Transcript

Rev. Larry Scott

Good morning, Oakwood. Let me make sure I've got all my gadgets going here. I know that it's been a long time since I've seen some of you, and I've only, you've gotten better looking, and I've gotten whiter and grayer, so I understand how that works. But I am so glad to be here with you guys. There is no place like home. There's no place that really fills our heart like being with you guys today. We were so excited when we were asked to come. And for some of you, it's been probably 2016 since I've seen you. And then some of you have gotten to see you a little bit along the way. But I want to tell you what a blessing and a privilege it is to be with you today. I want to pray, and then we're going to get into our time together. Would you pray with me? Father God, we just want to stop and thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to be in your house. We thank you, God, that we can gather together to celebrate what you have done. Father, this church has stood the test of time, and it will continue to stand and be a light in this community. We thank you, God, what you're about to begin again. and the work that you're continuing here. We thank you for Pastor Dale and his family that have come to be a part of this congregation. We thank you for the work that they will put their hand to. I pray for unity in this body, and I pray that, Lord, as we celebrate this congregation's founding, Lord, that you will help us not to just look backward, but to look forward. to be future thinking, to be amazed by your glorious things that you are about to do among us. So thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to worship your name and to come before you in your presence. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen. A lot of times we pastors are asked a question And sometimes we know the answer, and sometimes we don't. One of the biggest questions that I've been asked, and probably you have too, Pastor Dale, is people ask us, How can I have a better relationship to God? How can I have a better relationship to God? And they ask it from a pure heart. In fact, all of us, if we were honest with ourselves, we've asked that same question, right? How can I know God better? How can I know who He is? How can I receive Him? How can I grow in Him? And I know it comes from a heart that's pure. But it's the wrong question. The wrong question. What do I mean by that? We ask the question, how can I have a better relationship with God? But what we really mean to be asking is, how do I have better fellowship with God? You see, there's a big difference in those two ideas. Those are different things. When you talk about your relationship to God and you talk about your fellowship with God, that's not necessarily the same thing. They are intertwined in many ways, and one is dependent on the other. However, when you think about it, your fellowship with God is different than your relationship with God. And so what I want to do today is I would like for us to have a better understanding of those two concepts. What does it mean to have a relationship with God? What does it mean to have fellowship with God? And so by the time you leave here today, I want you to be able to wrap your mind around those two ideas. And I want you to be able to see what it means to have a fellowship with God and how to live in that fellowship with God, because they're two different things. So what we're going to do first is we're going to look at our relationship to God. How does it come about? What does it mean for us to be in relationship to God? And then also, I want us to look at the aspect of fellowship. Now, you see a diagram on the screen here. I want to sort of take my time and walk through this a little bit. We're going to start with that first part of talking about our relationship to God. Now, you see here is a diagram of how a believer's life works. This is part of how we come to Christ. The best way I can help you understand it is to put something like this together so that you and I can grasp the difference between these two ideas. You see, the first thing that we see is when we are walking in life and we're living, we are not of God. We are separated from God in our sin. We're totally alienated from God. You hear people in Hollywood, they'll get up and say, We're all God's children. That's not a true statement. We are all God's creation, but we're not all God's children. You do not come into a relationship with God until you have an encounter with the cross, until you come to God through the salvation that Jesus Christ offers. And when you do that, you have that cross experience, then you enter into a new place. You have a relationship with God, and you have fellowship with God. Our relationship with God is, as we see it, is ongoing. Once you receive Jesus Christ into your heart, that never changes. It's ongoing and it'll continue throughout eternity. But the fellowship with God is different. The fellowship with God is not the same. You see, your relationship with God is secured. That can't be changed. We're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But also what we realize about the fellowship with God, it is actually a choice that we make every day. To live in unity with the Spirit, to live in obedience and humility before God. It is a choice that we make. And then also we see that it is conditional. Your fellowship with God is conditional. Your relationship with God is not. So I want you to make sure you understand what that means. So as we talk about this relationship with God, we have to have an understanding of what it means. Now, can you grasp in your heart and in your head the idea that you can live in relationship with somebody and not be in fellowship with them? You ever been mad at somebody that you're in relationship with? The truth of the matter is, every day of our lives, we are in fellowship or we're out of fellowship with other people. And one of the things that we have to learn as Christians is that our relationship with God is not the same as our fellowship with God because we are secure in that. So let's talk about what our fellowship with God is and our relationship with God is. Here's what I want you to see first of all. Our relationship to God has to do with your standing in Christ. Do you realize that when you come to Jesus Christ through the cross, through placing your faith in Him, and you receive salvation by grace through faith, you are saved? When you come into that place, it puts you in a certain standing with God. It puts you into a certain position with God. You're different after salvation than you were before. My standing with God through Jesus Christ has to do with the fact that when I receive Him as my Savior, I now enter into relationship with Him. He dwells within me and I exist in Him. Those 2 things happen at the moment of conversion. When your mind awakens to the truth of the gospel and you're able to tell your heart, I choose to follow Jesus Christ, it gives you a different standing. Before the cross, you are not in standing with God. You are an enemy of God. You are an adversary with God. You are dead to God until you come through Jesus Christ. Now when you enter into that, you are fully born again. You're fully into the relationship with God. Now, secondly, you see, there's a paternal connection to our relationship with God. A paternal connection. What does that mean, Pastor? It means this. We enter in as sons and daughters of the high God. We enter into a relationship. There is an eternal paternal connection to God. And because of that, I am now His child. Now that's important for us to understand. We go from being adversaries, enemies of God, now we are His child. That changes everything. That changes everything. There are certain privileges and rights and blessings that come into your life automatically simply because you are a child of God. Think of it in terms of this. You know what a king is. A king has children, and those children are born into his family. Now, those children do not do anything to deserve it, but because they simply are born to the king, they now have position. They now have rank. There are certain reverences that you give to those children because they belong to a king. That king holds position. That king holds sway, but his children are those that have the blessings upon them because he is king. And there are certain blessings that you and I get when we come into salvation that allows us to receive blessings and favor and honorings from God. There are certain things that God gives you because you are his children. What is that? Number one, you're safe and secure. In his grace, you are safe. The enemy cannot overcome you. The enemy cannot take you away from him. There is a difference in who you are. That blessing is yours. There is the blessing that God is with you always. He never abandons you. He never forsakes you. God has promised, because you are His children, that you will receive His power, that you will receive His goodness, that He will never leave you nor forsake you, but He will also pour into your life and through your life, and He will provide for every need that you have. Now think of it like the king's children. Those children come into the world, they are infants. They did not work for it, they did not earn it, but yet they are born to the king, and because of their position, they now are reverenced by the rest of the world. They are noticed and said, that is the king's son, that is the king's daughter, and there are certain things you do with king's children. You honor and respect them, not because of the children's sake, but because of the king's sake. Can you understand that? Say amen. That's what happens for us. Now, our relationship to God is settled eternally. I want you to understand that. It is settled eternally. This is not something that changes. It cannot be altered, your relationship to God. It cannot be altered. It cannot be changed. You cannot lose that relationship. You say, But pastor, what if I'm disobedient to God? You can lose that fellowship with God because you're behaving in an immoral way or an ungodly way, but you cannot lose your relationship with God. It is standing on the power of God. Now, why is it eternal? Your relationship to God is eternal simply because You now are secured by his hand. You see, you did not provide the salvation to relationship. You did not secure it. You did not pave the way for it. You did not pay the price for it, so you do not get to maintain it. That is a right by God's throne himself, that you are his and he is yours. You are eternally secured in your relationship with God. Your relationship with him does not depend on whether you're good or whether whether you're bad, whether you're spiritual-minded, or whether you're carnal-minded. Your fellowship is affected by that, but not your relationship. You see, a lot of people think this way in their mind, and it's more and more in this culture that I see that people believe that if I am bad, God stops loving me. If I'm not going to church, if I'm not doing the things I know I ought to do, somehow God's angry with me and God is dissatisfied with me. That is not what the Bible teaches. We're see that. God wants us to live in fellowship with Him, but the relationship you have with God is secured eternally. It's not dependent on whether or not you are good, whether you do religious things. You see, the opposite is true in our mind, too. We think that the more good stuff I do, the more I go to church, the more I give money to the offering, the louder I sing in church, the more Bible studies I do. If I maintain my devotions every day, somehow God's going to love me more. Somehow God's going to bless me more. And I'm here to tell you that's not biblical. God blesses and chooses to pour Himself out on you and me simply because of the relationship we have with God. It's not about any other thing but that. God settled it eternally. My relationship to God is not dependent on such things. Now, whether you're good spiritually or not, this can be a game changer for you. If you're a person who thinks that God's love toward you, His forgiveness toward you, your relationship is in jeopardy because you've blown it, because you've walked away from God, because you're confused about some things, because you don't know why God let you go through something, I'm here to tell you, you can lay that burden down because God has said, You didn't start this relationship. It's not based on you, it's based on my authority, and there is nothing that can change that. Amen? That's the power of grace. That's the power of the cross. That's the power of our being sons and daughters of the High King of Heaven. Let us not forget what God has done for us. The Bible tells us about this relationship. It uses a word. It uses a word called justified. His salvation that He's given us is unchangeable. I want you to look at what it means to be justified. Have you ever thought about it? How many of you have heard the statement that says, Being justified, it means justified, never sinned? You ever heard that? Raise your hand. Three of you, that's good. The word justified is a big word, but here's what it simply means. It means it's referring to something that has now happened to you. It's already happened. justified does mean that God sees you just if I'd never sinned let me say that again when God says you're justified it means that he sees you brothers and sisters as if you had never sinned Well, how does he do that? Because when he looks, hallelujah, when God looks at us, he does not see Larry's sin. He doesn't see the wickedness of my heart. He sees the covering of Jesus Christ. He sees the blood of Jesus, and he calls me righteous. He calls me holy. He calls me pure. Why? Because he sees Jesus in me, and that's what he sees in you. That's what it means, and it's already yours. You may not get that, but you are justified now. You say, Well, pastor, how can I be justified made to look as if I've never sinned? And here it is, because what Jesus has done. We're gonna talk just for a few minutes about this idea of what God has done for us on the cross. And I want you to understand that when God sees you, He sees you as holy. He sees you as righteous. He sees you as perfect. He sees you as clean. He sees that you have been set free from the ******* of your sin. Why? Because Jesus took upon Himself all of your sin. Jesus took upon you every single sin that you have committed or will commit. God sees you in this way. This is what the Bible says to us about our relationship to God. I'm going to prove it to you biblically. Look at this passage in Romans chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. I want you to look at it and I want to focus in on what God's Word says because our hope is in the Word of God. Every single word in the Bible has purpose. It has meaning. It is inerrant and infallible and God penned it through his servants and we are to hold on, cling to everything it says. Amen. So here's what it says. This is not Larry's idea. This was God's idea. Look at what it says. since we have been justified. Have been. Not one day you're going to be justified when you get to heaven. Not one day you're going to be made perfect and God will see you as holy. The Bible says, Paul writes these words to us so that we may have hope. He says, You have been justified. You have been made to be as if you've never sinned. Yes, God knows the sins that trips you up, but God knows also the blood that covers that slip up. He knows what you're going through. He understands it. He says, since we have been justified, you've already been declared righteous, you've already been declared holy in God's eyes, through faith. Through faith in whom? In Jesus Christ. That is, in His salvation. We have peace with God. I want you to understand this morning, you may be in a place in your life, or have been in your life, where you believe that you are not at peace with God. It is not because God is at war with you. It is because you are at war with God, and because you are ignorant of the truth of Scripture, and you do not understand who you are in God's place. You see, one of the things that trips us up, and the devil uses it mightily, is that we forget that we have been set free from the law of sin and death. And he says we have peace with God. What is the opposite of peace? Conflict, war. adversarial relationship. He says, no more of that nonsense. You've now become my children. You've now taken on something that is not of your own accord. And I have blessed you with this blessing. You have peace with me through the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access. Access to what? What's Paul saying? You've gained access to the blessings, to the privileges, to the hope that is in Jesus Christ. You don't have to worry, brothers and sisters, whether God loves you when you screw it up here on this planet. You don't have to worry if God's favor is still upon you. Why? Because He said, I have loved you with an everlasting love, and nothing can take you from the love of God. Neither life nor death nor height are things created, things in eternity, things that has walked this world earth. Nothing can take you away, not even death itself. God says that's who you are to Him. We need to start living with that kind of hope, amen? We need to start putting that kind of energy into our heart and mind. Just because you mess it up doesn't mean that God has abandoned you. God is a faithful God and a faithful Father. Look at what He says. He says, We have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now, say it with me, stand. It's your standing. It's your sin. Can you understand the power of what you're being taught this morning? That you no longer have to wonder where you are in your relationship to God. I love this passage in 2 Corinthians. I want you to look at it. It says, For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Jesus did not just take on your sin, he became your sin. You say, Now wait a minute, that's a mystery of God. Explain that to me, what that means. When Paul is saying to us that Jesus became sin for us, here's what he means. God's righteousness and His holiness hates sin. His justice demands that sin be punished. And so Jesus Christ became sin for us. He took it not only upon Himself, but He took the wrath of God, every single drop. Every single pleasure of God to destroy sin, to punish sin, to judge sin, fell upon Jesus Christ. That's why Paul could write earlier what we read. We now have peace with God. We're not at war with God. God's not at war with us. Why? Because God has given us this relationship through him. He goes on to say, why did he do it? that we might become the righteousness of God in him. I want you to understand every word of God. God gave us Jesus's death. He gave it to you. And God took every bit of sin you have in your life and he put it upon him. This is what I call the greatest exchange that's ever taken place. It's not the same as our relationship to God. I want you to understand something. Let me look at this passage right here. Look at Ephesians 4, 22 through 24. It says, You are to put off concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows more corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and in holiness. That is our standing with God. That is the relationship of God. We have holiness with Him. Now, I want you to understand why I call this the Great Exchange, and I want you to grasp it, okay? This is important. Let's pretend that this represents every sin that you commit. All your lying, all your lustful thoughts, all your anger, all your gossip, all your laziness in the Spirit, all the things that you hated about each other, jealousy, you name it. Whatever you have thought, whatever you have done, whatever you have said, that is sin. That's what this represents. That lays upon you. It is yours to answer for. It is yours to carry. But what God did, according to these Scriptures, is that God took that sin, every bit of it, He took it off of you, and He put it on Jesus. And it doesn't matter if you're talking about sin that you committed in the past, you're talking about the sin that you're committing right now in your life, or sin that you're going to be committing 10 years from now, 50 years from now. God took it all. He took every bit of it off of you. because he knows the frailty of our condition. He knows that we cannot bear the weight of his punishment for sin because his holiness and his righteousness and his justice demands that it be punished. But we are such frail creatures. He took it off of us and he put it on the one and holy Lamb of God and he gave it to him and he punished that sin. He tore his body. He pierced it with nails. He tore his soul. He tore it all apart. He ripped his body to pieces. He was so bloody and so beaten and so torn, he poured out every drop of his wrath on him. And since Jesus has your sin, what does that do to you and me? We're free, free at last, right? You are free in the blood of Jesus. That is the greatest exchange in all of history, in all of creation. God took your sin off of you, gave it to Jesus, and set you free. That is the power of the cross. That is your relationship to Him. Look at what he says. Put off the old man that is corrupted with deceitful lust. Be renewed in your mind. What is Paul saying? Learn the truth. Hear who you now are in Christ. Get your mind right, church. Know who God has made you. He says, By the renewing of the spirit of your mind. that you put on, see the exchange, I take off my sin. I put on what? The new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and in true holiness. That is our standing with God. That is what the relationship is about. This does not change. It does not vacillate. Your relationship to God is as firm today as it is in a thousand years, a million years, a trillion years from now. You are safe in the Father's arms. We sing about this kind of stuff in church, but do we really believe it? Do we really grasp the weight of what God has done for us? It's life-changing when we do. Now let's talk about fellowship. Fellowship is different. Remember, fellowship is conditional. Fellowship is dependent on something else. It's depending on something altogether different. Fellowship is not the same as your relationship. Your fellowship with God can be broken. It can be torn. Fellowship can be set aside. Can you understand that you can be in a relationship with God, but not in fellowship with God? I've been there before. Anybody else ever been there with God? You know, I've let sin in my life sometimes take such deep root that I wondered if God could ever love me again. And God is screaming from Calvary, You've got it all wrong, son. I loved you from the beginning. Before the foundation of the world, I determined that I would give you the righteousness of my Son and I would take your sin and I would punish that sin so that you no longer have to bear it, all of them. Therefore, we have peace with God because we have been justified through Jesus Christ. But that's not fellowship. There's time. How many of you have lost fellowship with your children? Your family, right? But don't your kids drive you crazy? Don't you just want to look at them and say, I'm going to send you to Jesus today? Husband and wife, they don't talk for days because they're upset with each other. Come on, don't act like you got perfect marriages. Right? We pout against one another. We fellowship is all because he said something I didn't like. He said this dress didn't look good on me and it broke my heart. Whatever it is, you can be in relationship. You're still married. You're still parents and child, but the fellowship is broken. There's something broken in the relationship. Now, let's get an understanding. What is this fellowship? Here's the basic definition I want you to catch. It signifies a close, intimate, and ongoing partnership with God. It is a personal connection with God that moves beyond our simply obeying the rules of religion. Rather, it is based on knowing one another in deep friendship and abiding trust. It is the striving of becoming one with God by aligning our purposes, our will, our heart, our thoughts, and even our actions with God. You see, my fellowship with God is not my standing in Christ, but it is more of my walking daily with Christ. It is the alignment of our life with Christ. You see, here's what it looks like. Are you paying attention? Say amen. Because this can change your life, what you're learning today from God's word. This is us and this is God. Here's what happens. We get caddywampus. We don't obey his word. We don't do what he says to do. We live in an unholy lifestyle. We get lazy spiritually. But when we're in fellowship with God, we turn things right. and we align ourselves, and we become a mirror image of Jesus Christ. We become just like Jesus. That is the goal of fellowship. When you align your lifestyle, when you align your words, your thoughts, your will, your purpose, listen to me, are you listening? The more you align those things with God's Word and who Jesus Christ is, the deeper the fellowship, the deeper the communion. The deeper the alignment, the deeper the love. The deeper the holiness becomes in your life, the deeper you go with God. You want to know why you're not experiencing the power of God move through your life. You want to know why you seem to be dead spiritually, unhappy, nothing's happening, you never hear God move when you pray. Maybe you need to check your alignment. Your alignment is off. You are living this way, and God says, align yourself, your will, your purpose, your thoughts, along with me. Become who I say you are to be. Live like Jesus, and I will bring the power to your life. Can you see the difference between fellowship and relationship? There's a passage that John wrote that talks about this ability to have fellowship with God. It's 1 John. 1 verse 3 through 10 and then chapter 2. This is important. I want you to count how many times Paul uses the word fellowship. All right. I want you to look at it. Here it is. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship, count them out, one, with us. And truly our fellowship, thank you for whoever that was. All together, God's people, too. Our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son. Did you see that? Our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write unto you, that your joy may be full. You see how he's talking about joy and fullness of that joy being tied to our fellowship? He says, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declared to you that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, what does it mean to walk in darkness? You're living like you ought not to. Fellowship with one, we have, excuse me, living in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, what does that mean? Aligned. aligned. Are you aligned this morning with God in your walk? But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. How many is that? And the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If you say that you have no sin, you are deceiving yourselves, for the truth is not in you. We all sin, by the way. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us at all. And then in chapter 2, one of my favorite verses in all the Bible, I'll explain why. Chapter 2, verse 1, He says, Little children, these things I have written unto you so that you may not sin. In other words, I've just explained to you in chapter one, so that you won't sin. But here's the favorite part. And if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. What does this mean? What does it mean? That means, he says, don't sin. If you say you don't have sin, you're lying. The truth is not in you. Then in chapter 2, verse 1, he says, and by the way, if you do sin, you've got an advocate, you've got an attorney, you've got a lawyer that stands before the Father. And it's none other than the one that he punished sin on. The one that punished, that took on your sin, that became sin for you, is the one who advocates for you before the Father. He says, Don't lose heart, brothers and sisters, if you do fall into sin. Why? Because there is an Advocate, and His name is Jesus, the Righteous One. So when I sin, and believe me, I can do some doozies. When I sin, God calls me forth to repentance. And the moment I fall on my face in repentance and I say to God, I'm sorry. I broke your heart. I disobeyed your will. I didn't follow your purpose. I'm out of alignment with you, God. Here's what Jesus said, Your Honor, I need to speak for my brother here. Your Honor, you remember what you did to me on the cross? He's mine. He's yours. You don't punish him because you've punished me. Every drop of wrath that God has against my sin has been dealt with. And the only thing he has for me is love and peace and forgiveness and mercy. That's why the Bible says, brothers and sisters, there is therefore, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because we have been set free from the law of sin and death, and we have been brought into righteousness. So that advocate called Jesus Christ, when you sin, he says there in And just in case you do, know that the righteous one stands up and advocates for you before the Father. And then he uses a big word there. He says he is the propitiation. Boy, that's a $10 word, isn't it? When I want to impress other pastors, I'll talk like that. Here's what it means. It means that Jesus was enough to satisfy the wrath of God. He was enough. He is enough. He will be enough. So when I go to God, no matter how far away from him I've walked, it's just one step and I turn around and Jesus is saying, I wonder when you was going to get your head right. I wonder when you were going to get your heart right. Come on with me to the Father. I'm going to be your advocate. I'm going to speak on your behalf. I'm going to be your attorney. And I'm going to say to the judge, set free, debt paid. That's me and you. He has become the propitiation. Do you realize that Jesus was enough to satisfy the wrath of God? He's enough. You don't have to feel ashamed. You don't have to feel condemned. I'll tell you this right now, the devil has trapped some of you into the lie that you believe that your standing with God, your relationship with God is destroyed because you forget your standing. You forget who Jesus is and what He's done for you. He was enough. Now, John uses the Greek word, that passage we just looked at and counted the word fellowship, that Greek word is actually koinonia. Here's what it means. It means a shared communion, a deep spiritual connection, a sense of deep belonging with God, a bond that is based on friendship and mutual affection. That's what he uses when he says, You have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. You have fellowship with one another. And what I find very interesting here is this fact. Now, I love it when God's word jumps out at me and I learned something I didn't know. Here's what it says. God used the very same word to describe, quinonia, fellowship, to describe our relationship of how we're to be with each other. as He did to describe how we are with Him. Let that sink in. God chose to describe your standing, your relationship, your fellowship with Him at the same way. He says, love each other just like this. There must be a spiritual bond. Now, how did we see that God fellowshipped with us? He set our faults aside. God no longer holds our sins against us. That's what the Bible says. He no longer holds it against us. His wrath has been poured out. God demonstrated his love for us, that while we were sinners, while we were enemies of God, he laid down his life and gave it for us. God said, The way you are with me, that bond, that unity, looking past your faults is how you're supposed to be with each other. Isn't that beautiful? If we could just learn to love one another the way Christ and God the Father loves us, where we look and say, I do not hold condemnation over you. You've been set free. I no longer hold your sins against you. If we could get that one thing right, it would transform the world and we wouldn't be living in the chaos of what we've seen this past week. You know what the problem is? We always talk about it being the culture. These liberal people that are out there doing all these kind of things, it's not them. They're just doing what they normally do. They're being wicked because they're following the flesh. The problem is the church is not being what God called her to be. We are the fault. And here's where I put the blame on pastors and teachers and leaders, because we are not holding the standard of righteousness to where it should be. That's how we're to treat one another. Now, I want you to understand your fellowship. Here's what really has to be understood. When you have fellowship with God, it's not going to stay the same every day. You understand we have two natures within us. Before we come to Jesus Christ and salvation, we only have the sin nature. Have you ever heard that phrase before? Say amen. You have a sin nature. That means you have a nature within you that cannot stand to do righteous. The Bible says you cannot please God with your sin nature. It cannot please God. It does not want to do that. Paul described this conflict within us when he was talking about in Romans 7. You see, when you come to Christ, you and I take on a new nature. We take on a new power in our life. That's called the Holy Spirit. That doesn't mean that the flesh nature just goes, and it's gone. Paul describes it in chapter 7 of Romans, and he says, The things I don't want to do, I find myself doing. The things I want to do and I know I should do, I don't do. And then he says, Who can deliver me from this wretched man that I am? And he says, But praise be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have freedom from those two natures. We have freedom to walk in alignment with the Holy Spirit. That's what fellowship is. Now, every day you have to choose that. You have to choose to live in alignment with your heart, your purpose, your will, your behaviors, your thoughts, your words, everything. You have to decide to live in fellowship with God. That's why it's conditional. My standing with God, my relationship with God does not change. But when I walk in disobedience and I walk in sin or not in the light as we just read a while ago, that means that the flesh, the sin nature is controlling me. And that's what hinders the fellowship. That's what hinders. Some of you are living that out right now in your life. You're here this morning and you are out of fellowship with God. But it doesn't have to be that way. So how can we have better fellowship with God? The relationship is secure. You don't have to worry about that. It's done. It's eternal. It's not going anywhere. But how can we do it? Let me just give you a few things in closing. You need to live in fellowship and you need to understand that it is a choice. that you have to make every moment of every day? Am I going to gossip? Am I going to do righteously? Am I going to demean another brother in the faith or not? And I got to tell you, church, you've had enough experience in this congregation over the past 10 years that your testimony has reached down to where I live. Has all of it been godly? Has all of it been true? Has your heart lived righteously before God in fellowship with one another? It's a choice you have to make. When you blow it, be honest with God and yourself. Tell God, I blew it. I messed up. I had a lustful thought today. I said things that were unkind. I was angry with my brother. I gossiped, whatever it is, fess up. Live life like a sponge. Take in the word of God. You know what a sponge is, you got sponge, big old sponges you wash your car with. Have you ever noticed something funny about sponges, by the way? Sponges are born, created to take in water. But there's a limit. And it can't be useful again until you do what? Wring it out. Unless you get out of the sponge what's in there, whether it's water or soap or whatever else. But once it's emptied, it can fill up again. Are you following me? Say amen. That's what it means to live in the Word. Let God ring you out every day. God, take the Word and let it flesh out in my choices, in my decisions, in my behaviors, in my parenting, in my finances, in my friendships, in my hobbies. Everything, God, let me be wrung out for you. Deal quickly with the spiritual barriers in your life. All your doubts, your fears, your hangups, deal quickly with them. You know why? Because the enemy will use those things to break your fellowship every day. He will war against you like never before. Go to God with them immediately. Number five, accept God's grace and forgiveness. Here's one of the things that I learned. Thank God I learned it. God already knows everything about you and me. He knows your thoughts. He knew you were going to be in trouble with this particular sin. He knew you might be lazy every now and then spiritually. He knew you would be backbiters. He knew you would live unholy. He knew that you would look at the opposite sex and lust after her or him. He knew these things, and he said, I love them enough to make a way out of that. You need to forgive yourself when fellowship with God is broken. One of the hardest things I've ever seen people struggle with is they will walk away from God and they believe a lie that the enemy has told them that God is angry with them, that God condemns them, even though the Bible says there is no condemnation and that He's poured out all of His anger and wrath against our sin already. But the problem isn't that God is judging us. We are judging ourself. And we're not standing in the relationship that God has already provided for us. How horrible a life when you cannot get past the point that God has already forgiven you? How horrible is that? Now think about it. Accept His grace, forgive yourself, respond to God's correction with immediate obedience. That'll get you in trouble in a minute. When we want to dance with sin, we want to flirt with sin, we want to keep it in our life because that flesh nature I was talking about, it likes it. It wants it. It's in me, it's in you. We want to sin. That's why God says it can never please me. When you respond to God, Respond to his correction immediately. Don't let it linger in your life. Number eight, cultivate a healthy love for God's word, for prayer and personal worship. Nothing can align your spirit like spending time with God in prayer and Bible study and fellowship with him. Number nine, live in fellowship. Quaaninia. Live in that fellowship horizontally and vertically. If I tell you this, remember what the scripture says, if you cannot forgive one another, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you of your sins. I got to tell you this, if you look into this old boy to be perfect, you better have another thing coming. Because I don't get it right. I mess it up every day. And there are times I have to look to God and say, once again, Father, once again, here I am. And you know what Jesus says, I got you. I got you. I'm still your advocate. Live in fellowship, quantonia, vertically and horizontally. Lastly, don't confuse your relationship to God with your fellowship with God. Stop thinking that your relationship can be lost. It can't. You're secured by the power and the judgment of God, the King Himself. Now your fellowship, that's a different animal. You want to know why God's power is not in your life? Check your fellowship, not your relationship. And find hope in the truth that God still loves me. He still forgives me. He still wants to bless me. His relationship is not conditional. It's already been settled. The fellowship is. One last principle. Doing these 10 things, doing these 10 things will increase your fellowship with God, but ignoring them Ignoring them will just as easily destroy it. I can't do anything to encourage you if you refuse to walk in the light. And if you cannot stop walking in the darkness, you got a different kind of issue. You may need to check that relationship and see if it's real. Don't allow these 10 things to slip out of your grasp. Here's 2 questions I have for you as we close. Number one, how has God spoken to you today? Some of you are here today and you actually are just learning for the first time and understanding for the first time of your standing in your relationship with God. Some of you have been living in fear of God, running from God, wondering if God loves you, does He still care for me? If He doesn't, then why isn't He blessing me? All of those things. That would be me too, brother. You got that right. Now, God says, I've already settled that issue for you. Some of you are here today and you never understood that depth of love from God the Father. You've been thinking God's your adversary, God's your enemy, and you need to get it right. You don't have to leave this place confused anymore. Pastor Dale will be able to talk with you going forward to help you understand the truth of what I've been telling you from God's Word. And some of you are here today, and you're in a place where you've been a child of God for a long time, but you're sort of wishy-washy on this fellowship thing. You're on again, off again. You're lukewarm, and you know what God says about lukewarm people. Makes him sick to his stomach. Are you living a life that is aligned with God? Are you living catawampus? Isn't that a great word? Are you living catawampus from God? You know what I want to tell you? If that's you today, you can get it right. You can say, God, I need to begin anew. I need a new start. You know what God says? You got it. When your child disappoints you, they come back to you and say, mom, dad, I know I blew it. I'm sorry. You say, I'm sorry. Talk to them. You're not, I don't care. No, you love them, right? Remember the prodigal son in the Bible? When the son said, I choose to go away from you, father. I want my life. I want to do what I want to do. And the father looked for his son longingly every day. But when the son came to his senses, some of you need to come to your senses, he ran back to his father. And what'd the father do? The Bible says he fell on him, loved up on him, hugged him, kissed him, and said, welcome home. We're going to have a party. For those of you that are living that way, not in alignment, You need to know you're the prodigal and God says, come on back, son, daughter. All you got to do is come back. And here's what you'll find. If you're going this way opposite of God and you say, something's not right, I need to turn my life around. And you stop and you're sinning and you turn around, you know where God is. He's not way over there. He's right here going, it's about time, isn't it? You see, God doesn't just leave us and abandon us. That's why He put the Holy Spirit in you. Amen. So that you would not forget, I am closer to you than the breath in your body. Woo! I love Jesus. I love the fact of what He's done for me and what He's done for you. How has God spoken to you this morning? That's important. But it's not near as important as what you do from this moment on. It's not near as important as what you do when you leave this place. You see, what we tend to do as church people, we come and hear a preacher preach. We get all fired up. Man, wow, what a message. God just spoke to me, and you can't remember past barbecue today. Well, the barbecue's pretty good, so I can sort of forgive that one. But you get my point, right? What are you gonna do with what you've heard? Is it going to change the way you understand who God is and who you are to God and who He is to you? Does it change when you start saying, Yeah, I'm blowing it right now in my life, but you know what? My standing is sure and I can realign. Well, how many times can I do that? As many as it takes. That's the wonderful thing about grace. That's why it's called amazing, right? What are you going to do when you leave this place? Pastor, I'm going to ask you to come up and just receive this. We have a singing or whatever you want to do. And however God's spoken to you today, I would ask you to be different when you leave here. Don't just be stirred by what you've heard. Don't just be challenged by it. Be transformed by it in Jesus' name.

Pastor Dale Reeves

As you get ready to respond to the message you've heard today, I believe the gospel has been shared with you today. I would, though, I would like to say something that as I've listened today, it's on my heart. That small, that little three-letter word, sin, that's a big, big problem. It's not to be taken lightly either. It's so big that God died on the cross for the sins of the world. No one else could do it. The punishment, the penalty, the wrath could not be satisfied for sin. unless the holiest of holies, holy, holy, holy, was nailed to the cross and His blood was spilled. That's sin. That's what sin is. And only by God's grace and mercy in the death of His Son will we see Him in eternity and walk with Him. Sin is nothing. to be taken lightly. And we can only overcome sin unchecked in your life, silent and hiding in your mind, with the power of God Himself, the Holy Spirit. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit living and dwelling in sin. Overcome it with Him. Praise God. That's what 1 John 1 and 2 is all about. Sin cannot overcome you. have been bought with a price, the holy blood of God Almighty, sovereign over the universe. Not just for us, brothers and sisters, for the sins of the world, that all might be saved, that we might go out and tell others about Him. Praise God. We're going to give you an opportunity to respond today. Maybe today's the first day that you truly understood the gospel. You truly understood you're in relationship with him and that you've been born at a price, his blood, and that you've been neglecting fellowship. Yes, you're a believer, you're a child of God, but you had neglected fellowship. We open this altar up, we say, come, pray to God and say, God, draw me closer to you. Give me a desire for your word. Help me remember what the pastor shared today. If I'm not mistaken, Brother Jim, and you correct me, you can go back and watch this on YouTube, right? So if that BBQ does mess you up, you go, yeah, praise God, for technology. Ricky and Jim and Cheryl and Thomas, they make sure we can watch it, right, guys? So you can go home and you can watch it and catch those points that were shared today, because that was some... And those were some reminders believers need to hear. And unbelievers, there were warnings here today that you need to hear. Because without that relationship, you are lost in darkness. If you're here today and you're praying for someone you love, come forward, pray at the altar. Come to me and let me pray with you. Whisper their name in my ears so I can pray for them. I preached a funeral yesterday. I was hopeful that he knew the Lord, but I didn't know. I was worried. You ever lose a loved one and you worry about them? I went to the visitation after. They don't typically do that, a visitation after. Usually it's before. Praise the Lord, the visitation was after. God is so good. He knows what he's doing. A man came to me at the visitation and said, I worked with your cousin for many years. He became one of my best friends. He said, do you want to know how I met him, preacher? I said, how'd you meet him? He said, he came to me telling me about Jesus and witnessing to me. Praise God. Right? Praise the Lord for what he does on a daily basis. He doesn't quit on us. He's right there with us. He wants you in fellowship with him. He's got work for you to do. He wants to show you how mighty he is. Maybe God's calling you to something today. Come forward. Pray about that today. When I look around this room, sometimes I see legs moving. I see seats look like they're on fire. I know the Holy Spirit's doing things. We invite you during this time, won't you come? Whatever the Lord is doing in your heart today, won't you come?