Abundant Living Family Church

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, we're about to prepare for a word and dig
into the Bible. We're gonna start a couple week series
starting today that we're titling and we'll explain in a
few moments.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
We're titling it new wine, new Wine.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Okay, don't worry, We're not going to be passing any
wine during this series, but it's in the Bible.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
What we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
We're going to be sharing about the newness of God,
the newness of God, the newness that God desires for
our life, and the newness that God wants to do
in our life. And these are words that come straight
from Jesus. And so as we go to share this
week or these next couple weeks, we're gonna be able

(00:42):
to discover what it is that God plans and desires
to do in the area of new in our life.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Because many of us are scared.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Of new oftentimes many of us are scared of change.
There are some top fears that people have. One of
them is public speaking is a big fear of individuals.
Another fear of individuals is heights, any form of heights,
whether it be a hill, a mountain, an airplane. But additionally,
people have a fear of change, fear of new most predominantly.

(01:13):
It says eighty percent of people fear change in a workplace.
With fear change in a workplace, you know, in the
early two thousands, there was a group of psychologists. They
gathered about one hundred people and they split them into
two groups, fifty and fifty. And with the first group,
they took them into the room and in the room,
up against the wall was a painting and it was

(01:35):
a very beautiful painting. It was a very well done painting.
And so what they did with the first group is
they told them that this painting was done in nineteen
oh five, one hundred years ago. This painting was done
in nineteen oh five by very talented and very well
known artists, and this was their work that they did.

(01:55):
And then they let them sit and reflect on the painting.
And then after some time they had them do a survey.
And what they did in the survey is they rated
how elegant it was, how beautiful it was, how much
emotion it brought out of them, how much connection they
had with it. And then they took the second group

(02:15):
of fifty people and then they told these individuals same
exact painting, same exact room, same exact lighting conditions. And
they told this second group that this painting was done
by a new and upcoming artist who's yet to break out.
And they told them this painting was done in two

(02:36):
thousand and five, just years leading up to this survey,
so very new artist, a very new painting, a very
new idea of painting. And they left those individuals in
the room and they left them to rate it, rate
its technicality, rate its beauty, rate its skill, and rate
the emotion that came as they look at the painting.

(02:56):
It was discovered afterwards that the group that thought the
painting was from nineteen oh five rated the painting in
higher levels of emotion, elegance, and technique than the group
that thought that it was a new artist and a
new painting. It was much lower rated. It was not
as beautiful, it was not as technical. And what the

(03:17):
psychologists realized was people are skittish about things that are new.
They tend to like old things, tested things, comfortable things.
The author Tim Ferris says this, He's an author, and
he says this, Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

(03:40):
Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
That's the average person.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
And that's why a lot of people, because when we
know our bibles start to read our bibles. Hebrews eleven
one says that faith in Christ, faith in our relationship
with God are the things hoped for, but yet the
things that are unseen yet to be revealed. And so
for a lot of us, our faith is often challenged
because we are uncertain about what it is that we see.

(04:11):
And so then we always prerequisite God and we just
say God, if you show me, God, if you give
me a sign why we're looking for something that we
can see, and if we don't see it, then we
just tend to choose unhappiness over the uncertainty. But there's
a little bit of uncertainty when it comes to faith,

(04:31):
not in who Jesus is, but how that applies.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
In our life on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
And so instead we become these cryptic Christians that are
always looking for signs from.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
God, that are looking in the clouds to see.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
If it's the shape of someone to be looking within
our lattes, to see if the latte art resembles something
God I'm believing for a job to give.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Me a sign, and so we fail in this uncertainty.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
But when we understand the things about Jesus is there
is a newness to God, and there's a freshness to
God that the first step is often accepting this newness
that God has for us. Now here's what I recognize.
I know Christianity is thousands of years old. I know
what Jesus did was over two thousand years ago. I
know these Bibles that we hold in our hands is

(05:19):
written in the course of five thousand years. But the
reality is is though this is an old book. Though
Jesus it's in the past that he died on the cross.
When we encounter God, when we encounter Jesus, it's in
a fresh and new way. So that's why it's scary
for so many people, is though it's old, but to

(05:39):
the average person, the reality of it is unfamiliar. And
so Jesus speaks these words about unfil familiarity to us
through the Gospel. I want you to look at Matthew
chapter nine. This is where gonna be at today, and
it's something that Jesus shares about fasting. But he makes
a greater point to us, one that we're gonna discover today.

(06:02):
It's not just about fasting what Jesus says. He says
something intrinsically deeper that you and I can sit and
salivate on for the weeks to come. It says in
Matthew chapter nine, if you don't have your bible or
iPad or anything like that, that's okay.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
We'll have it up on the screen.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
It says in Matthew nine, verse fourteen, we're gonna read
down to seventeen.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
It says this.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Then the disciples of John, This says John the Baptist
came to him, saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them,
can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom
is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom
is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

(06:43):
No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an
old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment,
and a worst tear is made. Neither is new wine
put into old wine skins. If it is, the skins
will burst and the wine is spilled, and the skins
are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wine skins,

(07:05):
and so both are preserved. Let's talk about a little
bit about what we just read today. It's gonna have
a little bit of context about what's being said.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
It says John.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
The Baptist disciples, they walk up to Jesus and they say, Jesus,
how come if you are a representative of God, representative
of the Father, if you're Jesus, if you're the Son
of God, how come we seem to have to follow
some rules and regulations and restrictions that neither you nor

(07:36):
your disciples are following. Why do we fast once a
week and you guys don't fast once a week? And
so here's what it's important to note within the Bible,
within our word right here, within the Jewish religion, the
Jewish faith, because Jesus has fulfilled the law, and so
there's many things we do now in covenant with God
through Jesus. But according to the Old Testament, in Judaism,

(08:00):
once a year it was mandatory to fast. According to
the Mosaic law, you fasted on the day of Atonement,
which is around Passover season.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
And so that was the.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
Only time that within their faith it was mandatory too
fast then you had two options of other times that
you could fast.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
The first one.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Was in was in sacrifice and service to grow intimately
with Jesus or with God. And so that's like what
we do at the top of the year every January.
From January second, for twenty one days, we do a
twenty one day fast. It's to lean into intimacy with God.
That is not mandatory according to the Bible. That's something
optional that you can do. The second thing that would

(08:42):
be an option for fasting is if you've had some
type of grievous sin or you had needed some type
of miracle from.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
God, and so you.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Fasted in dedication to have.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Heaven act on your behalf.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
We see that when David had slept with Bethsheba and
then she had a miscarriage, is he went to a
period of fasting. You could read Psalms fifty one, that
is his fasting Psalms of repentance. And so fasting was
also used as a God, I need a miracle, God,
I need you to intervene. God, I need your forgiveness.
It was known as an intervening type of fasting. Again

(09:19):
that was optional. So now within Judaism, the religious leaders
of their day had begin to add more and more regulations,
more and more rules. We see that that's one of
natural humanity's natural thing is they just continually and we
continually want to add more and more and more onto people,
more expectations, more religion, more regulation.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And so that's what happens during Jesus' day.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
It went from a point of mandatory fasting once a
year to mandatory fasting once a week. So when from
once a year to fifty two times a year, oh
my goodness. And that is just one rule, one religious
regulation that they put.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
There were thousands of others.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
How far they could walk on a Saturday, how they
could do this, how they could do that.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
I mean, it was just ridiculous. No one could keep
up with it.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
And so what Jesus said is he told his disciples, no, no, no,
no, no no, we do not obey man's rules and regulations.
We only obey God's. And so God requires of us
this sacrifice once a year. That's what we're gonna do.
And so what happens is today we don't necessarily struggle
with these religious rules. Humanity struggles with secular humanism. There's

(10:33):
an idea today for us that says that I'm my
own God, I'm my own decision maker. That's humanism that
says I can decide right and wrong for myself.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Let's just take that deeper. That would be pretty.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Dangerous if each person can independently decide for themselves what
is right and wrong. And so if Jesus were here today,
he would not necessarily be speaking about the religious restrictions
of our day, would be speaking to the fact that
we have found self reliance within ourself, within our own ideas.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
We have created our own gods within ourselves.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
That's why people who are even Christians, they love to
define God not by what's in his words, but by
what they think God is like.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's dangerous if you.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Think God is like this, and I think God is
like this, and people will say, oh, I'm not talking
about the Bible. I'm just talking about what I think
God is like. Accord according to what standard, your own,
your own background, your own hit them. And that's dangerous
because then I can come into your house tonight and
steal all of your things and say, my God says
that it's okay because I'm in need of it. In

(11:43):
the same way that Jesus took the donkey from the man.
I'm in need of your jewelry tonight. It's very dangerous
to start self interpreting who God is and who God isn't.
That's why Jesus is teaching us in this moment, the
sufficiency in both the Word and also in who God is.
And we discover who God is through his word. That's
what John one one tells us. It's Jesus is the

(12:05):
fulfillment of God's word, and this is God's word. So
now Jesus goes to make a deeper point that we're
going to talk about for a few moments. So now
Jesus says, let me illustrate what God wants to do
when a person encounters Jesus, because that's what he's talking about.
He's talking about himself. He's the bridegroom. So he says,
let's talk about what it means to follow me, because

(12:26):
when you follow me, I desire to do a new
thing in you, a new work in you.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Is what Jesus is trying to teach them.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
So he says, it's not about what your background is,
it's not what about you been taught. It's about what
I want to do in your life. That's new, that's fresh,
that's new manna. So here's how he illustrates to the
first thing he says is he says, whenever someone has.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
A ripped garment. Now, in Jesus's day, they weren't like us.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
They didn't just go out and buy new clothes all
the time and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Is, having closed was a luxury for them.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
And so even the most wealthy had four or five
pieces of clothing. Most average person had one or two.
You wash one, you wear one, wash one, wear one.
And so when you would get a ripper tear, you
wouldn't get rid of the garment. You would sew a
patch over it, much like many of us we get jeans.
And jeans are usually an expensive commodity, and so when

(13:17):
you get a pair of jeans that rip in a
certain place, you end up patching it up. And so
in Jesus's day, what would happen is is when you
would have a hole in your fabric. I think I
have a picture of it, so you can see when
you have a hole in your fabric, what you would
do is you would take another piece of fabric and
you would sew it over the hole. As to preserve
the garment. But here was the problem is every garment

(13:41):
went through its own washing process and its own shrinking
process as.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
It would dry.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
And so if you took a brand new, fresh pair
of garment that's never been treated and applied it to
the hole, then what would happen is after its first wash,
that piece would end up shrinking and end up ripping
and tearing the garment, creating more issues for the garment
in a hole. We'll explain it in a second. Then

(14:06):
Jesus gives a second illustration. He says, let's talk about wine. Now,
something that the Pharisees and all of them loved so much.
Wine was a daily intake in the Jewish culture daily,
and so what what happen is is the preservation process
for them was not something they can continually do in
these clay pots that we normally see. Those are used

(14:28):
for special occasions and the wealthy normally. What happens is
is within their culture is they would eat things like
cows and goats and lambs, and so once they were
done eating the food, they would often skin it and
create leather.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
And the leather was used for all sorts of things
in their day.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
One of the things predominantly it would be used for
is it would contain their wine. They drank wine almost
daily because if you get water and you store water,
water can actually get bacteria, it can actually spoil. You
can actually get sick from not storing water well, which
they couldn't do on a regular basis.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
They didn't have us.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
They didn't have little screw tops that contain all the
air and don't let anything in. So what happened is
is everyone would have wine. Because wine, when you start
to fermentate it, it kills the bacterias. So it would
be something they had on tap all the time with
their wine. But here's the thing. If you ever make wine,

(15:28):
what happens is is when you add all the ingredients.
You take the grape juice, you take sugar, you take yeast.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
What happens is you let it rest and then it
begins to ferment.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
When the fermentation happens, it begins to release pressure of gases.
So if you ever open a champagne bottle and a celebration,
what does it do.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
It goes pop.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Because when they make champagne, they actually fermentate it in
the glass bottle. There's a reason wine doesn't pop because
they make they fermentate wine in big vats, and then
they pour the wine after it's fermentated. And that's why
you and I when we make wine right now, there's
no explosion. But if you've ever had anything like kim
chi or sour kraut, when you open up that jar,

(16:09):
it goes pop. It releases pressure and air. So what
was common in Jesus's day is you would take these
wine skins and then you would sew them together so
that now and sometimes they'd have a little strap that
would attach to it, and now you would have to
take a new wine skin, and then you would put
in the new wine. Why well, because what happens is

(16:33):
as it starts to fermentate, it begins to release gas
and pressure. If anyone's ever brought bought a new pair
of leather shoes, they'll tell you. They'll say, if they're
a little tight, wear them a little bit because they're
actually gonna stretch and expand to your feet. Don't get
a bigger size because you'll end up hurting your feet,
You'll end up getting calluses and sores. Don't worry that

(16:55):
leather is gonna stretch, they'll tell you that. So what
would have happen is when they were making new wine
with new wine skins.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
There was enough stretch, there was enough growth, there was enough.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Give in the wine skins that as the wine fermentates,
there was enough stretch in the leather to be able
to handle its fermentation process. But what would happen is
if you took an old wine skin and put new
wine in it, it's already gone through its stretch. So therefore,

(17:28):
if it's already been stretched before, if you add the
new wine, it's just going to end up exploding.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
The wine skin.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
So what Jesus tells the Pharisees is he says, all
that stuff that you guys are up to, all that
stuff that you guys are doing, And he tells John
the Baptist Disciples, he says, you're gonna have to put
away that skin because if you want growth from me,
if you want newness for me, if you want what
I have, you're gonna actually have to get a new skin.

(18:02):
You're gonna actually have to get some newness, some freshness
from me, because if you keep both, you're gonna end
up exploding.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're gonna end up imploding. And a lot of times
for us, we want Jesus, but we also want to
keep all our other things.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
We wanna hoard all our other things, and so we
treat Jesus as an additive, as an addition, like, hey,
Jesus already.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
Got some wine in here, just give me a little more.
Fill me up. He's like, I can't feel you up.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
You're first gonna have to empty yourself, and you're first
gonna have to put on a new skin if you
want what I have. That's what he tells the woman
at the well. He tells the woman, I've come so
that you may have life, but not just life, life abundantly.
But he tells her first, you're gonna have to empty yourself.

(18:56):
He first talks about her whole life and says, are
you willing to pass that? Are you willing to give
that up? Are you willing to walk away from that stuff?
And that woman, after she recognized who Jesus was, said absolutely,
And she went into town and talked about the goodness
of Jesus. Because in order to be filled by God,
we first have to be at a place where you

(19:16):
could be stretched, where you could grow. And if you've
already gone through your stretching, if you've already gone through
your growing and you say, Jesus, I'm coming to you,
but I got ninety percent of my life figured out
and I just need you to fill in the last
ten percent. Well that's where Jesus said that I cannot
do because what's gonna happen is if I do it,

(19:37):
something's gonna explode.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Something's gonna implode. So Jesus talks.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
About this new wine, he talks about these new wine skins.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's something.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Newness is what Jesus wants to do. But the question is,
are we willing to put on a new skin? Am
I willing to have a fresh perspective? Am I willing
to go to God in humility and say, Jesus filed
me up.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
I'm ready to be stretched.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
I'm ready to grow because there's something that God's always
wanting to do with us, and the Bible does say
that He'll never give us more than we can handle.
And so this stretching process is all part of growing
our faith. It's about making us more and more into Jesus.
So as we looked at this passage, over the next
couple weeks, we're gonna talk about some newness, some new
things God wants to do in our life. Here's the

(20:24):
first thing God does. If you're taking notes, just two points.
Here's the first thing God does in our life is
Jesus when we encounter him, when we put on a
fresh wine skin, when we're ready for new wine. The
first thing God does is he makes us a new creation.
He makes us a new creation. Tewod Corinthians, chapter five,

(20:46):
verse seventeen says this. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation. The Old has passed away,
and behold, the new has come. If anyone is in Christ,
he is a what a new creation. This is reminiscent
of Genesis one one type of stuff. This is Adam
and Eve creation type of stuff. This is clouds, mountains,

(21:08):
birds of the air, ocean's type of stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Anyone that is in.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Christ is a new creation. The old has gone and
the new has come. The Old has gone and the
new has come. You see, there's a powerful moment in
this is there's a statement that says that first you
and I to experience this from Jesus is we have
to be in Christ. You gotta get in you gotta

(21:36):
be in Christ. You got you gotta be in this thing.
If you want to be that new creation, if you
want that new to come, you want the all, then
the trick is you have to be in this thing.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
But a lot of us we just take this where
we go. Yeah, that's just Jesus.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Kansas time for church. Don't get in, just bring it
with us, bring it because the moment we get in it,
we gotta be saturated by it.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
The moment we get in it, we gotta be covered
by it.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
The moment we get in it, Jesus can see everything
I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So I don't want that level of accountability. I don't
want that level of newness. I just want you to
top me off.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
So instead of us getting in Christ, we just get
around Christ. Instead of getting in praise and worship, we
get around praise and worship. And then instead of getting
in prayer, we just get a round prayer. Let someone
else pray for me. Let someone else. Instead of getting

(22:40):
into my marriage, I get around my marriage and just
say God, there's my problems.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
It's gonna take it everywhere I go.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
So instead then we say, oh yeah, I hear you, Pastor,
I'm gonna get in Christ. I'm gonna do it. I'm
gonna start today. And then what we start doing is
then we start moving in all of our baggage. We
start I'm moving in all of our hang ups. There's
my unforgiveness, can't stand my ex husband, my ex wife.
There's my anger. I'm a Latina, so I can be angry.

(23:11):
I'm a Latino. I could be angry. There's all my pains,
there's all my hang ups, there's all my unforgiving. I say, okay,
I'm all moved in, Jesus, I'm ready to come in.
Whoo man, it's a little tight in here. There's not
much room for stretch or growth no more. Because I

(23:31):
brought I brought all my pain with me. I brought
all my past with me. I brought all my old
with me. And now I'm saying, God, stretch me. But
I can't even move my legs at this point. I
brought in so much drama in my tent.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Then I'm ready to explode. I moved in on my
pain just as much for you, Jesus.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
You see what happens is is he says the old
has gone, So.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
You gotta have a season where you move out.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
You move out. You say, I'm in Christ. I don't
got no more room for all that. I don't got
no more room for the drummer. I have got no
more room for the pain. I have got no more
room for the unforgiveness. I got enough room.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
So now who now I can lay out? Oh this
is nice. This is what it's like being in Christ.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
I like this. It's roomy, there's space. Man, I'm ready
for the new. I'm ready for God. What's to do
some of us? You gotta just you gotta move out.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Oh the oh.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
I want you to look at someone say I'm ready
for the new. We gotta move out. We gotta be
willing to hear the voice of the Spirit and say, God,
I'm gonna be in Christ.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
I'm gonna take you everywhere that I go.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
But once I take you everywhere that I go, I'm
gonna find in you my resting place.

Speaker 2 (25:12):
I'm gonna be in Christ everywhere that I go.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
I'm not gonna identify as just a Christian. I'm gonna
be a christ follower everywhere that I go. I want
to be in Christ. You know, I had a friend
in college. We were both about of sophomores in college,
and he came to me and he irrationally asked me
for twenty dollars. At first, it was a very calm request.
He said, hey, man, can I get twenty dollars? I said, bro,

(25:38):
I'm broke college student like you are. I don't have
twenty dollars. And he has the audacity to get.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Mad at me. He gets upset.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Have you ever had someone like that? They ask you
for something at first, and then you say no, and
then all of a sudden you're the enemy. All of
a sudden, their life's issues are your fault. And so
that's what happened. I said, I don't have.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
Twenty man, forget you brought doll for you if I
had it. Blah blah blah blah blah, man this, and
he just yelling. I'm like, I'm like, dude, And in
my ed at that time, I know I.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Had like one hundred dollars in my checking account, so
I'm like, twenty takes me down to eighty.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
I don't really have it right now. So he's angry,
he's upset.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
So I'm laying in my bed later on that night
and I feel like God said I want you to
go out. I want you to go to Wells Fargo,
where you bang, and I want you to pull out
sixty dollars. I was like, God, I didn't even want
to give him twenty dollars. How would I give him
sixty That would lead me with forty? He said, I
want you to give him sixty dollars. I'm like, okay,
So I get up. It's about eleven o'clock at night.

Speaker 2 (26:38):
Midnight.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
I go down to Wells Fargo take out the sixty dollars.
I go to his dorm room. We're in the same wing.
I knock on his door and I go, hey, man,
the Lord woke me up. He wants me to give
you this. I know you really needed that twenty. I
want to bless you with sixty. And he's like, what,
I only need twenty dollars. Take your forty dollars back.
All I asked was for twenty.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
That now, man, that I gave him more than twenty dollars,
He's angry, and.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm like, you gonna take this blessing.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
You're gonna take this sixty dollars.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
You geta and mind you where we're at in Bible School.
All of us are training to be worship leaders pastors
this Bible school.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
So it's not like.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
USC or something like that. It's small private school. We're
all going into ministry.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
So I'm sitting there. I'm like, let me bless you
and like, no, just give me the twenty. Take the forty,
and I'm like no, So he throws the forty out
the door.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
As I'm leaving, I slide the forty dollars under the
door and I say you keep my money, and then
I leave.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
The next day he comes into my room. He's like,
yeay man, you got time. I gotta talk to you.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
He begins to start weeping, and he begins to start
crying because he says, I gotta tell you something right now.
I have a drug addiction and twenty dollars was all
I needed left to buy what it is that I needed.
And when I came to you, I was mad because
I needed to scratch that itch.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
I needed it.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
My dealer was outside at the park waiting for me,
and I needed that extra twenty dollars to be able
to get what I needed. And he goes, So I
was mad when you didn't give it to me, he goes.
But then later on when you came and you gave
me more than I was asking for it, made me
feel disgusting in my sin that I would take advantage
of a friend in such a way.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
And so he goes, I don't have it figured out
right now.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
I don't know how I'm gonna kick this, but I
want to do is the first thing I want to
do is I want to be accountable. And so he
pulls out of his pocket the sixty dollars and he said,
I didn't use your twenty. I want you to know that,
and he gives me the sixty dollars back. And at
that point he and I begin to make a commitment
for some time, as we was gonna wake up at
five am, we included some other friends, we would read

(28:53):
our word, we would worship, and sure, sure enough, what
seemed impossible for him at first, he broke free. He
found deliverate in this thing. That's what God can do
in our newness. That's what God can do in our struggle.
Here's what I'm saying is God is not looking for perfection.

(29:13):
When we talk about being new creations. It's not that
God is having this magnifying glass every day and he's
just looking to trip you up and looking to make
you mistakes.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
It's that God loves you enough to.

Speaker 1 (29:25):
Not let you stay where you're currently at or you
once were.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's that jesus Is love is so deep that he doesn't.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Want to leave your grandson or granddaughter where they're at.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
They don't want to leave your siblings where they're at.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
They don't want to leave your wife or your husband
where they're at. That's why God's love is so deep.
That's what it means to be a new creation. It's
not that I'm a perfect person. It's that God is
perfecting in me my relationship with God. And when the
Holy Spirit speaks, all listen, because I'm in this thing.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
My brother he had an addiction, an addiction that was
hard for him.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
He Sometimes you can just have a great worship experience
and you can break your addiction. Other times, Oh, it's
gonna take some fighting. Other time it's gonna take some
new habits. Other times it's gonna take some accountability. Other
times it's gonna take some new relationships. And in time,
if you're in Christ, God will give you the strength
because you and I don't have the strength to do

(30:24):
it ourselves. And the last point is this is as
He makes us a new creation. Last thing is he
gives us.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
A new heart. Get a new heart. You get a.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Heart transplant from God when you meet Jesus. Something you
and I all all desperately need. Look at the Book
of Ezekiel. Ezekiel says this uh chapter chapter thirty six,
verse twenty six.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
He says, I.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Will give you a new heart. I will give you
a new heart and a new spirit. I will put
within you, and I will move the heart of stone
from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Says I'll give you.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
This is a prophetic word in the Book of Ezekiel
that says, when you and I meet Jesus, by the
power of the Holy Spirit, he will give you and
eye a new heart, and he will give us a
heart transplant, a heart of stone, and he will give
us a heart of flesh. What is the heart of stone?
The heart of stone is the rebelliousness. The heart of
stone is the easily brokenness, the easily bit brittleness, the

(31:31):
easily hurt, the easily offended, the easily broken.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Because if I take.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
A stone right now, a rock, and I throw it
as high as I can up.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
In the air, what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
Is it's gonna hit the ground and it's gonna shatter
in pieces. All of us at one point have a
heart of stone, one that's easily shattered, one that's easily broken.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
And so God says, I will give you a heart transplant.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
I will take that heart of stone, the one that's broken,
the one that's offended, the one that's rebellious, and I will.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Give you a heart of flesh.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
What do we know about flesh is it's soft, it's mouldible,
It's able to be functioned in a way like you
and I our skin. We can handle a fall, we
can trip, you just get a small bruise. Why Because
our skin are flesh, It's able to handle impact, it's
able to handle hard times, it's able to handle difficult times.
Because what happens is is this heart of flesh. It

(32:24):
means that we become sympathetic to the cross. It means
we become empathetic to other people. It means we become
forgiving in the way that Christ have forgiven us. It
means we become loving in the way that God has
shown us love. It makes us from I mean, I've
met the hardest Vatos in my life in the church.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Who would come in and not even say hi to you.

Speaker 1 (32:45):
And then just one Sunday God would break them, and
God would shatter their heart. And next week they weeping
in every praise and worship. They're weeping in every courtyard
because they get it.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
God broke them. I got a heart of flesh down.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Someone came to me a couple of weeks ago and
they said, thank you for what this church does. My
father is a person that I've never met in my
life till he started coming to church. They said, I
did not know my father until and this was a
this was a young man, this one than a child.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
He said.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Until my father came to church and gave his life
to Christ, I did not even know him. My father
has turned around a complete one hundred and eighty degree.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
That's what the Gospel can do.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
It gives you a new heart Jesus gives It makes
you a new creation, and it's the newness of God.
We're gonna close with this quote by place Pascal, the
famous physicists and mathematician. He said this, there is a
God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man, which
cannot be filled by any created thing, but by only God,
the Creator made known through Jesus Christ. There's a God

(33:51):
shaped vacuum in every single person, and only the Creator
through Jesus, can that be filled.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Can that void be found? Only God can do the
heart transplant.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
And a lot of times we're giving our heart to
other things, and that thing cannot give us a new heart.
That thing cannot give us make us a new creation.
And all Jesus wants us to do is he says,
I just want you to be a new wine skin,
ready for my new wine. Because when we go, Jesus,
I'm ready for new wine. I'm ready to be able

(34:22):
to be stretched. I'm ready to be expanded. I'm ready
for what you have, not what the world has. Well,
then when we're ready for new wine, by putting on
a new wine skin, we can begin to see God
do things like we could never imagine through our lives
and in our lives.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Let's pray this.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Morning, God, we thank you so much for this message today, Lord,
we thank you so much for this word.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Lord.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
As we begin to launch this series, Father God, I
just pray that we come expectant, Father God, expecting for
new faith, for a newness of affection, a newness of love.
Father God, I pray Lord that through all of this
we can grow in our intimacy with you, Father God,
May you challenge us to seek your f every single day,
to be in Jesus Christ. Everywhere we go, May we

(35:04):
not bring Jesus alongside of us. May every single day
we rest in your presence. May we rest in your anointing,
Father God. And everywherehere that we go, may we be
given your fullness of love and mercy and grace.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Everywhere that our feet go, May you go with us. God.
We thank you for this word today in Jesus' name. Amen.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
We're all gonna leave here together one another, and before
we do, we always want to make an invitation every
single day.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Every day is not promised.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Outside of our building, there's a sign that says, where
will you spend eternity?

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Not too many places will you ever see that.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
You'll never go to a Walmart and you won't see
that statement over Walmart. You will never go to Victoria
Gardens or Ontario Mills Mall and see where will you
spend eternity? Because it's a question that's especially pertinent to God.
It was God's ultimate desire to spend eternity in unity
and in communion with us. And it was because decisions

(36:03):
of humanity threw out him in Eve that we were separated,
alienated from God. And it was God's greatest desire to
bring us back into union with him. But first we
had to be seen as holy and righteous. First, we
needed someone to come and die for our sins, because
if someone didn't die for our sins, we would.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Have to die for our own and that was not
God's intent.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
God's intent was to rescue us, to redeem us, to
be our savior.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
Like the song we sung today, that we have a savior.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
And so, if you're here today and you've never made
Jesus Christ your personal lord and savior, the reality is
that over two thousand years ago, Jesus died on the
cross and he rose three days later. He died on
the cross for our sins, and he rose three days
later to show us that he truly had victory over death,
that if you trust him with your life, with your walk,

(36:54):
that he can truly fill you. And so today, if
you've never trusted Jesus as your lord and savior, if
you've ever given him your life, if you've never promised
to follow him, and say, confess Jesus, you are my
Lord and savior.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Jesus, you died on the cross and rose again. Then
today I want.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
To invite you to do that because, like that sign
that's on the front of us of our building, where
will you spend eternity? Eternity is not promised to anyone,
but it is offered by Jesus, this eternity in Christ.
And so today, if you've never confessed your life in
Jesus Christ, I encourage you, today be the day to
make that decision to grow in your relationship with Christ

(37:31):
and confess him as your lord and savior. So, if
you're here right now, we're gonna say a prayer out loud.
The prayers not the thing that saves you by any means.
All we're doing is we're affirming at the work that
God is doing in your heart right now. God is
the one doing the work. Jesus is the one knocking.
You do the answering. You respond to the call right now,
and you say yes, Jesus, I do confess you as

(37:52):
my Lord and Savior. So, family, whether you're in the
courtyard or in this room, would you join me in
this prayer because there's gonna be some family and friends
who came here and they're gonna be saying it for
the first.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Time in their life. Would you join me in saying this.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Let's say, Dear Lord Jesus, in this moment, I confess
you as Lord and Savior. I believe that you died
on the cross and you rose three days later.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
In this moment, I repent of my sins.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
And I vow to follow you for the rest of
my days in Jesus' name.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Amen.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
Can we give a handclap to those that may have
said that prayer for the first time today?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
We want to.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Encourage you if you rededicated your life or you said
that for the first time. As we leave today, up
on the screens, there's a website. It's our website, grow
dot Faith ww dot grow dot Faith.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
If you go to that website, there's.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
A free book written by our founding pastor, The Seven
Steps of a Christian Walk, and it's a great launching
point into your new life in Jesus Christ. And our
founding pastor, Pastor Diego, has always said this. If you've
recently given your christ life to Christ, one thing we
recommend is for the next twelve months of your new
walk come to church as often as you can, say,

(39:11):
for the next twelve months, this is gonna be my
sacrifice as often as the doors are open Wednesday Sunday.
I'm gonna do my best within my schedule to make
it to church for the next twelve months. And Pastor
Diego has always said, if you take that challenge, look
at what God can do in your life. And we
have seen it time and time again what God does
in the individual's life who takes that challenge on and

(39:32):
says I am gonna give God my best for the
next twelve months.