Church Hurt - Real Talk pt 6

I'm so excited to be before you guys. We are still in a series which we have called The Real Talk. And in the Real Talk, we're dealing with real issues and real things and often times most churches are not prepared to have that conversation. You know, sometimes we like to dove deep into areas where it gets kind of what we call sketch in the 21st Century, right? So the past several weeks, we've been in a series called A Real Talk, and we've been talking about real issues. We open up the sermon series where we begin to talk about how Jesus went to the temples and started flipping over tables. When we talk about flipping tables, we begin to look at the things that we look at in today's world, in today's society, where we want to address the systemic things that really people begin to make money off, or just really the systemic things that people deal with.

Right. So our church, we are challenged to to begin to address human trafficking. We know that human trafficking in this area is a huge issue. Our church has decided to take on the battle about immigration, immigration reform. And we believe don't don't get it mis misconceived or mis interrupted that we believe in safe borders. We believe in protecting our borders. But we also believe that we have to advocate for those who don't have a voice We believe in advocating for those who have a voice, but no know how to use their voice. And that's what immigration reform is all about. Even in that we are dealing with what we call racial reconciliation, because the Bible is talk of talks about all it is.

It's about reconciliation from Genesis to Revelation, from the fall of the atom to Jesus landed on Earth and how John writes in the book of Revelation it talks about the reconciliation of man back to God. The Father we went through. We talked about embracing the other side. What does it look like to embrace the other side? And oftentimes the other side is doesn't look so favorable Pastor Vanessa, she preached on mental health and anxiety and depression. And what that looks like in the Christian community is just we as individuals, how we deal with that. And we believe that even in Jeremiah Chapter 30, this is what the word of God says. He says that I will restore your health and I will heal your wounds. And many of us, we are carrying wounds of depression and anxiety and God wants to heal those wounds for you. Unless we are taught on no strings attached. And no, that's not the 21st Century where you get to DM, somebody say, let's hook up. There won't be any strings attached. That's not the type of strings we're talking about. We talked about the strings where in Scripture says that you carry the sins of your mother, your mothers and your fathers to the third and fourth generation and often times when we're holding on to those strings, those hearts in those habits, in those things that we were connected to for so long, that this hold us back from getting where God wants us to be, the only way that you can really loose those strings is embracing Jesus Christ himself.

Jesus is our advocate. And last week we talked about how you live and how you love and how you lead is a learned behavior. And ironically, last week when we left church, last week, we went out to eat and there was a family talking about their child, I guess a toddler, maybe six year olds. I just give them six and they're laughing about how that child just started cussing. And all of us, as about 15,000, went out to eat. And we know that if a child who they at the age of six and they start cursing, we know that is a learned behavior, right? Come on church, let's keep it real. There's nothing cute about it. So if it's a learned behavior, that means those are things and those are the language. Is this that being repeated at their home at their home front because we understand what's repeated gets replicated what's repeated gets replicated even in the no strings attached sermon that we talked about last week, we talked about the identification precedes transformation, how to begin to identify those things in your life.

That you want God to really transform and mold and shape and begin to really pull out. And it doesn't matter how dysfunction your family may be. Amen.It never stops God from functioning. It doesn't matter how dysfunctional you may be. It never stops God from functioning. And so today is Pentecost Sunday. And so those Bible theologians are out there. I see a few. What is Pentecost Sunday? Pentecost, Sunday is the birth of the church. It's the birth of the church. What we see in the Book of Acts and chapter two, where the church was formed and formalized into a saint is where is the process where Jesus said that he will leave another, that he will send another an advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. Come on, l he will send us to empower us to to encourage us and to guide us. And so today it's only fitting that we talk about what Pentecost Sunday looks like, what Pentecost and he really is, as we are birthing more churches and we're birthing what God has called us to do and we, we at one church, we desire to continue to multiply churches.

So we don't desire to be a megachurch. We b we desire to be an effective church. We desire to multiply more churches. We desire to send people out so we desire to seek the one we desire to serve the one. And then we desire to send one right we seek, we serve. And we said we seek the lost right. We seek the one that's sitting by themselves and one that may be a little strange that the person who may be just off by themselves, that we want to seek them out. Such a way to remind that God has a calling. The purpose in your life and in our seeking, we want a motto serving, and they send them out to operate effectively what God has called them to do.

So really to lay a foundation about Pentecost Sunday. And we're ready today. Let me just allow you to turn to you by was the daily Bible turn to mark chapter nine versus 14 through 29 Mark Chapter nine in the New Testament. Mark Chapter nine Mark Chapter nine versus 14 through 29 I'll be reading and lifting up the interview version. If you don't have it with you, it will be on the screen for you as well. Mark Chapter nine verse 14 says When they came to the other disciples they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

What are you arguing about? He said. A man in the crowd answered, Teacher I brought my son who was possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever he seizes him and throws him to the ground, he foams at the mouth gnash is that his teeth and becomes rigid. Ax your disciples to drive the spirit out, but they could not you unbelieving generation Jesus reply, How long shall I stay with you? How long should I work with you? How long should I do life? How long should you come to church and not believe? How long should you read your Bibles and not believe how long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me, he says. So they brought him to him. And when the Spirit saw Jesus it immediately threw the boy into convulsions.

He fell to the ground and rode around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy's father, How long has this has this been like this? How long has he been like this? The father answer from childhood. He said, It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you could do anything, take pity on us and help us if you can say, Jesus, everything is possible for the one who believes everything not just one thing, not two or three. Even on a good Sunday, maybe five, Jesus said Everything is possible for the one who believes immediately the boy's father's claim. I do believe, but help me overcome my own belief when Jesus saw the crowd was running into the sea, he rebuked the impure spirit. You deaf immune spirit, he said, I command you come out come out of him right now and never enter him again.

The spirit shrieked in convulse. Him finally came out. The boy looked so much like, of course, and many said he was dead. But Jesus took him by his hand, lifted him up to his feet, and the boy stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, Why couldn't we drive out this spirit? They said, and Jesus replied, In this way, this kind can only come out by prayer. So if I had to give a title to my message today, it would be church hurt. Church hurt what do you mean, Pastor Ryan? Truth be told, many of us, if not all of us at some point in our life, some point in our walk with Christ, we have may have or you will experience some type or form or fashion of church hurt and how you respond to that church or what determine where guy or where God desires you to be, how you respond to the church will determine where you would be how you respond to the things that takes place in your life would determine where you will be some of us may be bitter, angry, disappointed.

Some of us even may have felt not appreciated. We don't trust leaders, you know, we we we hear that all the times that Christians are hypocrites, right? Christian lie. They lie more than people that's out in the world. Even to the point where my convictions in my opinions that they try to press upon myself church is an example of miss hospital visits or missed phone calls or text messages or emails you may have thought I given my time, I give in my talent. I've come to this church every week. I practice, I serve, I leave worship I'm giving my life, I'm giving my money. I actually practically built this church with my money and used to have church heard the church is not a place for perfect people or perfect pastors. So let me just say right now, there's nobody that's perfect inside this church. I'm far from perfect. I'm like, you know, I may disappoint you I may have disappointed you in our apologize.The church may have disappointed you. The church may have let you down and I'm sorry the church is not a museum, but it's a hospital. The museum is where relics kind of sit in. You go by, you look at them and you'd be like, Oh, that's nice and it's beautiful. No, that's not the church. There's nothing pretty about the church because it's made up of broken people is made up of hurt.

People. It's a place where it's a hospital where you can come and be loved and to be served some of you may have said, I'm done with church. Some of you may know, some individuals said, I'm done with God. And I'll say this don't allow your disappointment to cause you to drift from God. Don't allow your disappointments with the church, your disappointments with with the leadership, with pastors, to cause you to drift away from God. Because I've been there before, right? I've see I've seen a lot take place. And this is crazy. This is so on time for me. Most people ask like, why are you preaching? I preach to myself every Sunday. So if this hits you in a certain way, that's great. If it doesn't come back and see me next week, man, oftentimes when I map out my sermon series, I map them out three to six months out. I had this in my sermon lineup for two months, solid and the week that I had last week. Let me just tell you this hits home. It hits home for me because there's no hurt like church hurt my journey. It just even just this past year and a half to, let's say, two years, my journey of just being a pastor in an executive pastor and all the other type of roles I've led into churches.

I've been to churches where I walk into an arena with my wife and myself, and we're in a homogeneous setting and in a setting this predominantly of one race or one culture. And we walk in and we sit down and they will politely remove themselves and get up and sit somewhere else. And they call themself Christians where you have people to lie on you, to backstab you, to begin to really try to defame your name. There's no no other, like, church hurt. I've watched my wife cry because of the things we had to deal with, with church, with people, with you guys. Hey, man, come on now. You are not perfect. There's days I want to cut you. I'm just saying I'll pray for you afterwards. Hey, man, I slap a Band-Aid on it. I might drive you to the hospital and kick you out and keep it going. I will. I promise you I will. There's been times where just being transparent. In previous role, that was it. I was an assistant pastor at another church in my Lee Pastor, the senior pastor. At time, he was grooming me to take over his role. Right. Everyone knew it. He was leaving the church to take another role within our district.

So people knew that he was grooming me, developing me. He was kind of just really passing the baton. So he takes this this presidential role within our district. And I'm waiting to get a phone call. Pastor, I want you to come have a seat with our leadership team. We want to interview you to become the lead pastor. Waiting for my phone call, waiting for email. Days, weeks, months passed never got a phone call. Never got a phone call. And to be honest, I didn't want the role because I knew the season of my life and the season of that church was not ready for me to have that role for me specifically for that church, but at least have the audacity to sit me down. The assistant pastor I'm the executive pastor of the church, and typically we are executive pastor, the assistant pastor.

You level up to the next level because they're grooming you to seek you out or take their role that call never came. Those meetings never took place it was rough. In fact, just what I saw. I saw other pastors come into my church, be interviewed for the role that I was supposed to have, that he voice that I was supposed to have never happened so what do we do to hire another pastor what do you think? Did I stay or did I go I stayed because God told me it was not my season to leave. Even in the midst of knowing where I was supposed to be, where God was grooming me to be, at least have a conversation with you until this day, that conversation never took place. The people that I served with for six years that I loved and we did. You know, we hang up, we hung out, we did dinners and we went out and traveled never said a word to myself or my wife. Talk about some herding times. And in a state, same church as servants saying Jokers boy, my wife, she started taking off her earrings you know, she got the Vaseline outside with the Vaseline on the face.

Let me give you our urban context. That's when you get to ghetto. You kind of put Vaseline your face on. They will scratch your face, OK, near my right. Let me bring it past for let me clear let me polish this up a little bit. Long story short, is this even when God was show me where I was supposed to be, my role was still there to serve that pastor and it took years for me to heal from it. I think my wife was more hurt than I was. And I'm like, I'm going to once was get the position, why are you mad? So maybe God did this to remind us. Let me let me say this. Let me give some context to chapter nine of Mark. The story starts off talks about a father who has a son who is possessed by a spirit kind of thing.

There's no name given to the father or the son. Same thing with the woman with the issue of the blood and Mark Chapter five. Same thing with the with the man who was by the pool of Bethesda. They were not given any name. So who they were I begin to ask, why didn't you name this person? Why didn't you identify this person as John or or Jason or Sarah or Rebecca? Right. Maybe it's because God wants you identify themselves with their role. Maybe because God wants you to see yourself in that individual who doesn't have a name we know that there's a brother who has a problem. There's a problem. There's been a part of his life for years, for decades. So doesn't doesn't matter if you're black or white, brown, rich or poor Christian, not a Christian.

You can sing Amazing Grace, how sweet it is. At some point in your life, you're going to be faced with church hurt. You can talk look, dress like a Christian if it's not one thing in another, if it's not money, if it's not health, it's not families not work. If it's not church, if it's not car, if it's not your finances, you're going to deal with sin topping unmet expectations, some type of disappointment scripture says that this was not his own health. This was not the father's own hell. He was advocating for his son so what do you do when the problem is not yours, but as someone that you love what do you do when the problem is not yours, but it's someone that you care about? How do you do advocate your life through that? Someone that you truly truly care about?

If you live long enough, you may embrace your mother, your father, your brother, your sister. You're going to face hardships not only that, it may be chronic it may be something that you've been dealing with for quite a long time. Jesus asks the boy's father, How long has this this boy been like this? The father answer Since childhood. There's some of us has been dealing some things since childhood. The some of us has been dealing with things for 20 months or even 20 years since birth. There are some people here today knowing the cost of what your Yes. Has cost you see, when we merged two churches together, it became one church. The cost of yes, we really didn't know like right. If I knew what I do now, I would probably say maybe right let me pray about it. That's the Christian thing to do about it, right? Let me pray about it. See what Guy says that we should do. The cost of your. Yes, the cost of your yes will come in in a point in time where you know you need Jesus your cost. Have you been obedient it's going to come at a point in time when Jesus says it's time you get to a point where you realize all you need is Christ, right? That's why he got up 6:00 this morning. You got dress, you did your hair, you shower you shave because you came here today wanting to get into the presence of the king you had the desire to get into the presence of the king. And the father says this, but if you can do anything take pity on us and help us if you can, if you can do it, Jesus, everything is possible.

See, Jesus realized there was something wrong with the father's faith. Is there something wrong with your faith today? Pass around. What are you talking about? Church. Let me just kind of let me just map this in for you. It shouldn't be if we can do anything, but since you can do everything right, many of us come in wondering like, God, if he can do this, but God, he's already created the heavens and the earth. He's giving you breath in your body. How do you navigate between belief on one side and unbelief on the other side? How do you navigate between faith in doubt? How do you navigate between trusting God fully and God? What are you doing because I'm sure that you find yourself somewhere in the middle. God, I do believe, but it help my unbelief come on now. I've been there before. Like God, I do believe I've seen you do miracles before, but God help help my unbelief. See, my pro life has been like that.

Sometimes I know it's hard to have faith when you've been dealing with something for a long time. It's hard to have faith when you've been dealing with, with the illness for, for quite some time. You call yourself a Christian, right? So Mark, chapter nine, we see Jesus the Father, the Son and the disciples that's a perfect recipe. See, we have to realize that Jesus was at the mountaintop. And Mark Chapter nine, the Father goes where he believed Jesus is the father heard Jesus was up on the mountain. Pray He gets to the mountain. The only thing that He saw was the disciples. There he gets there like, Where's Jesus? Where's this man that has Heal the Sick, that has has caused the cross the dead to raise and walk? Where's diseases that serve water into wine? Where where's this Jesus? He goes to the only place where he knows he can find him and he gets there and he's not there. Some of you may have come here today looking for Jesus, looking for a miracle and you get here. He may leave disappointed. And what do you do with that?

The father gets to the mountain and he recognizes that Jesus is on a mountaintop praying with his inner circle. So this is where Jesus transfigure. This is where we see Peter, John and James. The Moses and the lizard shows up. Come on now. Now there's got to be some good pray right there for Moses to show up. And Elijah so the father gives the disciples his son and he says, Here, take my son, my firstborn, he's been sick since childhood. He's been tormented since childhood. Please take care of him. The disciples are there. They're praying for him because we're you know, we do what we do. We speak in tongues where, you know, we cast and out the demons in what happens nothing even knowing that Jesus is at the mountaintop. He made a request to the disciples the father's expectation was that because the disciples walked and talk with Jesus, they figure that they can do it as well.

The world's expectation of us as disciples, as believers, as Christians, because we walk and talk with Jesus we fellowship, we gather as saints. They're spectators of the church. And you and I, it's the greater things, because that's what the word says right and what happens when your friends say, Can you pray for me? Can you pray for my son? Can you pray for my daughter? Can you pray for my sister? My brother? And nothing happens in other words, let me take my son to the place where I know Jesus is. Let me take my problems to a place where I know where Jesus is. Let me take my circumstances where I know where Jesus is. Let me take everything that I'm dealing with, where Jesus is because I know that the church is a place where miracles are supposed to happen.

In other words, those who follow Jesus should be just like him. But the problem is, many of us come in broken and leave even more broken when they leave the church it's because the unmet expectations see the world has struggled to believe in God, because some of the disciples of God see the world as struggle to believe in who God is and what guy can do because of what we as disciples of God live out before other people people are hurt more often by the church. People are lied to by the church. The foolishness of church. I started googling this crazy things in church. I wouldn't be amazed, but I saw some crazy stuff i remember walking into Dollar Tree one time in the shop. A Dollar Tree. Don't don't judge me. I'm just saying. Come on, walk in a dollar tree one time and there's this. This guy on a floor in one of my old church members is there like, oh, pass. Right, come here, come here. Come here. This person is sick. They passed out, and can you pray for them? Raise them up. I'm like, almost. Call now 11 first, and I'm a preacher second time. OK, now, don't don't get me wrong. We we serve a god that does signs and miracles, right? But then there's some wisdom that we have to use as well, right?

So what did I do? Came down. I prayed for the young man. I got my $5. I was in a lift right but what I left is another person was there, and this person was knelt down and speaking in tongues and saying, Come out, devil. When it was just like that, I'm like, Are you kidding me? They begin to really just cast out the things that they thought was in this person. In this person was still paralyzed on the floor. And I'm thinking, come on, church we are representing the body of God in a fashion that we're doing more harm than help now, guys, look, I'm I'm a be honest. I believe in miracles. I believe in science. I believe in supernatural healings. I believe in them but we have to walk in wisdom as well. Right. What happened later? One paramedics came up check the person blood sugar and tested them and they took them off and yeah, most often when people experience failure, disappointments and regret, they leave the church and look for another right. They experience disappointment and regret. So here we have this father who's taken his son to a place where he knew that Jesus was.

And when he got there, Jesus wasn't near. So they asked the church to pray in the soul, wasn't I who the father was disappointed he was upset and possibly even has some regret. There he finishes chapter four verse 11, says This began asking said What is the church? What is the purpose of the church? Right? What is the responsibility of the church if he's in force? Is this so? Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists in the pastors and teachers to equip His people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. That is the purpose of the Church we are called to have apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers and prophets so that way we can equip the church to do the work of the Kingdom.

It says this in verse 13. So we reached unity and faith in knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown by here and there by every win and teaching and the cunningness and the craftiness of people and their deceitful scheming our job as a church is to build up disciples to mobilize you, to go out, to do the work of the Kingdom Church. We pray, God help me to love my heart. I begin to walk out love. If God doesn't put me in situations to learn how to love, we pray to God help me to to help, help me to learn how to forgive right but how do we walk out forgiveness if God doesn't put you in situations or circumstances to help you to learn how to forgive you pray to God, God help me to to learn to increase my prayer life right there. God gives you situations in circumstances to increase how to to walk out your prayer life in such a way that church I want to remind you today that your pain has a purpose whatever pain that you may be dealing with right now, it has a purpose. It has a kingdom purpose that you're paying knowing that your son, your daughter, who is sick with the spirit, is sitting there and there's no resurrection of the spirit.

Your pain has a purpose. I'm reminded of Isaiah 53 where Jesus talks about where he was, where his bruise for our iniquities is, his chastisement of peace is put upon us. And so upon him as a 53 talks about Jesus Christ being wounded for ourselves, for for who He is and what we have called what He has called us to do. I say 53 maps out why Jesus had to die. He bore all the infirmities the iniquities of us, all so what do we do so here we have the father at the boundary, at the bottom of the mountain, dealing with church hurt because he's taken his son to a place that he thought can help. So the question may be asking, how do you heal from church hurt?

Right. Well, here we go. And I'm just to go through these pretty quick how did we go from church? One, don't slander the church right? If you're dealing with church, are any shape, form or fashion, don't slander God's church. Why is it you may be causing someone else to miss their blessing? You may be preventing someone else to go to a church that God has told them to go to. Right. But what does that say in scripture, Pastor Ryan? Well, let me tell you, Psalms Chapter 101, verse five, whoever slanders their neighbor in secret, I will put to silence God says, If you slander anyone, I will put you to silence you are the Old Testament version of that or New Testament this grace and mercy.

Second one, don't judge don't judge all churches is one church. One church. Action is right. Oftentimes, whatever mishaps and misunderstandings or whatever church that you may have have experience from one church you carried over to another church and you go in with a callus on your heart. So don't carry that church out to another church based on from not having been healed through that process. Matthew Chapter seven says that you do not judge or you will be judge. Oftentimes we judge other churches even relationships we carry that hurt over from one place to another. Point number three, don't expect don't expect anything from man, but expect from God. Man, we fail you every single time.

Man. We fail you every single time.

Psalms 27 says some trust in chariots and some trust in horses. But I trust in the name of the Lord Please don't put your trust in me they my bad 9500 times, you know. But there's going to come a time with that trust in them. There will fail you and they may fail you by omission. They may not even know that they have failed you. Number four, go to church do go to church. I love that English right there very fine community in church. I'm just going to give a shameless plug about our church, man. We we love doing life together. If you're not like hanging and chilling and just breaking bread or you're not really connected with anybody, get connected somehow. Text, text me, call me or something like Pastor, I want to hang out with somebody because we have an amazing, amazing ministry of community right?

I mean, typically after we leave church, we are here an hour and a half and we still trying to go find out where we go out to eat, right? That's the community that we had. And we begin to do life together. We get to hang out and just make memories together. This past Wednesday night, we had our end of the year celebration with with a lot of our our ministries before our kids and our youth and never fails. I always give when I'm they always throw water on me for some reason. But it's those memories that you get to have with your kids and you see them running around and you guys are fellowship and breaking bread, and we just begin to just make memories. Guys, there's there is so much community that can be formed here in fashion here and not only community and fellowship, but this community in teaching I'm let you know right now, ladies, y'all are killing it.

Our women's group on Wednesday nights our women's group on Wednesday night, I think this past Wednesday is like 25 or so men and women's group. Then we had our mayor's ministry going I think they had about six or eight couples in there that our men's group was popping off over there with men and I'm going to challenge the mayor real quick. Our women's groups should not be out attended by women and not our men. Come on, man. I got to class off. That's all I need is to I don't care why in the world if God has called the men to be the priest of our homes where we look at the attendance of the men's group, maybe a James, I'll give you what I give you a sweet spot.

Let's see. Ten, John, two. Let's just take two just to eight. Impossible. You know what? At this but we see the women's group at an attendance of 25. Is something wrong? There that's all I'm going to say. Next point. Do forgive we are called to forgive often Colossians chapter three verse 13 tells us that to bear with each other and forgive one another. And if any of you have a grievance against someone forgive as the Lord has, has forgiven you guys, you have. We have to learn how to forgive because that forgiveness, the unforgiveness, will fester and hold in your heart.

Would become cold. And this is not a great place to be. Number six Do you learn to give grace what do you mean, Pastor? I learned to give grace to your leaders. You leaders are human. Give grace. The leaders in the church is not a place of perfect people, but a perfect God. Give grace to your ministry leaders. You're the leaders who come in late, Felicia. To me I love you on give grace. Give grace and forgiveness.

But do learn to give grace. I'll say this communicate. Do communicate. What do you mean, communicate? Those missed expectations, communicate those disappointments and communicate those hurts. Because if you don't, that's when church heart really sets in. And if you fail to communicate those things that it gives place where the enemy will come in and just reside. Matthew chapter 18, verse 15 says this More Soever If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him first. All right, don't go to hell. Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and all the other social media outlets the biblical way that you're supposed to communicate your hurt, your frustration with another brother, sister in Christ is to go to them one on one first and all leaders know somebody come come to me with some stuff, like, have you want to go talk to that person?

If not, come back to see me right I'm going to talk with their brother or sister first and then bring in a witness after that. If they don't hear you because it says this if he hears you, you have gained your brother in number eight. Do love you guys know First Corinthians, chapter 13 is the love chapter and it just talks about love is patient. Love is kind love is does not envy does not boast. And so love your brothers and sisters even through all of that, even through the church hurting through the pain because love cover a multitude of sin is I begin Atlanta playing and one kind of close out with something that many of us may not have recognized in this particular passage of Mark.

Chapter nine Jesus come off the mountain. He asks, What are you arguing about? And the demand answers, teacher, because earlier in Chapter nine, and Mark, the disciples then describes the teachers of the law, the riders of the law, the recorders of the law who pass it down, which are the scribes of the church. They were debating with the disciples but the father. Where was the father at this time? This was after he brought his son to the disciples. And when he was not here, the father made a decision to stay I want you to get that. Even recognizing that the hurt that he received, that his soul was not healed he stayed because he heard the Word of God being preached oh yeah. Are missing that one. Let him marinate for a second.

What the father was saying was this it doesn't matter my disappointment. It doesn't even matter the deliverance of my son situation. Then I'm a stay because greater is the word in my deliverance. Let me say that one more time. Greater is the Word of God than my deliverance. I want you to get there. Even if you don't receive delivers from God, His Word is still great. When the disciples were still there and they were arguing about what was taking place because they were talking about Elijah and Moses and what was like, who was going to come and this and that. The father heard the word being preached, being talked about he dismissed his son's condition, but he stayed because the word was being talked about.

So why do you come to church? Are you coming to church? Because the title or position are you looking for a husband or wife? Are you looking to get healed? All of that's great. But even if there's disappointment or even hurt, I would encourage you to stay the course as our worship team makes their way up to the stage. I want to say this even in the midst of the failure of the disciples the father stayed church hurt if you haven't experienced it, you are going to experience it or have experiences in the past. And I just want to offer forgiveness for what you have dealt with and what you may be dealing with and what you may deal with in the future.

But God's Word is unwavering. Is unconditional and is sufficient for everything that we may encounter says the disciples were arguing. Jesus goes up until the Father bring the boy here Jesus encounters this spirit and I'll read the Scripture. What happens? The Spirit has a nerve to throw the boy on the ground again. That's a pretty bold move in spirit, because if I encounter Jesus Christ face to face, I know what he's capable of doing. And even in the midst of that encounter, the Spirit wanted to have one last show some let you know whatever your condition, your heart, your frustration, your disappointment may be give it is one last show because you can encounter a God who will heal and restore you better than you can ever believe before the church.

As we stand today, I just want to encourage you we're going to close out with a song says come to the altar and if you're dealing with some form of church heard from ten years ago, ten, 15, five years, five weeks, five days, five months I encourage you just to lay down at the altar today and as we begin to allow God to speak to you and heal you through this hurt we want to pray with you and lastly, as we wrap up our sermon series for next week, I told many of us that when we started this series, I will be talking about homosexuality. So next week we'll be talking about homosexuality and how God still love the homosexual. You may not like it, but it's tight. But it's right. Yep. There's there's redemption and salvation for the person who's living that lifestyle.

Because God love the LGBTQ plus and exercising community, all of that extra stuff that they're going to add to it. Yes. And as you begin to look through passages of scripture next week, to really identify what God says about this and I know it's very controversial, but this is what the real talk is all about, right? We're going to talk about it. And I want you to bring your questions, because after we have that that sermon after service, we're going to begin to talk about just have a TED Talk where we have questions from the floor to be posed to the podium. And I want you to do this. I want you to invite anybody from that community to church that day.

Because we want to love them right where they're at right now. I promise you will be a safe place where they will be loved. Where they will be valued and they will be seen you may not like that. This may be your last day attending the church. I'm sorry, but this this is I must show you in the scriptures next week what God is going to do with that.