Everyday Faith | Week 4 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

they gave to their teachers at the end of a school year. These notes are incredible. K? I wanna show you a couple of these. This was from Brian that said, missus Munn, you were a good teacher this year, but not my favorite ever. Not not even close. Right? Like, I just wanna let you know. Like, you were cool, but not that cool. Right? Kristen said, mister Michaels, you made second grade fun. I know that you will enjoy the bars this summer. Right?

I don't know what he was doing to get through second grade, but I assume it's what I would have to do to get through teaching second grade as well. Michael said, miss Stevens, I'm sorry your cat died, but at least you won't smell as dirty anymore. Right?

The reason that that's funny is because we all had that teacher when we were growing up too. You know exactly what that smell is. Patrick said, I like you, miss Klein. If I had to choose between you being killed or not getting to eat dessert, I would choose for you to not be killed. That,

I'm pretty sure, is a is a serial killer, and she's excited that he's going to a different class next year. Right? Hey. Here here's the last one from Stacy. She said, miss Mandy, you can move my seat anywhere, and I will still talk a lot. I just will. Think about that this summer. Right?

Man, I love it. It's it's it's so good.

And maybe maybe you've had an experience with one of your kids that's that's similar to this. Right? I was in the grocery store with my son when he was little, and there's this lady who had this big nose, and he was like, dad, why why is a witch bagging our groceries? And we're like, you can't say this stuff. Right? And the reason that these things are so funny is because kids

kids haven't learned this lesson that hopefully

hopefully we as adults have learned. If you haven't learned it, today's your day to learn it. Right? That not not everything that comes into our mind has to come out of our mouth. Right? That there there should be a filter between the things that we think and the things that we the things that we say. The reason that I start there this morning is James is going to spend the first half of chapter three talking about the words that come out of our mouth and that they are potentially one of the best lead indicators on the condition and the nature of our our soul and that our words are actually a much better reflection of the condition of our heart than almost everything else. The reason that I would encourage you this morning to lean in a little bit is because the the the the data tells us that gentlemen, you and I will speak on average about 7,500

words a day. Now that pales in comparison to you ladies. They say that you will speak about 25,000 words every single day. All the dudes said amen. Right? But regardless of gender, they say that all of us in this room will speak somewhere between six and eight hundred million words in our lifetime.

And what James is going to say is that 600,000,000 opportunities to sow life or death. Here's what I want you to see this morning. If you get nothing else out of this, my my one kind of point that I want you to understand is that our words, those six to 800,000,000 that we will say, our words will bring life or death.

In the six or 800,000,000 words that you will say in your life, will you plant seeds of life or death? James chapter three begins in verse one this way.

It says, dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church for we who teach will be judged more strictly. That's one of those verses that I was like, dang, should have read that like twelve years ago. I probably would have picked a different job, but we're we're here now. Right? It says, indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way. James starts with a really kind of a surprising verse. He says, you wanna know what his measurement of what a perfect Christian is, a perfect follower of Jesus? Somebody he'd that has learned to live into the new nature that they are in Christ that has allowed their old person that they were to fully pass away and die. He says the measurement of a perfect Christian now again, the word that he uses in the Greek is more more better translated more more better is not even the right way to say something. Right? It's better translated into like complete and whole. He's not saying perfect and that they make no mistakes, But what he's saying is that something that's an incredible measurement of somebody who knows who they are in Christ, that is submitted to the power of the Holy Spirit is that they've learned to control

their language. And I'm like, look, if you gave me five things like, hey, here's the top five things that I think make up what he would say is a perfect Christian,

the words that they say honestly don't even register into my thought in the top five or 10 things that I would think of. But James argues that if you've learned to control your language, you've probably controlled you've learned to control almost every other arena of your life. He says your your words

matter more than you could ever possibly imagine,

and that what you say, what comes out of you is probably the greatest indication of what's going on in you. So the question for all of us this morning is what what is going on in us? But here's the tension of a message like this, because you and I will easily dismiss like, oh, it's not that big of a deal because we can't see the damage that our words do. Even right now as I'm speaking, it's not like you can visibly see the words that are coming out of my mouth. You can't see how they're landing and and impacting people, but don't make make no mistake about it. The bible is clear that our words are making an impact on people whether you can see it or not. It it reminds me of a story that I read years ago about this doctor that was, you know, he was practicing medicine in the early eighteen hundreds and he was, he ran a gynecology clinic where they were doing deliveries of babies,

but something was happening at his clinic that was keeping him up at night. Women who were giving birth in his clinic were dying at five times the rate during delivery than the local midwife's clinic down the street. And so he tried to figure out why why is this happening? I don't understand it. He would go to the midwife's clinic. He would watch how they would do delivery. She's like, we're we're doing all the same things. There's nothing different.

But then he had kind of a light bulb moment and he started to wonder if maybe there was a connection. Again, it's kinda gross now, but he was trying to see if there was a connection to the fact that unlike the midwives,

they were actually doing autopsies in between deliveries. K? Again, I know it's gross, but just stay with me. He wondered if maybe there was a connection between the autopsies and the and the death rate in women. So he told all the doctors with no no understanding of why, he said, just start washing your hands in between doing autopsies and deliveries. And just like that, he solved the death rate in women.

But here became his dilemma. He couldn't explain why. Because microbiology,

bacteria was not yet discovered, so he he had a a hypothesis that was working, but he couldn't prove to the medical community why, because he couldn't show them. He tried to tell the medical community, told all the doctors around the country, start washing your hands between doing autopsies and deliveries and women will start to live and not die. And the medical community pushed back on him so harshly

that four years after this breakthrough, he actually literally died in an insane asylum thinking that he was crazy. And it tells us, hello recent history,

that when the medical community makes up their mind about something, it's really difficult to get them to change their mind because doctors were appalled at the notion that they were somehow dirty.

Obviously, he was vindicated forty years later when they understood bacteria and they now go, okay, this is why doctors have to scrub their hands in between things because bacteria

is the greatest threat to every surgery that's happening. What James is saying is that you and I, we can't make the mistake of dismissing the power of our words because we can't see it. They're doing something in the people around us. The question is the question is is what is happening to the people around you with the words that you're saying. I promise you they're doing something. It's either life or death. There's no neutral. There's no neutral language.

Proverbs chapter 18 verse 21 just says it plainly. He says, the tongue can bring death or life. Those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

The consequences will come for those of us who think our language isn't that big of a deal. It matters more than you could possibly ever realize. Verse three, he continues. James says, we can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth, and a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go. Even though the winds are strong, he says in the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches,

but a tiny spark can set an entire set a great forest on fire, and among all the parts of the body, your tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire for it is set on fire by hell itself.

There is so much that is in here that James just said. But he essentially says that sometimes when you look at your life and it feels like everything is on fire, sometimes it's because of the words that you've allowed to be spoken over you. Sometimes it's the things that have been spoken over you that you've repeated. And sometimes, we've gotta be really careful and realize that our our language has the ability to set our world on fire.

Our our words, whether we realize it or not, they create the worlds that we live in. And the truth is that some of us sitting here today, the things that we still struggle, the reason we have an eating disorder sitting here at 40 years old is because somebody when we were a kid, somebody in a position of influence told us, hey, you're kinda overweight. And those words,

they stuck with us. They implanted into our hearts, and sometimes it takes years to uproot the things that have been spoken over us. James says, don't dismiss because the tongue in comparison to the rest of your body, it seems like this insignificant

thing. He's saying that it is something that can create worlds that are on fire. And you notice what he says there at the very end that we just read? He says, the thing that's beneath the thing, the thing that's behind the language that seems so insignificant,

it's actually one of the greatest tactics that the enemy uses.

The language that hurts people often is animated by the demonic. He says it's hell itself that is the one that is coming in and having these worlds created and set on fire because of these these sparks that we send out with our words. Now again, the visual is powerful that he's saying. He's saying that sometimes we'll say things in anger. We'll say things in frustration, and later we'll come back and go, hey, I'm really sorry, and we'll try to take that thing back. And what James is saying

is that sometimes you will start the spark and you won't be able to control the fire that happens on the other side of that.

Now, again, as somebody who grew up in San Diego, this was something we were we were constantly terrified of. Right? Wildfires were the number one thing that threatened our ecosystem. I can't tell you how many times we were evacuated as kids and just watched these massive wildfires come over the mountains. The crazy part is the ranch fire that happened in 2018 was the worst fire that's ever happened in the state of California.

It burned almost 440,000 acres, cost $10,000,000,000 in damage, 450 structures were burned to the ground. Two firefighters lost their lives fighting this fire. You know how the fire started?

The reason they called the ranch fires because a guy on a ranch was going out to go and stake down this this tarp that had come unattached.

He took one nail to reattach it into the ground. He hit the nail. He hit the stake, and when he hit it with the hammer, sparks came off of it and went into the brush. And the brush caught on fire and the wind came and that that thing, those seemingly insignificant sparks cost $10,000,000,000

in damage. Two firefighters lost their lives, 450 structures, 440,000 acres burned to the ground because of one spark.

Had you told that guy, here's what's gonna happen when you do this, I promise you he would have found a different way to tie down the shade structure that day. What James is imploring us this morning to wrestle through is the fact that the words that we're speaking

over the people in our lives, over our spouses, over our coworkers, over our children, they're creating fires that sometimes rage out of control. And it's our responsibility as the people of God to understand that we have a responsibility to steward

the words that we've been given. You know what's amazing to me is that God, the way that he created everything that we exist in, everything that we see in the natural world, how did God do it? He spoke it into creation. He says, you and I were made in the image of God. He's saying, don't dismiss

your words. Our language matters more than we could ever possibly imagine. Here's how James kinda wraps up. He says in verse seven, people can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish, but but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.

Sometimes it praises our lord and father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of god. And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this this is not right.

James says that you and I are pretty intelligent beings. He says we have the ability to control almost any wild animal that's out there. Now again, he wrote this thousands of years ago. Imagine if he could have seen SeaWorld. Right? An orca whale that's shooting a man out of the water that's like this. Right? Like, you would have been mind blown. His his hypothesis was right. We can control almost anything because we're pretty smart. He says there's one thing you can't control on your own, your language.

You can't fix the words that you speak on your own. So this creates the problem that we sit in this morning. James says on one side, your words and your language matter than you matter more than you could ever possibly imagine. Oh, and by the way, there's nothing you can do to fix it. Good luck.

This is where if this was a TED talk, we'd be like, okay. Well, we're all hoes. We'll come back next week and try to find something that we can solve. So enjoy brunch. We'll see you next week.

But luckily, this isn't a TED Talk. Right? Here's the good news of the gospel is that what is impossible with man is possible with God. But what James is saying is that you and I, we've gotta understand. We'll see in a second why it's so important,

but you and I can't fix our language on our own. The the so what of this message is not to, okay, let's walk out of here and be people who speak better and put cuss jars on the counter and make sure we just don't cuss anymore. That's not the takeaway.

The takeaways we've gotta first, we first have to start and stack hands and say, okay, look, I'm in agreement. K. I'm in agreement that words are

powerful. K. That's the first thing we all have to say, yes. I I'm willing to agree and acknowledge this thing because you cannot fix a problem that you're not willing to admit is there. We've gotta first agree that words are powerful. I wanna show you this study

that a Japanese scientist did about fifty years ago. It's a really mind blowing thing when you see it. Again, he understood

the power of language. So he was trying to prove it out. He took these jugs of water, these jars of water, and for twenty four hours again, it's gonna sound really woo woo, but just stay with me here for a second. He, for twenty four hours, he had his team speak nothing but affirming,

positive, and life giving words over this jar of water. Then he took that jar of water, he froze it, and under a microscope, he looked at the crystals that were created after twenty four hours speaking positively to the water. Look at how these crystals appeared under a microscope. K? This is what they look like. They they were beautiful. They they were organized. They were structured to them. And then he took a different jar of water for twenty four hours. Again, all this is true. You go see the research. For twenty four hours, he spoke negative,

harmful, hurtful things over it, froze the water, looked at it under a microscope, and instead of it being beautiful and organized, this is what he saw every single time. Cellular structures that were broken apart and destroyed. There's been over 10 books written trying to put together what happened here and explain

what is taking place. Now here's the beauty of science. See, science is constantly trying to catch up to what has been revealed in the bible. The bible says your words are creating words. They are more powerful than you could ever realize.

And now we have scientific studies that begin to show us some of some of how this plays itself out. Here's why that study matters to you and I sitting here today. You realize the world that we live in, it is 60% water. Your body is 70% water. Your brain,

the brain that is inside of every little human that God has entrusted to your care is 80% water. The question

the question is is what are the words that we're speaking, the words that we're allowing to be spoken over our children, over our loved ones, over our family members, and our community members? What are they producing inside of people? There are no neutral words.

So the question becomes, what does this really mean? What is life giving words? What what is, you know, deadly language? This is sometimes where I think as the church we jump to oversimplification.

See, oftentimes, what we go is like, okay. That means we're not supposed to cuss. Right? We don't we don't cuss. You know, we don't hang out with people who do. Right? Like, that's that's what we're supposed to do. Now, again, the scriptures do say to not let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouth, and I think we should be controlled with our language and we should be, you know, people who are set apart in every part of our life but I think sometimes just jumping to, okay, well, we don't cuss. That's that's what the the Bible is talking about. You gotta understand that there are things that Jesus said. Had we been in the church when he had said those things, churched people, their jaws would have hit the floor. When Jesus stands up and calls the pharisees, he calls them a brood of vipers,

and then he calls them a bunch of whitewashed tombs. That would be the equivalent of me saying, okay, you're a bunch of SOBs. Right? You'd be like, what? Like pastors can't say that.

When Jesus calls Peter, he says, get behind me, Satan. Like, that would have been an incredibly offensive thing. What Jesus did is he understood the power of language in making points.

But you and I, again, sometimes the Christian thing is we just oversimplify what we think the Bible means. We just go, that means you can't cuss.

And again, we probably should have language that is different than people who are not followers of Jesus. But I also think that speaking life and not death is a little bit more complicated than that. There's a couple of things I want you to see this morning. What does it mean to speak death? What are deadly

types of language? The first one I want you to see this morning is sometimes one of the ways that we speak death over people is we're just people who are really comfortable with gossiping. I think one of the most pervasive things inside of the church is a culture of gossip,

and we're really good at disguising these as prayer requests. Right?

You're like, hey. Just pray for Sally. You know, I was at her house, and she was letting her kids watch Harry Potter. And, like, there's there's just no chance that any of them are going to, you know, heaven one day, and I heard their kids cuss three times and but, like, just be praying for them. And we're really, really good at disguising these these moments of gossip as prayer requests. And we gotta understand, man, the scriptures talk a lot about this stuff.

My grandma also was always wise, and she said, just be careful of anybody that's willing to gossip around you because if they'll gossip to you, I promise you they'll gossip about you when you're not there too. And we need to be people who have conversations with people, not about people. Amen?

Secondly, the things that the scripture say, what else is things that produce death? It's just being people who complain a lot. And I know it seems like, oh, it's not that big of a deal, but I think sometimes complaining

is just polluting your environment. It's it's literally eroding the blessing that you're in the middle of. It's easy to be the person that walks out and goes, man, it's a million degrees today. This is miserable. You're like, thanks, captain obvious. Right? Like, all of us know these things. I think it's our responsibility to speak life and not death. This verse that Paul says in Philippians chapter two, he says, do everything without complaining

and arguing. If you're looking for a good memory verse for your kids, I'm telling you, this is a great one. Right? Do everything without complaining and arguing. He says, you and I have to be people who understand that complaining sometimes as much as it seems insignificant,

it's the thing that is destroying the blessing that God has given us. The other thing I think sometimes that we do is we're just careless with our words. Right? We're we're just we joke around too much. And this is something that I have to be careful with. K? I'm an incredibly sarcastic person. I come from a family where our love language is sarcasm. Right? And you've gotta we joke. If you're gonna come for family dinner, like, you better have thick skin.

There's a verse that I read in Proverbs chapter 26 a couple years ago that was like it was like an arrow to the heart. It says, just as damaging

as a madman shooting a deadly weapon. Think about that visual. K? A crazy person with a gun. Like, that does not sound awesome. He says, is somebody who lies to a friend and then comes back and tries to say, I was just joking.

He says, sometimes you and I, we unintentionally do a lot of damage to people in in jest, And we think because we say, I was just joking that it justifies somehow the hurtful thing that we said. I think we just gotta understand that sometimes even as we're joking with with not the wrong intent, we can still cause harm. So what does it mean if we're gonna be people who speak life and not death? There's a couple things again that I I see in the scripture. One of the things is that we just are people who give lots of compliments. We we are we are willing to just compliment everybody. And I I don't know if you've ever gotten a good compliment. When you walk out with like, yeah. You're like, man, I I like this shirt a little bit, but then two people are like, dude, that shirt's awesome. I'm like, I I really like this shirt now. Right? And I think sometimes as as silly as it is, like, as the people of God, we go, look, people don't get compliments very often. So the next time you're hanging out with your girlfriend and getting coffee, you're like, girl, you killed the mascara this morning. You know what I mean? Like, awesome. Whatever you did is popping. Like, well well done. You know? Like, that shirt, I love it. Looks looks amazing. Haircut on on fleek, you know, like, killing it.

I think sometimes, let let's be liberal. Let's be liberal with our compliments. Go, man. People don't often get told that they're doing well. K? I think the other thing is we need to be people who encourage each other. I love the word encourage. It literally means to put courage into somebody.

That it's our responsibility as the people of God to put courage inside of people. Understanding sitting in this room, k, even for all the all the guys sitting here, wives, I'll I'll tell you a secret real quick. Your husband needs you to speak courage into them.

Men are often only spoken to when they've done something wrong. At work, they're pulled into an office when they've messed up. They're talked to about their parenting when they've dropped the ball and done something incorrect. I think we have to remember that our responsibility is to put courage into

people. Paul reminds us in first Thessalonians chapter five, so encourage each other and build each other up just as you are already

doing. One of my favorite things that I do in premarital counseling is help people understand their love languages. K? They they say that there's five different ways that we all receive and give love. And part of this, you gotta understand, like, what is your love language? And I'll just I'll just tell you. K? All the guys in here, their love language is the same. The first one is physical touch. K? It's followed closely by physical touch. K? It's that's that's it.

As much as I joke, the second one that I see in almost every single guy that's more common in men than it is women is words of affirmation. Men need somebody in their corner to tell them that they're doing okay. I think all of us do,

but specifically, I think men, we need environments where we're encouraged, where we're put we have somebody who's putting courage into us. One of my favorite things that my grandma used to do when I was a kid is she would pull me to the side of family gatherings when there's, you know, all other 25 cousins running around. She's like, hey. Out of all these cousins, I want you to know that you're my favorite grandkid. And I'm like, that makes sense to me. You know? Like, I I get that.

And I I can vividly remember multiple places where she did it. Like, it was a big deal. I'd walk around like, all you suckers, man. Like, I'm I'm the favorite one out of all of you. Right? Like, it it meant something to me. And it was hilarious at her funeral, cousin after cousin after cousin stood up and said, I just remember when she would pull me to the side and tell me that I was the favorite grandkid. And I was like, what? Like, I thought it was me. You know?

And as much as I was a little bit disappointed that she said it to all of us, what I can remember still sitting here today is the impact that her words had on me.

That sometimes when somebody just says they believe in you, I see something great in you, all of a sudden, you start to live up to the standard that somebody has set. But if all you're around is people who are tearing you down, it's amazing how we'll live down to that standard as well. Let's be people who take take serious the responsibility to put courage in to people. Here's the last one. Again, I'm not saying we don't ever have hard conversations, but the scripture say we need to have corrective conversations,

but we do it in love. K. We have hard conversations, yes and amen, but we do it from a position of love. And what this means is that parents sometimes when we're when we're frustrated, when we're angry,

that's not the time to have corrective conversations with our spouse and with our kids. We need to wait. We need to cool off. We need to let the anger subside so that we can have a rational conversation,

address the issue, but do it from a posture of of love and not anger. We covered this a few weeks ago in James chapter one. James says, understand this, my dear brothers and sisters, you must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. We've got to all understand our words are powerful. Secondly,

this is the part you're gonna wanna push back on a little bit. Our our words reveal who we really are. The second thing that all of us need to agree to this morning, if we're gonna try to make any impact or any change in this area, is we've got to also come to the understanding and realization that scripture say that our words reveal who we really are.

And we don't like that because we like being able to go back and say, hey, when I said that thing at the heat of the moment when we were frustrated and the tire gave out and the kids were arguing and I freaked out and I yelled like I said some hurtful things and I didn't I didn't mean that. That's not who I am.

But the bible actually argues with you in that point. The scriptures say that it's out of the abundance of your heart that the mouth is going to speak. This is why James says you can't control your language on your own because you need to address the heart. You need to allow God to do surgery

on your heart. Jesus actually said, Luke chapter six verse 45, he says, as a good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.

If you don't like the things that are coming out of you, you've got to address the thing that's in you. You can't fix your heart, but the good news is is that's the business that God specializes

in doing. God is the one that can transform us from the inside out, but we have to invite him there. We have to allow him to do the internal work that is needed to change us so that our language can begin to change. I have a prayer that I would encourage you to pray over these next coming weeks to begin to be somebody that speaks life and not death. It's a two part prayer that is found in two different psalms. Psalms chapter 51,

we see the psalmist say this thing. It says, create in me a clean heart, oh God. The first part of the prayer is asking the holy spirit to purify us from the inside out. Create in me, God, a clean heart. All the parts of me that I'm not proud of, all the parts that I wish weren't there, purify me from the inside out. God, I I am inviting you to consecrate me, to continue to make me different, make me into the image of God. I lay my life bare before you. Come into my heart and transform me from the inside out, and here's the second part of the prayer that's found later in Psalm chapter one forty one. It says, take control of what I say, oh lord, and guard guard my lips. See, this is the two part prayer. It's an invitation to the holy spirit to do business with our hearts, to transform us from the inside out, And also, while we're in the process of being transformed,

God, would you be a filter? Would you be a filter on my words? Would you be a filter on everything that comes out of my mouth? As you're purifying me, would you give me enough of a revelation of the holy spirit to realize the words I'm about to speak are going to produce something in the people around me? Guard my lips, guard my words, and purify my heart. I promise you, if you and I approach

our conversations with that posture, we pray a simple prayer before we go to have a conversation of correction with our kids. When we say, God, right now, would you purify my heart? Would you cleanse my words? Would you give me your words, not mine? I promise you, we will become people regardless of whether or not we're Irish or Mexican, and it's just part of how we grew up, and this is just who we are. I'm more of just a red blooded like, this is just who we are. Regardless of upbringing,

regardless of what you saw, you can begin to write a new generational story. You can begin to be a chain breaker where the things that you saw don't have to be the things that your kids see and you and I, we don't have to just replicate the poor things that we grew up seeing.

We can actually be the ones that say, hey, they that generational curse, it had power until it met you and now, in the name of Jesus, you get to be a chain breaker and your kids get to start a a new a new cycle. You can be a person to your spouse.

It's not perfect. We're not we're not always doing it perfectly, but, man, our our heart, our goal, our posture is to speak life and not death. We understand our our words, and they matter more than we could ever possibly imagine. Our words are creating worlds. The question is is what what are they producing?

There's a vision that's found in the book of Isaiah that I wanna leave you with this morning. It's a powerful vision where the prophet Isaiah,

he has this vision where he's seeing the throne room of God, a place that we will get to experience when we get to heaven, where you will see God in all of his glory, all of his beauty. And I promise you, the closer we get to God, the the more we see God clearer,

the more we will see our own impurities. And Isaiah records this vision

that he has. It's found in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter five, he says this, he says, then then I said, it's all over. I'm doomed for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the king,

the lord of heaven's armies. And then here's the vision that he starts to see. He says, then one of the seraphim, an angel flew to me with a burning coal that he had taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. He touched my lips with it and he said, see, this coal has touched your lips. Now your guilt is removed and your sins

are forgiven. What was Isaiah seeing?

He was seeing the holy process of purification that all of us need to go through. That the invitation sitting here this morning is an invitation for the spirit of god to meet us here, to touch the parts of our life that we've been ashamed to admit are there, to open up the parts of our heart and our life that we're not proud are there, and to allow the purifying spirit of God to touch those things with the the cleansing supernatural power that can only be found in heaven to begin

to restore those parts and those areas of us. But here's the good news for all of us. It's just like Isaiah had this powerful encounter with God. That's the opportunity that's before every single one of us every Sunday morning when we gather. See, this is not just a performing arts center though it looks like that. This is a tabernacle of meetings where the presence of god is here, and the spirit of god, man, he wants to purify every single one of us this morning if we will if we'll allow him to. So here's what I'm gonna ask you to do as we close our service. If you would, just stand to your feet right where you are.

Before the band leads us in a song, a powerful song where we talk about how we're we're gonna speak Jesus, and we're gonna be people who try to speak life over people, life over situations.

We have to first just kinda start and go, hey. Look. There's there's things that we need to allow god to to purify. There's parts of us that we need to invite the spirit of god to do to do a powerful work in. And if that's you and you're here today and you go, look, there there are things that I have said. There are there are moments of anger that I lean into,

and I don't wanna be that person anymore. I I want to be purified today. I wanna ask the cleansing power of the spirit of God to come in, to begin to purify me from the inside out, to do heart surgery on me. If that's you, I just wanna pray with you, and then we're gonna jump into worship together. So let's pray. Father,

god, I'm so thankful that what we've done in the past doesn't define what our future has to look like. God, I'm thankful that regardless of where we find ourselves this morning, that you, god, you wanna rewrite what our future looks like. And, father, I just pray. God, I pray for the people who are here,

who the enemy would tempt them to feel a bunch of condemnation because they know. God, they know that their anger when it gets when it gets going, god, they can say some really hurtful things.

God, they're thinking of specific conversations right now that they've had with their kids or with their spouse or with their in laws or with their parents or with their siblings. And, father, I just pray that right now you would do business in those areas. That, father, just like Isaiah saw that an angel would come,

take a burning coal that represents your purifying power. And, God, we just ask that you would that, God, you would touch us right now. You would begin to restore our hearts. You would purify us from the inside out, and that we would be people who speak life

and not death. So, God, create in us a new heart. Guard our words. Guard our mouth. In the name of Jesus, all God's people said. Amen and amen. Let's worship.

You. You should've gotten one of these on your way in. I think such a fitting way to close our service today is taking communion together.

If you didn't get one, we've got ushers that are passing them out. Just throw your hand up, and they'll make sure they'll make sure you get one. That one of the most important things that we do as a community is to remember that our ability to change our heart is predicated on the fact that Jesus two thousand years ago,

he became human. He died the death that the Bible says that we deserve to die for the sin that's in all of us. And that death is satisfied. It's satisfied what the scripture says is the wrath of God, the anger of God towards us because of our sin.

And Jesus, before he died the death that created way for us to really begin to live,

he gathered his best friends in an upper room. He told him, guys, I want you to do this to remember me. And he took bread and he held it up and he broke it. And he said, just like this bread, my body is gonna be broken for you. And because my body is broken, you and I will get to live freely. And so today, we gather, we break bread, we remember the body broken for us, we take, and we eat.

And then he took a cup. It was a cup that was full of wine juice, and it freaked out all the Baptist people. And he said, guys, I want you I want you to do this in remembrance of me as well. That it is the blood of Jesus that breaks the strongholds of this world. And it is his blood that was poured out, that it was spilled so that you and I can begin to live freely.

God, You I know that you are speaking. Speaking. God, you are encouraging. You are convicting. You are challenging. Holy Spirit, we say yes and amen. Whatever it is, god, this morning that you are bringing to our our hearts and our minds,

father, would you give us the courage and the boldness to walk out of here and begin to to change those things, to begin to live different. Father, I thank you that this morning, we are we are getting to commune with our father in heaven. Father, we are so thankful

that our best days are still ahead of us because you you love us and you are for us. You are pursuing us. You will never give up on us. And father, I pray that this room would be full of chain breakers in the name of Jesus. The generational cycles and curses would be broken in the name of Jesus.

And that we, god, we would have we would see generations walk in freedom and not bondage. It is in the mighty name of Jesus. All god's people said, amen and amen.