Community Night With Guest Speaker Brandon Holler

Good morning, men and women. Such an honor to be able to speak to you once again on the Pando app. What a blessing that is to have a tablet where you can just see and hear and choose life and choose to put God's word and encouragement into your hearts, even in the places that you're at. It's just such an awesome thing and such a blessing. My name is Logan Williams. My TDC number is 1490218. I just share that with you to let you know I know where you're at, at least if you're in Texas listening right now, and man, anything is possible with God. If you just get all in with him, anything is possible, and I just want to encourage you guys not to lose heart, not to just to keep looking up. Keep your eyes on him. If you're watching this video right now, he is drawing you to himself. He is after you, and that's a good thing. That's a good thing, man. God sees something in you. He knows what he put in you. There's greatness on the inside of you. Your best days are ahead, and it's just confirmation, and I want to remind you guys that your friends and family can download the same Pando app on their phone, and you guys can watch together and do this thing together. I say it every week, but it's so important to have that with your family, with your kids, with your wife or your husband, to be able to do this thing together as a family. Man, this morning I was thinking about how important it is to speak life over yourself. I know for me, many times, just because I've had decades of wrong thinking, wrong living, I'll tend to have some negative words come out of my mouth. I'll tend to have some negativity come out of my mouth, and life and death is in the power of the tongue, and I just want to read some things that you can declare over yourself in the place that you're at right now that will greatly impact your spirit.

You may not realize it, but the words that you speak create, and words create worlds, and I just want to read some of them to you. These are all God's word. These are all scriptures, and so what I like to do is I will read these over my ... I have this laminated. I have it in my shower, and I say these every morning, and so it starts by, and I say the whole thing out loud. In the name of Jesus, I renounce the lies of Satan and his accusations that come against me. I renounce the lies that I am bound up in brokenness, weakness, worthlessness, and am displeasing to my heavenly father. In the name of Jesus and by his blood, I renounce shame, worthlessness, inadequacy, rejection, guilt, accusation, and condemnation, because in Jesus Christ, I'm totally loved, totally forgiven, totally accepted, totally valued, and totally competent. And then we're going to get into the declarations here. It says, in the name of Jesus and according to the word of God, I now declare that I have been chosen as a personal friend of Jesus Christ. That's John 15, 5. I'm a beloved and blood-bought child of God. That's John 1, 12. Every one of these is a scripture, God's word, truth, truth, man. I don't care what your mind tells you. This is what God says. I've been declared innocent of all sin by the blood of Christ. I'm joined with Christ and his spirit, and am made holy by that union. I'm highly valued, have been bought at an incredible price, and belong to him totally. I'm a member of the body of Christ, designed by God, gifted by God, and placed exactly where he wants me, that I may fulfill the destiny he has ordained for me. Some of these are kind of difficult to believe, especially in the place that you're at. But the more you speak them over your life, the more they will have an impact on your

heart, and then you'll be able to walk in them. You hear it all the time, right, that I need to know who I am in Christ, and we can give it lip service, right, but then our actions don't really show that. But if you speak this over your life, you can see, man, God designed me, gifted me, and he has a plan for me. It says, I am in fact a saint, a holy one of God. I lack nothing for godliness and love because I have been made complete in Jesus Christ. I'm free forever from all condemnation, and any condemnation is a lie from the evil... One, I'm totally united with the love of God in Christ Jesus and nothing can separate me from that love. I'm a child of God, established by Christ, anointed by His Spirit and sealed by the King. I'm bold in Christ because I've not been given a spirit of fear, but a power of love and of sound mind. I like this one. I'm a branch of the true vine, Jesus Christ. His power, love, and grace flow to me and through me as I bear fruit in His kingdom. I'm a new creation, a servant of righteousness and free from the power of sin. And it just goes on and on and on. And you can find your own declarations or you can just turn this on and listen to them. Turn this one on again and listen to them. And then at the end, I usually wrap it up by saying I'm absolutely loved, totally accepted and worthy in Christ. I'm royalty in the household of God, personally chosen by Jesus Christ, holy and destined for greatness in Him. In the name of Jesus, I renounce all lies to the contrary.

In Jesus' name and by His blood, I renounce and nullify all curses and judgments that have been spoken against me that are contrary to God's declared truth. Holy Spirit, write these truths on my heart today for every circumstance, in Jesus' name, amen. So you can find, there's hundreds of them, probably. There's many, many, many that you can find and that you can speak over yourself. And I wanna encourage you guys to do that. And I know what you're thinking in the place that you're at, man, I'm gonna look crazy. People are gonna think I'm weird. This is all the enemy trying to keep you from doing this because he knows how effective this is. He knows that these things are true. The enemy knows the word better than we do. And so he knows the power of that. And so he's gonna try to get you not to do that. But I'm telling you, if you can find a way to do that, to speak these over your life, or at least listen to them, man, it will change your heart. It will change your mind. It will change how you interact with people. It's not gonna be a quick thing. I know we're all about the quick fix. I wanna just be, you know, right now, I want it now. But it slowly will change your heart and spirit and you'll start believing God's truth about you because the spoken word is important.

Heavenly Father, I just lift up all the men and women that are watching. I pray, man, that these words will just take root in their heart, that your word about who they are will take root in their heart. God, I pray that you would just prepare the soil of their hearts as they declare your truth over their life. God, I thank you for calling them, for choosing them. God, I pray that you would bless them to overflowing and that if there's anyone watching that doesn't know you, God, that you would touch him right now, that your Holy Spirit would just fall on him in Jesus' name and he would just surrender his life to you. It doesn't have to be in a service or coming forward or this big, it can happen right now in the place that you're at. And so I just ask God that you would continue to prick their hearts, continue to let them know that you love them. And even though they're in the place that they're at, you have a plan and a purpose for their life that is greater than they can fathom or imagine. Just, I pray that they believe that, God. And I pray that it affects them. And so, God, we thank you. We just invite you in to do what only you can do in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, guys. Whose house? God's house.

Let's give him some praise. You guys enjoy the message. All right, here we go. Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to our community nights. Are you guys excited to be in the house of God? Can we just give God some praise tonight? Come on, that's all right for me, but can we welcome the Holy Spirit, the King of Kings, in this room with our praise tonight? I'm so excited for what God is going to do. My heart is full of expectation, and I know that if you came with expectation in your heart, God will speak to you tonight. So we're going to pray, and we're going to just jump into worship, and just make sure your heart is in the right place. And let's see what God wants to do tonight. Amen. Father, we welcome you into this room tonight. Holy Spirit, come and have your way. Holy Spirit, breathe on us tonight. God, we open up our hearts to receive you. Speak through our hearts tonight and do whatever you want to do in this place. In Jesus' name, amen. Come on, let's worship the Lord. We love you, Spirit. Our God is the Lion, the Lion of Judah. He's roaring with power and fighting our battles. Every knee will bow before Him. Our God is the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain.

For the sins of the world, His blood breaks the chains. Every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb. Every knee will bow before Him. Come on, put those hands together tonight. We thank you for being the Lion and the Lamb. Come on, let's sing, so open up the gates. So open up the gates, make way before the King of kings. The God who comes to save is here to set the captives free. For who can stop the Lord Almighty? Our God is the Lion, the Lion of Judah. He's roaring with power and fighting our battles. Every knee will bow before our God. Our God is the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain. For the sins of the world, His blood breaks the chains. Every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb. Every knee will bow before Him. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that You Lord, we worship and adore You Jesus. To the King of kings, to the Lord of lords, we love You Jesus. Come on, let's sing this together. Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Our God is alive The light and the truth

He's roaring with power Confining everything to death Our God is alive The lamb that was slain For the sins of the world His blood breaks the chain Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Our God is alive The light and the truth He's roaring with power Every knee will bow before Him. Every knee will bow before you, Jesus. Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Who can stop the Lord, oh my? Our God is the Lamb, the Lion of Judah. He's roaring with power and fighting our battle. Every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb. Every knee will bow before Him. Let's sing, Our God is the Lamb, come on. Our God is the Lamb, the Lamb that was slain. For the sins of the world, His blood breaks the chains. Every knee will bow before the Lion and the Lamb. Every knee will bow before Him. Hallelujah, Jesus. We worship you, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Jesus. Come on, how many know that He is great and greatly to be praised? Greatly to be praised. Come on, lift your voice and now we'll sing tonight. You give life, You are love and You bring light to the darkness. You give hope and You restore every heart that is broken. And great are You, Lord. Cause it's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. Cause it's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise. You are great. Great are You, Lord. Yes, You are. You give life, You are love and You bring light to the darkness. You give hope and You restore every heart that is broken.

You are great. Great are You. We sing great are You, Lord. Great are You, Lord. Cause it's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise. We pour out our praise. It's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise to You. Oh, it's Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise. So we pour out our praise, it's your praise in our lives So we pour out our praise, you hold me high We pour it out, we pour it out, we pour it out, it's your Jesus We pour it out, we pour it out, we pour it out, it's your feet Pour it out, we pour it out, we pour it out, it's your feet We pour it out, we pour it out, we pour it out, it's your feet And all the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing Great are you Lord And all the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing Great are you Lord And all the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing Great are you Lord And all the earth will shout your praise Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing Great are you Lord Cause it's your breath in our lungs So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise Cause it's your breath in our longs So we pour out, pour it out, pour it out It's your breath in our lungs So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise It's your breath in our lungs We pour out our praise to you only

Come on, there's your chance right there to pour out your praise We begin to open up your mouth and declare that he is worthy He is holy, he is awesome, he is marvelous, he is wonderful We pour out our praise as you sing from it We declare that you are worthy You are worthy to be praised Worthy, magnificent, marvelous you are You are worthy of our praise You are worthy of our praise Yes you are, yes you are So worthy of our praise Great and crazy to be praised Great and crazy to be praised In every season, in every situation, in every circumstance You are great, you are great, you are great Come on begin to declare that, begin to declare that he is awesome Declare his goodness, declare his mercy, his love Cause it's your breath in our lungs So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise It's your breath in our lungs So we pour out our praise to you only We sing great are you Lord Great are you Lord Forever and always you are, you are Great are you Lord I've enjoyed you, Lord! I've enjoyed you, Lord! I've enjoyed you, Lord! Jesus, we're so grateful for you. We're so grateful for the cross.

We're so grateful for the blood that was shed for us. Thank you, Jesus. Yes, Lord. Thank you for the cross, Lord. Thank you for the price you've paid. Bearing all my sin and shame, In love you came and gave amazing grace. Thank you for this love, Lord. Thank you for the nail piercings. Wash me in your cleansing flow. Now all I know is your forgiveness and embrace. Worthy is the lamb seated on the throne. We crown you now with many crowns. You reign victorious. You are high and lifted up. Jesus, Son of God, The darling of heaven crucified. Worthy is the lamb. You are so worthy, Jesus. Worthy is the lamb. Thank you for the cross. We're so grateful, Lord. Thank you for the price you've paid. Bearing all my sin and shame, In love you came and gave amazing grace. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this love, Lord. You're more than ever pierced and washed me in your cleansing flow Now all I know is your forgiveness and embrace Worthy is the lamb seated on the throne

We crown you now with many crowns, Jesus You reign victorious You are high and lifted up, Jesus, Son of God The darling of heaven, Jesus Worthy is the lamb You're more than ever pierced and washed me in your cleansing flow Now all I know is your forgiveness and embrace Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the lamb Seated on the throne We crown you now with many crowns You reign victorious You are high and lifted up, Jesus, Son of God The darling of heaven, Jesus Worthy, oh Jesus Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the lamb Seated on the throne We crown you now with many crowns You reign victorious You are high and lifted up, Jesus, Son of God The darling of heaven crucified Worthy is the lamb Worthy is the You are so worthy, Jesus Worthy is You are so worthy, Jesus

Worthy is the You are so holy, Jesus Worthy is the lamb I exalt thee I exalt thee I exalt thee Oh Lord We exalt thee We exalt thee We exalt thee We exalt Thee, O Lord. One last time. We exalt Thee, We exalt Thee, We exalt Thee, O Lord. We exalt Your Lord. We exalt Your Lord. Father, thank You for being here tonight. Thank You for the life that You gave to us on that cross, Father. For every time that we get together, You meet with us, You come. Father, in spite of our failures, You're always there, Father, to give us new encouragement, a new life. And remember that Your blood, Father, just gives us a new opportunity, Father. Thank You because every single person in this autorium can receive tonight, Father, this new life that only You have, Father. Thank You because there is no failure, there is no sin that will separate us from Your love. All the praise and all the glory we give to You. You are the only one that is worthy. You are the only one that deserves all the glory, all the honor. Our prayer is just like the psalmist said in Psalm 116 verse 12, What shall I return to the Lord for all His goodness to me? Father, what can we give You if not our lives? What can we give You, Father, if not our hearts?

Father, thank You so much for just meeting us every single morning, every single day, Father. And allowing us, Father, to get to know You more and more and more. Thank You because You made a way for us to get to know You, to live with Your Spirit every single day, Father. We love You, Father, and we praise You. In Jesus' mighty name, and all God's people in the house, come on, say, Amen, Amen. Let's give it up to Jesus one more time. It can be stronger, come on. Praise God, praise God, praise God. Hey, let's give it up for the worship team as well. Hey guys, thank you, thank you so, so much. Hey, welcome to Life Fellowship Church. You can take your seat right now. We're so glad that you're here on this Tuesday night. And today's a little bit different. We usually have our community groups, so men and women, we split. And we go to, women go to their room, and they have like their own group there. And men, we usually meet here in the auditorium. But tonight, we, this is the first time that we're doing what we call community nights. And just so you know, we're going to do that every last Tuesday of the month. And I'm sure that God was going to come, like He comes every Tuesday. But I'm sure tonight, for example, you guys will see, God will speak to you greatly. So thank you so much for taking the time and come. I'm sure it's going to be a blessing to you. But before we move any further, I don't want to take much time from our speaker. I just want to say this. The speaker tonight is a dear friend of mine, is a pastor that inspired me a lot. I actually get to know him when I came first time from Brazil. I came to Christ for the Nations, and he was one of my teachers there. He was my professor. And as a pastor, he inspired me to pastor people.

And he continues to inspire me as I follow him, as I see all that God is doing. through his life so I just want you to if you could please I need to give honor to honor to who honors do so if you can just stand just one more time really quick and let's welcome pastor Brendan Haller please is that better my last name is holler so I could have made it work without the microphone but I figure it's probably better if we have it on thank you so much I'm honored to be here and you are a good-looking group of people I'm impressed look at all of you great you know there are people that you meet in your life that you know you know that the moment that you met them your life got better right there's just something about those people they just come and they lift you and you know like I want that person in my life for the rest of my life because they just made my life better that's the way I feel about Leandro he was he was one of the very first students I was brand new at teaching Bible school a very first semester he was a student so let me start by saying I'm sorry for for all of the mistakes that I made in that but I'm glad to know you and thanks for being my friend and I am my name is Brandon and I am the husband of one wife just to make sure I'm in the right church just one just one that's all we do just yeah praise the lord I don't know how everybody feels about these kinds of things but I'll just tell you when I was 10 years old I moved from a very small town in Oklahoma a town of 800 people it was a farming community where we grew watermelons and peanuts and we moved to a bigger city in west Texas a town called San Angelo and it was the first time I'd ever laid my eyes on someone that wasn't white and my wife was Latina and that that's who my wife is but I that was the first time I saw a Latina and at 10 years old I said Jesus I'm probably gonna mess up a lot in my lifetime but if you've ever loved me can I please have one of those and the lord was gracious to me and gave me a beautiful Latina wife her name is Jennifer and we have four amazing kids they're not kids they're all adults now I know I don't look that old right I don't look old enough to have adult kids but I do have adult kids do we have a picture I brought a picture of my family this is my family you can see my beautiful wife there next to me to my left in the picture standing next to me is my oldest daughter Morgan she's 29 and she is a elementary school art teacher and single I'm happy to take applications afterwards just gonna throw that out next to my wife on the other side in the checkered shirt is my son his name is Koi and next to him is his wife Gianna and then

on the other side in the red and the denim vest is my next daughter her name is Naomi she is a fashion designer particularly in the wedding field she makes custom-made veils and that next to her is her husband Andreas and he's all right they just got married last May so we're not even a year into this and so we're just having it's a transition there's there's another man in her life that has opinions that are always the same opinions as mine and then next to down on the end is our youngest daughter Macy she is in college studying vocal performance and she's the boss so that's that's my family we pastor in the Austin Texas area we have two campuses one in a town called Lockhart I don't know if you've ever been to central Texas in Bishop Arts there's a place called Lockhart barbecue if you've been in the Bishop Arts area that's because Lockhart Texas is the barbecue capital of Texas I didn't make that up it actually the 176th district of the House of Representatives of Texas declared it to be so you drive into the town there's 12,000 people live there you drive into town there's eight gigantic barbecue places the whole town smells like barbecue and then we have our church there so we we have a lot of barbecue and then we have another campus in a town called Kyle just straight South of Austin. If you're familiar with the area, it's between Austin and San Marcos, if that helps. But we're just glad to be doing what the Lord has invited us to do. And what a privilege, right? To be a part of his church. This is the one thing that the Bible says Jesus is building. He's building his church and he's been so gracious and invited us onto the construction side of the church. Yes? And said, let's do this together. Yeah, what an amazing privilege that we have. Well, I have a simple thought I wanna share with you tonight and I'm very grateful again

for the opportunity. I'm not here to tell you something you don't know. I'm actually here to tell you something that you probably already know and I just wanna encourage you in your journey. The Apostle Paul told the Philippian church in Philippians chapter three, he said, don't get tired of my repetition because it's for your safety. And so we need to hear things over and over and over and over. And so I'm just here to do that. I'm just here to tell you something again, just to remind you of this amazing life that we have with Jesus Christ, okay? So if you have a Bible, I'm gonna go to Hebrews chapter 10. I'm reading from the New King James Bible. I don't know what translation you use or what you prefer. My dad was a hardcore old King James. Any old King James people in here? You like old King James? Yeah, my dad used to tease. He used to say, you don't need the King James to get to heaven. But when you get to heaven, you're gonna get one. He called everything else the Toys R Us version of the Bible. I told him I like Toys R Us, so I'm gonna use the New King James. Verse 35 of Hebrews chapter 10.

I'm gonna read two verses here, 35 and 36. Hebrews 10, 35 says, therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward, for you have need of endurance so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask you to speak to us tonight by your word and by your spirit. We say as the prophet Samuel said, speak Lord, we're listening. I ask you Lord, according to Ephesians chapter one, that you'd grant to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you. Lord, we wanna know you better tonight. Reveal yourself to us, speak to us, transform us and change us. Jesus, you are Lord over this time. Holy Spirit, have your way. And lead and guide us to truth in Jesus' name. Amen, amen, amen. Okay. This says, don't cast away your confidence because it has great reward. Are you familiar with this verse of scripture? It's a great verse of scripture. Don't cast away your confidence, it has great reward. But I actually wanna focus on the next verse of scripture. Verse 36, because it says, for you have need of endurance. Now that's not the topic we like to talk about.

That's not the one we want. We wanna talk about all the wonderful, amazing things, right in the journey of life and the miracles. And I believe in all of that. I believe in all of that. I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform and change and demonstrate himself in all kinds of ways. I believe the word of God is supposed to come with power and in demonstration. But if you've been a Christian for any length of time, you know the vast majority of your Christian life is just taking the word of God and walking it out. It's just taking the word and walking it out, and taking the word and walking it out. And it's doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. Reading your Bible and praying, coming to church, serving at church, right? These are all the fundamental disciplines of Christianity. When I was a kid, we used to sing a song. So maybe some of you are familiar with it. We'd all get down like this. Read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow, grow, grow. Is it just me from Oklahoma? Anybody else do that? Okay, all right, all right, I'm in good company. It's a good leg workout if you ever needed that. You know, you can just sing the song. But the truth is, you read your Bible,

you pray every day, you grow. And you do that over and over. There's this principle within the kingdom of God that says, keep doing the same thing over and over, and God meets you in the journey. For instance, in Acts chapter one and verse 14, it says that the disciples prayed continually. And then Acts 2 says, and suddenly the Spirit came. And I believe that the suddenlies of God, those miracle moments, are really connected to our continually. We want the suddenly, but we're not big fans of the continually. And I wanna encourage you, keep doing what you're doing. Keep walking with God, keep walking by faith, keep trusting God. Now, the next thing that happens here in the book of Hebrews is that it goes from talking about, you have need of endurance, to then telling us how to do it. to have endurance for the journey. And it's really one thing. It's one thing that is needed to endure. And it is something that you are all familiar with, but it is faith. This is what the Bible teaches us, that faith is what is necessary to endure. I believe that the Bible is balanced in this way that the Bible talks about some things more than it talks about other things.

Have you ever noticed that? There's some things that the Bible seems to put an emphasis on that it doesn't put an emphasis on other things, and that doesn't make them less important. It just means that there are some things that God just wants us to know about more. For instance, one of the great disciplines of Christianity is the discipline of repentance. Have you ever, since you've been born again, have you had to repent? Yeah, yeah, we've all had that. We've had to have that journey of repentance. And the subject of repentance is in the Bible somewhere around 60 times from Genesis to Revelation. So if I could put it in these terms, I would say if your pastor was going to teach every Sunday on repentance and was gonna take one verse at a time and preach to you and teach you about repentance, he would be teaching on repentance for the next 14 months. I don't know how you feel. I grew up in church, but I think 14 months of repentance, I'm kind of tired of hearing about it. Right, it just seems like, man, that's a lot of talking about repentance. Well, the subject of faith or believing in the Bible appears almost 600 times. So that means that if your pastor was gonna take a verse each week and preach on faith, just one verse at a time,

that he would be teaching on faith for the next 12 years and never change subject. So faith is a big deal in the scriptures. It's a big deal that God expects and asks us to put our faith in him. Jesus says it in Mark chapter 11 and verse 22 to his disciples, have faith in God. And then he starts talking about, we like verse 23 and 24, because it says speak to the mountain and it'll move. And when you pray, believe that you receive and you'll have. We like those verses, but the first start of it is have faith in God. The faith that moves mountains is the faith that is in God. And faith is not a doctrine, it's not a camp. You know, we talk about, well, that's faith people or that's faith, you know, that's a faith, whatever. I wanna give you three things about faith and then I'll finish. But the first thing that you need to understand about faith is that faith is a lifestyle. It's not a message, it's not a doctrine, it's the way we live. There are four times in the Bible, Habakkuk chapter two, verse four, Romans chapter one, verse 17, Galatians chapter three, verse 11, and Hebrews chapter 10, verse 38, all say the same thing,

that just live by faith. That means that when we get up in the morning, we should expect to have a day of faith. When we go to bed at night, we should expect to go to bed in faith. Yes? Yeah, two of you, good. It's the way we live, it's the lifestyle, faith is a lifestyle. And that lifestyle is generally not seen in big moments, it's seen in faithfulness. The life of faith is seen in just being faithful. You know, the apostle Paul said, if you wanna be influential in the kingdom of God or if you wanna be a leader in God's house, you must first be found faithful. Not talented, not gifted, not called, not anointed. He says, you must first be found faithful. And the good news to us regarding that verse of scripture is this, we can all be that. That means we can all be influential in the kingdom of God because we can all be faithful. But it's hard work to be faithful. It requires something of us. It requires time, it requires our talents, it requires our treasures, it requires what we have to give to the kingdom of God. Faithfulness is attached to another word that the Bible gives us and that's the word commitment. To be faithful means to stay committed to something.

I don't know how you feel, I think you're at church on Tuesday nights, I think you're, people that show up to church on Tuesday nights are like the Navy Seals of the body of Christ. You didn't just happen by, you came here on purpose. And that means something. That tells me that there's a level of commitment here. But there are some people, and probably no one in this church, maybe I'm talking about my church people, but there are people that are more. or they approach church from the perspective of involvement rather than commitment. And I'll help you understand the difference. The difference would be if you are involved in a church, then when you drive past, you say, I go to that church. If you're committed to the church, when you pass by, you say, that's my church. It's a difference in the way that we approach the church itself. I'll give you maybe, maybe this will help you understand the difference. If you got up this morning and you had breakfast and maybe your breakfast had a couple of eggs on it and a couple of slices of bacon because bacon makes everything better, crispy bacon. You have some eggs and you have some bacon. How many of you would concede that the eggs, the chickens were involved in your breakfast,

but the pig was committed? Therein lies the difference. And faithfulness lands on the commitment side, not the involvement side. You think about relationships. I hear people talk in church. I'm around church people all the time. I travel and I'm in other churches and I hear people talk. I had a guy pick me up at the airport a few weeks ago and I was asking him how he ended up at that church. And he said, and he gave me this long story. And then he says, so I'm here for now. Am I here for now? What that means is you're not here. Is that too strong for Tuesday night? Because what if I introduced you to my wife and I said, this is my wife, Jennifer. She's my wife for now. Yeah, I wouldn't be living very long, I'll tell you that. But we use these terms sometimes in our journey with the Lord and we shouldn't talk like that. We're here. Now I'm not saying that God wouldn't move you. I'm not saying that God wouldn't transition you. I'm just saying we don't approach church and the things of God like I'm just trying it out. We're all in, it's commitment, right? It's the consistency. There was in 2 Samuel 23,

you would find a list of David's mighty men. And about verse 18, it talks about a guy named Abishai. It says Abishai killed 300 men by himself. So he was amazing, he was put as a leader. Then it talks about verses 19 and 20, it talks about a man named Benaiah. It says Benaiah, he's the only guy in the list that it lists three victories that he had. He killed two lion-like warriors from Moab. He jumped in a pit with a lion on a snowy day and killed the lion. He killed a majestic Egyptian warrior, it says. Do you know what it says about those two guys? It says as amazing as they were and as amazing as all that was, they didn't attain to the first three. Like how does Benaiah not end up in the top three list? Well, if you go to verse eight, you would find the beginning of this list. And there's a man named Josheb B'Shebeth. He is also called Adino. He killed 800 men by himself. Okay, now I see where the standard is, right? You see the standard, 800 men. The next guy is a guy named Eleazar. And Eleazar, he's number two in the list. He fought through intense fatigue. When everybody else got tired, the Bible says that he kept fighting and kept fighting and kept fighting

until he sealed the victory and the people came back just for the spoils of war. But he won the victory for them. But he fought so hard that his hand stuck to the sword. He couldn't even turn it loose. And they say that that happens through extreme fatigue. And then the third guy is a guy named Shammah. Shammah's number three in this list of the best that became the standard and the measure. And it says that Shammah was there and the enemies came and where Shammah was was he was in this field of lentils, field of beans. And it says he fought the enemy and brought about a great victory. What? How is that better than Benaiah who jumps in a pit with a lion? He defended a field of beans. Well, I believe it's found in what the Bible specifically says about Shammah. It says this, everybody, not most, not the majority. It says everybody fled, but Shammah stayed. Everybody left, but Shammah stayed. And he fought and he defended that field of beans now listen what you have in your hands others may look at it and say That's just beans. Why are you still fighting for that? Well, they're my beans. That's why Maybe maybe they're beans to you But they they're they mean life to me and it's what God has put in your hand to fight for what you have in your Hand, but I think it's found really in the name, you know, God is referred to as Jehovah Shama Because Shama means Always there or always present

Chalmers the guy or the woman that just keeps showing up It just keeps showing up that she shows up for their family shows up for the kids shows up for their friends shows up for Their church just shows up. This is always there through the act of faithfulness This is the life of faith. There are people in my church I know that when I'm on my way to church and I thought comes me Oh, we need to do this at church. I just have an idea I don't know if your pastor does that but my team loves it when I come up with ideas on Sunday morning But I have an idea and the first thing I do is I go through a list of about three people that I know Are gonna be there when I get there? I don't you have to call them don't have to talk to them. I know they're gonna be there because They're Shama They're always there This is what it means to live by faith To just show up and believe that God could do something amazing, right? the second thing about faith that you need to understand is this comes from 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 in verse 13 and it is Faith is a language Second Corinthians 4 13 says since we have the same spirit of faith as it is written I believed and therefore I spoke we also believe and therefore we speak Faith and its perfection is When it's coming out of your mouth, it's something that you believe and something that you say It's a very interesting verse of Scripture in the book of Job chapter 22 in verse 28 It says if you declare a thing it's established and light shines on your way That means in faith when you declare God's Word over your life and you speak it out into your future It goes out into your future and builds this life and then a light starts shining on your way to take you to the thing That you confessed out of your mouth Amazing how the language of faith works There's a some amazing stories in the Bible that all really center around this same thing It's they're kind of the one-offs of the Bible. They're they're not these repeated things that you would see. It's like this one-time event Like Joshua standing on a battlefield. He's winning the fight, but the Sun is going down and if the Sun goes down He can't complete the victory. So what does he say?

Sun stand still Right. There's nothing there's nothing in Joshua's past That says that you can do that He doesn't look back at Moses. They all Moses stopped Sun all the time. I'm gonna do that No, this is a first-time event But if you read the story it says and Joshua said to the Lord Sun stand still So while his words are speaking to the Sun something in him is talking to God And I believe that's how faith works We have to speak as Jesus said in Mark 11 You have to speak to the mountain but faith is not really going to the mountain faith is in God in that moment But our words are targeting the things that need to change There was a Centurion that came to Jesus when I think about faith in the language of faith, I think It is the language of heaven, but it has multiple dialects like it can be expressed a lot of different ways And and if we're not careful sometimes I don't know if you run into people like this, but I run into people and they they act like they are the confession police Like you can't say that You have to sit this way if you're gonna get anything you you know And it's it's all these rules about what you can say Can we look at the story of Joshua again for just a moment and let's think about what he said He said Sun stand still now if we are correct in what we know about how this solar system is working And how the planets are the Sun is the only thing not moving Yes So then Joshua's confession was wrong But God knew what he meant you see God under God knows where your understanding is and he knows how to step in to the gap of our Misunderstanding and make sure that it turns out because he knows what we're wanting in the end And sometimes we won't confess because we're afraid we're gonna say it wrong Don't don't don't live like that have courage to just say what you what you think needs to happen and watch God step in and

Do it on your behalf if you'll just have the courage to say something You know, we get in the habit of saying what our family always say Well in our family, we've always been like this in our family We've always had this disease and why don't you be the first one to say, you know what? I'm gonna change what we say about ourselves our family, we're gonna have something new and say something, be one of the one-offs. This Roman centurion comes to Jesus and he says, Jesus, would you, he meets Jesus, he says, would you come to my house and heal my servant? And Jesus says, yeah, and they go and they're on their way. Just before, the Bible says, when they were near to the house, the centurion stopped him and said, you know what, wait, I don't need you to come to my house. Just speak the word and I know that my servant will be healed. And Jesus said, I haven't seen so great a faith in the whole nation of Israel. Now, his disciples were with him. So it was kind of like he said it like this. I haven't seen so great a faith in any of you. This Gentile who shouldn't understand faith understands faith better than all of my disciples. And then the Bible says that Jesus spoke the word and the servant was healed that hour. Now, I don't have a problem with the story, but I do have a question. If Jesus could speak the word and the servant be healed, which is what happened. Why, when the centurion came to him here

and said, would you come to my house and heal my servant? Why didn't Jesus say, I don't need to come to your house. I can just speak the word. Why waste all that time? Well, I think it's found in something that Jesus said multiple times. He said, be it to you, according to your faith. And when the centurion came to Jesus here, his faith said, I gotta get you to my house. Jesus said, I speak that version of faith. I speak that dialect of faith. But then after spending some time with Jesus, something changed on the inside of the centurion. He said, you know what? Wait a minute, I don't even need you to come to my house. My faith is at a new level now, just speak the word. And Jesus said, I speak that version of faith too. I speak that dialect of faith too. Because faith is the language. It really is the language of heaven. And I wanna encourage you to speak words of faith. The book of Hebrews chapter 11, it's often called the hall of faith. And it says, by faith, Abraham, by faith, Isaac, by faith, Jacob. And it gives all these amazing things that they did. Even in verse six, it says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And then you get towards the end of the chapter and the writer of Hebrews says,

I don't even have the time to tell you about the kingdoms that were subdued, the mouths of lions that were stopped, and the dead that were brought back to life. What kind of list is this that it leaves off talking about the dead coming back to life? I mean, if it were me, that's gonna be first. The dead coming back to life, are you kidding me? We're gonna talk about that. But the writer goes on all these other things and then says, I don't even have time to talk about that. What's amazing when you go through the list, what you would find interesting, I find interesting, is it says of Isaac, it says, by faith, Isaac blessed his children. That's what it says. That's all it says. And then it says, after him, Jacob, it says, Jacob blessed his grandchildren. That's all it says. How important is it that you're speaking words of life over your kids, over your grandkids, over your generations? Well, I'll tell you, it's more important than the dead coming back to life, obviously. Because faith shapes the future when you speak these words of faith, amen. There was a, anybody in here serve in the United States Marine Corps? Anybody? Okay, nobody.

Okay, good, so we can talk about them behind their back. The most decorated Marine in United States history is a man named Chesty Puller. His name is Lewis Puller. Nickname was Chesty because he had a big barrel chest. He's the most decorated Marine ever. And he was awarded. So if you're awarded the Naval Cross, the Naval Cross is the highest award for bravery just under the Congressional Medal of Honor. So if you've been awarded the Naval Cross, you are in a category of extraordinary soldier, okay? If you've done it once, you are in an elite class of people. Chesty Puller was awarded the Naval Cross five times. He was really an extraordinary guy, great thinker. And we were in the battle, the United States was fighting in the Korean War. And Chesty Puller is in charge of 15,000 men. He has 15,000 men with him, Marines. And the enemy had studied him. They knew all of his tendencies. Like if the enemy retreated, that wasn't victory for Chesty. He wanted to chase them down. And so they knew this. him and they decided to set a trap and so they say told the front lines we want you to resist for a little bit then we want you to fall back in retreat and so they get into this skirmish with these Marines they start fighting after a few minutes the front line falls back well Chesty seeing that and his

tendency being what it was he turns this totally discharge so they go off after them and they're so focused on catching these guys that they didn't realize that the left flank of the enemy had collapsed around them and then the right flank had collapsed around them and in the blink of an eye they're completely surrounded bullets flying at them from every single direction and they are outnumbered as I've told you Chesty had 15,000 soldiers with him and they are outnumbered 250 to 1 and Chesty needs help and he gets on the radio and he calls for some backup some air support but this is what he said he said sir the enemy is in front of us the enemy is behind us the enemy is on our left side and the enemy is on our right side they cannot escape us now see people of faith talk different than other people there are people that look at your life and say why are you still fighting it's time to give up you're completely surrounded this is all lost but a person of faith says that may be what you see but I see potential victory here I see that there's an overcoming that's happening in my life and I'm gonna come out on the other side victorious and in that moment Chesty puller was victorious that day he got all 15,000 men out didn't lose one called caused the highest number of casualties to the enemies of the entire war it matters what you say it matters what you say about your life people of faith just talk different than people who are not faith people and we all should be faith people just because we're born again we should be people of faith because Christ died for us and we accepted him yeah the last thing faith is a lifestyle faith is a language the third thing is that faith is a legacy in second Timothy chapter 1 in verse 5 Paul writes to Timothy and let me let me give you a little bit of historical background here about Timothy in the time when Paul's writing to him in the in the first letter to Timothy Paul's writing this letter of encouragement he's telling him you go Timothy do it you do all these amazing things and here's how you set up structure so he tells him how to appoint leaders in the church and because the church is exploding in the city of Ephesus and he's the pastor but then persecution comes and all these people that were flooding into the church are now

flooding out of the church and they're running and the church is shrinking when Paul writes 2nd Timothy he writes things like verse 7 God has not given you a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind see that makes that verse seem a little bit different now doesn't it because you understand where Timothy was when Paul writes these words to him but before he says that to him in verse 5 he says Timothy I know that there's a genuine faith on the inside of you because I saw it in your mom and I saw it in your grandma you see faith is something that we pass down from generation to generation it has a legacy attached to it the Apostle Paul when he's at the end of his life he writes still in 2nd Timothy 2nd Timothy was the last letter Paul wrote before he was executed we get to chapter 4 the Apostle Paul says Timothy I fought the good fight I finished the race I kept the faith you see that's important because Paul in Corinthians gives this list of hardships he's a shipwrecked I was whipped multiple times I was stoned to death I was I was I've been held in in in captivity and I've been starving and I've been I've been I've been in pain and I've struggled and he gives this list of hardships and at the end of his life he says you know what even though I experienced all those things I didn't give up on faith faith didn't leave me I kept the only way that faith can be handed to the next generation and the next group of people that come into our life is if we keep it sadly I hear people say But they had a hard time and they'll say, well, I just lost my faith. And I think that's one of the saddest things that a Christian can say, because it shouldn't be that. Faith's not quite that fragile. Paul says, I kept it. I got through every hardship. I overcame all the way to the end because I kept faith. Wow. God help us have that testimony. In November of the year 1620, there was a boat crossing the Atlantic Ocean called the

Mayflower. If you know anything about the history of this nation, you'd be familiar with the Mayflower crossing and the pilgrims that came over, the Puritans that came. They were three days in a storm. I think it was probably a hurricane. And everybody on the ship was so sick from the storm wave. There was a young man on the boat named John Howland. John Howland decided that he was going to go up on the top deck because he had to get some fresh air. He just couldn't take it anymore. And as soon as he stepped out on the top deck, a wave came over the top of the Mayflower, washed him off the top deck and off the ship into the Atlantic Ocean. And he comes out of the water and the Mayflower is leaving him. And he screams for help and nobody can hear him. Nobody saw him go over. And just when he had at the point of giving up hope, he felt something rub against his arm. And it was a rope hanging off the back of the ship and he reached out and grabbed it. And now he's being drugged through the Atlantic behind the Mayflower. He's going underwater and he'd come up out of the water and he'd scream for help and then he'd go back under the water and then he'd come back up and scream for help. Finally somebody heard him. And they got a team of guys and they grabbed the rope and they pulled John Howland back into the boat. Some said that they thought that he was certainly going to die at that point, because if you've been in around the Atlantic Ocean, you would know that it's very cold. The water is very cold, but this is November, so it's cold in the water and it's cold out of the water. And he got very, very sick, but he didn't die. He made it to the new world.

As a matter of fact, if you ever find yourself in Plymouth, Massachusetts, standing looking at what's called Plymouth Rock dated 1620 to your left, there's a cross street called Howland Street, named after this guy. John Howland ended up marrying a young lady from the Mayflower and they had 10 kids. And then those kids had a lot of kids and then those kids had more kids. And now history records that three of John Howland's descendants became the president of the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first, then George H.W. Bush, and then his son, George W. Bush. You don't know, you don't know what your offspring is going to do. You don't know what your descendants are going to become, but the only way they will ever become is if you fight today. If you believe that what you have is the legacy that God has given you and that you would be willing to fight today to hold on to it, then you set the next generations up for a really incredible life. And that's the life God wants them to have. Today, as people of faith, we must, if I could say it this way, we must be willing to plant trees in whose shade we'll never sit in, but the next generations will. We do these things in faith, believing there's more to come. What you're doing in church, whether you serve in church or you lead a small group or you're part of the worship team, whatever, whatever the case may be, what you're doing in church is planting seeds for another generation to come. It makes sure that the church stands long after we're gone. This is what faith in action looks like. It looks like this legacy, but as I said, it's something you have to keep. You can't let the storms of life and the challenges of life cause faith to just slip through your fingers. You gotta hold on to it. Even if you don't understand, even if you question, I'm sure. Listen, if you've been a Christian for five minutes, you've probably asked God, why is this happening? Because there's tough, there's tough things.

There's a there's a real enemy. There's a real devil that's out to steal, kill and destroy. He's trying to cause harm. The thing he wants you to get away from is faith Because faith is what overcomes as a matter of fact the Bible says in first John First John chapter 5 in verse 4 it says this is the victory that overcomes the world our faith When overcome It's faith I'll finish with this story if you'll just allow me a couple more minutes In the early 1900s in the nation of China there was a It was an uprising it was called the boxer uprising The early 1900s and it wasn't about boxing at all. It was It was just the name of this uprising and it was some radicals that that were Identified by not wearing shirts and a red sash around their waist They would go from village to village and Their purpose was to convince the villagers that the reason why there was such drought and famine going on in China at that time Was because they had allowed Christians to come Christian missionaries to come and they specifically targeted One Christian organization called China Inland Mission, which was started by a man named Hudson Taylor If you don't know who Hudson Taylor is, I would encourage you read the story of this man's life What he did for the kingdom of God and for the glory of Jesus Christ is phenomenal But they began to target the China Inland Mission They I don't have time to tell all the stories obviously But just slaughtered families in front of whole communities Because they wouldn't deny their faith But there was one teacher She had about 200 students in her school from all grade levels and they showed up at the school They took everybody out of the school and drugged the teacher out and all these students standing around And they said to the teacher tell these kids That what you've told them about Jesus is not true tell them that it was all made up that Jesus isn't real

She said I can't do that They said well, we're going to cause harm we're gonna hurt you if you don't she said I can't do it They wrapped her in this gauze like fabric soaked her in kerosene And said if you don't deny Christ if you don't tell these kids That Jesus wasn't real then we're gonna we're gonna light you on fire right here in front of all these kids You don't want that to happen. You don't want these kids to see that She said I can't do it Everything I've said is the truth Jesus died He was buried and he rose again from the dead and he's alive right now And as she's preaching the gospel One of the men gets so angry that he just he just threw them He threw the fire at her from us from a stick that he had a torch that he had He threw it at her and lit her on fire And the students did an account of these students Took the documentation of the students that were there they were older now They said tell us about that and they recount this story and there was one young man It was a little older man, but he was a little boy at the time. He said He said, you know when they lit her on fire She disappeared like the flames just consumed her and we all just stepped back. It was so hot He said but I never once Never once heard her cry out in pain Never one time did she say okay put out the fire. I'll deny Jesus. He's in here one time He said up but she did say something He said and when I lay down at night, I still get the picture in my mind of that giant flame He said it never left me and I hear her words Coming from that fire He said it wasn't pain

It wasn't begging He said all I could hear all any of us heard coming from the midst of and we couldn't even see her But we could hear her voice coming out of those flames saying children Keep the faith Keep the faith It matters It matters To the next generations that we today Recognize the power of the legacy of faith and we keep it in hold on to If you go to China today in the very spot where they burned her alive stands a church Because It has been said and I believe that it is The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church And there have been people that have laid their lives down Historically, they've laid their lives down so that you and I can be in this place tonight talking about Jesus We should never take that for granted. What what generations are still coming? They will say I'm in church because there was a people in McKinney, Texas Part of life fellowship. They kept the thing My hope is that there's a lot of generations to come that will say that about you Faith is important. As I said, I'm just here to remind you Keep walking by faith Keep holding on to faith. Keep faith. Keep speaking faith Because it does work And God's Word never fails Can I pray for you? Father I thank you tonight for each person that's here. I ask you Lord for Peace to rest upon them your word says if we will declare peace over a home that peace would Reside there sort over each home each each and every home every family

It's represented. I pray for the peace of God that surpasses understanding to rest upon But their homes would become a haven of the peace of God and may these people Be the picture of what faith looks like They would live by faith Declare words of faith and leave a legacy of faith and keep faith Lord as they walk by faith, I thank you Lord for the endurance Endurance for their journey And I pray blessing over them and I I pray according to Psalm chapter 5 and verse 12 It says that your favor surrounds the righteous like a shield Pray for your favor to be upon their lives May each and every person at the end of their days have the testimony of King David Says I lived a long life filled with good days in the name of Jesus Amen Amen All right, I Want to invite the the leaders to come forward we're gonna have a special moment of prayer right now And I believe the Lord spoke to you And if you feel that God is just inviting you to to live by faith You probably feel like you haven't been living by faith so far to now you do believe in God But but you felt like today God is challenging you It's a moment for you to stand and step in faith and start walking in faith like never before So the leaders for both groups of men and women they'll be here We we finish a little bit early, but I want to invite you don't leave without prayer We want to pray with you when I walk with you And if you if you maybe just just believe that just come and please let us pray with you That's what we we want to do with you tonight so We're gonna close the service in a second But as as you come and ask for prayer

please Just let us share with you this moment. We want to walk with you So let's give a couple of minutes and then we close the service ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪