Greetings from Galatians - Part 2

What can we learn from Paul's letter to the Galatians?

On this episode, Pastor David Malcolm continues our journey into the book of Galatians. In chapter 2, Paul tells us of his pedigree and resume. He reminds us of his testimony. Pastor David takes us on the journey from encounter to fulfillment of calling in this powerful message. Jesus is enough! 

We pray this message encourages your faith, deepens your prayer life, and helps you gain a greater vision for life in Christ. Share this episode with someone who wants to grow deeper in God’s Word.

To learn more about Vision Church or discover how you can partner with our ministry, visit www.ourvisionchurch.com.

Thank you, Pastor David, for leading and encouraging us! You can learn more about King Street and their ministries by visiting www.kingst.church.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:02

But here's what you need to know about him. He has an amazing testimony. An amazing testimony that's gonna make him likely with a few people as I'm making them. Um his testimony is gonna get him up with a motherfucker. But not only the he has a humming and a big human church, and specifically the church in the world community. Humanly, women in the money. He has a hunger for the woman. Um be some hungry humble so much, they must do so many great things for the kingdom. This is somebody who might be money. This is somebody, some money, some money, but he's must be somebody with him. Stay with me as we welcome Mr. David Melcum.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Would you would you stand up one more time? Would you put your uh would you come on, would you lift your hands and your hearts to Jesus one more time? Glory to the Lamb. Come on, how many of you know that um the Bible says that at that name that every knee bows in heaven, on earth, and below? How many of you know that at that name that demons flee and bodies are healed? Come on, how many of you know that at the power of that name uh transforms lives and changes situations and brings heaven to come? When two or more are gathered in his name, he is there in the midst. How many of you know he's a miracle worker? He's the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. That he comes at his name, and when we say his name, he shows up and he's only one thing Savior, healer, deliver the Christ. How many of you know that? Say yes. Let's say the name Jesus. Would you say the name Jesus with me? Jesus. Say one more time, Jesus. One more time. Jesus. Amen. How many of you know the church exists for him? Yeah. Come on, put your hands together for Jesus. You can be seated. God bless you. That's too much water. I will preach too long. That was a fantastic introduction. I have been married 17 years, not 19 years, which is not going to make a lot of sense to you until I tell you my testimony here in just a minute, because I would like to introduce myself. Um High Vision Church. Good to be with you this morning. Uh I got the opportunity to meet your pastors. Um, we get to work together, not just to plant this church, but how many of you know you guys have absolutely incredible leaders? Put your hands together for them. They are they are top-notch, no kidding. Incredibly intelligent, incredibly talented, incredibly committed, and incredibly anointed for this assignment. So I get to work together with them. My name is David Malcolm. I I have the privilege, along with my wife Amanda, of pastoring a church in Keysville, Virginia. Um, and we did, we planted our church nine years ago. There's my family. Nine, there it is. Oh they all look so much better than me. That old guy in the middle. Um the we got the privilege of planting King Street Church nine almost ten years ago. Uh your pastor was right. Um, almost ten years ago, we got the privilege to plant Keys uh King Street Church in Keysville, Virginia. Keysville is a town of 832 people. Uh I mentioned all 832. I could have said 800, but I'm believing for all of them to be saved, so I bring all of them up, right? Um and if a baby was born last night, we're believing for that one to get born again too, right? Amen. So um we planted King Street Church, and since then we have got an opportunity to also be a part of helping to, through the assemblies of God, uh, plant churches all over Virginia, West Virginia, and DC. Because our goal is bigger. How many of you know our goal is bigger than making it to heaven? It's to get heaven to earth. How many of you know that uh we want to see the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters do cover the sea? How many of you know we believe he really is what a God, and we want his name to be made famous in all the earth? And so get the privilege and opportunity to connect with your pastors and others like them to facilitate what it looks like for people just like you, just like me, and you'll hear my story in just a minute, um, to see the call of God come to fruition in our lives that He would do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or imagine. And I never imagined that I would be standing here in front of you today. Um I believe uniquely, and this will help with my message today. I believe uniquely that we don't need everyone in the kingdom doing the same thing. We need everyone in the kingdom in the will of God. If we will do that, God will accomplish everything that He's desired. Amen. This is my beautiful family that you see behind me, if you can see them. Um why I said that it wouldn't make a lot of sense is that I uh that I've been married for 17 years, is because you will see my oldest daughter, Alyssa, on the my your far left. Um, and she is 22 years old. So if you do the math, that means I was a sinner. Oh, that's not funny to anybody. My bad. I I repented, and um uh and then uh so that's my oldest daughter Alyssa on the left. Uh right next to her in the white dress with the flowers and the big smile is uh Brooke, who I have here with me today. Everybody say hi, Brooke. Brooke is my ministry partner here with me today. Um, next to me is my beautiful anointed wife, Amanda. She is so great, grace, and gifted that I think that God just brings me along with her. And that's not a joke. Um, next to her is my uh middle daughter, Rebecca. Um, she is 21 years old, and in a month or so, she will be having her first child with her husband that's next to her, and I will be a grandpa. Oh my goodness. As I said upstairs, my wife does not look old enough to be a grandma. I, however, and then right in front of her is my niece, Skyla, who will be 11 on Monday, and she lives with us, and so as you can see, except for that young man who just recently married into my family, um, I am completely and utterly surrounded by women at all times. Pray for me. If you have your Bible, if you jump open to Galatians chapter number one, I hope that you brought your Bible with you. Um, it's such a great practice in a digital age to recognize what it's like to have a special space for God that is analog, that is real, that is tangible and authentic. And I think one of the great ways that we recognize that in our life is to have a physical paper Bible. John, when he wrote his epistle, he said, and we preach to you those things that we have tasted, touched, and handled. And so I think in order to have the word in your heart, I think it's a beautiful thing to have handled it. How many of you know this is supernatural? How many of you know this is spirit breathed? How many of you know it's not just words on a page, it's not philosophy, but it is powerful. When you hold it, you hold in your hand the word of God. What a reverence to separate that from your TikTok. Hey, all right, now I'm already gone to preach and to meddling. Okay. Galatians chapter number one. I'm gonna pick up where your pastor asked me to alongside him, which is a tall task, but I'll do my best. He preached to you last week, I pray, um, uh, from Galatians uh and preached up to the 10th verse where Paul uh after giving, after accosting and boldly speaking to the Galatians and announcing a curse to anyone who would preach to them a false gospel or a different gospel. And yes, he did that. He gives them the insight to why he has such boldness to desire to do that. When he says, Do I please God or do I please men? And it's from this place that he opens up and gives us an insight to how he came to the place of how he can say such a bold statement to say with his life, it's more important to me to please God than it is to please men. Yeah? This is where he starts out in verse number 11. Sir, if you're with me, you can read along. Galatians 1, starting in verse 11. Paul writes, But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. I don't understand the context of that because of the language there. Let me tell you what he said. He said, What was revealed to me was Jesus. And the one who revealed it to me was Jesus. Yeah. Verse 13. For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when I it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went to Arabia. Everybody say wilderness. I don't think that was everybody. Everybody say wilderness, wilderness, and returned again to Damascus. Everybody say encounter. That's good. It was a place of Paul's wilderness, and it was a place of Paul's first encounter. He went back to those places immediately once Jesus revealed to him the call that was on him. Verse number 18 says, Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and I remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, to you. Excuse me. Now concerning these things which I write to you, indeed, before God I do not lie. Afterwards I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea, which were in Christ. But they were hearing only he who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy. And finally, verse number twenty four. And they glorified God in me. Could you pray with me? Lord, we thank you today for your word that is alive, that is powerful, powerful for the transformation of your people, powerful for calling the lost to the one Jesus. Powerful for the leadership by Holy Spirit of the movement and activity of your reign, of your kingdom in all the earth, powerful to speak to us right where we are, powerful to disrupt the noise, powerful to change, powerful to mark, powerful to call, powerful to save, powerful to heal, powerful to break bondages, and powerful to redeem lives. Lord, we thank you today for your word, for in it is that power. And so we, Lord, ask you today to cause that good seed to find good soil in us with honor and reverence, with a heart separated to understand that you are above all others, Lord. We yield ourselves to you in this moment. Jesus be glorified. Amen. Amen. Amen. Mighty fine water when it's ninety degrees outside. Bless God. Paul here gives a testimony of his calling. If you didn't pick up on what Paul was doing, he immediately starts to give the the um rehearse the witness of why he came to preach the gospel to the Galatians in the first place, letting them know that it started far before him. Uh far before them, excuse me. Um and he's doing this for for two reasons. He's giving us the outline of how God called him uh to this place. One of them is he is giving validation for the message and where it came from and how it came to be. Remember, he's speaking to the Galatians and he's specifically writing this letter to them in the midst of their intermingled, watered-down version of faith that had led um the legalism and the um transactional relationship to God that it had been so uh so um indicative of the law had begun to uh creep its way into the church and it crept its way into the church for a number of reasons, but but primarily by a source of people um that was that was trying to tell this group of people that there's something that you need to add to this message of faith alone in Jesus Christ in order to actually serve and walk with God? A message is old as time, right? It it can't be free, you have to earn it. How many of you know that it was already earned 2,000 years ago at Calvary? Yeah. How many of you know you can't improve upon the gospel? How many of you know that Jesus plus nothing is everything? Jesus plus anything is nothing. Oh, I hope you get that deep down in your spirit that the man Jesus Christ is Lord means he's well able and capable of leadership over our life and of working in our hearts and lives according to his will and his purpose. And so that means that there's nothing you can do to rush getting wiser, and there's nothing you can do to mess up his plan. You're right where you're supposed to be. Vision church, you're right where you're supposed to be. The Lordship of Jesus led you here. This is exactly who's supposed to be in this room. I I I said I I come to you from 10 years almost of having planted a church, I told Kia, I I bring you greetings from the future. And the future is this, he's gonna be faithful. If we stay the course and make the one thing, the only thing, Jesus, then he's gonna work his will. Anything we try to do to speed up the process, to earn just a little bit more, to improve upon just what Holy Spirit alone can do as we glorify Jesus' name and as he reveals him in all the earth is not going to do anything but prolong the process. And Paul tells them, you're making a mistake by letting yourself be lured back into transactional fellowship with God because it is undermining the work of Christ in you. And the way that he does this is he answers the um claims about him personally and validates his own ministry by giving the testimony of his own personal calling. So he does he does this, but he also, if you can catch it, speaks the very thing that the Galatians need to hear to remember where it was that they came from so that they can turn back around and go and go back to where they need to. How many of you know that testimonies remind us who God is? Testimonies liberate and they remind us who God is. When you hear what God has done in somebody's life, it reminds you that he's not trapped in a book or far away in heaven, but he's working all around us. Testimonies keep us present with God. You have to tell your testimony because he's not a God of yesterday, he's a Jesus alive right now. And if there's anything that Dinwiddie needs, yes, you can clap for that. If there's anything Denwiddy needs, it's not to hear about God, it's to encounter God. It's to meet God. And this is the message that Paul brings. He says to them by way of both validation of how they got to the place that they were, and also as a reminder, he tells them his calling. So I'm gonna try to do three things simultaneously here today. I'm going to try to give honor to what Paul teaches us about where this gospel that we received that made one new man out of Jew and Gentile alike in Christ Jesus came from and originated. I'm going to, second, try to, by way of sharing testimony, remind us where it is that God is and that he's right with us. And third, I'm going to try to do my assignment from God for this time period. In desiring to see all of God's people walk in their calling. I'm just going to try to give you some instructions to walk in God's calling. I don't have a lot of time to do it, so you've got to stick with me and pray for me so that I can move fast. Paul, the first thing that Paul does is Paul tells us about his personal encounter with Jesus Christ. He says that this message was revealed to me by Jesus. This we don't hear except for one more time in Ephesians, where Paul calls it an absolute mystery. Most people are familiar with Paul's transformation, riding on a horse in Damascus, blinded by light, knocked off of a horse, radically transformed. God uses his life to plant most of the New Testament church and then write to them and apostolically give charge over them. But we don't hear often about this lineage of place that he gives us about how he came into that, into his calling specifically, and how he received that message. Paul calls it a mystery, and this mystery that Paul receives that he said was revealed to him by Jesus is this message that now that all can be saved. Up until this point, uh the the way that God had interacted with humanity was through his people Israel and through the law that they had chosen to receive from him at Mount Sinai. This is the way that God was interacting with humanity. Not that this is the only way that he interacted with humanity, but this is the way that he had made desired to make his covenant self known in the earth. Paul, who would have been a uh masterful uh uh uh voice into this culture to help them transition into Jesus, actually instead receives a revelation that he is not just for the Jew, but for the Gentile only. In other words, God's plan was always this. It was in his greatest promise. This is the promise that God made that was the greatest of all that he has ever made. And he spoke it and fulfilled it in Christ Jesus when he came. His greatest promise is this I will be your God and you will be my people, he will be our God. Let that sink in. I'll be your God, and you'll be my people. Fulfill. Not just for the Jew, but for the Gentile only. Why? Because the knowledge of the glory of the Lord was to cover the earth as the waters do cover the sea. As I said just a moment ago, that the plan and the purpose of God is not just for us to be to know him, but to make him known, and he wants all to come into this kingdom. He's no respecter of persons. Paul said this was revealed to him, but he shows the preciousness of it when he says that it was revealed to him personally by Jesus. I believe this. I believe that the church that God is showing forth in the earth that is led by his spirit is not a group of religious people, it's a group of people to whom Jesus has been revealed. Yes, yes. The man Jesus, the real Jesus. How many of you know? I'll tell you this, you planted a church, I understand that together collectively, you planted a church here in Denwoody, Virginia, but you didn't just plant a church in Denwoody, you also planted a church in America, and you also planted a church in the South, and you also planted a church in the middle of a culture that already has, watch this, that already has a context for the way that it views Jesus. And that's fine, but the real Jesus needs to be revealed. Yeah, and the real Jesus needs to be revealed by revealing himself in personhood to people. See, the difference is Christianity is not a philosophy. We are not followers of Jesus because he promised us anything except to come away and die. We are not followers of Jesus because he has the best teachings. We are followers of Jesus because we have met the man and he told us come follow him. I believe this. I believe that the that the that your county, that this state, that the earth has heard the message. Maybe it's time for them to meet the man. You know when they'll meet the man when people start to tell the testimony of how they met the man. You know when they'll meet the man when there are people getting out of wheelchairs. When they're come on, can he do it? Yeah. How many of you know you don't need a sign on the corner? You can get rid of some flags when you got some empty wheelchairs. You know what I'm saying? When you're praying for people and lives are changed, where hearts are transformed, where addicts are getting set free, when when marriages are getting restored, when children are giving up things that other kids hold on to. When a youth group gathers together and there are tears on the floor because they've met the man Jesus. It's all the advertisements you need. Come on, they've heard the message. Have they met the man? I want to tell you my testimony today so that you think that I'm having always been. I told you, um, I've been married, I've got kids longer than I've been married. There was a time in there. Here's my testimony and why I believe in this so strongly. And I I will try to speed this up, but I want to make sure you hear this. Because God can use anybody. I've been honored and privileged to plant and pastor a church, and I don't know how. We've been given the privilege to help two other planters, plant churches. We have been given the opportunity and the privilege to help to lead, to found, and to start an inpatient recovery center. We house a pregnancy support center, we have a school, we have a coffee shop, we have an entrepreneurial um ice cream shop that helps young people to learn how to be marketplace ministers. We have been given incredible privilege to be a part of seeing churches planted all over the world, but it didn't start there for me. I can tell you where it started. I can tell you where I met the man. I was um I was raised in a drug-addicted household. I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and there was an epidemic all over this nation of addiction. Much like there still is today, as little as we talk about it in rural communities, but there it's everywhere. Methamphetamines are stealing children. And I can tell you that I've seen God work miracles, okay? I was raised in a drug to drug-addicted household, and um, by the time I was 19, I was an alcoholic and an addict, and I was selling drugs trying to get back what drugs had stolen from me in my childhood. By the time I was uh 25 years old, I was sitting in a jail cell with 13 felonies and 22 misdemeanors getting ready to be sentenced. Uh sentenced to a lot of time. At that time I didn't have the two little girls, the two little girls um and the two older girls. How many of you know God redeems the time? How many of you know God redeems the years that the locust ate? Yeah, the canker worm and the swarming locusts. He redeems the years. They have no idea about this person that I was, but uh I was. And I was guilty. And I was sitting in the jail facing a lot of time. And in my mind, I thought that the best thing that I could do for my children. See, I didn't want my kids to grow up and um think that uh that that's who they were going to become. I didn't want my kids to go to school. And when kids, other kids asked them, hey, where's your dad? I want them to say he's in prison. I thought it would be easier if they could say he's dead. I thought it was the honorable thing to do. I was convinced of it. And so in jail on a two-tier cell block, I climbed up a set of steps and got up onto the second tier and started to try to work up the nerve and courage to take a swan dive off so I could do what I needed to do for my children. I was too cowardly to do it. Angry at myself that I couldn't force myself to jump off the rail. I sat down on a set of metal steps that led to that second floor, anger and tears together, trying to heighten myself up to do what I needed to do so that my children wouldn't reap the benefit of my mistakes. As I was sitting on those metal steps, Jesus came and sat down next to me. He came and sat down next to me and he said, if you're gonna give up your life, why don't you give it to me? See, I met the man. Next thing that happened was the enemy said to me, You're gonna wait until you've ruined your life to give it to him. He doesn't want you. I thought about those little children that had drove me up those steps. And I said, if I'm a father, I know there'd be nothing I couldn't, nothing that could keep me from receiving them back. And I've heard he's a father, so I think he'll take me. So that day I gave my life to Jesus Christ. I went back over and underneath of the bed where I'd been sleeping in a plastic tote next to where they make wine. There was a paperback, New King James Bible, and I opened the cover, and for the next two years in prison, I read it cover to cover, praying my way through, asking God to work in my heart so that I could stay as close as possible to the one who sat down on those steps next to me. Lived the rest of my life for the presence of the one. I've gauged everything by the nearness of the man that I met on those metal steps that day. Everything is, does it bring me closer or drive me further away? Everything is where is he? Because I know his presence, because I hadn't just heard the message, I met the man. Yeah. So Paul tells us that it's his encounter with Jesus that bore the message that he bore. I would say to you, it's the same thing for me, and it needs to be the same thing for you. And if it has been the same thing for you, then I remind you why you're doing what you're doing, and why you're standing for the truth of the gospel, and why you're setting up and tearing down and gathering together to pray, to see what it is that God could do through a group of people in the middle of the woods with a church that nobody deserves to have, but God put it here. It's because you've met the man. So I call you to reminder not to go back, to go forward in the power of the gospel, because the gospel came before you, brought a testimony with it, and your message is a part of that. The manifest Jesus is to be shown here. Number one was encounter with Jesus. Number two is exactly what happened to me. He tells us that he was separated and developed. If you go back and look at the passage, I don't have time to do it with you today. Um, but you can go and look, and it says, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, but again, but instead I went to wilderness and I went back to the place of my encounter. You know what that means? He didn't allow himself with this new understanding of Jesus to let it be entangled by the influences of the world around him and the culture. You get born again, the Bible says bad company corrupts good morals. You get born again, and one of the great privileges that we are invited into is to be separated and developed by God. This is where the anointing comes from. This is why you're being called to prayer on 6:30 on Wednesdays, is so you can find yourself together, so you can let go of some of your traditions, so you can let go of some of what you brought with you, and you can find what God has for you going forward together. God has a future and he's going to write it in prayer. Somebody said history belongs to the intercessors. People who gather together and pray will find the future that God has already written through hearing together, and it will put you in a community together, be separated and developed. Um, Paul gives us a few things that he needed to be separated from. I will use these as analogies for you. If you are new to Christ, I will tell you that one of the greatest things you can do is just allow the gospel to work in you until it sifts away these things that you bring with you into it. If you've been in the gospel a while, then you know this. The whole thing is about letting go. Jesus bids us come and die. Yeah. So we can find the beauty, so we can learn to love, let go of greed, get rid of the lust. All of it that makes us not love to be in presence gets developed out. Paul said that he had to let go of a few things. Let me give them to you real quick. Number one, his former conduct he had to be separated from. How many of you know you need to let go of your former conduct? Number two, he had to be separated from his contemporaries. Huh? The people who have validated you for too long. The people, you know one of the things the church is terrible about? Drug addicts will take anybody. We have an expectation. But listen, we have to be separated from the places that have made us feel like ourselves so we can find our new self. Number three is his own nation. How many of you understand that there are things that make us uniquely American, but we are not American Christians, we are Christian missionaries to America. Yeah? And finally, the traditions of his father. There are some things that we hold on to that we call them gospel, and they are just church. May God separate us and develop us. Next, what Paul did was he was joined. I'm gonna get there as fast as you'll go with me. Can you go with me? Say yes. Can you give me about five minutes? Can you say yes? Maybe three. All right. Number three. Uh maybe not. The team is coming. Let me go quicker. Joined. He was joined together. Listen, be joined to community. Are you with me? Be joined to community. You have to join yourself together to community. Paul said that after he had spent three years in private, letting God sift through his own heart, he joined himself to community. You know what happens in community? You can't fake it. So you have to live it. And the less we want community means the more we're trying to hide. And that's not true just for you, that's true for me. We need a people that we can walk together with so we can walk this thing out. And I'm not just talking about the church thing, I'm talking about the Jesus thing. Are you with me? Say yes. We had to be joined. You should join yourself to godly leaders for character development and for calling. And you should join yourself to community for prayer and for purpose. You should join yourself to godly leaders. Come submit, say, how can I help? How can I serve? Would you speak into my life? If you see something in me, call it out. And join yourself to a group of people that you can walk together with, raise your kids with, walk it out. This is what this thing is long term. Number four, he stepped into his calling after he had to after he had been separated and developed, after he had been joined together, submitting himself, fellowship alongside of other brothers, he stepped into his calling. The Bible says he was unknown by face to them. When God has so transformed you, he will make a man that has met the man into a message. Step into calling. Do that as a church. Set some things out in front of you that are bigger than gathering together on Sunday. Believe God that you when you once you have heard Him, that God has a plan and a purpose to use your life to reach somebody else's life. And don't put it off. Be developed, be joined, listen, hear, obey, trust. It's the only way. And finally, finally, once all of that had happened, this is what it says in verse number 24. And they glorified God in me. This is what Paul says. This is what Paul testifies to the end of his uh, to the end result of God having spoke to him, revealed himself to him. And I believe this is what he tells them for validating that the message that he preached to them had come from God. But I also believe that it was supposed to remind the hearer of how precious the message that had come to them really was. See, the antidote for a watered-down faith is for us to remember where it all started. Remember what Jesus said after he had been gone now for nearly forty years. He finds a lampstand that's a church flickering at the beginning of the book of Revelation, and he writes to him, What? Go back to your first love. You know what gives us resolve to be stretched, to endure. You know one of the unique characteristics about this gospel is it has endured for 2,000 years. It has come against persecution. It has been tried to be stamped out and stomped out so many times. The gospel is like a grease fire. When you persecute it, it's water on it, and it just spreads. It just spreads. You know, this message that came to you in Denwiddy, Virginia, started so long ago and has been has been carried by people that were beheaded and they were hung upside down. The preciousness of this gospel. The characteristic that defines it is that it endures. It endures. It endures through us, it endures in us. And the answer to not letting it be watered down is once again to remember that it didn't start with a message, it started with a man. Yeah. Is that good for somebody this morning? You remember Jesus. I wonder if. We are helping the world churches, and I will tell you you are absolutely blessed to have a worship team like this in this space. I know some of you probably came from maybe different churches in a different place. Especially it's one thing to play, it's another thing to be anointed, to care about stewarding and singing to the face of Jesus so that the presence of God comes. I love what Pastor Keith said just a little bit ago when she encouraged you to remember where God had brought you from. Do you know that worshiping God for where he's brought you from will actually escalate the process? The Bible says this. It says he healed ten lepers. One of them came back and gave thanks, and that one was made whole. You know the difference between being healed and being made whole? Worship, you'll find out. And where's his anointed, man? Nobody ever says this to the drummer. I love you. You're anointed. I'm gonna give you a couple opportunities to respond to Jesus in just a moment. Come on, can we can we one more time say that name, Jesus? Lord, would you let this always be a church with that name on their lips? Lord, I pray over this house, even before we respond, I pray this. I pray the name Jesus will be said in this house more than the name of the church. I just I pray that I prophesied that over you. This is gonna be a place for Jesus. You know what the vision of Vision Church is? I can already tell you because I know your pastor. You know what it is? It's eyes like flames of fire, hair white like wool, feet bronze like brass, if you don't know the Bible, that's Jesus ascended, exalted and highly lifted up. Thank you. I just I I I I speak over this house, that this will always be a house for Jesus. That even if some are sent from here to go and plant their uh another work, if there are some who become missionaries raised out of this house, that the one that will always remain is Jesus. But he will be the focus. And Lord, if we start to, if this house ever starts to be introspective, would you lift its eyes to the hills where its help comes from? Holy Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Paul said, Man didn't give me this revelation. The one that I came to preach to you. Man didn't give me this testimony, man didn't give me this walk into this story, man didn't separate me, man didn't join me again, man didn't call me, and it's not man being glorified. If you're in this place today, I want to give you an opportunity. I told you my story, and now you've heard the message. But here's the question have you met the man? I'm gonna ask the prayer team to come wherever you are, and I'm gonna say if you've heard the message, but you have not met the man, and you, you like me. Maybe you're at the end of your rope, or maybe you're exhausted. Maybe maybe you today just sense that something has happened that's come in this room today, something different. And today, today, you've heard the message, and now it's time to meet the man. If that's you today, right where you are, this is what I'm gonna ask you to do. If today, if if you've heard this message, let me tell you with clarity the gospel that Jesus died for you. He loves you, and there's nothing you can do to change that, but he died for you in your stead as a son of man so that you could become a son of God, a daughter of God, and you'll still be lost and wayward unless you learn to yield not to a philosophy, not to a message, not to self-help, not to legalism, not to not to what do I have to do, but to the one who leads besides still waters, green pastures, and is ever faithful. Today, if you've heard the message and you want to meet the man, I want you to raise your hand right where you are today. You want to give your life to Jesus Christ and give up right back there. Yep. Come on, yes, come on, that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, yes, sir, yeah, come on, so good. Here's what I'm gonna do right where you are. If you have your hand up, we're gonna pray for you in just a moment, but you're not gonna come alone because there are some of you in this place. What you need to do is you you need to recognize that you you you've met the man, but you haven't yet been separated so he can develop you. And you know you're in that in-between place where you're still living some of what you have lived, and you haven't fully committed yourself to step into the Lordship and the leadership of Jesus Christ, not because there's something you're not doing, not because something you're not letting go of, but because of that, you're choosing to stay still and stagnant. And he wants to lead you out of that. So I'm gonna invite you in just a moment to come and pray too. And number three is the reason why you're gonna answer this call, because those people who just raised their hand to get born again today, how many of you know that's everything? Put your hands together for Jesus. Come on, but but but they have to have something to be joined to. And if you're half in and half out, who's gonna disciple them? So you'll answer this call if it's time for you to be joined. And all of this is the prescription for what? The glory of God. This is our goal. That God would be glorified before you answer. I'm gonna pray. And if you need to go, you can go. But if you need to answer this moment to respond, don't don't make, don't leave out of this place having not responded to what you've sensed in this moment. If you raised your hand, don't say, All right, that was just a moment. No, you're gonna come and you're gonna join. You're gonna come and you're gonna walk, be separated. You're gonna come and you're gonna step into a calling. You're gonna come and you're gonna recognize a transformed message. I was sitting on jail steps.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

What a God! What a God! I remember the day they gave me the check to go by the building that our church is in. I was trembling to hold that because I knew who I used to be, but I'm not who I used to be. What a God. So this is my this is what I'm going to pray for for us. God be glorified in Dinwiddie, Virginia. God be glorified all over the woods of Virginia. Lord, I I pray into what what our um what our executive presbyter saw when he said, I see brush fires all over the woods of Virginia. He said he saw the brush fires joining together. And I just pray, Lord, that this is a brush fire in this place. A fire for Almighty God, a burning flame for the glory of the Lamb, the Christ, in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_02 52:37

Come on, if you need to answer that altar call, would you just come right now? If you lifted your hand, you can come. If you know that you need prayer today to be separated to God, just come.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

Don't let it.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

If you need to step in and be more deeply joined, come.

SPEAKER_01 52:54

Come on, if you're a part of this family and you felt the presence of God joining you, just come. This is why they're gonna pray for you. Yeah, that's right. Welcome home, brother. Right here, too. Welcome to the family.