TRANSCRIPTION | Sunday, August 28, 2022 | The World Didn’t Give It Series | The Motley Crew

 

We had the privilege last week to launch a brand new message series. We're looking at the book of Philippians, so why we're doing this? It is four chapters and we're looking at it for four weeks. So last week looked at chapter one. This week we're going to look at chapter two beginning this afternoon. If you want to begin reading chapter three.

 

It would just put you in line for where we're going next week. And if you go to Eric Gilbert Dawg, or even the Three Trees media, social media pages, we've got different things that are available for you that can kind of help you prepare for the series, learn more through the series, study it, study your Bible a little more effectively, and just help you in your personal discipleship process.

 

And so the title of this series is The World Didn't Give It, and if the world didn't give it, the world can't take it away. Anybody ever sung that old song? Come on, the world didn't give it and the world can't take it away. And so there some very clear things that Paul exemplifies in the book of Philippians.

 

He is the author of this book, and he just makes it plain that there's some stuff that God's given you the devil's never going to be able to take from you. And so I want to show you an anchor text this morning. And one of the reasons that the world can't take it is therefore God exalted him. This is our anchor text this morning.

 

Therefore, God exalted Jesus to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the Earth. And every tongue will confess or acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, many of you are very familiar with this passage.

 

It's one that many of you can quote or you've heard teachers or preachers quote that the name of Jesus is above every name. And because of that name, someday ever knees going to bow, every tongue is going to confess and every demon must flee. And so we we celebrate this verse. It's one of those bumper sticker verses, one of those coffee cup verses, if you will.

 

And it's it's the type of verse that that is. The book of Philippians is just filled with. There's, there's bumper sticker verse after bumper sticker verse. Some of the most quoted passages in the entire Bible are in the book of Philippians. And I think you're going to see that this week as you saw it last week and even in the next two weeks.

 

And so the world didn't give it, Father. Help me to teach. Help me to preach. Help me to share your word. And I just pray God, you would use this moment to provoke each of us to our next step. And you, Lord, whatever that might be, let it be done in the name of Jesus. And this church said, Amen.

 

I realize that we all come into this moment from different backgrounds. Some of you have been in church your entire life. Others of you are new to church, which probably means that we have different levels of understanding of scripture. Some of you may be very well schooled in the study of the Bible. Others of you may be just getting familiar with the Bible.

 

Some of you. If I were to ask you to turn to the Book of Philippians, it might take you a while. You might not know whether it's in the Old Testament or the New Testament, others of you. You would be like, Yeah, it's right there. Towards the end of the New Testament. It's just a few pages thick. I got it, you know.

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So what I want to do is just give you just a little bit of of overarching context for this book. Now, we talked about last week, and I remind you again this week that the Apostle Paul wrote two thirds of the New Testament and what we call books he actually originally presented as letters. So when you're talking about the book of Philippians or as some people might say, the epistle of Philippians, it was written to a specific church in a city called Philippi, and it was presented as a letter. And so what you notice about it is that Philippians is the only letter from Paul in the New Testament, in which he is not trying to correct bad teaching or rebuke bad behavior. Like every other letter that Paul wrote to a church, he has some type of, like, corrective tone in it. Maybe he's heard that there's some kind of teaching that is false doctrine and needs to be dealt with. Or maybe he's heard that there's some kind of sin that's in the congregation that needs to be addressed. And and you'll see him just come at those subjects very straightforward in the tone of the letter. But in the book of Philippians, there's not really any of that. He does provide a little bit of correction, but he does it in like a very subtle way, and he almost has the correction into just other statements that he's making in general.

 

And so what you begin to learn is that Paul absolutely loved the people in his church. In fact, the Bible talks about the fact that in the Book of Philippians talks about that he he experienced joy when he would pray for these people or he would think about these people or he would hear reports of these people. And so what we learn is that Philippians may actually be the best New Testamentipcture of what a maturing church looks like and what maturing people do. So so if you're saying, okay, if I'm a part of a church that is experiencing an effective discipleship process, if I as a person and growing in my walk with God, the book of Philippians becomes a great mirror for what it looks like to actually mature in your relationship with the Lord.

 

And so one of the things that we learned last week as well, just to recap for a moment, is that there's two men that play a substantial role in this church getting started. One is real and the other is figurative. The first is the Macedonian man and what we know about Macedonia is it was a region in Philippi was in that region.

 

And so Paul was out preaching. He had had a radical conversion. He had become an incredible student of the word and had all of this revelation about the gospel of Jesus Christ in connection with the Old Testament scriptures. And when he started preaching, people were just impacted in a powerful way. And so he's out planting churches all over the place, and he's headed in a specific direction. The Bible says the spirit of Jesus stopped him and said, don't go any further preaching in this direction. And that night he had a dream or some type of a vision, and he saw a Macedonian man who was pleading for help.

 

Now, he must have been dressed in some kind of garment that Paul associated with that region. Maybe he saw signage associated with the region. All we know is he knew immediately this man is from Macedonia. And so Paul turns his his ministry and the Bible says immediately him and his team, he's with Silas and a young man named Timothy.

 

They take off towards Macedonia. And Philippi was like the metropolitan area of Macedonia. And so it just made sense that that would be the place that he would go to and he would start preaching. Once he's there, he gets arrested for preaching and for doing ministry. He goes into prison. There is an earthquake as he is praising God in the middle of the night and the whole jail, for the most part, seems to get converted, including the jailer.

 

And so a Macedonian man, a vision of that redirects Paul's path, and he ultimately meets a jailer who some scholars believe may have actually become an elder or maybe even the lead pastor in that congregation. A macedonian man and a jailer. But there's also two women that play a key role in this church. The fortuneteller and the fashionista. We talked a little bit about the fortuneteller last week that she's a girl that was actually enslaved to the temple and business people associated with the false goddess. And she would go about fortune telling. And Paul cast a demon out of her. When he did, she could no longer do the fortune telling, which is why he wound up in jail. People were so upset about it, but she experienced this radical conversion. But but what we didn't talk about last week is this other woman.

 

And it's actually maybe one of the first key figures that Paul met when he went to Philippi. And it was a woman named Lydia, and she was leading a Bible study, and she had come to learn about the ways of Judaism or Jewish culture, which means she was studying the Ten Commandments and certain laws associated with Jewish people, and she was having a Bible study and they were studying all of this and they were trying to live these commandments, and they were impacted by these commandments.

 

And they wanted as many people as possible to know these commandments. But when Paul shows up, he's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Like, you're on to something here, but you're missing. You're missing the big picture you need to know about Jesus Christ. And if you come to know about Jesus Christ, you understand the only way you're ever going to able to live this law and overcome your failure in the law is to experience his love, his grace, and the power of his atonement in his blood.

 

And so Lydia accepts Jesus and has this just significant conversion. But what's unique about her is when you read the Book of Acts, it paints a picture of who she actually was. And she evidently was quite wealthy because she had a home in two of the metropolitan areas at that time, which required great wealth to even own one home, much less to.

 

And she was associated with the fashion business. And it's believed that she was like the CEO of some big fashion empire that spread out across all of Roman influence at that time. And Paul winds this woman to the Lord. So what we're learning here is that he won one of the Kardashians.

 

Isn't it unique to think that that Paul and one side, he's winning a slave girl. On the next side, he's winning a fashionista. Now, when he dealt with the slave girl, he expressed the power of the spirit. And that's how the gospel impacted her life. But what we see in Scripture is that when he dealt with the fashionista, he appealed to her intellect and he taught her things about God.

 

She didn't know, and that's how she experienced salvation. So we actually learned something about how to present the gospel by evaluating how these two women came to be a part of the church. But I don't know if you're starting to see the picture or not, but this church that Paul loves, this church that Paul is just absolutely crazy about, the church that PHILIPPa bolstered, a fortune teller, a fashionista and a jailer as three of its first attendees.

 

Not to mention that it really got its major start at the revival that broke out at the jail, which means there are former inmates sitting everywhere. So you have this congregation that's got a former slave seated next to a fashionista and a Roman jailer somewhere in the middle with inmates scattered about it. Paul is like, I love hanging out with these people, man.

 

They just love to worship Jesus. They love to grow in their relationship with God. They give me joy. But you see the diversity. There's diversity in their economic background. There's diversity in the demographics and even their ethnicity. For instance, it's believed that Lydia was probably an Asian person. Now, think about it for a second. Our natural tendency is to pursue similarity.

 

But the gospel is not natural. It's supernatural. And so if if everybody in your circle looks like you, you're probably not fully yielded to the gospel. When you come into a church experience, people should look different. There should be a diverse experience. People coming from different economic backgrounds, people coming from different ethnicities, people coming from all of these different scopes and spheres of life and influence.

 

And what Paul said to this diverse church in Philippians chapter two that he loves so much, this he's like, I just want to encourage you, don't ever lose this Christlike unity that you have in the midst of your diversity. Philippians chapter two, verse 20, we begin to dove in, he says. Therefore, if you have encouragement from being unified with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being in one spirit and of one mind.

 

Watch this. So do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourself. Now, what's this next part? Not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of others. So? So what he's telling them is. I get it. Like you are former slave, you're extremely wealthy, you're a Roman jailer.

 

That's rough and tumble and sing the things that even battlefield because that's typically who would become a jailer is a former soldier. I get it. Some of you used to be thieves and so he used to steal stuff and others of you have deceived people and you're all coming from all these different backgrounds. But Jesus is up to something in the middle of you.

 

And He said, I just want you to keep putting other people before yourself. And I think we could even say that what he's trying to do is he's helping the Philippians connect the dots between what they received and what they owed. So they've received Jesus and they receive grace. And as a result of that, they owe love and they owe humility.

 

And what Paul's saying is that, man, this is going to complete the joy that I already have associated with you. So how to complete Paul's joy and probably more of interest to some of you, how to complete your own joy. If you summarize these first few verses, what he's really saying is Just learn to live with unity. Live in unity with each other.

 

Live in unity with each other, usually. Well, how do I do that? I can't get along with Buehler. I can't go along with Freddie. Every time we look at each other, we just feel this crazy tension. Well, what you also see in those verses is he's saying you need to put self concern aside. I just didn't I didn't get eamonn's in the first service on that one either.

 

You understand that unity requires compromise and it's almost impossible to compromise if you're constantly concerned about what you're going to get out of it. So and I'm not talking about compromising your values or compromising your faith. I'm talking about sometimes just it's my way or the highway. Second thing he says is love each other. Sounds simple enough. How do I do that?

 

First Corinthians Chapter 13 shows you what the love of God should look like in the New Testament people in the New Testament church. But what he's saying is, give God's grace to one. Another like you've received grace. Now give grace. God forgives you of something you didn't deserve to be forgiven up. Now it might be you to forgive somebody if something that they don't deserve to be forgiven of. That maybe that's the way you're going to be able to love them. See? See what some of you maybe don't realize yet is you think we're just talking about a church and thus far, the things we've already shared, if you would apply it to your marriage, if you were to apply it to your business partnership, if you would apply it to your teammates, to your coach, to your professors, to your teachers, to your career path, this will positively affect every relationship that you're in.

 

The third thing, he says, is work together to exalt Christ. So when you talk about even church relationship tips. Well, sure, that's what we're here to do, is to glorify the name of Jesus. Can I get a witness from somebody? And we're working together to do that. That's what you saw in that picture when we were going through the process of mainly giving you some updates and captivate is people who chose to work together.

 

I don't know how many of you were in that warehouse following those tornadoes, but there were 40 people, 40 families that lost everything. 70 families that were displaced and 100 families that were affected. And all of a sudden, these people had nothing. And they were waiting on FEMA and they were waiting on insurance. So they didn't have assistance.

 

It didn't have help. And you guys started giving up your time. You started giving up your talent. You started giving your church. We had one person that came on the property and did not leave for 36 hours. That's what happens when you put other people first. That's what happens when you said we're going to work together. I was I received a call from someone managing disaster relief recently and they said, man, we're in the middle of this.

 

And we had to call the police because people who are working in our warehouse are fighting with people who've come in to do outreach stuff. And and he's like, Can you give me any advice? And I'm like, We I'm sorry. Like, we didn't have that problem. We just we just got a bunch of jailers, fashionistas and fortune tellers, and they all get along with each other.

 

Adam It's probably all the inmates. It's whatnot. And I don't know that I've ever felt like more overflowing joy towards our congregation. My wife and I talked about it like we never had a moment where anybody was fussing over the best way to serve the community. We just served the community and there were, yeah, moments of there were moments of tension and there were moments of like, how are we going to do all this?

 

And there were moments of, we don't think we're capable, but we just kept pulling together. And when it would get a little tense, we just have a family discussion and we'd all come in like a family, like brothers and sisters and father and mother, and let's do this thing and go back out, put a black eye on the devil, because what we're ultimately doing is striving together for holiness.

 

That's what it's what a great relationship looks like. It's what a a great church looks like that when we're like somebody falls and you're not making an example out of them. You're helping them back up. You love them enough to, like, help them get back on their feet and encourage them. Yeah, man, you fail. Yeah, you messed up. But we're going to get this thing. So what Paul goes on to say, verse number three is do nothing from selfish ambition or vain conceit.

 

Do nothing from selfish ambition or bankruptcy.

 

So what he's talking about is motivation. He's not saying that ambition is bad. He's saying selfish ambition is bad.

What he's saying is that if what you're doing starts, if your action, if your conversation starts with the wrong motivation, it's going to mess up your relationship. So what he's talking about is that there are forbidden motivations in Scripture. So he says that selfish ambition is a forbidden motivation. He says that vain conceit is a forbidden motivation. Be careful with selfishness.

 

Be careful with ambition. That is all about putting yourself first or getting yourself more recognized. Be careful with conceit. One guy said it this way. Conceit is about appearances. It's about saving face. Conceit is a pride that connects our feelings to our image. So do you compare yourself to others and become bitter when you think you don't measure up?

 

Do you struggle with jealousy or anger because you keep seeing the successes or joys of others and then compare your own failures? Do you find yourself despising other people? Have you ever felt happy when somebody's got theirs? Conceit, selfish ambition and conceit come from the idolatrous belief that we are due more than we have received.

 

And that we're worthy of more honor than we're getting. And it brings unnecessary tension to our relationships. And that kind of mentality certainly does not come from the mind of Christ. And that's why Paul told these people.

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Not looking to your own interest, but looking to the interest of others. I think my favorite quote from my wife in the 25 years that we've been doing life together is the mindset of entitlement is cruelty to others. When you start feeling entitled, when your ambition gets selfish.

 

When you have your interest above the interest of everybody else, either knowingly or unknowingly, other people can be experiencing cruelty as a result of the decisions that you're making. Now, yesterday I had to be in Nashville and that's always quite an experience for me because I'm from the country and.

 

I was sitting at a stoplight and there was a car in front of me and the light turned green and the car didn't go forward. And I'm trying to figure out like, what's what's going on. And as I'm looking into the vehicle, I realize that the reason the person doesn't know that the light is turned green is because they have the rearview mirror turned at themselves. I gave it 3 seconds and then I blowed my horn. That girl did not in any way, shape or form or fashion acknowledge my human existence, nor the fact that the light was green and all of these people were behind her, she continued.

 

And so I utilized the tools available to me once more, my horn. And finally she was alerted to the fact that it was green and she proceeded forward. And, I was doing okay. I mean, stuff happens, you know, you got to look to the good.

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I get it. You know? And then the one lane road turned to a two lane road. And I decided it's really time for me and her to break company. You need to move on around her. And as I started to do so, she just she was in the left hand line. She starts drifting over into my lane. And next thing I know, I'm nearly taking out pedestrians on the sidewalk to keep her from merging into my driver's side door. And as I look like, Oh, I didn't handle that well, but it's okay because Mandy got mad too. And she's like, "What is wrong with that girl?" And my kids are in the backseat and I don't know. I just feel like they can fix the problem. So I turn and say "What is wrong with your generation." And the next thing I know, someone's blowing the horn at me because I'm in the wrong lane. 

 

Uh, it's. It is what we do, though, isn't it? I agree. We get so consumed with our self. And the way that we look and the way that we're being presented, even spiritually. Sometimes we don't realize that we're running other would be Christians right off the road. That we're keeping other people from taking their next step in God because we're just so consumed with.

 

Holding up the line. And who recognizes us and who acknowledges us and who talks about how wonderful we are all just trying to get that next selfie. And sometimes I don't think we understand the consequences of those kinds of decisions.

 

And so that's the thing that I would say to you, that I believe Paul is getting to the point of choose humility and it's a choice and you have to make it for yourself. Like, what's what? Paul saying? He says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility, value others above yourselves. The only way you're going to be able to put someone above yourself is if you choose to humble yourself.

 

What I think Paul is also getting at is that Jesus model submission to the Heavenly Fathers. We all do self-emptying humility. So one thing you notice about Philippians chapter two is it is a chapter of examples. And so Paul gives the example of a guy named after Titus and says, Man, he's done great. You could do what he does.

 

He talks about Timothy said, Timothy's done great. You could do what he does. He talks little bit about himself and says, My model would also be okay for you to follow. But his day starts with Jesus and one thing He shows us is that if you're going to be able to model humility, you're going to have to model Jesus.

 

And there's no greater model of how to empty yourself for the sake of others than Jesus. In fact, in verse five, he lays it out for you in your relationships with one another, just have the same mind as Jesus Christ who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God, something to be used to His own advantage.

 

Rather, He took himself off the throne and made himself nothing but taking the very nature of a servant. He became someone that would wash feet, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance. As a man he humbled himself by become obedient to death, even to death on a cross. And so if you want to know what humility looks like, just study Jesus.

 

If you want to know what it looks like to put other people before yourself, just study Jesus if you want to. It looks like to truly love other people. There's no greater love any man can have and delight in his life for his brother to study Jesus. And what you'll notice is that it is a rare occurrence in the Bible to see God exalting, strong, capable or brilliant people.

 

Most often God chooses nobodies. And I think that's the reason that the Bible tells us that Jesus made himself nothing. Verse five Again In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Jesus Christ. He made himself nothing, man.

 

We're just not geared that way in our society. Listen, I'm not I'm not trying to be mean towards a generation or unnecessarily pick on anybody. I'm honestly trying to present this in a humorous way. I'm going to give you one more experience in Nashville. I was Mandy. Now we're in a furniture store and we noticed that there was this young girl that was leaning back, doing very provocative things in the furniture store.

 

And we also noticed that she had a photographer with her and we just kind of took it in for a moment. And then we put together that she was she was presenting that home, that that furniture store and the room she was in as the home she lived in. Or the hotel room she was staying in. And she was really just making herself something. When there may have been nothing. And I thought, this is something to think that we have a better chance of experiencing God on the nothing side than we do on the something side.

 

And yet all of this pressure from society is to make yourself something, present yourself as something, get it filtered right, make it be just the right picture. Let it be with just the right image. Let it be presented in a way that looks like you're just absolutely killing it to make yourself nothing was the last time we just said, In this situation, I'm going to be nothing. So that person over there can be something.

 

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even to death on a cross. He gives us the example of humility. And it's important because all throughout scripture we learn the importance of humility. Jesus said. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. What he's saying is that you either choose to break yourself or he'll help you. And the difference is being humble versus being humiliated. So if we don't choose to be humble, we are at the vulnerability of humiliation.

 

James, Chapter four says, Humble yourself before the Lord and he will lift you up. Peter talked about it. Humble yourselves, therefore under God's mighty hand that He may lift you up. So you got to be careful with this selfish ambition in this vein conceit, because it all comes in the package of this thing called pride.

 

And pride has a way of saying stuff like, I got it figured out, I got this. Sounds to me like some of that goes right before a fall. Um.

 

Proverbs six, verse 16 and 17, summarize says God hates haughty eyes. Proverbs 813 God says pride and arrogance are hate. Proverbs 16, Verse five Everyone who is arrogant and heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured He will not go unpunished. James. Chapter four, Verse six God proposes the proud. If you were to put all of this in summary, what we basically could say is that if we do the things that Paul calls selfish ambition and conceit, God says You are my enemy.

 

But God says to the humble and heart, I am with you and I am for you. So back to Philippians two in your relationships with one another, just have the same mindset of Christ who was willing to say, I will make my self nothing and take on the nature of a servant. Therefore he humbled himself by becoming obedient, even to death, even onto a cross.

 

And for that reason, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name that at that name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue self-confessed and acknowledged that Jesus Christ is a Lord. That's how Jesus got the elevation of His name.

 

The Father said, I'm going to take his name and I'm going to put it above every other name, because he was willing to become nothing when he was actually something. You want to be something than become nothing. I get it.

 

Trips our mind, doesn't it?

 

I'm actually starting to think this is why Paul was in love with the church of Phillipi.

 

A fashionista, who's been exposed to all of the immorality of the highest levels of the Roman Empire. And they were wicked, wicked people. She's seen it all. She's done it all. She's been around it all, 

 

A fortune teller living in a temple, worshiping a snake, demon possessed. Highly likely, she was also a prostitute according to church history and the culture at that time.

 

Roman jailer, we didn't talk about this last week. Good to talk about it this week. So it says that he put them in stocks. Paul and Silas, when they got the church service going, it says they were in stocks. That decision was at every jailers own mercy. You could put them in a prison or you could put them in stocks. And when you think about stocks, it does not mean chains on hanging chains on feet. It means that your body was completely distorted in a painful way, some way, shape or form or fashion to actually cause you as much distress as possible. So when Paul and Silas decided to start worshiping, they were in stocks. That jailer was ruthless. He was mean, he was hateful. He's the kind of guy you don't want to hang out with. He's seen battle. He stuck his sword through people's spines, and now he gets the chance to torment whoever comes to his prison doors. But the inmates, what's their story? What did this one deal? What did that one seal? Who did this one cheat? Who did that one murder? But when they got Jesus, it's almost like they realize had it. Not been for the hand of the Lord, tell me where, oh, where would I be?

 

And I ain't got time to argue about what color we're going to paint the walls and where we're going to park the chariots and where we're going to top the horses and who's going to keep the kids today? We just going to worship Jesus. We're going to look up. We're just going to worship Jesus. Because I might be a fashionista, but his name is above my name and I was a fortuneteller, so I can tell you his name is above my name. And I was a jailer and a soldier who has done so much wrong. And all I can tell you is that his name is above my name.

 

And if a church and a people and a relationship group ever gets it figured out that it's not about the name of a preacher, it's not about the name of a church, it's not about the name of an organization. It's not about your name or my name. It's about his name. It is the name that is above every name.

 

I wish somebody would praise the name of Jesus. We praise the name of Jesus. It is the name that is above every name. These will bow, tongues will confess demons will feed at the name of Jesus. So what names on top of your house? He names on top of your life. Go ahead. What names? On top of your brand.

 

They can come to the music. I don't even know who's supposed to go. Jesus, Jesus. Just say it. I'm telling you, it.

 

Makes the devil mad, Jesus. Because every time you say Jesus, you just reminded the devil. He ain't got the best name. Jesus. You understand? That's what Lucifer wanted. He wanted the throne. He wanted the name above all names, Jesus said.

But I was there when he fell like lightning. Jesus.

 

That's why the enemy fights the name of Jesus. It's why in a corrupt culture, in a corrupt government, and all the different stuff that goes on in our world, and it tends to be sometimes Jesus and Christianity that gets the most jaded because it's the only name. That can change the world. So every head bowed, every are closed. Are you struggling with some selfish ambition? Are you struggling with some vain conceit? Has it separated you from Jesus? Has it prevented you from ever even having a relationship with Jesus?

 

Well, right now I'm going to invite you to enter into just a mindset of repentance before the Lord. And the international sign of surrender is the lifting of a hand. And for some of you, in just a moment, when you lift your hand, it's going to mean that you're coming to Jesus for the very first time and you lay it aside, everything that's kept you from that decision, others of you, it's going to be a moment of rededication or you just get honest and you're like, yeah, man, I've not been humble. It's affected my walk with God and other people.

 

Others of you. It's not that you don't have a relationship with Jesus or that you've never been saved. It's just there's this lingering issue with not being able to put other people before yourself. And today, just as a sign of humility before the Lord, it's going to be a moment to just surrender to a fresh start in Jesus.

 

It's the cross of Jesus, the blood of Jesus that makes this possible. If that resonates with you, if you feel the Spirit of God dealing with you, I will ask you just to lift your hand in any of those ways. It can mean different things for different people. Views like that mean something to me. God's dealing with me today. I need a fresh start in some way, some shape, some fashion.

 

Maybe it's relationships. In any number of ways. Maybe it's your relationship with God. Specifically, I to pray with you. I want to pray for you, Father. We come to you in the name of Jesus and we ask you that you would give us a fresh start. Lord, we repent of selfish ambition. We repent of living conceited lifestyles.

 

We repent God of choosing our own way and our our own stuff over other people. And God, we know that you want us to have ambition and you want us to experience good things. But we've really struggled with how selfishness can just creep in.

 

And God, we thank you for the deliverance that you're bringing to our life through the work of grace and the work of salvation in the work of Jesus. Today, Lord, we speak the name of Jesus. And we say that it's greater than our name.And anything that we're associated with the name of Jesus. We will wear His name like a banner over our life. The name of Jesus, the name of Jesus, the name of Jesus. Could you just say that name? One more time? Jesus.