Flying Across The Country To Speak About Jesus

We had our second son who was born with a genetic condition. Why the suffering to see the glory of God? When I got sober, I had to leave a whole world behind. God wants us to recognize in solitude, you work on the relationship that bleeds into all other relationships. I want to know how I can forgive my father for everything that he has done to me. Hey. Yo, this is crazy. What's up, y'all? Hey, I'm going to see you guys in a little bit. Let me see that sweater. That's hard. Grab that sweater, bro. That's fan-made. I made it, man. God bless you. God bless you. Hi, guys. Hey, what's up, brother? Hi. Good to see you guys. Amen, brother. Amen. Yo, what the heck is going on? Is this a line for Johnny Chang? No, I'm just kidding. Bro, it was four blocks long. Like, it was two turns, basically.

Crazy. For sure, it's this. God bless. All righty, all righty. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you, baby. God bless y'all. God bless y'all. For sure, for sure. Amen, amen. Hey, for sure, for sure. How you doing? How you doing? What's up, brother? How you doing? How you doing? Good to see y'all. Good to see you guys. Let's go. All right. Oh, my gosh, bro. We got to walk all the way back, OK? God, right now we say thank you. We see people. God, you see lives, lives that need to be transformed, lives that need you. So, Lord, we ask you to just use us in a mighty way.

We ask you that you would just anoint him afresh, that you would use him to be the voice that this generation has needed for so, so long. We thank you that Evangel Church has been able to open their doors for this incredible team. And we ask you that every seat would be blessed tonight. Every person sitting in that seat would know that they came here for a reason, and that was to meet you and you alone. And Jesus, let me pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen, amen. Help me welcome our friend Johnny Chang. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. First and foremost, we appreciate, you know, wanted to shout out Evangel Church as well for allowing us to be here. Give them another round of applause, guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen. All righty, guys.

So who here, by a show of hands, is part of Core of the Heart? Want to raise your hand? Let's go. Core of the Heart. For those of you guys who don't know who I am, my name is Johnny Chang. I essentially went to prison from the age of 12 to 25, was incarcerated, and I lived a lot of roller coaster lifestyle. Anybody ever live that? Happy, sad, sin, repent, up and down until you feel empty in your heart. That's what I did as a person, right? And today, I wanted to kind of share with you guys a couple of scriptures that allows me to kind of step out of that. So if you're stuck in this desert, this barrenness inside of your heart, feeling sad, feeling miserable, feeling depressed, what we want to do today is free you guys from that. You guys heard of the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 before? All right. Let's pull that up. Luke chapter 9, it says, and when the day began to wear away, then came the 12 and said unto him, send the multitude away that they may go into the towns and country roundabout and lodge and get victuals. For we are here in a desert place, 13. But he said unto them, give ye them to eat. And they said, we have no more but five loaves and two fishes,

except we should go and buy meat for all these people. Let's stop right there. So first and foremost, what I want you guys to understand is when you're reading the Bible, the Bible actually talks about two things. It talks about Jesus Christ alone, our Lord and Savior. But it also is a mirror to our hearts. So when you guys are listening to Bible studies or reading your Bible studies, I want you guys to keep that in mind of who it's talking to and also what it represents. The way that we explain it here at Core of the Heart is the Bible is a mirror to our hearts. All of the characters, all of the stories are actually representative of us in different stages in our lives. You guys got that, right? Understand? So we see the first thing that's brought up here. It says, for we are here in a desert place. So when you think about a desert, what do you guys think? It's dry, right? It's cold. It's kind of like New York, right? But not dry, understand? Anybody from New York? All of you guys here? Amen, amen. See, I'm a California boy. So it was mad brick outside for us.

Not for y'all, all right? With the sausage and peppers and all that. No, I'm just kidding. But basically, it was really, really, really cold, right? And the desert represents a cold place, a barren place, a dry place. You guys following me here, right? So if I'm saying that it's representative of our hearts, this represents the people who are following. Following Jesus, they had a very dry, barren type of heart. And many of us have experienced this. We have a desert of loneliness at times. We call them seasons, but actually our hearts become lonely. Sometimes they become sad. Sometimes they become empty. For whatever reason, right? Amen? We've all experienced that. Who's experienced true emptiness in their hearts? Show of hands. Who's experienced sadness and grief inside of their hearts? Everybody, right? Amen. So what he's talking about here is this is the condition of the heart without Jesus. You guys got that? Amen? Okay, let's continue reading verse 13.

But he said unto them, "'Give ye them to eat.'" So Jesus is telling them, I wanna feed these people. Feed them because these empty, lonely people in the multitude, right? And then he says, "'We have no more but five loaves and two fishes.'" So five loaves of bread, two fishes feeding 5,000 people. Is it possible or not? Impossible. Somebody say, yes. Amen. Core of the heart, don't answer. No, I'm just kidding. Amen. They're like, yes, of course. In Jesus' name, hallelujah. Amen. But if I'm talking about logically speaking, it is impossible, right? Even if you gave a person a little more so, you cannot feed 5,000 people. There's, I don't know, maybe a thousand something here. Imagine this 5X and we're just breaking bread, right? Somebody will be mad. You know what I'm saying? I didn't get my piece, right?

So God is telling us that the wilderness is like our souls without Jesus. You guys following me here? All right. And let's continuously read verse 14. Luke chapter nine, verse 14. For there were about 5,000 men and he said to his disciples, make them sit down by fifties in company. Okay. So here's something peculiar happens. Jesus tells everybody to what? Sit down. Sientate, palabra, right? Sit down, right? You guys gotta sit down. And then he's going to what? Feed them essentially. So when Jesus works, let's think about this for a second, right? Why is he telling people to sit down? What do you guys think? To rest, right? Because let's say you guys or anybody work here, all of your hands should be going up, right? We work for God, I'm just kidding. But if you were to, let's say, as a waitress mid shift, right? The tables are turning and it's busy, it's happy or whatever it is and it's packed.

And you were just to sit down, would you guys get fired or not? Of course, right? Because the work is not done. So what is Jesus symbolically explaining to them? When I wanna do some kind of miracle, I need you guys to rest. You guys following me here? He wants us to sit down, he wants us to rest because if we're working and he's working, we will then strip the glory away from Jesus. So you guys following me here, right? So it's very deep here. If we go to Hebrews chapter four, verse 10. So before Jesus multiplies, he wants you guys to rest is what he's trying to say. Now, many of us are empty and lonely because we're continuously striving. For me, I'm gonna try harder today. I'm gonna love people better. I'm gonna be more understanding. And then what happens? You fail, right? You try again, you dust yourself off, get back up, fail. Happy, sad, happy, sad, happy, sad, continuously live in this lifestyle, right? God is trying to show us something through this scripture to free our hearts from all of that. Jesus Christ died for our sins, guys. Just some of them, present, past.

You gotta take care of the rest. It says all, right? Past, present, future, all of our sins are washed away. But do you guys know one thing? We understand that here. We're not understanding that here. You guys following me? A lot of people know Jesus. When I was Buddhist, I knew Jesus died for my sins, también, right? But I didn't believe in him. So knowing Jesus versus believing in him, two separate things. You guys following me, right? Everybody knows that Jesus died, right? You ask little five-year-olds at my church, what did Jesus do? Died for my sins. What do you wanna eat? Chicken. What kind of chicken? Nuggets. From where? McDonald's, right? That's how kids, that's how we are. We all know, we can pair it. But do you really believe it inside of your heart that all of your sins are washed away and you are blessed, right? Who here believes that?

Show of hands. Amen, amen. So God is trying to show us something here. Jesus, like I said, the Bible is always talking about. One central character, it's very descriptive of who? Yeshua Mashiach, Jesus Christ, okay? Now, how does that apply to us? Well, there's a way that the enemy works, guys, and I wanna explain this to you very clearly. Whenever you're about to get blessings, whenever you're about to come up on a big breakthrough, you'll notice that your thoughts kind of go wild. It feels as if somebody's standing on your chest and you're telling yourself, okay, I'm not gonna think about it anymore. I'm not gonna give these negative affirmations in this inner dialogue, this negative dialogue, but if you notice, the more you try to stop it, the more it amplifies. You guys following me? And at the end, tears are down your face. You don't understand what's going on externally, but internally, it's going wild, right? That is exactly how the enemy attacks us. He tells us you're inadequate. He tells us you're nothing. He tells us you're too far gone, you're so empty. Look at this person and this person and this person. He hits us very deeply inside of our hearts

and we listen to that voice, and when we listen to that voice, what happens to us? We spiral and spiral and spiral and spiral. Although I've been to prison and maybe you guys haven't been to prison, all of us have been imprisoned to something, whether it's our lust, whether it's our past trauma, whether it's our gangs, whether we've really been to prison, whether it's our sadness, depression, loneliness, right? And that's why it hit different, because when I'm speaking, I speak from the core of the heart and you guys can kind of understand that, amen? Even if you feel broken or disregarded or discarded, Jesus today, he wants to utilize you. I'm living proof of that, guys, amen? I've been to prison for 13 years, had a father that was very abusive, alcoholic, you know, and at the end of it all, if you've seen my testimony, I apologize to my dad and I tell my dad, I'm sorry for being a bad son, I'm sorry for being in a gang and ruining your American dream, because he was an immigrant, and what's beautiful is my father saw the broken version of me, reflected off of that, and also apologized to me, and we reconciled our relationship together, and every time I think about my father, I think about, wow, he was also broken,

and a lot of you guys have aggressors, and you have people who've hurt you, but I want you guys to understand something, there's only one common enemy that we actually have, right, and he's deceived the whole world, and his name is Satan. He literally deceived everybody. He's made me do evil things, made my dad do evil things, made you guys do evil things too, but I don't want you guys to take ownership for something that's not your own, amen? I don't want you guys to take ownership for that, right? Recognize that Jesus is here to reconcile us together, back to God today, and I hope you guys can truly accept that inside of your hearts, amen? Amen, hallelujah, amen. Go ahead, young man. What was your favorite grade? My favorite grade in school? Kindergarten, kindergarten, because I had a lot of fun in kindergarten. Yeah, how old are you? Seven. Seven, so you're second grade? Wow, what's your favorite grade? Second, amen. He's like, right now, what you talking about? Amen, thank you, thank you. Johnny, it's very nice to meet you. Good to meet you.

I'm mad nervous right now. It's mad brick, it's okay. Mad is different. I identify with a lot of the things I've seen in your interviews and testimony, like Section 8, welfare, food stamps, but the one thing where I was like, man, God really put this in my algorithm or whatever was when you started talking about OCD, and when I got sober, you talked about addiction, so there was a lot of one-to-one, so thank you for just following God's call. My pleasure. And so in that, in my sobriety, and then coming to Christ and OCD and all of that, I had to leave a whole world behind, the streets, the block, the whole nine, and it can get incredibly lonely doing the right thing. And so sometimes in my singleness, I feel like sometimes people in the church just go, well, Jesus was single, and they try to pacify it, and it's been a struggle, so a word of encouragement, I guess, is the question. Yeah, I think, like I was mentioning, first and foremost, appreciate you for being vulnerable and sharing that. God wants us to recognize in solitude, you work on the relationship that bleeds into all other relationships, right? So God wants us to recognize

that when two or three are gathered, obviously, God is there, but. There's a heart to kind of solidify when you're working with God alone, right? You don't recognize there's a lot of things that God is refining when you're in solitude with him, right? So the one thing I want you to know is not to trust your thoughts because the way you think is gonna affect the way you feel, the way you feel behavior, right? I would say a Bible verse for you is Jeremiah 29 verse 11, for I know the thoughts that I have of you, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end. Another verse that's really good is 2 Corinthians 5, 17. God tells us that you're a new creature. All the old ways have passed, all has made new. And what this means is you're a new person. You're a pillar, bro, in the tabernacle, essentially. You will draw people to you as you walk in peace, as you walk with God. So as you continue to walk, just share, bro. Share your testimony, be vulnerable. You got a really good testimony. So be vulnerable with people because everybody, right, they speak this universal language of depression. Universal language of loneliness. And bro, when you're able to free people,

they have this heart to really love you with the heart of God as well. Amen. Gloria a Dios. Adios, amen, amen. Gloria a Dios, palabra. So I believe that I'm perfected and righteous, right? And when I think about that more, I look at Romans 6 when Paul is talking. But my question is to you, what do you think it means to be righteous and perfected based off the Bible? Yeah, so according to the Bible, it means all of your sins are absolved, right? So our job is to, in 2 Corinthians 10, 5, take every thought captive. So your sinning will only come from if you trust your thoughts because lustful thoughts bleed into lustful heart and then lustful action. But people try to cut it at the action. They're not getting it at the root, right? So your job as a new Christian, as a person who believes in God, is to assume the identity. It's not to sin however you want. When people hear, wait, I'm perfect and I'm righteous so I could do whatever I want. No, you already sinned enough, right? You get what I'm saying?

Me too, right? It's not about sinning and doing whatever. What I'm saying is when you are now under a new master, which is God, you start to think about his heart, right? So your job is to think about his heart and God calls you perfect and righteous. You're to move boldly with that heart. So when a lustful thought comes or an angry thought comes, your job is to take it and go, okay, either God is a liar and says I'm a new creature, those old lustful thoughts have passed away, right? Or I'm trusting my thoughts above the word of God and I shouldn't be doing that. Soon as you let that thought in, it's like letting a robber into your house. You're gonna struggle with it. You may win, most of the times you'll lose, right? And then it'll drag you wherever, tie you up, right, in bondage and things like that. So God wants us to recognize that don't let that thought in. Every time I have these types of thoughts that I'm not perfect, I never confirm my salvation amongst myself, right? I go to the word, Hebrews 10, 14. Let's see if the word changed. Every time I open it, I draw power from that word. Yes, I'm righteous through you, Jesus. I shouldn't trust my thoughts. My thoughts lead me to sin. My thoughts are not your thoughts.

My way is not your way, Isaiah 55, verse eight. So I am to trust the word of God above my thoughts and that's how you remain perfected forever. Amen. Thank you. Amen. With everything that you went through with your father and you know, how you forgave him, I wanna know how I can forgive my father for everything that he has done to me. Amen. So when you look at Romans chapter seven, verse 15, it says, I do the things that I don't wanna do and the things that I do, I don't allow and what I hate, that I do, right? So God wants us to recognize something that everyone is getting dragged by a force, right? There's things that I've done in my past that I thought I wanted to do, but in the end of it, I regretted it. Whoa, just like I ate the bacon, egg, and cheese in New York, I didn't regret it, right? Because I wanted to do that. It means that if I'm regretting something, it's not my actual heart. I was deceived into doing something, right? I'm sure your father has a lot of regret. My father definitely had a lot of regret and when you look at Romans chapter seven, verse 20, just five verses down, it says,

if I do the things I don't wanna do, it's no longer I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, right? So what this means is the way that God explains sin, when you look at Genesis four, verse seven, it talks about Cain and Cain kind of gave an offering, right? And then God says, if you do well, that's good, but if you don't, then sin he lieth at the door. So it personifies sin as a person, as a he, which is Satan, right? Satan, he actually distracts us from doing things. He coerces us into doing things. So I want you to view your father the next time as like you two in a storm, essentially, and these waves are crashing and making the boats, right, crash into the rocks and the boats will crash into each other. each other and things like that. You both are fighting the same storm and that storm is Satan. Are you following me here? You don't blame the boat for messing up, you blame the storm, right? Likewise, you guys are teammates, not rivals. Satan is this force that you cannot see because we don't struggle with flesh, we struggle with principalities. There's a force that's dragging us. And so your father, I would say, if you can meet him, you can share the way I shared.

Dad, I know that you didn't want to do that. He'd probably look at you crazy, like, what do you mean? I didn't want to do that, right? Cause he's also condemning himself. Dad, I know that, you know, you did X, Y, and Z. I forgive you. I wanted to show you a verse. I went to this tattooed guy's, you know, sermon and like, you know, and he told me this and dad, I feel like it wasn't you, you know? And whether what he does with that, if he says thank you, if he gets more mad, it's okay. You just drop that message, but I guarantee you it's going to hit him in his heart because no one knows that about themselves. They think they're the ones doing it. See, Satan takes your hand spiritually, slaps you with it and goes, why are you hitting yourself? And we go, amen, why am I doing that? He does that all the time. So we have to recognize if you see that, you and your father's bond will get closer. That's how me and my dad, you know, was able to reconcile, truly. So I hope you can utilize that. Thank you. Amen. So my husband and I came to Christ about three years ago. Good. We're the only born again Christians in each of our families.

Whoa, amen. And in that time, we had our second son who was born with a genetic condition. Sure. Very threatened, yeah. And, you know, I received, Satan used that genetic part a lot in, you know, to try to say why it was my sins, the sins of my mom, the sins of my grandparents, you know? And he gave me the word where it says he was born like that so you can see the glory of God in his life. But there is one part I struggle, and it's the questions of my nine-year-old, my oldest daughter, and one day, my son been old enough to ask me this, and he's, why the suffering to see the glory of God? You know, he has to go to medical treatments and specialists, so why that process? I accept it, you know, I take it, God, anything, but that little being, like, why? Wow, your son is very smart. If he asks that question, he's gonna be very smart. My daughter. Daughter, I'm sorry. They're older. Yeah, so, well, the easy answer to this is, how can you appreciate wealth without being in poverty, without being poor, right? How can you appreciate light without darkness?

Me, I grew up in the projects. I could not appreciate money until I was poor, and now that I grow up and have a little bit of wealth, I'm very thankful for that. How can you appreciate peace when there's only, without chaos, without sadness? How can you appreciate happiness without sadness, right? So God does this. If you think about, in Isaiah 14, what Satan was, Satan was a seraphim, a high-ranking angel, essentially. He was a guardian to the throne, meaning he was close to God, but the issue is, he had everything. He had notoriety, right? He was only, like, number three to, like, everybody else, and he was just very, very amazing. Everybody loved him, but he rebelled against God the most. Why? Because when you get everything you want, you don't go to God, you actually go away from God. Make sense? We become spoiled, actually. So God gives us thorns on the side. He gives us things, not because he hates us, but because he loves us. He wants to keep us close. So because your son is going through that, it's a perfect opportunity for him to get close and stay close with God, amen? So you have to teach that,

and then also, as a mother, right? Don't blame yourself. Romans chapter eight, verse one says, there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So you're in Christ Jesus, then condemnation, negativity, things like that is not from God. Soon as you start having these condemning thoughts, you have to stop and go, wait a minute, where is this coming from? If it's not from God, I'm not gonna listen to it. Make sense? And then the last part, Isaiah 54, verse 13, is very clear. It tells us, I will raise your children, and great will be their peace. Amen, many thanks. Amen. Hallelujah, alright you guys. integers integers integers integers integers integers integers integers integers integers integers

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