We should walk into your feet. Now, we'll open the door. Alleluia, shed a fire. Good evening.
This is Bishop Collins from the House of Worship and Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I want to thank you for allowing me once again to be in your home. I have a message for you tonight that is going to edify you, so build you, it's going to grow you, and it's going to strengthen you in the things of God. It's going to set your mind right, if you will, about how we should think about the things of God.
And the time of our message tonight is God is on our side. This is the Easter message from earlier this year, but the thought, the idea that God, the creator of everything is on your side, he's on my side, he's on our side, is a phenomenal thought. And so I want to share that message with you right now. Take a look and I'll be back in just a little bit.
I have to have a title today, but I do have a title. The title of the message today is that God is on our side. Wait a minute, man, hold on. God is on our side.
So when I say that, you know, message is like God is on our side. We always get excited about that. God is on our side. Oh, how do we look at the character part real man, flip, you know, back spins.
God is on our side. But I added something to that. God is on my side just to be on my side. God is on my side for a purpose and God is on my side.
God is on our side. God is on your side. God is on our side. He's on the side of humanity that we might believe.
God is on our side that we might believe. Now, let me do my best to set this up from a time perspective and from a God perspective so that you can see as best as you can, what it is that the Holy Spirit would have you to see today, like the glory of God. And I want to go back 4000 years. Back back over 4000 years.
I want to go back to the fall of man. You know the story of your Bible reader where God made this incredible creation and he took man and a woman and put him in it. It was perfect. It was beautiful and it was just unfathomable.
We can't really put our minds around it. God has an enemy. You have an enemy because of the fact that God, your God's creation and that enemy showed up and deceived Eve and Adam, and and and disobedience. And there was a fall of mankind.
What we find is in in Genesis three, verses 14 and 15, right after the fall of man. I mean, I'm going to talk right after God makes humanity a promise. And I'll read to you, Genesis three, 14 and 50 says, and the Lord got sent to the serpent. Satan and serpent came to do an agreement and signed it with each other.
Because you have done this, you have cursed above all cattle and above, every piece of the field on your belly shall you go. And does shall you eat all the days of your life, talking to the servants. And I will put in messy or I will put hatred between you and the woman and between your seed, smallest and her seed, capital. It, meaning her seed, he's talking about Jesus, he shall bruise your head.
That's the only way to kill us, make it, because he's talking about the cross and you shall bruise his heel talking about the sufferings of the cross. One moment we are sending against God, talking about humanity now. Right behind it, God says, here's my promise. My promise is at some point in time, I have already set it up so that you will have an opportunity to come back from the mistake that all humanity has made after three things today that we must get into our spirit as we stand and we look at the pinnacle of our Christian faith, which is the empty tomb.
Yeah, yeah. It's great that he came that he was born of a virgin. That's an incredible miracle that had never happened before. It has never happened again.
He was born of a virgin. That's great that he came. It's great that he suffered and he died and the name of Jesus Christ. But all of that would mean nothing if the tomb wasn't empty.
Can I get amen? Three things to that. First thing is we look at the reality that God is on our side. That God is on our side, but it's on our side that we might believe is the passion of Christ.
I want to tell you today that it is literally impossible for you and I to have any real sense of understanding about how much God loves you. It's impossible. It's impossible for you as a creative being, as a thing that is infinite, that has boundaries and borders to really understand how much God, which was not created, who was not created beating, who has no boundaries and no borders and the name of Jesus Christ. This thing that is encapsulated in time, God who has no boundaries, has no time restraints, the name of Jesus Christ.
It's impossible for you and I to really understand how much God loves us. He loves us. He loves you. He loves me.
He is absolutely completely smitten with us in the name of Jesus Christ. He loves us so much that he would not allow the mistake of the first people he made up here on earth to ruin it for everybody else. He immediately puts a plan in place that reconciles humanity back to the holiness of God. I came to take it and that's the problem that we got.
The problem that we have is not only our sinfulness, but God's holiness, those who are incompatible and they can never come together and we need something to bridge us from our sinfulness to God's holiness. In steps to love of Jesus Christ. We talk about it today and it's true for you and for me as we look at that moment in Genesis in the third chapter, even down through the years as we go through flipping the pages in the Old Testament, even to your life and to my life today, down through the years and even now we must admit that God has been patient. He has been long suffering and he has been compassionate.
Those are characteristics for people that love you. Come on somebody. Come on now. The people that you love, you are patient with them, you are long suffering with them and you are compassionate toward them.
It is a picture of Jesus Christ. He does not treat you and I. Okay. He doesn't treat me the way I treat him.
Because he loves me. Ah, come on man. He does not treat me the way that I deserve to be treated. Does that treat us the way that we deserve to be treated?
We deserve death, but he gives us life. He loves us. Yes, because he loves us. He does not love us because we deserve to be loved.
He does not love us because we are so good and we are so righteous. God get amen. He does not love us because of our kindness towards others. We have performed some supernatural spiritual feet that makes God put God in awe of us.
No, he loves us simply because he loves us. He loves us because he created us. He loves us because he made us. He loves us because in the name of Jesus Christ, that's his desire to love us.
Know that God takes every chance he can take to bless us. God is looking to bless you. He's looking to bless me. Every chance he gets to bless us.
He blesses us. The reality is revealed in the fact that we are still alive. I don't know about you, but I remember my BC days. Even my AC days, some of them have not been so great.
I don't know about you, the name of Jesus Christ. I remember my BC days. I know the word of God tells us that the wages of sin equals death every time I sin, I'm supposed to die. But mercy and grace kept sin.
I said, wait a minute. Hold on. Even in my BC days. He said, hold on.
I believe he's going to turn around. I believe there's no turn around for him. I believe there's some moment in time he's going to believe. Hold on for a second.
I'm going to give him another chance. Not a second chance, but another chance. Even in my AC days, my Oscar Christ days. I don't know about you, but I'm still prone every now and then to do something that is on the God in the name of Jesus.
Even though I should be dead, I'm still alive by the grace and the power of God. The fact that I'm breathing today proves that God is on my side. Prose that God loves me. Prose that God loves us.
And God does not just love us, but he loves us to the point of complete and total abandonment. God is so enthusiastic about you. Even the one that doesn't know God. Even the murderer.
Even the one that's out here in the street that don't even think about God. Don't think about the word of God. Don't think about Jesus. Don't think about coming to church.
He's so enthusiastic about them. They're so in love with them to the point of complete abandonment. He's got a passion for you. God truly loves us that we might truly believe.
A lot of people have been asking questions and wondering about how the home for the homeless children in Mexico is going. I want to thank all of you who so many of you that have supported us both by the prayers and with your financial support. I want you to know that the project is moving forward rapidly. We have purchased 14 acres of property.
We did that in December of last year and the building has already begun. So we're hoping to be complete by the end of the summer and the worst scenario by the end of the year. I want you to pray about prayerfully continuing support if you've already been giving. But if you haven't been to join us to partner with us to help us to build this home that's going to have an incredible impact for the children in that area.
So thank you in advance for your support for your prayers and for your financial support. Thank you. I love that you love the name of Jesus Christ. There is the passion.
But here we just stay with me. Wherever there is passion, usually it's followed by pain. And we cannot talk about Easter without talking about Good Friday. We cannot talk about the love of Jesus Christ.
We can't talk about the love of Jesus Christ. But when we walk around Israel, we want to stay with him. We can't talk about the love of Jesus Christ. We cannot talk about Jesus Christ.
without talking about good Friday. We cannot talk about the love of God without talking about the pain of God. Jesus Christ goes through the agony of the cross because of his love for you and me. Stay with me for a second.
You gotta grab me. And especially, can you put your mind around this for a moment as to who he is? As to who Jesus is, that if you could have stood in the portals of heaven and viewed what was happening in heaven, that you would see him as the holy one, as the adored one, as in a place where everything is holy. That he is the holy one, the adored one, as beautiful as heaven must be.
That he is a pinnacle of heaven, if you will. He is the one that's spoken in the place that let there be. And it was, and it is, and it continues to be until he tells it not to be anymore. That's who he is.
He's beautiful. He's majestic. He's holy. He's righteous.
He's perfect. He's flawless. He makes a decision to love us so much that he's going to be the bridge from my sinfulness to God's holiness. Problem with that is, there can be no remission of sins without the shedding of blood.
There can be no forgiveness unless something dies. And so steps in his stuff, Jesus Christ, the cause of his love, he makes a decision to deal with the pain. He does everything that is required. He is sitting around with God the Father, God the Son, God the Son is sitting around with God the Father, God the Holy Spirit, contemplating the fall of humanity.
In that moment, I say, what we need to do is we have to have heaven. And somebody says, because in their wisdom, the only way we can rectify this, because we gave man no men, you know, it's so very, so we can rectify it. Somebody can have to go down as a man and undo what Adam did. And somebody's going to have to die.
That's the only way that we can fix it. And Jesus, the one that loves us so much, raised his hand, it's their father. I will go, I will rectify it. I'll fix it.
I'll give all that is required for the deliverance of those that I love. Somebody had to say, everybody won't believe. Everybody won't buy in to what you're selling. Jesus, he said, that's all right.
It's only one by Z. Oh God, I thank you today. Oh, I thank you today. He said, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'll suffer.
I'll tell you today, there's a direct correlation between our love and the pain that we'll endure. I'll say that again. There is a direct correlation between our love and the pain that we will endure. You know, some women have a maternal spirit.
They want children. They love children. And when they think about having children, even though they already had a child, they understand the pain that's involved with that. They don't even think about the pain.
They think about the thing that they love, amen? Some women that have one child, I'm good with me. I appreciate it. Thank you, Jesus.
I'm out. And so there is, when you look and say, when you love something, you're willing to go through pain for it. It's like a man is in love with a woman that treats him like a dog. He's there anyway, because he loves her.
He's willing to deal with the pain, because he's praying. He's believing God. Go to check that thing up at some point in time and bring her back around. That when we find something that we love, we are willing to go through great pain for it.
I know some daddies in here that say, I would die for my child. Come on somebody. The situation of the situation, because God forbid that I would be in that place. If it's when you're presented yourself, I would die for my child, because I love my child so much.
The greater the level of love, the greater the level of pain that you can do, and you can look at the pain and see the love. Jesus Christ, the suffering, the servant, suffered in so many ways. We see him typically, we want to talk about the physical suffering, and we should, because this idea of him being scurged, being quipped with this item, this tool, this instrumental pain that was a wood stick about that long, and it had leather straps tied to it. And the leather straps, they'd have metal, they'd have bones, they'd have glass, and the purpose of those objects were to rip the flesh from the bone.
And that the Roman officers had to come so good at using this instrument that they could be the man literally to within an inch of his life and not kill him. He was scurged. It was a bloody mess, but the grace of God, we had the chance, the wife had the chance to go to Israel, and we went and we saw the area where, we believe that Christ was beaten, and we saw potentially the stone that they put him on, and basically it's a stone that's about this high, and it's about that round, and it has a metal hook in the top of it. They take a chain, and they run that chain through it, and they put his arms in the chain, and they strip his back, and they bend him across that stone.
They whipped him, they whipped him for me. They didn't just scurgeon, but they beat him. They beat him before they scurged, you know the Roman soldiers, they beat him, they spit on him, they physically tore him apart. As my dear, Isaiah said that when he was done with it, when he was through it, when the devil was done with it, if you had to walk past him and saw him, you wouldn't even know it was a man.
Physical suffering, yes, we look at that, we think it's horrible, and it was, but that's not the only suffering that he had, he suffered emotionally. They humiliated him, they humiliated the king of kings, and the Lord of what kind of king is this? What kind of God is this? They humiliated him, they stripped him, neck it, they paraded around him, they spat in his face, they despised him, they rejected him.
They humiliated him in every way they knew him. Things that you see red, things you see written, and things you don't see red, he suffered emotionally, he suffered physically, he suffered spiritually, and all of his being from eternity past to this moment, he has never been separated from his father. Never been, how can you separate? How can you separate a thing that's one?
God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, they are one, three things in one, how can you take one thing out of, how can you take a thing out of something that's one? Spiritually, he was ripped out, the Father turned his back on Jesus in the name of Christ, when he felt the entirety of the sin of humanity, y'all said, and I said, I did that. He felt on Jesus, God the Father turned his back. And Christ in his moment of greatest pain, I believe he cried out, my God, my God.
What's happening here? Why have you left me? This is new for me, I don't understand in the full way of the physical pain, in the full way to be emotional pain comes flooding in, get out there to the pain of the cross, the agony of the cross. I can see in the cross his love for me.
I can see in the cross, he's gotta be on my side. There's no one that goes through that for me, for me when I hated him, when I didn't care about him, I wasn't concerned about him, I was going my own way, no one goes through that for me. If he's not on my side, he doesn't love me, he's not hot after me, he doesn't want me more than anything. Stop and reflect for a moment, it's the bunnies are hopping in the Easter eggs, quote unquote are being looked for, stop and reflect on what that looked like, a Christ to be crucified, the way that the Bible outlines it for me and for you.
What did he go through for you? Pain, he went through the pain that God might prove his love. The wad is not like me, we say we love you and heart me, we say we love him quick, quick moment, we love you. But God proved his love on the cross that we might believe.
I say 52 and 14 says just as many were appalled at you. I say I'm talking, just as many were appalled at you Christ talking through Isaiah, just as many were appalled at you, people were appalled when they saw him. My people, so his appearance was marred beyond that of a man and his form beyond the sons of mankind, Acts 1 and 3 says to these, he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proof. There's a passion, there's a pain, God is on our side, but there's a purpose that we might believe.
See, I don't know about you, but I need to be delivered. I need to be delivered, I need to be delivered, I need to be delivered from me. I'm the biggest problem. We give the devil way too much credit.
Don't get it wrong, he's a strong man. The word God says he's a strong man. No question, the world has his influence as well. But the biggest problem I got is me.
But God came and died on the cross, fulfilling his promise of over 4,000 years prior to this so that he could deliver me from me. He delivered me from my wrong thinking. Hallelujah. Come on, anybody, don't raise your hand, but anybody got any wrong thinking.
Anybody ever had any wrong thinking? If I don't believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, I have wrong thinking. Well, what do you think about that? That God truly is on our side.
It's an amazing concept, it's an amazing thought to comprehend that and to realize that. So because God is on our side, that gives us the opportunity to give our hearts to Jesus Christ. It gives us an opportunity to be an intimate relationship with God. And that is exactly what he wants.
It's the, for his children through creation, that we might become his children, if you will, through recreation or rebirth by faith in him. And you can do that in just a second, in just a moment. All you have to do is ask Christ Jesus to come into your heart to be your Lord and to be your Savior. That's all that you have to do.
And in that moment, if you really minute, in that moment, Holy Spirit, God, the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and he changes our lives forever in such an incredible and positive way. If you wanna do that right now, you can do it. And so just say those words, Lord Jesus, I invite you to come into my heart. I invite you to be my King, my Lord, my God.
I said, run in my heart, my will, my purpose, everything I have to you, Lord, for your glory and for my benefit. If you've done that, we wanna know about it cause we wanna pray with you. And we're gonna put your name on our prayer list and we'll keep praying for you, okay? All right, so we bless you, we love you.
Let me pray with you. Father God, the name of Jesus Christ, I just wanna pray for all those that are listening tonight and I actually to bless them in a special way. And remind them as they go through the difficulties and challenges of life that you really are on their side, that you're on our side, the fact that we're alive today proves that Lord God. And so that there's a response that we should give to you because we understand that you're on our side, Lord.
So allow us help us, Master, to line our will with your will, our purpose with your purpose, our plan for our lives, with your plan for our lives, that we might live the abundant life that you died on the cross for us to live, Father. So step in, Father, through every situation, be honored and glorified in it. That's our prayer, that's our decree, it's the Christ name we pray, amen. So once again, thank you so much for allowing us to be in your home, we count our privilege to do so.
Hope you have a blessed week this week. We'll see you next week, same time, same station. Amen, have a great day.