize that they're there because they become normal you walk into somebody's house you know our house and can you walk in first time you walk in you'll see it somebody's house you see cobblips well they don't see the cobblips there you walk into their house it has a certain smell they don't see that and sometimes in areas of our life we have areas blocked off and we need to invite Jesus in so every morning now I spend some time praising God for who he is and he's the creator of the world I spend some time saying God other areas of my life of unforgiveness these people I need to forgive daily God I need to invite you into these for cleansing and the last thing I've been praying is God other areas of my life that I don't see that I need to invite you in God I open all the doors of my life I open all the gates wide God I invite you in because I need the King of glory as I prayed earlier he is our light and he is our salvation he is the stronghold of our life and inviting them open those doors inviting men that's phenomenal let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you for who you are we thank you that you are the King of glory we thank you that you're strong in battle Father just as with a psalmist is written today God he is he's written God of your great glory God he's written about needing you we need the love of Jesus Christ Father we cannot get to you without Jesus God we want to have clean hands we want to have your heart we want to have a divided loyalty to God we need you for that to happen Father I pray for these in this room God as I've been praying it as I shared in the beginning it's not the words that I share that will be important but God's what you've done you will do in our hearts God as I've shared about clean hands of your heart and the right spirit God that's pretty simple here they're sitting here today and they're saying God I need you God there's some areas of unforgiveness in my life God I just need to lay this down I don't want to walk in the bitterness it's there not saying what the person did me to me was right not to say it was justified not to say that God I'm excusing what they did but God because I want you joining in my life God I'm going to choose today to lay that bitterness down and there's other people in this room God they they have some areas of the life that are blocked off God as I've shared about gates and doors God you've said hey they've since you're speaking to them saying your heart is blocked off your heart there's two rooms blocked off in your heart I want to come in not only do I want to come in but I want to come in as the King of Lord I want to come in as the one that's strong a matter and I want to help you win those battles in your heart and your mind