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Overflowing Holy Spirit So let it rise up like a rainbow Overflowing Holy Spirit Let it rise up with no limit Overflowing Holy Spirit The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength Oh my soul, bless His name All that is within me Oh my soul, bless His name Let all that be All that is within me Oh my soul, bless His name Let all that is within me say The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength Oh my gosh, we need to go, guys. That sounded great. Good job. Cliff. Cliff, that tone is so, like, simple man. Your tone is so simple man. You know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about?
Mama told me Yeah, when I was young. That's what that reminds me of so much. Okay, that's great. Does anyone have any questions, any troubles, any issues? I would love to hit that one again one more time, just maybe at the end. Does that work out for everyone, just since it's brand new? But you guys just sounded awesome, so cool. Mighty warrior, sovereign king You win every battle Even in the shadow Gentle father Rich in love You grow the orphan Double their forces Brushing water Bursting wind Winding like a mountain Looting every mountain Winter holder The architect Alpha and omega Holy wind maker Until the great I am With everything I have Until the great I am Until the great I am I'm singing How great is your name Until the great I am With everything I have Until the great I am I'm singing How great is your name Wonder worker Friend of life Your body was born And it's all open Hope The resurrection Lifted high Raising messiah In your name With the new water weightless Speaking of Holy Mother You meetings えて Oh, how great is your name.
Oh, how great is your name. Oh, praise the bride of Judah. Oh, praise to the lamb once slain. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Oh, praise to the rock of ages. Oh, praise to the God who saves. Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Your name is our salvation. Your name is union of kings. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Your name is resurrection. Your name is everything. Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you Only fire, comforter, peace within the chaos I used to sing the breath of heaven In our lungs a new sound is stirring And it sounds like How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name How great is your name Oh, praise the bride of Judah Oh, praise to the Lamb once laid Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Oh, praise the rock of ages Oh, praise the God who saves Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Your name is our salvation Jesus, the King of kings Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Your name is resurrection Your name is everything Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Yahweh, we love you Go back into the chorus or end it right there. It's up to you. I was thinking ending it right there, but if it feels right, then we could go back into it. Yeah, it's up to you, girl. Yeah, Abigail, I'll just kind of feel it out. If you keep playing and we're just still flowing, then I'll go back into it.
Otherwise, I'll wait for you to switch it over to the next song. All of heaven trembles At the very mention of your name Yahweh, Yahweh All the saints and angels Bowing down beneath The holy way Yahweh, Yahweh Great I am You alone Can bend You don't I Sovereign God Be glorified Yahweh, Yahweh Every tribe and nation Joining in this One eternal song Yahweh, Yahweh Every generation Gathered in one voice Around you Yahweh, Yahweh Great I am You alone Can bend You don't I Yahweh, Yahweh I don't I Sovereign God Be glorified Yahweh, Yahweh There is no one like you No one like you Yahweh, there is no one like you There is no one like you There's no one like you. No one like you, Yahweh. Yahweh. There's no one like you. There's no one like you. There's no one like you. There's no one like you, Yahweh.
There's no one like you. There's no one like you. There's no one like you. There's no one like you, Yahweh. Yahweh. There's no one like you. Great I Am You can't bend your way I don't die So great God be glorified You Great I Am You can't bend your way I don't die So great God be glorified You There is no one like you There is no one like you No one like you There is no one like you There is no one like you There is no one like you There is no one like you Let's be sensitive to that moment And if like, I don't know If we don't go on, we don't go on You know what I mean? Let's just be sensitive to that It's gonna be great I love it Great job, Kylie Okay, let's hit Who else?
And then As far as Shout to the Lord goes I'm kind of TBD on that So let's just see what happens Is there really an intro to this? Or does it just kind of like hang out? Okay, perfect Kind of how your interest is gonna go If you just Is that what you're gonna do? Is that the one that you're playing? Okay You just hang out on the one Then I'll just jump in We are an instrument Of exultation And we were born to lift your name Above all names You hear the melody Of all creation But there's songs of praise That only we can bring Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one Only you, Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy?
There is no one Only you, Jesus You are the infinite God of all things God of the ages Yet you chose to make our hearts Your dwelling place You healed our brokenness Showed us your glory So we have songs of thanks Not even angels sing Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one Only you, Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one Only you, Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy?
There is no one Only you, Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is nothing, nothing you can't do. I like that. I like that. Play through that instrumental again. Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one who shed his blood.
You proved to us the Father's love. Jesus Christ, be lifted up, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one who shed his blood. You proved to us the Father's love. Jesus Christ, be lifted up, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, sitting on the throne above, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, who was in days and days to come, Now there's no one like you Jesus Who else is worthy who else is worthy who else is worthy name is Jesus who else is worthy who else is worthy there is no one like you Jesus Jesus, Lamb of God, Lamb of God, anointed one, was and is and is to come, seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one who shed his blood, your proof to us to find his love. Jesus Christ, be lifted up, holy, holy, Lamb of God, anointed one, was and is and is to come, seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one who shed his blood, your proof to us to find his love. Jesus Christ, be lifted up. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy?
There is not only you, Jesus. Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is not only you, Jesus. Okay, so maybe, I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here. When we say, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Two, three, four. Shout to the Lord, let us sing.
Power and majesty, praise to the King. Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name. Sing to the Lord, let the word of your head forever. I will love you forever, I'll stand. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. How do we want to end that? Let's see. I agree.
Yeah. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. One more time. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Yeah. I like that. What do you guys think?
Okay, so we'll do that instead of going back into the chorus. Instead of going back into the chorus of who else, just after that bridge. Okay, so it's, sorry. It's the second time after we go into the bridge, right? Because we do the chorus and then we go back into Lamb of God. So after that, we'll just probably do that bridge two more times, like two times. And then, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Shout to the Lord on the old Tennessee.
Yeah. I think we'll just do that. Does that work? See, nothing compares to the promise I have. Nothing compares to the promise I have. One more time. Nothing compares to the promise I have in you. Cool.
I like it. Do you guys want to hit that first song one more time and then we'll call it a day? Well, for practice, we will not call it a day until for practice. I think I'll do it. This is the day you met. So I'll rejoice and be glad. Rejoice and be glad. This is where I believe that you are more than enough, more than enough for me.
You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, my soul.
Bless his name. All that is with him is his name. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Jesus, come one day. You are worthy of all. Worthy of all. You are worthy of all my praise.
You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, my soul.
Bless his name. All that is with him is his name. The joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is my strength. So let it rise up like a river of the Holy Spirit. Let it rise up like a river of the Holy Spirit. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, my soul.
Let it rise up like a river of the Holy Spirit. So let it rise up like a rain cloud Overflowing, spinning rain Let it rise up like a rain cloud Overflowing, spinning rain The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength Oh my soul, bless His name All that is within me say Oh my soul, bless His name All that is within me say Oh my soul, bless His name Awesome. Thank you guys so much. That feels good. That feels good. I like that song because it's not so high. It's like very, you know, I mean, yeah, they're eyes and knees, but you know what I mean? Like people can still sing along pretty easily.
Sunday. And you know what that means? It's house church night. Rejoice and be glad in it. This is where I believe that you are more than enough, more than enough for me. You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need.
The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, my soul, bless his name. All that is within me. So the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Hallelujah. Jesus, come what may. I'm worthy of all, worthy of all my praise.
You are faithful to your promise. You are strong when I am weak. When I'm standing in your presence, I have everything I need. The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh, my soul, bless his name. All that is within me. So the joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength.
Oh, my soul, bless his name. He is within me. Oh, the joy of the Lord, So let us live like a river overflowing, like a river overflowing, Holy Spirit Jesus in the earth, Oh the eighty-pennenveroat given anнем Holy Spirit, let it pour in, with no limit, overflow, Holy Spirit, let it pour, let it pour, don't come in, overflow, Holy Spirit, so let it pour, Let it pour, with no limit, overflow, Holy Spirit, let it pour, let it pour, The joy of the Lord, the joy of the Lord is my strength. Oh my soul, blessed Stop Let's just give him a shout of praise. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Great Jehovah, the architect, Alpha and Omega, Holy Way maker. Unto the great I am, with everything I have.
Unto the great I am, I'm singing how great is your name. Unto the great I am, with everything I have. Unto the great I am, I'm singing how great is your name. Your name, wonder worker, bread of life, your body was broken, heaven told it. Now resurrected, lifted high, praise the Messiah, glory in the highest. Unto the great I am, with everything I have. Unto the great I am, I'm singing how great is your name. Unto the great I am, with everything I have.
Unto the great I am, I'm singing how great is your name. Oh, how great is your name. Oh, how great is your name. Oh, how great is your name. Oh, how great is your name. Oh, praise the pride of Judah. Oh, praise the Lamb of God. Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Oh, praise the rock of ages. Oh, praise the God who saves. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Your name is our salvation. Jesus, the King of kings. Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Your name is resurrection. Your name is every day. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Oh, we love you. I love you. Holy fire, comforter, peace within the chaos.
How you sustain us. Breath of heaven within our lungs is a new sound to stir in. And it sounds like, how great is your name? How great is your name? How great is your name? Oh praise the pride of Judah. Oh praise the lamb of God. One slave Yahweh, we love you.
Yahweh, we love you. Oh, praise the rock of ages. Oh, praise the God who saves. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you. Your name is our salvation, Jesus the King of kings. Yahweh, we love you. Yahweh, we love you.
Your name is resurrection. We love you. Your name is everything. We love you. His great and mighty name. Praise his great and mighty name. We lift all of our burdens and our worries and our cares up to you this morning, Lord. We give you all the praise because despite anything that comes our way, you are worthy, Lord.
Despite what we celebrate or what we grieve, you are worthy, Lord. We worship you. All heaven trembles at the very mention of your name. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, great I am. You alone can bend. You alone can make. Yahweh, Yahweh, how do I suffer in God?
Be glorified. Yahweh, be glorified. Every child and nation joining in this one eternal song. Yahweh, Yahweh. Every child and nation gathered in one voice surrounding us. Yahweh, Yahweh, great I am. You alone can bend. Yahweh, Yahweh, how do I suffer in God?
Be glorified. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave.
Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. Yahweh, Yahweh, all the saints and angels bowing down beneath the holy wave. There is no one like you, Yahweh There is no one like you There is no one like you No one like you No one like you Yahweh Yahweh I am You Yahweh God of life Sovereign God Be glorified Be glorified Great I am You You You U U U There is no one like you. No one like you. There is no one like you. There is no one like you.
No one like you. Jeremiah 10 verse 6 says, No one like you, Lord. You are great and your name is mighty. Who should not fear you? King of the nations, this is your due. Among all the wise leaders of the nation and all the kingdoms, there is no one like you. Father, we declare today, there is no other name above your name. Jesus is exalted.
It is in this nation where names are popping up everywhere. We declare there is one name. One name that heals. One name that delivers. One name that saves. It is the name of Jesus that is exalted. There is no one else like you. No one above you.
No one like you. No one like you. There is no one like you. No one like you. Yahweh Yahweh Yahweh we are an instrument of exaltation and we were born to lift your name above all names you hear the melody of all creation but there's a song of praise that only we can bring who else is worthy who else is worthy there is no one only you jesus who else is worthy who else is worthy there is no one only you jesus you are the infinite you are the infinite god of the ages yet you chose to make our hearts your dwelling place you healed our brokenness showed us your glory so we have sold the face not even angels see who else is worthy who else is worthy you you there is no one only you jesus who else is worthy who else is worthy there is no one only you jesus there is no one only you jesus you Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is not one Only Jesus The world Lamb of God, anointed one Who was and is and is to come Seated on the throne above Righteous one who shed his blood You prove to us the Father's love Jesus Christ be lifted up Lamb of God, anointed one Who was and is and is to come Seated on the throne above Holy, holy Righteous one who shed his blood You prove to us the Father's love Jesus Christ be lifted up Jesus Christ be lifted up Holy, holy Lamb of God, anointed one Who was and is and is to come Seated on the throne above Righteous one who shed his blood You prove to us the Father's love Jesus Christ be lifted up Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy?
Who else is worthy? There is no one Only Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one Only Jesus There is no one Only Jesus Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? Who else is worthy? There is no one There is no one, only you, Jesus, who else is worthy, who else is worthy.
There is no one, only you, Jesus, Lamb of God, and Mighty One, who was and is and is to come. Seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one, shed his blood to us, the Father's Lamb, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Holy, holy, Lamb of God, and Mighty One, who was and is and is to come. Seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one, shed his blood to us, the Father's Lamb, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one, shed his blood to us, the Father's Lamb, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Seated on the throne above, holy, holy, righteous one, shed his blood to us, the Father's Lamb, Jesus Christ, be lifted. Shout to the Lord on the earth, let us sing the power and majesty praise to the King. Shout to the Lord on the earth, let us sing the power and majesty praise to the King.
Shout to the Lord on the earth, let us sing the power and majesty praise to the King. Shout to the Lord on the earth, let us sing the power and majesty praise to the King. Maybe you're here this morning, that little tag that we just sang, a shout to the Lord. I'm going to make you feel old this morning. That song was written in 1993, over 30 years ago. And I remember being in a worship environment like this with Darling Check, the writer of that song. And I remember her talking about, this song takes me back personally because it probably was one of the first times in my life where I grew up. Well, I won't go into all that.
But it was one of the first. It was one of the first exposures to me of really the manifest presence of God in a corporate environment of worship. You know, it was a song that really shifted, for lack of a better term, worship as we would know it today. There's things that we do today in corporate worship and songs that came out of that. And I remember her sharing the genesis of that song and her embarrassment even of playing it. The first time she played it for the worship leader of the church, she made him look the other way out of embarrassment. She wrote it. She wrote it in a time of real dryness and being overwhelmed in her life.
She wrote it out of her pain, really, and how an overflow of that and how that song has now literally gone around the world multiple times, sung by tens of millions of people. And I'm reminded often when I sing that song, shout to the Lord, all the earth, let us sing. I'm aware how often God uses pain. How often? God uses hard times to shape things in us, to show himself to us in a way that we've never seen before. And maybe you're here this morning walking through a difficult time. I know in my own life personally, I'm saying, Lord, would you renew me spiritually? I'm just calling out to the Lord for spiritual renewal.
And I remember not long ago, I heard a guy say who's not a believer. I won't call his name. At least I don't think he's a believer. He's a pretty popular podcast. And he can be pretty cynical. But I appreciated his honesty to say, like, when you listen to him, you know that God is at work in his in his life. And he made this comment. He said, I'm praying about God helping me like I want to change.
So I want to change because he was probably raised in some measure of Christianity. He said, I want to change. And then he's like, he was just honest with himself. And he said, but there are some places that I say that, but I don't know if I really do. So, Lord, could I ask you to change the places that I'm saying I want change that I really don't in the depths of my soul? I appreciate that honesty to just say at the depths of that, God, would you come in and change me? Even the places that I'm resistant to that. And can I just pray that over us this morning of just a renewal in the spirit areas that all of us would be aware of in our own life?
But maybe areas that we are aware of and either are resistant to or that we're not even aware of that that God would desire to put his finger on and really work in our lives. Father, we just come to you corporately here. It's. Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters standing before you. And Lord, I pray that you would work in us. Would you renew us? Would you renew our mind? Would you renew our hearts?
Would you renew our spirits today, Lord, even in areas that we may be resistant or areas that we may be blinded to? I pray that over every individual. I pray that over every family represented. I pray that over this house today in the name of Jesus, I pray that you would have your way. I pray for, Lord, just fresh revelation of who you are. As we open our mouth up and Lord, even those that are walking through difficult situations and trials. I thank you that your word, the promise of your word is that you would never leave us or forsake us. And we're grateful for that this morning.
And we thank you for that this morning. Would you do, Lord, what only you can do? We ask all of it in Jesus mighty name. If you believe that, would you say a good amen? When you say amen, you're just saying, yes, let it be so. So for me, right, so give somebody a high five as you're seated. We're going to release our elementary, lower and upper elementary parents, if you've not signed them in, go ahead and do that. I'm going to shift over here, Dan.
Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. We're glad that you're here. Am I on here, Dan? Hello. Hello.
There we go. I think we're getting it there. Good morning. I'm so blessed this morning to be in a house full of worshipers. You know, one thing that I think is. Is lost on us at times, sometimes subconsciously, particularly those of us that grew up in charismatic Pentecostal Christianity. Sometimes we can get focused on the platform and what's going on. And I'm grateful for microphones and I'm grateful for technology and screens.
I'm grateful for all that. But sometimes we can get focused here and it feel more like a concert than actual corporate worship. And I'm grateful to be a part of a house that embraces. Corporate worship. I love when we're together and you just kind of look around and you see people really singing and worshiping the Lord because that is corporate worship. That was a great place to say a man right there. Y'all missed it. You're worth waiting on right there.
You know, we we we come at times as spectators and this has really been stirring deeply in me. If you're if you're not a believer here this morning or you're new to the faith, OK, I'm on. Excuse you from this. All right. But if you would say, Jonathan, I'm a believer, I'm a disciple. And I say to you that when you gather with the saints on a Sunday morning, if you're coming as a spectator or you're coming only to receive, you have the wrong perspective. Can I say it that strong to you? Right.
Why? Because you are a priest, right? You are a New Testament priest. You say, John, then I don't even have a collar. Guess what? You don't even need a collar. You are a priest before God. And when you come in and gather with the saints, I know there's one person talking and there's people leading us in song and all that is right and appropriate.
But every one of us comes in as a priest before God to minister to the Lord. Now, I'm not saying that we don't need to receive when we come at times, but that's not my ultimate perspective. My perspective is I'm coming as a priest before God, bringing the sacrifice. The sacrifice of praise. Right. I remember my mom when I was a kid and what, you know, I wasn't really serving the Lord as a teenager and I wasn't really serving the Lord. And we'd be we I was too young to drive. And so I'm riding with her to the church service and want to listen to praise and worship.
Mom wanted to listen to rock music. She said, I'm not listening. I'm not going to have all that, you know, to go gather with the saints. I'm not going to have all that. And I understand now of coming with you in preparation of your own heart before God. Of coming and just being ready to worship the Lord. Amen. Now, that's not even the message today, but that was a good message before the message.
Hallelujah. Tonight, this is the third Sunday of the month, by the way. If you don't know what Sunday it is of the month, it's the third Sunday of the month and third Sunday of August. Glory to God. I'd be glad when the third Sunday of October and November get here and it's not one hundred fifty thousand degrees outside. I love Oklahoma, but I could do without our extremities in weather. Right. I don't like the negative ten.
I don't like the hundred and ten. If we could find a spot in between, that'd be great. But third Sunday and many of you know this, but just as a reminder, kind of bring some context to it. For a lot of years on the third Sunday of the month on that Sunday night, we would gather for what we call the gathering and we would come together as a way for us to bring both campuses together. And we felt like in twenty twenty six. Hey, let's be intentional to come together. We want to connect as the body and we want to do. Some things in a different way.
So three times this year, we've gotten together for meals last month in July. Third Sunday, we got together for a meal and homes this Sunday. Tonight, we've got house churches. That's exactly what it sounds. We've got a map up there. You can kind of find where you live. You can go on the Web site or the app. Third Sunday, DLC dot TV slash third Sunday.
And you can find all this information, have the address and everything. But we wanted to kind of give you a map so you could see it. These are host homes. And that's exactly what it sounds like. Probably last an hour, maybe hour and a half. But come together, minister one another, maybe sing some songs together. There's not going to be any preaching per se, but just an opportunity to administer one to another. And we want it to be organic, but we don't want it to be scattered.
Jonathan, what do you mean by that? What I mean by that is we want to say with clarity, we as Destiny Life tonight are desiring to do this even though we will be spread out in homes. It's what we, quote unquote, are doing, right? We don't want. We don't want it to be so scattered that it's like, ah, you know, I'm just let people go that go. But like with real intention to say, how can we come together and connect as the body? Because in the book of Acts, I don't want to minimize the corporate gathering. The corporate gathering is super important, but I also don't want to put all our eggs in the corporate gathering basket.
In other words, if the only way that you're connected with Destiny Life is an attender on Sunday morning, you're going to miss a real wonderful opportunity to connect with the body. So we want to connect house to house as well. And that's why we with intention said, let's do some things this year on the third Sunday night, which we're already doing something. Let's adjust what we're doing so that we can connect. Next month in September is a meal. And the last one this year in October will be together here at the church facility. And we'll have a night of worship. I think that's here in Claremore.
I can't remember. I think it's in Claremore. Then November, we have Thanksgiving. We don't do anything. And then, of course, December, that's Christmas. And then 2026 is over. Man, time just scoots on by. Doesn't it?
Well, we are speaking of time scooting on by. We are about to finish 2 Corinthians 13. We've been preaching through about to finish the whole book. We've been preaching through the book of 2 Corinthians and our last series that we're in right now, Steadfast, this week and next week. Next week, we'll do the last four verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 13. And we'll have preached through the whole book of 2 Corinthians. And Lord willing, we're going to start off in Philippians in a few weeks. And we're going to preach through the book of Philippians.
There's about 10 messages there that we're going to preach through up into Advent, which is the last Sunday, I believe. It starts the last Sunday in November. I've got a couple of cool little things planned in between that. In fact, we're going to, I think next week, we'll give you the QR code. That first week in the book of Philippians, Paul greets them. And he greets all the saints. He greets the overseers or the bishops or the elders and the deacons. And we're going to use that as an opportunity to talk a little bit about deacon ministry.
And so next week, we're going to flash up a QR code. We'll put it on the website as well. Back in 2017, Glenn spent two weeks preaching specifically about deacon ministry, true New Testament deacon ministry. We're asking the Lord, you know, do we need some more deacons among us? We're not trying to make that happen. But Lord, you know, are you showing us something here? So we'll flash that up so you can take two weeks to go. Go back and watch those messages and come prepared for that first week as we talk about that a little bit in Philippians.
Is that okay? All right, now I've had a very long intro. Now it's time to get into the message this week. All right, steadfast in faith, or I'm going to say steadfast in the faith. We're going to be in 2 Corinthians 13, the first 10 verses there. Here's kind of the big idea, if you will, that we want to talk about today. Being firm in the faith or in our faith is really revealed, not by our ability to prove ourselves right. Who likes to be right?
Who's always right? Don't raise your hand right there, okay? Don't raise your hand. That's a trick. I'm just making sure you're paying attention, right? Not by the ability to prove ourselves right, but here's what it is. It's by a willingness to really receive the truth, really examine ourselves honestly, and then really respond to Christ in obedience. Because I've noticed over the course of my life, and it's been true for me personally, and I've observed this a lot.
And people, we want to move from deflecting and kind of examining everybody else and everything around us to allow the truth of Christ to really examine us. Glenn talked last week about maturity and just the reality of that and really allowing the Holy Spirit to do that, not so that we can produce insecurity in us. You know, some people are overthinkers, we would call them. They focus so much on themselves that they really get overwhelmed. They get insecure in their relationship with Christ. That's not what we're talking about, but here's why we want to do that. Not to produce insecurity, but to produce repentance, restoration, maturity, and a renewed confidence in who Christ is. And so Paul, as he's kind of closing the letter here to the Corinthians, he makes a real serious appeal to them because there's a lot of them, and we'll read this in a minute, that are demanding proof from him of his apostleship. right?
And so they wanted to know for sure that Christ was really speaking through him, and so they questioned his authority. He spent the last few chapters addressing that because he appeared weak and unimpressive and lacking authority and afflicted and all these things, and these so-called super apostles had been really indicting him for that and indicting the Corinthians to say, why are you listening to this guy that's such a hot mess, right? He is a hot mess. Why are you listening to him? And so they kind of looked at Paul, and they said, we want you to prove yourself, and Paul essentially responds by saying, before you put my apostleship on trial, I want you to put your own faith on trial, right? In other words, instead of looking at me so much, I want you to examine yourselves, and we're going to read that in just a minute in verse 5, and they had become experts at really examining Paul. You know, they had examined his preaching, his personality, his suffering, his strength, his weakness, his authority. They had evaluated him, and they had evaluated him, and they had evaluated him, and they had evaluated all that stuff, and Paul basically turns around and says, but how about you?
Why don't you examine yourself? I've noticed over the years that we are amazing armchair quarterbacks. Any armchair quarterbacks in here? I've been guilty, you know? You're watching a football game or something, and you're watching your favorite team. Maybe you're an OU fan or OSU fan, or maybe you're really born again. You're a Clemson Tiger fan. Come on, somebody.
You know, maybe you like the NFL, maybe, you know, whatever it is, or maybe you're a basketball fan, and you're watching this professional athlete or this Division I athlete, and you're saying about that person, that guy's trash. Come on. You can't even complete that pass. You're trash. Like, I've done this. I'm yelling at the TV, not recently, I think majorly recently, right? You're telling, you're talking about how terrible this athlete is, and it's a professional athlete. It's like, bro, get off the couch with your Cheetos and wake up.
This dude would, he would run circles around you, and yet, it's easy for us to sit on our couch and talk about, well, they need to do this, and they need to do that. This is essentially what the Corinthians are doing to Paul. This is Paul the apostle, and they're indicting his faith, and Paul's saying, how about you? Now, it's not lost on me that Paul talks about these super apostles, and we don't know any of their names, and yet, here we are 2,000 years later. There might not be, have you ever thought about this? There might not be another, another person that's ever lived that has had such an effect on humanity out of what they've written with such a small sample of what they've written. When you count up what Paul wrote, it's not a ton. Now, it is two-thirds of the New Testament, but when it comes to the actual words that he wrote, it's not a ton, and yet, the massive impact that he's had on humanity, because even Jesus didn't write this stuff out.
Obviously, Jesus had more impact than any human, but he didn't even write it out, but Paul, in such a small, when it comes to really the actual words, I don't know that there's anybody that has affected humanity to the point that Paul did from his writings, and we have a pretty small sample size, and these guys are indicting him for it, and he says, how about you? See, he was not trying to make sincere Christians live in fear. You know, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up, I grew up in a movement that I lived in fear. I was nervous that I was, you know, whether I was saved or not, and I had a real works-based righteousness, and so I was really fearful. He's not trying to make people fearful, but he's really confronting believers that were tolerating sin, that in 1 Corinthians, they resisted correction. They demanded proof from everybody except themselves, and so Paul's ultimate purpose was not rejection for them, but here's what it was. It was for repentance, for restoration, and for them to mature in the faith. So he's not just trying to win an argument, all right?
I remember one of the greatest deaths of my life, and I'm still walking through it from time to time, is dying to my right to be right. It's one thing to shut your mouth when you are wrong and you don't know it. It's another thing to bite your tongue when you're right and you know you're right, and still, shh, be quiet. That's a death, right? He wants Christ to form a mature church. Let's read this, the first 10 verses. He says, This will be my third visit to you. Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
I've already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. Now I repeat it while absent. On my return, I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others. That's pretty strong words. Since you're demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me, he's not weak in dealing with you, but he's powerful among you. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we're weak in him, yet by God's power, we will live with him in our dealing with you. This is where I want to key in today, verse 5.
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you? Unless, of course, you fail the test, you will discover that we have not failed the test. Now, we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong, not so that people will see that we have stood the test, but so that you will do what is right. Even though we may not be able to seem to have failed, for we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. We're glad whenever we're weak, but you're strong, and our prayer is that you may be fully restored. This is why I write these things when I'm absent, that when I come, I may not have to be harsh in the use of my authority, the authority the Lord gave me for building you up and not for tearing you down.
Three points today about being steadfast. Steadfast in the faith. Here's the first one. When we're steadfast in the faith, we are correctable. Correctable. That means we can be made correct, right? We can receive correction. Doesn't it sound so nice when Glenn makes a statement like, you know, correction just means to be made correct, and we all say amen.
Like, that's the easiest thing in the world, and yet we recognize sometimes to be made correct is difficult, but when we're really steadfast in the faith, we are correctable. What does it mean in the faith, right? Here's what it means. It means that we truly belong to Christ. We're really trusting in his gospel. We're living under his lordship, and we're really experiencing his transforming presence. Now, Paul's language is important right here. He doesn't say to be, quote, unquote, full of faith.
The reason I'm saying that is he's not talking about, it's not an issue of, like, how much intensity we have in our faith. Sometimes, we're not talking about, like, how much intensity we have in our faith. We think that I've got more quantity faith. That's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about the faith that I have. He's talking about the faith that I'm in. In other words, my faith in Christ, right? And Jude says it this way.
He talks about contending for the faith in Jude 3. That was once for all entrusted to God's people. So, he's talking about really standing in one of the evidences that we are truly in the faith or in the gospel is that we are correctable by the truth, right? One of the fruits of our life, if we say we're disciples, we're in the faith, that means that we should, as a general rule, be correctable by truth. So, when God's word confronts us, what do we do? Do we humble ourselves in that? Do we immediately, or do we immediately defend ourselves? You guys have heard me, I've heard you say, I've heard you say, I've heard you say, tell the story a lot about me and Jerry Vaughn.
Jerry is our missions director. He's also my father-in-law, and he and I were in Argentina many years ago, 25 years ago, probably now, and we're sitting across the table at breakfast, and he says to me, both of us were so unhealed, and he makes this statement to me. He says, you know, Jonathan, there's times when I really walk on eggshells around you because I'm hesitant to say things because you're very defensive at times. And I said, I'm not defensive. What do you mean defensive? And we just go at it there for a few minutes, right? Now, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed.
I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed to say it took me probably a couple years to see the idiocy, the irony of that situation of me saying to him very defensively that I'm not defensive. How do we receive correction? Now, oftentimes when we read something in the Word, hopefully we receive the correction and we submit to it, but what about when it comes from another person? How do we receive that? What about when it comes from a person that we may not necessarily care for as much? What about when it comes in the timing that we do not necessarily care for? I don't know if Elisha would say this or not, but probably the area that I've grown the most, I think, this is my own observation.
Y'all don't ask her, okay? That I've grown the most in marriage may be timing. I don't think my timing now is great, but oh boy, when we first got married, it was awful. It was awful. It was awful, right, of just the timing and receiving correction in timing. How do we do that? I think about David and Nathan. You might remember this story in the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 12 when David is sinned against Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan comes to him and he confronts him and he tells this story, gives this analogy of this guy that's got all these sheep and how he basically stole the sheep this guy had cared.
This other guy had one sheep and he'd cared for it and he'd nurtured it as part of the family. And this rich guy that had all the sheep went and basically took the poor guy and David said, oh, well, we got to get him. That guy needs to pay. And Nathan says, that guy is you. And what does David do? I sinned before. He humbles himself and says, I sinned before the Lord. He had a different reaction than the king before him, Saul, when Samuel confronts Saul about not obeying God, when God says to Saul about fighting the Amalekites, I want you to kill everybody and everything.
And then Saul goes and does that. And then guess what he allows? He allows the people to first, he keeps the king alive. And then he allows the people to get the best stuff. And so when Samuel comes and says, did you obey the Lord? Saul said, oh yeah, I obeyed him. And Sam just says, well, I'm hearing sheep. Where's the bleeding of the sheep come from?
I'm hearing the sheep. And then Samuel tries, excuse me, Saul tries to basically present, you know, spin it in the best way. Well, we wanted to keep the best for God. He didn't say, I disobeyed God. He tries to spin it and Samuel said, no, you disobeyed God because that's not what God told you. And he makes that phrase that you might, or he says that phrase you might've heard before that obedience is better than sacrifice, right? How do we receive that? Both of them sinned, Samuel and David, excuse me, Saul and David sinned.
Both were confronted. How do we respond when we are confronted? That would be the test when Paul arrived in Corinth. How would they receive the truth? Paul's been patient with them. He says to them, this is going to be the third time that I'm coming to you. I mean, he's visited them. He's written to them.
He's warned them. He's given them opportunities to repent. And yet some of them still have not repented. And I want to say to you that patience did not mean that rebellion could continue indefinitely. Sometimes we, and now let me say this first, the correction needs to be established. By truth. So when we're bringing correction to something or we're being corrected, there needs to be truth in that. It's not just our opinion.
That's why even pastorally, you ever, as an elder, one of the responsibilities of an elder is to bishop or guard and correct, bring correction where there needs to be to the sheep. But if you're going to do that, it can't be Jonathan's opinion. It's got to be the word of God, right? It's got to be something clear in the word of God. So Paul quotes this principle in Deuteronomy of a charge being established by two or three witnesses. So he's done that. He's done that. He's done that.
He's done that. He's not acting on rumor, hearsay, his own personal irritation, because it's easy for us to get up and rant and rave about things that are just our personal frustration. I've tried to be that even as somebody that preaches and teaches a lot. If I'm getting on my soapbox, Jonathan's soapbox, I try to say, okay, I'm going to get on Jonathan's soapbox, right? I try to be very intentional. Even if I believe that it's God's soapbox, I want to make sure that we're presenting the word of God and not just our own preference or opinion, because when we're bringing, there has to be truth in it, right? So any discipline that Paul would have exercised would have been based on established truth. Why?
Because truth governs correction. But here's what we've got to understand in 2026, that I think, this is my opinion, that we have fundamentally misunderstood what love is and what grace is. Jonathan, what do you mean by that? I think at times we think that love or grace eliminates accountability. Sometimes we take God's grace as permission. We take his patience as his approval. It's awful quiet in here this morning, right? We tend to just, but grace gives us room to repent, but it never gives us permission to remain in sin.
So yes, God is gracious. Yes, he labors, but don't take his graciousness for permission or his approval. I love that scripture, Romans 2, 4, that says that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance. I'm grateful that we serve a gracious God, but I'm not out here trying to press the limits of that grace with intention, right? So here's the question for us today. What do I do with correction? I want you to take a moment and ask yourself that question. I'll be honest with you, when I'm asking this question, I don't know if you know this, if you've ever, shared a devotion or shared a thought, you know this truth.
God either works it into you before you speak it or after you speak it. So I'm very conscious when I'm asking this question, okay, Lord, you probably got some correction for me. Help me go ahead and get my mind right and my heart right. When you ask this question, what do I do with correction? Because it doesn't just reveal what I did, although it obviously does reveal what I did. It doesn't just reveal what I did, but here's what correction also reveals. What or who is ruling in my heart? Is Jonathan ruling in his heart or is Christ ruling in his heart?
Because if I'm walking in humility, we're, as a staff at Destiny Life, we're going through this little book, it's a very short book, but really powerful. I encourage you to read it, called Humility by Andrew Murray. I like reading books of guys that are not contemporaries of us today because they have a different perspective. We can be so affected by society today that we're not even aware of it. We give John Gagner a hard giving so many people that book. We're like, so many people in that book on humility, we're like, John, do we need this book? Are you giving us a subtle hint by passing out this book? So we've made it a staff joke of him.
One of the guys lost his book this week, and John said, don't worry, I got another one. Here you go. You need this double time. No, I'm giving him a hard time. But I'm going to tell you what the book is doing. It's hitting us all right between the eyes because we recognize how easy it is to be proud in our own heart, to be resistant in our own heart, and sometimes to be proud in our own heart, and sometimes to be proud in our own heart. We can be resistant in areas of our heart. Sometimes our heart can really be towards God.
We would say, man, a majority of my heart is towards God, but there's this area that I'm reserving for myself. That's why I think men, I'll speak to the dudes for just a second because I am one. Men, we can be in a room full of people and be totally alone. We have an ability to isolate our own heart, to isolate ourselves. In fact, I say to you today, if you're a man in this room full of other people and you feel alone, you need to be. Take this as the way you are. Take this as the way you are. Take this as the way you are.
Take this as the way you are. Lord, to you and brothers, just submit yourself to that care for you. Jonathan, I don't know where to start. Start on Wednesday night in 101. I've already done that. I don't care. If you're isolated, guess what? You didn't get it the first time, go again.
Start somewhere. I've noticed this about my journey with God. If I will just take the first step. We don't want to take one step until we figure out all of them. Just take the first step and let the Lord work in your life and show you the next step. See, maturity is not demonstrated by never needing correction. I think we subconsciously think, well, I get to this point where I don't need correction anymore. Maturity is not demonstrated by that.
Maturity is demonstrated by how we respond when correction comes. Because if we're walking out life in true humidity and transparency and vulnerability, guess what? We're going to be 80, 90, 95 years old and still being corrected. Why? Because we live in the flesh and we're humans and we don't get it all right all the time. How do we respond? How do we respond to that? There's amazing scripture in Psalm 141, verse 5.
It says, let a righteous man strike me. That is a kindness. Let him rebuke me. That is oil on my head. When's the last time you quoted that scripture? That's a powerful scripture. That's a powerful scripture, right? See, this is mature.
This is a mature and correctable heart. People who know that you're in Christ are in the faith, establishing the faith. You don't have to defend yourself from every truth that confronts you. Like how Glenn has said this before, this is a really powerful principle in your life. When someone brings something to you, it might be 95% not true. But is there 5% of truth in that? And can I grab that 5% and apply it to my life and let God use it in my life? Sometimes that's hard to do when 95% of it may not be true, particularly when it comes accusatorily or it comes at a bad time or it comes from somebody that maybe you're in a little bit of a tip with.
But can I embrace that? That's true. So is there any percentage in it? So I can receive correction. Receiving correction requires something deeper, right? I can't respond honestly to correction, though, if I'm unwilling to look honestly at myself. And Paul says, examine yourselves. In other words, let's begin with the examination, Paul is saying, but let's start with you.
So when we're steadfast in the faith, number two, we're honest in our self-examination. We're honest. He says, examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you unless, of course, you failed the test? See, they demanded proof that Christ was speaking through Paul, and he turns it back on them. He said, I want you to test yourself. This word examine, it carries the idea of inspecting something carefully.
Maybe you got your glasses out and really looked at it. I bought three headlamps. I keep buying headlamps because I keep losing them. But I know when I'm working on stuff, I need a little extra light. Glory to God. So I bought me, it's like really looking at that thing. Put your glasses on. Get the light on it so you can really look at it.
It's like really looking at that thing. Put your glasses on. It's like really, really look at it. He said, examine yourself, right? That test means to like prove something to determine whether it's genuine. Paul said, I want you to genuinely examine yourself and really look and say, am I really in the faith? And then that word translated disqualified or failed the test. It carries the idea of being unable to stand the test or being found unapproved.
He said, I want you to look and see, are you genuinely in the faith? Because the issue is reality and not just the fact that you're in the faith. So I want you to look and see, are you just appearance? Paul's saying, I'm not interested in the facade of super apostles. I'm not interested in you just kind of projecting the right image. What I'm really interested in, are you genuinely in the faith or is your life really marked by genuine faith in Christ? Is your life really marked by true repentance of sin? Is your life really marked by true submission to his lordship?
A lot of us can give lip service to Christ. We can give lip service to our relationship with God. We see this happen all the time, particularly in public figures, right? We can hear people say the right word and yet the fruit of their life is like, ooh, the fruit of their life does not seem to be consistent with what they're saying. Paul's not calling us to sinless perfection because the truth is none of us could do that. But when there's self-examination, it's got to remain gospel centered. It's got to remain the fact that I know that I mess up. I know that I fall short and yet I'm dependent on God.
I'm dependent on God. I'm dependent on God. I'm dependent on God. I'm Christ and my faith in him and his finished work that is transforming my life. I'm resting in him and not just on me and recognizing that he justifies me. Remember that word justification means basically just as if I'd never sin. So he does justify me when I put my faith and trust in him and yet he loves me too much to leave me where he found me. So he saves me, he justifies me, and he begins transforming me from the inside out.
So you might ask this question, what does healthy self-examination look like? I'm glad you asked. Here's some questions for us. Am I trusting in Christ alone or am I trusting in my religious efforts? Is Christ's word the final authority in my life? Now, don't just listen to me say that. I want you to ask these, I want you to ask yourself these questions. Is his word the final authority in my life or do we make statements like, I know the word says it, but I don't know if it's the final authority in my life.
I don't know if it's the final authority in my life. I don't know if it says this, but when I sin, do I defend it or do I repent of it? I know this is confrontational. Don't worry, I can, the Holy Spirit's already confronted me. Is there evidence that Christ is changing my character? Would the people that know you, knew you five years ago, would they see you differently today? For those that have been born again recently, would people say, wow, you've had a magnificent change. For those that have been born again for a long time, would people still see Christ developing character in your life?
Do I love Christ? Most of us could say yes. Now here's a big one. Do I love his people? I'm always inside. I'm like, people say, I love Jesus. I just hate the church. I'm saying you can't do that.
That's impossible. It'd be like you walking up to somebody and say, man, I love your head, but your body, ooh, that, or coming up to you as a husband and say, you know, I really like you, but your wife, bro, you got to do something about your wife. It just doesn't make any sense. So do we love Christ? Do we love his people? And do we love his truth? Again, when we're confronted, am I persevering in faith even through weakness and difficulty? Now we're not talking about, I don't want to make sure I'm clear on, we're not talking about earning salvation.
We're talking about evidence that salvation has taken place in my life. And I'm not doing, I'm not doing it for a place. I'm doing it from a place. If we're in the faith, we don't need to be afraid of honest examination. I think one, one truth, one principle that we would teach at Destiny Life that I think in my own life, I became more aware of when I moved here and became a pastor. I think it's a part of the body here is, is the reality that the Holy Spirit brings things to the surface in our life, not to shame us, but so that he can deal with them. That's a perspective shift. Sometimes the Holy Spirit reveals a heart to us and it's so ugly.
We want to push it down rather than saying, okay, Holy Spirit, I recognize you brought that up in my life to be able to deal with it. Right? James talks about looking in the mirror. He uses that term about, about being doers of the word, not just hearers only, but to do something. He said, if you, if you're only hearing the word and it's not a person, you're not a person. You're not a person. You're not a person. You're not transforming you.
It's like looking in a mirror and walking away and forgetting what you look like. Right? We look at it. We look into a mirror for reflection. I mean, if you look in the mirror, I'm going to say, now maybe you've done this. I hope you haven't done this. Did you look in the mirror this morning and get mad at what you saw? And if you got mad at what you saw, did you get mad at the mirror?
Nobody got mad at the mirror, right? Hopefully. I mean, can you imagine how silly it would be to look in the mirror like that dumb mirror? That's not what I look like. Nope. I'm going to buy a different mirror. Now, some of y'all are saying now there is a different mirror. I'm going to buy a different mirror.
I'm going to buy a different mirror. We don't get mad at the mirror, right? It's just the reflection of what's there. Now, if we look in the mirror and we saw something, we had ketchup all over our shirt or something, what are we going to do? Change our shirt, clean it up. You don't look in the mirror and then leave and not do anything about what you saw. The whole purpose of looking in the mirror is to see the reflection of what's there. So when we look into the truth of the word of God and something is revealed to us, what do we do with it?
Do we examine ourself with it? You might have heard this little one-liner. I like this. It says, don't just read the word, allow the word to read you, right? See, the word is not just a window through which we examine the world, even though it is that. It is a mirror for us to examine ourselves and for God to examine us. Paul doesn't say examine yourselves and start there. It needs to produce something, right?
If the word reveals something, we respond. If the spirit convicts us, we repent. And if Christ is Lord, then we really... Obey. Jesus said, if you love, obey my commandment. We don't just examine ourselves so we can see what needs to be changed. We examine ourselves so we can submit to Christ where change is needed. So it's one thing to look in the mirror and see my shirt is jacked up.
It's another thing to go back in the closet, take that shirt off, and put another shirt on. See the difference there? Paul says in verse 7 and 8, he said, we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong, not so that people will see that we've... You stood the test both so that you will do what is right. In other words, it's obedience. So thirdly, when we're steadfast in the faith, what are we? We're obedient. Paul's concern was not proving that he was right.
His concern is that they would do what is right. The goal, in other words, was obedience, not just appearances. Every parent in this room, when your child is young, you put external controls on your child. And there's times when their heart is not shifted. They obey just simply because they're worried about the consequence or you've hemmed them in or whatever, but your hope is that that would not last forever, right? Your hope is that that external control would change their heart so that when they leave out of your sight, they're obeying you out of a proper heart and a shift in their heart, not just so they don't get in trouble. That's the difference between shifting on the inside and just shifting on the outside, right? Remember the larger context of what they're saying.
They want him to prove his apostleship. They wanted evidence that Christ was speaking through them. And Paul essentially says to him, I'd rather you obey Christ than to have to prove my authority to you by disciplining you, disciplining you. My purpose is for you to obey Christ. See, truth should lead us to obedience. Why? He says there in verse eight, for we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. We can resist the truth.
We can ignore the truth. We can argue with the truth. We can try to justify against the truth, but guess what we can't do? We cannot change the truth. The truth does not adjust itself to accommodate us, even though in our world today, you have many people trying to say, they might not use that exact phrase, but that's what they're trying to do, even to adjust the word of God around their own belief system. The truth corrects us. It examines us. And guess what it does?
It calls us to obedience. Not obedience to earn the truth, but obedience to earn a relationship with God, but obedience flowing out of a relationship with God. We're not obeying so that Christ can receive us, but because we've been received by him, his grace then begins to produce obedience in us. See, Paul's goal, his stated goal in the correction, he says there is restoration. He says, we're glad whenever we're weak, but you're strong. And our prayer is that, in verse nine, you may be fully restored, right? That word fully restored or complete, it carries us to God. We're not obeying so that Christ can receive us, but we're idea of bringing something back into proper condition, to restore it, to repair it, to make it complete.
They use this word a lot of times when we're talking about mending nets or setting a bone back into place. Anybody ever had to have a bone set? Thankfully, I've not had that, and I hope that I never do. But that is a painful process to set that bone right. But if the bone is not set right, it's going to grow back in the wrong way. So when Paul's saying, I want you to be restored, he's saying, I know it's painful in this moment to set the bone right, but once it's set, it's going to heal and be restored properly. So you, in other words, you can endure this pain for a moment and then heal right, or you can just stay off and heal wrongly. Same way, spiritually, he's talking about that.
See, biblical, this is what biblical correction does. It identifies what's out of alignment so that the grace of God can restore us to spiritual health. Let me say that again. I want to make sure I connect this dot very clearly. Just as we would adjust a physical bone to be restored, what the word of God does and what biblical correction does is it identifies what's out of alignment in my own heart. Now, for me, this is why I've said to you multiple times in this message, I want you to really ask yourself this question. Because for me, questions are clarifiers. I ask questions a lot of myself.
I meditate on questions because it helps you see, where am I? Am I in alignment and where am I out of alignment? And we need the Holy Spirit to show us. And when the Holy Spirit shows us, we have to decide, am I going to endure this momentary pain of coming into alignment so that I can be healed and restored, or am I going to continue to walk out of alignment with God's word or him? This is what we do in encounter retreats, a ton, discipleship process, that whole thing. You know what it is? It's spiritual alignment. I have the guys, you can go ahead and start getting stuff ready, guys.
I have to come to the keys. I'm going to close here. I've seen so many people this week, I was thinking about somebody that, man, I don't know if they're aware or not, they're so wounded. Their whole framework of life has been tinted by their own wounds. And I made this statement, my heart, I have such compassion towards them. Because I just see they're so wounded, and yet it's aggravating all at the same time. You ever been there? It's like, oh, this is a reoccurring thing, and this is drama follows you around.
And here's where the compassion of my heart is. I realize that sometimes we're confronted with truth, and the reality of the shift in that is painful. And I guess people would call it maybe emotional work or spiritual work, internal work. Can I say to you, it's hard. It's hard. It's trying. It's heavy. And sometimes, because we don't like pain, we resist it.
We resist it. And I wonder what the Lord would be saying to us today in just evaluating ourself. I wonder if we could turn that question to ourself, evaluating ourself to say, am I steadfast in the faith? Am I correctable? Do I allow the truth to confront me? Am I honest in my self-examination? Do I allow the truth to search me? Am I obedient?
Do I allow the truth to change me? In other words, am I moving from self-examination to self-examination? Am I moving from self-examination to self-examination to seeing the correction, to the examination, to obedience, to restoration, to maturity? Am I following that out in my life? Why? Because Christ's desire is to form us into mature believers. That's true for us individually. That's true for you and your family.
And that's true for us in this house. So I've said all that to literally ask this one question. Is Christ actually ruling in us? Amen Amen Amen. Is there an area of my life that you desire to adjust? Is there an area of my life that I'm resistant to correction? Is there an area of my life that you wanna speak to me about that my ears have been dull in there? See, here's the beautiful truth of the gospel is that grace doesn't leave us where it found us.
You don't have to be in condemnation and shame today, right? Truth doesn't come to just break us down. It builds us up. It's gotta uproot, but it builds us up. And God's correction is not a pathway for us to walk in condemnation. It's a doorway for us to walk into freedom. Why don't you stand with me today? Guys, go ahead and pass out the elements, would you?
I should have had you do that a little before. I apologize. We'll just pass those quickly. I think Cheyenne's gonna come. Just lead us, would you, Cheyenne? Let's just have a moment here of worship as they just sing over us. They're passing out the elements and we'll come back and pray over this. Go ahead, go ahead.
Thank you, Father. Show us, Lord. Show us, Lord. Maybe you're online. Grab your elements. Anticipate with us today. Thank you for your blood, Lord. Thank you for this juice, Lord, representing your blood, that new covenant that we walk in.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Examine us this morning, Father. Thank you, Lord.
Show us, Father. Show us, Father. Show us, Father. Show us, Father. Show us, Father. Show us. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord. I don't know if we have this scripture on the screen, but let me read it over you. Psalm 139.
It'd be famous to many of you if you heard it. Let's just bow your heads with me. I want this to be our heart position as we receive this communion today. Here's what it says. Psalm of David. It's this prayer. He says, Search me, O God. Know my heart.
Test me. Know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. That's our prayer today. Father, we lean on you. Jesus, thank you for this juice that does represent the covenant, the new covenant that we walk in. Lord, our sins are not just covered. They are cleansed, washed away.
We're forgiven today. This bread representing your body, broken for us. Church, let's take the bread and eat together. We need healing in your physical body. You can just ask the Lord to touch you in your physical body. Lord, we thank you for physical healing today in the name of Jesus. We take this juice today. We recognize the covenant that we walk in.
We're grateful today. Let's drink together. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Just sing that if you would. Jim's gonna come and close us. Sing that again. The guys are gonna pick up the elements.
You can be seated. Just sing that over us, would you guys? Sing that over us again. Jim, go ahead and come. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Help us. Help us.
Help us. What a challenge today in the Word of God to tell our hearts. I don't know about you, maybe the Lord's put His finger on something within your heart and life. Allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you, and don't walk out of here and just ignore it. Kind of like as Jonathan said, looking into the mirror and then walking away and forgetting what you look like. I mean, it's important that we allow the Holy Spirit, those quiet times begin to continue to speak to our hearts. Amen. Wow.
Thank you, Jonathan, for the Word of God today. We're going to worship together in our giving this morning, just celebrate what God has done in our lives and His faithfulness. Just thank you, Lord, for His goodness in our lives. Take the opportunity to give on the screen. There is the information. If you do the text to give, you just put the amount in there, whether it's your tithe or whatever. Or a special offering, or whether it's towards missions. You can just put that amount there.
If you're giving by check or cash, there's an envelope there in the seat back in front of you. You can go ahead and fill that out and just drop it in the bucket in the back of the auditorium as you leave this morning. Also, if you're a guest with us this morning, we're glad to have you with us. And we're just grateful for the opportunity to connect. And so if you don't mind, if you just, there's a card, right? Like this right there in front of you. If you don't mind filling that out and dropping that in the back, in the bucket in the back of the auditorium, we'd just love to get acquainted with you. Just that opportunity of connection in the body of Christ.
Amen. Well, as you prepare your giving, I want to just offer thanks to the Lord for that. Father, just thank you for your blessings in our lives. We're grateful. Thank you, Lord, for every giver today that out of obedience to your word, Lord, we give unto you. We give unto you your kingdom to see it grow and advance on this earth as it is in heaven. And so, Father, we just thank you for your blessings. And we praise you in Jesus' name.
As you give this morning, check out some of the announcements that's happening around here at DLC. What's up, DLC fam? My name is Teddy, and we're so glad that you're here with us today. Let's take just a quick look at what we have coming up for you and your family. All right, guys, it's Third Sunday, and you know what that means. It's house church night. It's house church night. It's house church night.
It's house church night. It's house church night. It's house church night. A deeper relational and spiritual connection amongst everyone within the body. For a list of host homes and locations, visit dlc.tv and click the Third Sunday button to see that. Or scan the QR code in your seat flyer. Hey, men, don't miss our next men's breakfast that's happening August 29th at 8.30 a.m. right here on the Claremore campus. For more info and to let us sign up, .com.
Our additional health and healing class starts August 20th at 7 p.m. in the Owasso campus. This is an educational course for men and women over the age of 18. And if you wish to better understand your emotional health and spiritual maturity, then this is the class for you. Well, that's all the announcements that we got for you this week. Please let us know. We'd love to be in prayer with you. But with that being said, have a good week, DLC. We'll be back in a minute.
As we leave this morning, step out and come. I mean, I know there's maybe some things that the Lord's speaking into your heart today, challenging you with, or just a special need that you have within your life. Avail yourself at this time. Let the teams pray with you. Amen. Amen. And if you guys don't mind putting that map back up for tonight, all right, for the host homes. Ours is one of them.
But we just love to have the body of Christ. gather in the homes if that time is available for you. So thank you, Father. We just thank you, Lord, for your goodness and your faithfulness within our lives, and we just trust you, Lord. You're working in our lives, and we avail yourselves to your spirit, Lord, speaking and leading us, Lord, and we just thank you. In Jesus' name, amen, amen. God bless you.
