1 Thessalonians 5 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

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Is Whitten on the Right Track? – Acts 2 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

Is Whitten on the Right Track? – Acts 2 (Pastor Jeff Shipley)

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Now I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel. It wasn't their military styles.
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It wasn't the type of people. It's a great day to be alive in Jesus Christ our
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Lord. We're going to be in 1 Thessalonians 1 Thessalonians chapter 5
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This morning I uh My secretary
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Kaylee went on the youth trip and so I had to make my own coffee this morning
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I hurt my finger I chipped a nail but then I didn't have anybody to make y 'all's copies for you and then
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I remembered Hey! I still got to carry so I called Carrie up and I was like Hey are you coming in today?
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She was like yeah I said well guess what? You get to come out of the bullpen So I want to thank
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Carrie for helping me out today. Before we begin and before we turn these up a lot more
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I want us to read 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 1 -12
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Just read it to yourself Just read it to yourself 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 1 -12
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It's actually a cool verse baby Does that reflect you?
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I'll be honest with you I like that more and more You know what that means?
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Hey you did good today Skippy, do more Well Pastor last week
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I That's great Here's a bucky beaver badge now go back to work Right? I mean
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I can't live up to that You know? Think about this for a second God says unless you obey the entire law you're damned
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Good luck with that That's why God had to interject That's why
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God had to become our atonement Our propitiation The justifying act of God through the blood of Christ It's what enabled us to do and receive the blessings of God But yet there's still a call for us post salvation and that is to do more and more.
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Let me ask you this Is your spiritual maturity the same today as it was a year ago?
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If it is you're failing If it's the same as it was a month ago you're failing
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How do we get that better? Well to fulfill chapter 4 let's go to chapter 5
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Starting in chapter 5 I want you to read in verse 23 I'll read it for you
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It says this Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ He who calls you is faithful He will surely do it
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Brothers pray for us greet all the brothers with a holy kiss I put you under oath before the
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Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
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Folks I want you to understand something If I lived out my Christian peace or my
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Christian life based on my obedience and adherence I am always going to see myself as a big pile of steaming whale dung.
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I really am I'm going to constantly feel inadequate. I'm going to constantly focus on the negativity of who
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I am rather on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Christian you've already been found condemned before you were even born.
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God doesn't need any help saying that you're a big poo poo face. Ok? The question becomes what are you going to do with the grace of God that he has given you?
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Where do you go from here day to day in trying to mature in Christ?
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Well I'm going to tell you if you're constantly focused on your failures you're missing the grace of God.
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I want to look at just three things this morning First of all, what does sanctification mean? Come on y 'all are not
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Bellevue, let's do that again. What is sanctification? To be set apart.
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Good job Bueller It means to be set apart for something special so like you chicks that are wearing dresses.
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We don't have many people wearing dresses. Melanie's wearing a dress Melanie is wearing a dress. Did you wear that type of dress on your wedding?
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No. Right but you can wear that dress to dinner. Yeah? You can play in the orchestra in that dress.
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You can lead music in that dress. That dress can be used for anything but a wedding dress is separated for something specific.
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Christian you were saved by grace but you were set apart for something specific and that is to be a part of God's plan and the family of Almighty God.
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Now let's look just for a second the sanctification process that we need, if you look here it says, sanctify you completely sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit soul and body be kept blameless at the bottom of your pages
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I wrote out whatever you call it, copied and pasted Genesis 1 26 and it says, and God said let us go down and make man in our own image.
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God in his plural triune nature is reflected in human beings.
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When it says we were made in the image of God it doesn't mean that God's as ugly as Artie. It doesn't mean that God's as old as Gary.
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Actually God's a lot older. But it means that we are a reflection of the image of God.
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God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit We are a trichotomy We are a trichotomy
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It means that we have a spirit, soul and body Let me explain that to you for a second
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Our body, this flesh, most of us identify ourselves with our body.
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Have you ever had kind of one of those experiences and I've shared this with you before that you actually realize that you're alive
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You know what I mean? It's like that oh wow, I'm really here. What's happening is is that soul part of you that intimate real part of you is actually understanding that there is something more than this flesh.
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Guys you are not your body If I cut off your left arm you are not prorated minus that amount less than what your identity is.
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Now I don't want to confuse anybody with facts, especially Mississippi folks but this is not
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Jeff Shipley. This is the vehicle Jeff Shipley's riding around in. And though it be a
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Lamborghini -esque type of perfection this is not who and what
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I am This is the part of me that interacts with the world. This is what the senses interact with but that's not who
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I am I am also a soul That's where my personality and my brain are.
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That's where I have well -intending Christians not understanding trichotomy say well you know in our spirit is where our emotions.
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That are not true. That's not true at all If you don't believe me they are residing in your brain
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If someone had a traumatic brain injury their personality changes because of the chemical reactions in that part of the body.
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That's the soul That's how we relate in that thought processing and emotional world.
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Now for you Christians you have or all of us have a third part.
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But if you're a Christian, that third part is alive. And that's the pneuma, the spirit
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That's the part that interacts with God. Now if you're not a Christian, that part of you is dead.
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And it's been dead since before you were born You were born with a dead spirit
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That's why I laugh so much when I hear people say, I found Jesus. Man you didn't find
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Jack You were dead. Jesus Christ found you Jesus Christ saved you. That's why in some of you, you've never made that regenerative spirit
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You've never had your soul or your spirit be made alive again And you just can't make it
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You sit there and you try to have your soul morally change your life.
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Well man I gotta get back into church My life's a wreck. It ain't gonna change I gotta do this
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I gotta get off drugs. I gotta get my marriage right. I gotta do all this. That's your soul thinking.
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And let me tell you, you can get sober in your body with your soul, but you'll never be healed from addiction without your spirit being made alive again
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You can do a lot of things mentally But you can't go to heaven with that Here's what
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God said God said He wants to sanctify us completely
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Man, that's a hard thing How many of y 'all got Sunday morning ministries? You know what
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I'm saying? Some of you don't. In other words on Sunday morning, you're like God bless you
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God love you. I'll pray for you Just Lord did Or some of you old
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Southern Baptists Bless you. Bless your hearts Bless your hearts But as soon as you walk out of here
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Man, you ain't caring You see, your spirit gets put back on the shelf and it collects dust for another week while your soul takes over and feeds the lust of your flesh
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You see, when God died for you He wants the whole thing He wants to sanctify you completely, spirit, soul, and body
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You know, there's a hierarchy for a Christian There's a hierarchy for a
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Christian. If you are mature in Christ, your body is subject to your soul or your mind
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In the legal profession Mike and some of you others in the legal profession Why did you kill everybody in the house?
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I don't know. Yes you do Your hand did not just sit there and go boom boom boom boom boom
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Well, I don't know what happened Your brain had to send an electrical impulse down your arm for you to be able to do that Anything else is a lie that your lawyer will tell.
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It is impossible for your body to do something that your mind is not commanding it to do.
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But Christian you have something that can control the mind. And that's hard, ain't it?
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That's hard, ain't it? But the more you submit your mind to the spirit, your spirit, and your spirit is submitted to God's spirit everything falls in line.
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If your life feels like a train wreck, I'm telling you the way to straighten that sucker out is for your spirit to submit to God's spirit, your mind to submit to your spirit, and your body will naturally follow like a caboose to your...
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You understand what I'm saying? And that's what it means to sanctify completely Then it says this
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May you sanctify your halls and be kept blameless at the coming of the
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Lord Jesus Christ Here, for those of you that want to study more systematic theology, here is where justification and sanctification meet.
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Justification, the doctrine of justifications Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ Justification is to be rendered innocent or to be held blameless.
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You see we come to a point in our life where holiness means to be holiness means to be without blame before the
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Lord Jesus Christ but also without blame before others When it tells us we have peace with God, if we have peace with God, we will have the strength to have peace with others.
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How many of you struggle with someone in this room? The rest of you are liars because y 'all hate me
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You know what I'm saying? How many of y 'all struggle with folks in this? It doesn't have to be all the time. It don't have to be all the time but it can be sometimes
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You know what I mean? I tell you I know that for sure because y 'all spouses are sitting up in this room too, right?
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Guys You want to have peace with others? Submit first to have peace with God You find the humility to submit to God, God will give you the strength to submit and be right with others.
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Guys There is no legitimate grounds that we have as Christians to have anger one towards another
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I understand people make you mad I understand people are going to irritate you but if you want to be sanctified completely and you're harboring a grudge and you don't forgive, what's the word of God say about how
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God forgives you? He don't and if that don't scare you, you ain't a
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Christian. I'm serious now if you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you.
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You don't need sanctification, you need salvation right? Now watch this Now may look at verse 23.
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Now may the God of peace himself Do you understand that God's peace comes from God's power
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Do you know everyone who comes to me for counseling? I do like 30 people plus I do pastors from all over the world and you know it's funny some of them are looking for education and edification but at the end of the day, you know what people are really looking for?
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It's peace man. They're looking for peace. That's what they're looking for.
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Now what my job is, is to unravel all the lies that they've been told and the devaluing they've had from the world and to be quite honest with you from the lies they've been telling themselves, to unravel that and plug them in to the only real place you're ever going to find peace with God.
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Peace is a total well being. But I want you to understand where that comes from It doesn't come from sitting in Pastor Jeff's office.
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That's not where it comes from You see it comes from God Almighty. And here's the other thing.
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Guys you can try in vain to obey God but you try without the
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Holy Spirit of God and you submitting to that, it is an exercise in futility.
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I promise you that. If you're sitting there and you want to make a moral reformation without a spiritual regeneration that moral reformation will constantly fail and I'm telling you, more
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Christians are in this room in a weakened position because of self reliance rather than reliance on God.
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You're so busy trying to rely on self and the rules and the standards you make for yourself and all that stuff and you have no accountability.
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You're not doing it in the power of the Holy Spirit and you constantly fail and then you sit there and stay in that defeated state for X amount of weeks, months or even years and then someone will preach a sermon you'll get a little fuzzy feeling and you'll go and rededicate yourself to the premise of God's sanctification but you still don't plug in to the
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Holy Spirit of God. You're still relying on self or on music or on preaching or churches to get you there.
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And it never works does it? You just repeat the cycle. I mean, I know what
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I'll do. I'm going to start a devotion every morning. I'm going to go down to the Bible Baptist bookstore and I'm going to get a new devotion and if Beth Moore wrote it, oh my
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God, it's gospel. TV jinx! You know? Both of them are heathens by the way.
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Guys, it is only God's strength it is only
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God's strength that is going to enable you to obey God. In other words, you can't put that wedding dress on yourself.
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God's going to have to do it. God saved you, God sanctifies you, God's going to bring you home.
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That's the word of the living God. Listen, but having understood that,
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I want you to understand that God doing the power or giving you the power doesn't mean that you can sit idly by.
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We're about to do a mission trip. We're about to do a mission trip. And Pastor Josiah is leading this.
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He is. And I love Pastor Josiah. I really do. He's such a good leader.
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He's such a good guy. But sometimes I have to go whisper in his ear, hey, so -and -so needs a tune -up.
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Because here's what happens. One of the things I cannot stand in my family, in my church, and on mission trips if I got 32 people sweating, bleeding, and working and I got one person sitting over there doing this.
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Oh man! I lose my Jesus. And over the years,
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I'm trying to pull back and let the other leaders kind of come forward. Listen, man, you can stop working when everyone else stops working or you die.
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And if you die, that's a 30 -second break. Restart your heart. Pick up the shovel and go back to work.
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Because you don't have permission to die. That's how I raise my family.
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We all play. One of us plays, we all play. One of us works, we all work.
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And nobody quits until the job is done. That's how I just think about it.
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Guys, God's kind of the same way. You know how you're unplugged from God?
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It's you unplug yourself and here's how you do it. Holiness involves both the negative concept of separation of the world as well as the dedication to God.
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Here's why some of y 'all are failing in your sanctification process. You're sitting there going,
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I'm going to stop watching pornography. Okay? Let's stop watching pornography.
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www .hotsmokingbaptistpastors .com www .hotsmokingbaptistpastors .com And Witten will come up with my picture, alright?
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So here we are. I'm going to stop looking at porn. That's what I'm going to stop doing.
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So I'm going to not look that up anymore. How long does that last?
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No one wants to answer. Y 'all are not dumb. I can see one guy go, not very long!
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And his wife's sitting right there. Right. It doesn't work on us. Some of y 'all sit there and go, well, I want to stop doing this or I want to start reading my
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Bible every day. You see, the problem is what happens is there's only
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I in that. Has your prayer been, Lord, help me to do this. And it's not just reading my
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Bible. You can read your Bible or get off pornography not if you just focus on those two weak aspects of it, but also focus on the other things.
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Start serving others. Start being loyal to God's people and to God Himself.
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In other words, don't just focus on that one thing. Empower yourself to humble yourself before God.
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And the Bible says, He will lift you up. It's such an awesome thing to know every...
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I love being around guys. I do. And here's why. If I'm sitting down,
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I've reached that age and that mass. I've reached that age where if I'm sitting down, especially in a recliner,
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I might need a little assistance getting up. Okay? Now, you know, like Paul, he's my age, but he's a perfect male specimen.
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He doesn't have any problem. But for me, I've reached that age where I actually get hurt going to sleep.
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I do. And I need help getting up out of the chair. Now, it's great if my wife's there.
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She's good to call the fire department if I'm stuck or have a heart attack. But other than that, she ain't gonna do a whole lot of good.
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But when Pastor Josiah's there or Shane's there or another big guy's there, I can sit there and go, hey man, help me up.
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And it's like, whoop, and I'm up. Right? Guys, that's what you need to start doing, some of you.
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In your prayer life, sit there and picture that. Put your arms around the feet of Christ, man, and sit there and go, dear
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Lord, I need help up. I need some help. And I want to do this.
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Lord, you know I have the desire for this. And then if your next thing in your mind is, it ain't gonna matter,
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I'm gonna fail anyways, you just lost focus on God and started focusing on yourself again. And your sanctification will look like this.
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Focus on God. And if you fail, fail while striving greatly.
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And if you fail, don't sit there and go, well, I gotta wait another six months before I try agreeing because God's disappointed in me.
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God is not your mama. God is not your daddy. He don't play the silent game, okay?
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He wants to. Well, yeah, come on, boy, get back up again. Lord, this is the 432nd time that I failed.
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Well, that's great because I got 433 issues of grace. And every time you fail, grace extends one level more.
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That's what it means, His grace. He wants to sanctify you completely. Philippians 1 -6 says this,
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He that began a great work in you will, emphatically, will see it completed at the day of His coming.
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You know when He's finished? You know when I'm finished? That's when I'm dead and sitting in heaven. If you feel like a failure, that's understandable, but that's your feeling.
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That's in your soul that has nothing to do with your spirit, which is higher than your soul.
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Last thing. Start in verse 25. I want you to notice in these next three verses, it says, brother, three times.
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Brother, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I put you under oath before the
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Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. That's actually a great question.
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But let's do this expositionally, shall we? First of all, brothers, pray for us.
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Brothers, pray for us. Guys, I want us to start doing something. I want us to start doing something.
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If Lee comes up to me and says, pastor, will you please pray for Jackie? She's acting crazy this week.
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And I'll say, well, we'll just start praying every week. I want us to stop and instead of saying yes,
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I want us to say, let's pray. I want us to start doing that. I would rather our meet and greet time be a big prayer meeting than a big greet and meet time.
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You know what I'm saying? I would rather us, when we get together, I would rather us as God's people pray for each other like 30 times.
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In other words, you walk in the door and you're a new person. You're like, I wonder what today's going to be like.
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I wonder if they're going to have a light show and a smoke machine during the music because that'll be really Jesus stuff. Or before you walk out that door again, 30 people have said, let's pray right now.
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You see, which one is the world really needing? Are they needing more smoke machines, glitter bombs, and light shows?
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Or are they needing someone to actually care and love them enough to stop, get outside of yourself and waste just a few precious seconds of that awesome time of yours to say, let's pray.
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Guys, we want people to be more sanctified. Listen to what God says.
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Let us pray for one another. And then it says this, brothers, greet each other with a holy kiss.
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Now, wait a minute. What's the word holy mean again? Set apart. Sanctification, holy, all the same
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Greek word. What does it mean, greet each other with a holy kiss? Lee, buckle up, boy.
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Huh? Mickey, you're faking a fall in love, son. Mickey's like,
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I'm a green brain in the military, man, I'll kill you. Mickey knows that court of blood technique, man.
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He hits you, court of blood, fall out. Eddie Murphy, never mind. Guys, what's it mean to greet each other with a holy kiss?
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Here's what it means. Huh? Yeah, exactly. Here's what it means.
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It means to have something that is different than the rest of the world.
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In other words, like this, when I meet someone in the world, like when I'm walking down the street,
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I might sit there and go, what's up, man? I don't do that to any of y 'all. I don't do that to any of y 'all.
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I don't sit there and walk up on a Sunday morning and go, what's up, man? That's how I greet the world.
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When I see my Whitten family, I walk up and go, Mickey, I love you, because that's different than the rest of the world, right?
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Some of y 'all ain't going to go to San Francisco, it ain't too different, but it is different, right?
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It is different. When I see baby Rara, look how cute she is. I have to be gentle with girls sometimes.
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Sometimes my excitement, like with Anna, I'm like, baby Anna, she goes, gentle, gentle, gentle, and I forget, you know.
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It shouldn't be different. It should be different. Guys, if you walk into a church and like, hey, how you doing, man?
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God bless you. Man, that's so lame. And some of you dudes in here, you don't need to get in touch with your feminine side, you need to get in touch with your spiritual side, and let the joy of the
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Lord, which is your strength, come out, and you think God's joy looking at His children is like, what's up, good to see you.
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The Bible says in Zephaniah that when God thinks about us, He spins around wildly and dances with excitement.
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How excited are you to see the people, the children of God? Your brothers in Christ don't need another dose of the world of a placation greeting and a fake love.
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They need something genuine to feel a part of each other. You know, the closer we get as a world and the interconnectivity that we have, actually the more separated we really are.
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Some of the loneliest people in the world are the ones that live in the biggest cities because it's a reoccurring nightmare to them every day how isolated and alone they really are.
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When I see Mel, I like go, it's my baby hippie Christian, because she is so hippie. God she is so hippie, right?
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When I see little baby Kate and Robert, when I see, I'm sorry, it ain't something
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I have to make myself do. Like, I'm about to be gone on this mission trip. When I come back,
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I'm going to be so excited to see everybody that I haven't seen. Because this isn't play to me.
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This is the only family I got, guys. I ain't got nobody else. This is it.
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Everything that I love and care for is in this room. Everything. And I'm not just saying that.
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Everything. And I can't help but sit there and be thankful at baby
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Steven. You know? He's so cute. I greet each other something separate, different.
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In the SOG, when we teach the guys how to fight, it's always funny. The new guys will come in.
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I'm called Pops over there. The new guy, because I'm too old to do a lot of stuff. I'm kind of defenseless and all the other boys beat up on me.
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It's sad. But when I go over there, it's funny. Hey man, how you doing?
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If I don't know him, I go, hey, are you a believer? Yeah, I'm a believer. Hey buddy, how you doing?
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And you know, they're like, whoa man, I'm Baptist. Don't touch me. Sorry man, you're in the wrong place.
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This is like Italian love over here. This is that Jesus juice, man. I can't help it. Guys, greet each other with something special and separate that the world don't have.
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Guys, remember this. And Pastor Jeff is going to die. Y 'all remember this.
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In a few years, each other is all you people are going to have. My words.
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You're going to have to make a choice, not on Sunday mornings, but you're going to have to make the choice for the rest of your life whether you're going to stand with Christ or stand with the world.
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And it's going to come a time when standing with Christ, it's going to cost you. It's going to cost you.
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It's going to cost you your jobs. And unless you have family, you're going to starve.
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It's going to cost some of you your lives. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. Last thing.
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It says this. Brothers, let me read it in perfection.
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Listen to what it says. And I'll close with this. Relax. It says this. I put you under oath before the
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Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. Now, first of all, for all you people that spend way too much time on the internet and think you're intelligent, but you're really just,
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I mean like monkey butt stupid, listen to me. This is why we're so confident in the
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Word of God. If anyone's ever said to you, well, how do you know what the Word of God, the Bible says? Because I got 32 ,000 copies in 200 different languages over a thousand years, and they all say the freaking same thing.
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Oh, and in the 1940s, they found a bunch of scrolls in a cave, and everybody was like, oh my
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God, it's the Bible. It said the same thing. Dude, stop smoking crack, take the red pill, and get up out of that place.
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This is the Word of the living God telling you. But it says right here, read it to all the brothers.
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You know what that means? It means this. The reason some of us struggle with our sanctification, it's because we ain't got a lot of meat.
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When all my boys fought, and when I trained them how to fight, my daughter can whoop anybody up in this room, but she's too cute,
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I won't let her do it. But when my boys fought, like Pastor Josiah, he would eat probably 10 to 12 ,000 calories a day.
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A day. A day. Yeah, off y 'all's plates. A day.
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We would get up, and he would have a nine egg omelet with a pound of bacon and half a pound of sausage with biscuits and gravy for breakfast.
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Because the boy would get up, do his chores, go to school, go to football practice, come home, start training for fighting.
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Boy was constantly eating. Listen, I'm serious, I had to go get my wife. You don't have to get a job at 7 -Eleven or something, baby, because I can't afford to feed these thugs no more.
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I used to love it when they'd go spend the night at other people's houses. I'm like, thank Jesus. You know? It's a night to eat out.
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Guys, some of y 'all are trying to walk in a world that is trying to destroy you, and you're trying to build that maturity and growth in Christ without any nourishment whatsoever.
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You're taking in zero calories. And then you put yourselves in a situation with people who are sucking the life out of you.
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They're sucking the life out of you. That spiritual life, they're sucking it out of you. And you're letting them.
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They ain't forcing you to. You're letting them. You're running with dogs, and you wonder why you're scratching with fleas.
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Right? Here's what you need to do. Start eating enough of the spiritual to feed the spirit, to get it stronger so you can walk up the world and go, sup, how you doing?
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Marines are the best. You know? Or walk up and sit there and go, why'd you marry an ugly boy?
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And walk up. So you'll start having that strength, and you'll start having that. Now, watch what it says.
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It says, I want you to read the letter to everyone. Everyone.
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By the way, we have about 20 ,000 copies of 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. 20 ,000.
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I don't even know what the Bible says. You're an idiot. Watch this. You have a responsibility to teach.
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You do. You know what my job as a pastor is? It's really, it's a cool job. My job is to make sure there's no infighting, that there's no heresy, that everybody has a vision, that everybody has a goal to work towards, and you know what my job is?
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To get out the way. To get out of the way. To let you people do an exercise to give skills and talents that God gave you.
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To plug you in. Tracy came up to me. She's deaf. You're not all the way deaf, right?
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Are you all the way deaf? Yeah. She just said, what? Yeah, without her implant, she's like deaf.
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Deaf, deaf. Stone deaf. Watch this. I'm messing with you.
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She came up to me Wednesday and said this. Pastor, I'd like to teach an
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ASL sign language class. Yeah?
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You know what I said? Hold on a second. Charquita, Kaylee, come here. Y 'all hook her up, figure out how to get her on the docket.
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Let's get her a room. We're going to put it at 456. We'll have sign up lists and go. Man, heck yeah!
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She's using her gift skills and talents to feed God's people. We got men in here that teach young men how to change oil.
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Because some of you mommies are over -mothering and some of you fathers are under -fathering. Right? We've got people who are teaching all sorts of stuff because we want to feed the family.
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The last thing is this. His last words. And the grace of the
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Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. You know how we do everything
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I just said we need to do? At the end of the day, it is God's grace.
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How many of you have been looking too much at your failures and not enough of God's successes?
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How many of you are listening to the voice of your soul rather than the Spirit of God? How many of you are listening to the world and everything else?
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How many of you are like sitting there going, oh my God, what are we going to do in November if this person is elected or this?
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You know what I'm going to do? The same thing I did the last day. I don't care. I really don't.
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Well, Pastor, what about inflation? God's going to take care of that? He just got me a whole room full of chairs at a meeting and they didn't know what they needed.
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And God just did it. You think I can't do chairs? You think He can't deal with my wife having another loaf of bread or something?
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I ain't studying that. And plus, if I get hungry, I'll go over to Artie's. You know he eats like a hog.
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So, I want to ask you something. Do you understand God's grace?
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Pastor, I just know the song. Well, you're probably not a Christian. It's okay. I'm not fussing at you.
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What I'm asking you to do is come down here. Well, Pastor, I've asked Jesus in my heart. Nowhere in the
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Bible does it say to do that. That's why you're so screwed up. Because you've been listening to religion and churches rather than the
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Word of God that should have been read to you in the first place. Right? Listen to me. If you don't understand
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God's grace, you need to come up here. You music dudes, come up. You need to come up here and do your thing.
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I can't save you. The same spirit of God's in me is the same spirit of God's in every Christian.
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I don't got a double anointing or a double portion or all that other garbage you hear on TV. Same spirit of God's in me is the same spirit of God's in every believer in this room.
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But I got something that most of them don't use. I got the Word of the Living God. Romans 10 .17
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says, Faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. Okay? Some of you are in this room going,
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I got the grace part, but man, I'm struggling with that sanctification. What you're missing is the last three verses.
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You're missing those last three verses. Your spiritual life is private, and when it's private, it's screwed up.
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Three times in three verses, the key right before it got to the grace of God was the brethren.
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Listen, you want to get stronger in your spiritual life, you're going to have to get vulnerable and you're going to have to get open.
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You are. Hi, my name is Jeff. I'm a sinner. Glad you're here.
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That's what church is. It's one big meeting. That's what it is. If you are so prideful that you can't admit you're a sinner, that's your first problem.
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Listen, Christian, if your problem is you won't admit that you're a sinner, but you can point it out to somebody else, that's called hypocrisy.
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It's what Jesus damned the Pharisees of, and it didn't really work out good for them when Jesus said to them, how are you going to escape the damnation of hell?
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So you might want to seriously think about that. But if you're in this room and you're not sure about where you are with Jesus, I want you to come up here.
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If you're struggling with your sanctification, I want you to come up here and let me help you introduce you to someone who can help you.
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It's called Witten Baptist Church. Because see, we're all idiots trying to find the same place.
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And we help each other. If you're in this room and you need to join a church or you need to get baptized, you've never taken that first step.
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And I ain't talking about someone sprinkling water on your butt when you're eight days old in the Catholic Church. I'm talking about Believer's Baptism, the way the
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Word of God says it should be. That after you become a Christian, you need to be baptized.
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If any of that stuff applies to you, I want you to stand with me. And there's a
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Miss Carla. Stand up. It's okay. Stand up. I want you to come and don't make an emotional decision.
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Make a spiritual one. If God has spoken to you today, you come forward this morning as God leads.