Apostolic Lighthouse
The Race of Faith - Bro Trent McLean
God, I love you, Lord. Oh, God, I can't do without you, God. God, I need you, Lord. God, you're my life and my salvation. God, I can't do anything without you, God. Oh, God, I love you, Lord. I love you, Lord. I'm thankful for my family being in here today. My mom told me, don't look at her because I'm my maker. She might make me laugh up here. So I'll try not to look at her tonight. But I want to go to Hebrews 12-1 tonight. I'm thankful for Brother Samson and Brother Caleb allowing me to come up here. Hebrews 12-1, it says, "Wherefore, sing, we also are compassed about. We're so great at cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and sing that which doth so easily beset us and let us run the race with patience, the race that is set before us." I want to name this still tonight, the race of faith. Let's pray again tonight, as God helped me and Jesus name. It says, "The race," I want to talk about racing the race of faith. It's a fight. You can't just do it for a little bit. You've got to hang in there and stay full to God. You can't just kind of do a little push and then kind of hold back. But you've got to give God your everything. You can't hold back, but you've got to push and keep on fighting. Philippians 3.13 says, "For they that have used the office of a deacon will purchase." Hold on, I got the wrong deal. Brethren, I cannot not myself to have apprehended, but those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before. I press towards the mark for the price of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus. There's a prize at the end of the fight. I ain't racing for nothing. I ain't pushing on for nothing. I'm going to push until I get what I want. I'm going to fight until I get what I want. You can't walk and just kind of hold back and not really give God everything, but you've got to be born again. You've got to be born again. Brother Caleb, you want to know something? You can't win if you don't try. You can't get whatever you're searching if you don't push. I ain't going to get whatever I want if I don't come and give God my all. If I don't give God what He wants, I ain't going to get what I want. A runner that runs in a race and he runs and he don't just run for a little bit, but he keeps on running. He never hardly ever comes to a complete stop when he is running. When he does his rest, he don't come to a complete stop. He just walks. He never stops. Job 17, 13 says, "If I wait, the grave is my house. I have made my bed in the darkness. If I wait, there's the grave is my house. If I wait, that devil's going to get a hold of me. That devil's waiting back there behind me. He's trying to get a hold of me, but I'm going to keep on fighting. I'm going to keep on pushing until I get what I want." And you see it in this place today that some people run in the flesh, but they don't run in their spirit. They might be running in their eye. They might be running the aisles, but their spirit is still just sitting there. John 424 says, "God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. I ain't going to run and let my spirit set behind. I ain't going to run and let the devil hold on to me. But I'm going to run and I'm going to make it. I'm going to push till the end." There's a story of a woman that was running a dill cult, an ultra marathon, and a dill cult, an ultra marathon is ending farther than a marathon, and a marathon is 26.2 miles. She was running 100 miles or more, and she was running this race, and she didn't sleep in days. She hasn't slept in days, and she was running, and she was tired. She was worn down. That devil has gone in her mind saying, "You ain't going to make it. You ain't going to get it." But that woman, she started to fall asleep. She started falling asleep during the race. She fell, but you know, she'd ever hit the ground. There was a person with her. There was a person who caught her when she started a fall. There's a dill called a pacer in these long races that they run with. They run with pacers just to, in certain amounts of the race, they allow pacers to run with them, just to have someone along with them. But she was running, and she started running, and she started falling, but she didn't hit the ground. God's my pacer tonight. He don't let me fall. He catches me. He picks me up. He keeps me. I'm going to push and tell God gives me what I'm looking for, what I'm searching for, and it's a struggle. It ain't going to be easy. It ain't going to be easy, but I'm going to push on, and I'm going to fight until I get it. I'm not going to, oh, I need a rest. I'm going to sit down for a second. No, I'm going to keep on running. I'm going to keep on fighting. I'm not going to come to a start. When I need my rest, I'm just going to kind of walk along, but I ain't ever going to come to a start. I ain't going to come to a start. I'm going to give God my everything. Everything I could possibly give Him. I ain't going to hold back what I get from God. I figured I would have already been far in this. My notes has just passed on pretty quickly, so right now I'm out of notes, but it's a race to get to the end. It's a fight to get to the end. In a race, it ain't no struggle, it ain't no fight, but it's a fight. It's a fight to the end, and most of the time, you ain't going to get there the first try. You ain't going to get there the first try. It's going to take more than one time to this altar. It's going to take more than one time to get what you want. God's going to guide me. Yes. They don't run just through the wilderness along they don't run just alone. They have a path. They have a path that someone has already went through and paid that for them. They have a path that God has made and gave people the tools and the supplies to go create that path. God is my path. I'm going to push until I get God. Brother Sam Cardrick, he kept on coming up here, and the other night I was talking to Brother Colby, and I told him one day he's just going to, if he keeps on coming up here, and he keeps on pushing. I feel like God's just going to lay him out and the Holy Ghost. I feel like God's going to fill him with the Holy Ghost. He ain't going to give him just a little touch, but God wants to see the desperate. God wants to see how far you're willing to go for him. God's going to do a miracle if you fight and if you push, but it ain't going to come at an easy price. You've got to give your whole life. You've got to give yourself to God. I want to ask somebody at question night. Are you going to finish the race? Are you going to finish the race? Or are you going to kind of fall back and say I ain't going to make it? I ain't going to make it. Let me tell you something that ain't yourself saying that. That's the devil inside of you telling you, sneaking that into your mind. I believe that when you push as hard as you can, you can finish it. You can finish the race. Jason, can you start playing the piano already? But are you going to finish the race tonight? Or are you just going to hold back and not you say oh, I don't know. It's necessary to be baptized. I don't know if it's necessary to get the Holy Ghost. I don't know if it's necessary to repent. But the Bible says it is. The Bible says it's necessary. What you see in the world today, they nitpick at the Bible. They pick little parts of the Bible that they want to believe. They don't want to bleed the whole Bible. They want to bleed oh, I want this scripture. I don't want that scripture. But I want the whole scripture. I want it all. I want all God has for me. I want all God has for me. God has something in store for you tonight. God has something waiting for you. But you're going to have to make a commitment and come down to this altar and pray your life away. You can't hold on to anything of the world. You can't still have a grasp on the world and still have a grasp on God. But you're going to have to push and it ain't going to be easy to walk up to this altar for the first time. But it's all worth that prize. It's all worth the push. It's all up here. I believe God is all over in this building. He can touch you wherever you are in here. But I believe that God hasn't only did these altars. God has something on these altars for you. The altars are open tonight. If you fill the need, if you feel like you have to, but you need to. It's all the prayer. There's power prayer. ♪ It's time to come, it's time to come ♪