Viola Solid Rock Assembly
Walking in Genuine Faith
I may not need that to not. So, I've known that I was gonna be preaching for Pastor Joe for a while. And I thought God had given me, told me what I was gonna be talking about, and I got in it this week, and I was like, man, no, not for here, not for right now, like, man, okay, okay, Lord. And as I'm like looking over, like I have this, usually what I do is like I'll look back in my nifty little notebook and see like what stuff that God has spoke to me during, maybe during somebody's message or a service or something. And like, okay, Lord, is this what you want me to share? Do I need to share, you know, sometimes it's stuff that he's specifically for me, and sometimes it's things that just come to my mind. And man, it was like, no, no, no. And I'm like, okay, Lord, like I kind of, kind of got to have something. And, but I feel like, like, Pastor Joe touched on a lot of those things this morning. And then I picked, you know, God gave me the scripture, the portion of scripture, and I'm like, okay, I feel like it kind of still goes along with, but not where my mind had originally went. So, and I did not, Romans 12, starting in verse nine, Cody is where we're gonna, where we're gonna start this morning. But this morning, y'all. (laughs) It's been a day. I looked in, I said, it says thoughts from this morning's message, and I saw mornings and, you know, my brain. But a lot of what God has been placing on my heart or sharing different places that I went and has been about serving and leadership, like Sunday school. And we've talked about it quite a bit lately. And the conference that I went to a few weeks ago, I went and listened to my friends. Her husband is the senior pastor, and he has like master's degree and some kind of leadership, something or others. So he taught the leadership class, and I went to his class, and, you know, it's all about like leadership is serving. Leadership is being there, doing the things, not telling all these other people to do the things and then go sit down. But I feel like the Lord has been, thank you so much, sir. I don't know if people are gonna be able to see me behind here, but maybe. Y'all just gonna have to be okay with it tonight. Okay. But I was thinking about how we can hear the same message, the same sermon and get something totally different from it. And one thing that I did wanna point out about from this morning, you know, the passage that Joe read at the very end of that when Jesus says, like he's like, take this cup of suffering from me, but if not, your will be done. And what God spoke to me during that time was, and I felt like I needed to share it for somebody. Have you accepted your cup of suffering? I think sometimes we have this expectation of, if we come to God and ask for healing, that that's his will. And sometimes it's not. Yes, we serve a healing God, but sometimes his response is no. Sometimes his response is, I need you to navigate this. I need you to walk through this so that down the road, you can help somebody else walk through this. Because if we're here to minister to those around us, if we're here to reach lost people, then what better way for us to be equipped to do those things, unless we walk through it first? I can think of one specific time before I quit walking the parking lot. I was dealing with something, some pain, and I asked God, please take this away from me. And he was like, no, like clear as day. I don't know how y'all like hear from the Lord, but it was a no, I need you to go through this. I need you to feel this so that you can have kindness and compassion and grace for somebody else that's going through the same kind of thing. You know, that's not what we want to hear, right? That ain't, we don't want to hear. You know, we want to go to God and he's our big father in the sky. We just want him to say, yes, here you go, but that's not how it works. Sometimes, just like all of you parents know, like you know sometimes your kids just need to hear the word, no, like looking back on life, I'm like, now it all makes sense. They said, no, just to say no. Like not that anything was wrong, not that anything was going on or happening, they just wanted to say no. I just needed to hear that word. Because if we went through life here in yes, all the time, I'm sure you can imagine what's bold little brats we would be, right? (laughs) Anyways, well, that's that sermon, so there you go. So in Romans chapter 12, verse nine, says don't just pretend to love others, really love them. Hate what is wrong, hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically. Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble and keep on praying. When God's people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Don't curse them. Pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who are happy and weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with each other. Don't be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people and don't think you know it all. Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see. You are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the scriptures say I will take revenge, I will pay them back, says the Lord. - Amen. - Romans 12, 9 through 19 is like a blueprint for what it means for us to live as transformed believers in a broken world. Paul is challenging us to embody the characteristics of Christ in our daily lives. Is it hard? Absolutely. Do we always wanna allow God to handle our situations or do we wanna take control sometimes? And you know, that word revenge. I don't even remember where I heard it but I've been saying it to my kids. It's okay to be mad but not to be mean. You know, sometimes I feel like there are Christians that need to hear that. Like it's okay for you to be upset. It's okay for you to be mad. They don't give you an excuse to be mean, right? Because what does the world looking for? You know? I'm gonna get all kinds of off tonight. Y'all just gonna have to bear with me. The world is looking for us to respond the wrong way, to react harshly. It's like, and I love my children but they do this. They are the world's best at picking at each other. And they will pick and pick and pick just for the purpose of getting a response out of each other. And the world does that. Satan does that. He will soon situation after situation to just interrupt our day, mess with us. You know, when things are just going, all kinds are wrong. And it's like he's just sitting back waiting. Waiting for that flesh to come out. Waiting for us to have the wrong reaction and then be like, see, see, you're not really as crass like as you thought you were. You know, he wants to be able to rub it in our faces. And how many times do we fall for it? How many times do we allow those things to get at us, to get under our skin and affect our witness and who we are to the people around us? So three things that I want to pull out of out of this scripture. He verses nine through 10. He's really talking about genuine love. Without hypocrisy, devoted to each other, brotherly love. Do we really know what that means? Do we really know what it looks like? The word in Greek is agape. It's a genuine sacrificial love. Now we may love our husband or wife, our siblings that way, but do we really love other people that way? Because if love is supposed to be unconditional, what conditions are we placing around how we feel about certain people? We have to love with sincerity. Because if we have a genuine love for God and other people, what will happen is we will reject sin. We don't want to do anything to harm our relationship with God, right? We don't want to do anything to harm our relationship with others. And that part of that scripture also tells us to cling to good. Our lives should be marked by a passionate pursuit of what is good and what is righteous. Think about what that looks like when we pursue good and righteousness. As a firstborn, I don't know if it's first that I'm a firstborn or my personality type, I don't know. I am a justice seeker, okay? So when I see things that I know are wrong, it is hard for me to just, okay, Lord, and especially when it's my own children doing it to one another, (laughs) it's like, why can't they just love each other, just be friends? All it takes is a living room full of Legos, FYI for my kids today. I'm like, where Joe, what happened? He's like, I don't know. And I don't even care that there's Legos all over the floor. They're not screaming at each other, they're not calling each other names, they're playing together. Like that's what we should be able to do, right? Is we should be able to be and exist together because there is that love there. There is that passion for one another because we truly care about what happens to each other. We care about the lost people and their souls and what's going to happen to them and the things that they're gonna have to experience and walk through alone if they don't know who Jesus is, if they don't know that love that God has for them. So as Christians, it's not our words that show the loss that show our fellow church people that we love them, it's our actions. It's what we do that shows love for one another. And that love is the foundation for a Christian community. I feel like a lot of the messages that I are just topics that I felt like the Lord was speaking to me, but that wasn't like the focus, was talking about unity and community. And like Pastor Joe said this morning, we can't do this on our own. We're not going to survive on our own. We need the people because what is the voice in your head, the voice in your head is gonna be, a lot of times the negative voice that we can't do that. You need somebody that's a cheerleader that say yeah, you can, you can do that. That they believe in you, we all need to hear that. And we ain't gonna hear that from ourselves, are we? No, we're not. And at verses 11 through 13, it says, "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, ouch. Faithful in prayer, share with the Lord's people who are in need and practice hospitality. The Christian life is not one of passive belief, but active humble service. And if we are humbling ourselves, or if we are serving, then it shows, or we should show that we have a zeal for the Lord, right? Our service to God, should it be done half-heartedly? We should be fervent and passionate in our devotion to the Lord. Now, is cleaning the toilets or cleaning up after the children on Wednesdays the most fulfilling thing? No. Sometimes they be gross, okay? Grapes, we had grapes in the sink. We've never had grapes at church that I know of. I don't know how that happens. But you know what? They're here, and they're gonna learn about Jesus while they're here. They might not go anywhere else and learn about Jesus. So if we gotta deal with some mess, it's worth it. Because the, if my math is correct, about 65 teenagers and kids that we had last Wednesday. If y'all are wondering, I think there were 10 adults here on-premises for that first three hours. That's why we need help, okay? That's why we need help. They are a lot, and we really need to be able to spread 'em out. That's a reason that we need, like if you, if you was willing just to come sit in a room, just to make sure that they don't do stupid stuff. Like that's, you know, you can sit down. We gotta couch upstairs. Like, we got comfy chairs. If we don't, we can get a comfy chair. But we're excited, and I want you guys to be excited. Because in the future, this could be, you know, the time that they're here with us as students can be the most impactful time in their life. And something that they look back to and say, you know what, I remember, I remember Zach and Christina. I know that they will understand what I'm going through. I know Jamie, and I know the things that he went through in his life, and I remember that church. I didn't intend to get emotional, sorry. They're my kids. I tell 'em all the time. I will act like your mama, but I will love you like your mama. I'll tell you when you're doing wrong, and I'll still love you. And we need more people to have the heart like that. Because some of these students don't have anybody that shows that love and connection. They're not connected to anything. And that's why we need volunteers. That's why we need help. No, I promise you not because we don't wanna do something. Patients in trials, that patient endurance and suffering. That's not something that we want to have to go through, but it is something that sometimes God asks us to go through. And one of the things that he showed me this morning or question that came to mind was, are you willing to accept the suffering that he's asking you to go through? Because sometimes I feel like when things happen in our life, we fought so hard, but really what are we doing? We're not letting God do the work. We're continuing to fight him. And what he is asking us to do, like Jesus did, whatever your will, Lord, I accept it. I will do this. I will go through this because you're asking me to. And sometimes until we do that, we aren't gonna feel that peace. We're not gonna feel that we're gonna continue to have those doubts. Black Pastor Joe talked about this morning. Also, if we're loving people like we're supposed to, we're gonna have generosity in our hearts, hospitality, because true service extends beyond the church walls, right? We're not just Christians in this building. We should be Christians in Walmart, even though it's hard. We should be Christians. I didn't look at you, Jamie. I looked over here towards Jackie when I said that. Listen, there's some crazy folks that want more, okay? But, and I know I fail, I fail. I don't feel like I'm hospitable, like at all. And I got kids, some of these students walk up in my house and they'll just like shock if it's clean. Thanks for calling me out, KK. Like, I got five kids. It looks like 17 children live here, yeah. Uh-huh. If you don't mind that, you're welcome. If you can help me fold laundry. But are we opening our hearts and opening our homes to people? Like, are we being those kinds of people? Should we be? Yeah, we should. Because that's another action of love to the people around us. Lastly is pursuing peace. And verses 17 through 18, it says, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. "Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, "live at peace with everyone." One of the most radical aspects of Christian living is the call to pursue peace. You know, in scripture where it says, "Well, if they hit you on the cheek, "off or the other cheek." Like, we don't want to do that, do we? We, a lot of times we want to be right in situations. And when we feel wronged, we don't want to be silent. We want to speak up for ourselves. There was a situation I dealt with whenever I was working at a different school district. And it was apparent that, like, made accusations to another, like, paraprofessional, that she didn't know that I worked with every day. So she knew who I was, she knew what I was about. And I shared with her, invited her to church and stuff. And so when it happened, she was like, "I don't think that you know what you're talking about." And so the person came directly to me and I'm like, "Okay, well, they're like trying to get me fired." So I'm like, "All right, well, we'll let the principal know what's going on." And I was just, I didn't defend myself to her, but when I took it to the principal, the principal's like, "Well, if that's how she feels, I guess her kid can go to school somewhere else." I was like, "Okay, Lord, you got my back, you know? Like, because your character will speak louder than what other people are saying about you." And that's why we do. We have to be really careful about how we react to things. We have to reject retaliation. Because what does it do? It fuels the fire. It makes it worse. If somebody kicks so and so in the face, then the other one's going to punch them in the gut. So then they're going to scratch them on the leg and then the other one's going to go get something to throw because inevitably in my house, that's what happens. They find random objects, you know? And it's just going to keep going and going and going. And the only way to stop it is to not react, to not respond. And in my experience, it is so much better to just let God take it, let him handle it. Because he's way more wise than I am. He's way more knowledgeable than I could ever be. And while I don't know how to fix the situation, God does. God knows how to bring things full circle. So it is our responsibility to pursue peace. Conflict is inevitable. We're going to face it. But we have to make every effort to live in harmony with others. And this includes forgiving offenses, showing grace, and building bridges of reconciliation. Because we are called to reflect the Prince of Peace in our lives, to promote unity and harmony because our world is so divided. I am not afraid. I'm nervous for the next month. No matter what happened, like either way, I'm nervous. Because I know I'll be okay. But I don't know how all these other people are going to feel. I don't know if they're going to feel betrayed or confident or let down or angry enough to go do something crazy like. We're just going to pursue peace, right? Let everybody else live in chaos. And we can pray peace over ourselves. Because no matter which way it goes, I don't have that much faith to put into that because my faith isn't God. He's the one that I rely on. He's the one that is going to take care of me in the future, not whoever's in charge for the next four years. Because let's face it, whoever comes next is probably going to undo whatever they did. I mean, the way it's been working. So we're going to pursue peace, right? We're going to choose to live out our faith in a way that reflects Jesus, that reflects his transformative power, that shows that he really is the Lord over our lives. So we're going to seek that. We're going to seek peace. We're going to strive to love people no matter what. And we're going to serve. And we're going to be so excited about it. Staying with me tonight. Father, I thank you for this time. Lord, I pray that you would just move in our minds tonight. God, that we would think on the things that we have discussed. God, I pray that you would touch hearts. God, that you would help us to truly love others. Lord, that we would have compassion in our hearts for the hurting and the broken. God, for these students. Lord, that come on Wednesday nights. God, that don't have anyone else or anything else. God, I pray that you would wreck our hearts for them. Lord, I pray for your overwhelming peace. God, that no matter the situation that we face. Lord, no matter the diagnosis. No matter the news. God, that we rely on you. God, that you are our peace. You are the calm in this storm. Father, I pray that you would just have your way tonight. Jesus, if you're walking through something and you just want to come and seek peace tonight, or you know somebody that needs that peace of the Lord because they're going through something really hard, then I want you to come up to the front. If we're going to pray and we're going to believe, that wherever they are, God can reach them. Whatever it is, God can give you that peace. If you're in this place then you would say, I need to be able to just love. With no expectations. No matter the circumstance, no matter the relationship, that I just need to feel a love for the people around me. If you want to be able to feel that love, you want to just have that love. For the most difficult of people. If that's you in this place and I would ask that you would come and let's pray. Father, I thank you for this word tonight. God, I pray that you would minister to our hearts. God, that you would help us to love. Lord, to seek you. God, to serve you. God, to serve you. God, to serve you. God, to serve you. [BLANK_AUDIO]