What is that The Roads Church? How are you this morning? Good, good morning. Erodes family. Good morning. Overflow room. So can we just give it up for baptism Sunday? Come on back. So first up we have Jim Ammas from Harrisburg. Come on down. Jim. Jimmy says she wants to be baptized because she’s been rude to her siblings and she wants a new life.
I just heard what he said. He said that you wanted to have new life. Is that right? A new life in Jesus, Jim, I just want to say I just, I just really feel the tangible presence of God in this place, in this Baptist street today. And, um, when I think of you, I didn’t know who was getting baptized today, but God spoke to me and he said, tell him that there are a cannon. And that’s I was thinking about a Canon. Do you know what a Canon is? What they use a cannon like a, like a military artillery. They use this Canon to seeds, places to knock down walls, to surround places when they go to war and they use that to fight in war. And I just heard God say that to remind you that you’re a Canon for God, that you’re a Canon for the kingdom.
And then what God is doing in your life today is going to make an impact in the future and the days and weeks and years to come. And you may not understand that right now, but my prayer today and declaration over your life is that God will continue to reveal that you were his cannon. You were his cannon before you even were born. He placed you on this earth and he gave you this life in this moment to make an impact and an influence. So when you, when you go about your life, you’re going to be shooting out, uh, purity. You going to be shooting out righteousness of God. You’re going to be shooting out holiness. And there’s just such a call on your life, such an anointed on your life. And I just feel the presence of Jesus right now that as we baptize you today and you take that next step in Jesus, he’s going to continue to reveal to you and give you the steps of your life and show you what it means to be a cannon for Jesus. Is that okay? Are you sir? All right. You want to cover your nose, Jimmy. I baptized you today in the name of the father, his son, Jesus, and the power of the Holy spirit Jesus name.
Welcome to The Roads Church . Everybody. Can you stand on your feet? We’re going to worship Jesus today. He’s worthy of all the praise. We thank you for new life. We thank him for baptism, where the old man has passed away and behold the old, the new man has come. Amen. Thank you to our roads kids. You guys are welcome to join us down front for worship this morning. We’re just here to lift up the name of Jesus. [inaudible] come on, lift up your hands this morning, just look at him and say, [inaudible] hardest. Yours is emotions are his. Everything is, is just looking at him this morning. [inaudible]
This past week, the work or the Lord gave me a word. And I wrote that down. I just want to read that out quick. This next song is called letting the light in last week, when the worship team was singing the same song, the Lord gave me a vision. There’s a lyric in this song that says open up the windows and let the light in. As that was being sung, I saw myself alone in an empty room with one window, the sun was shining through, lining up the entire room. As I moved closer to the window, I could feel the warmth of the sun. I happened to look down and below the window, laying on the floor was a sledgehammer. I felt the Lord say, I don’t just want you to open the window. I want you to break it. I’ve been thinking about what that means all week to present here at The Roads Church.
What’s outside that window that I couldn’t experience while it was closed. I was reminded of second Timothy chapter three, verse five, where it talks about how the people had a form of godliness, but they denied the power thereof. We can have an experience with our windows closed. We can see the light and feel the warmth, but until we open our windows, all we have is just a form of godliness. We can experience God, but only at a distance that’s comfortable. But once that window is open, it’s going to get hot. And we may have to shift some things that maybe we don’t want to get rid of, but what’s on the other side of that we know is power. Power that can heal the sick and raise the dead power that can radically change you from the inside out power that can convince even the most skeptical of God’s existence. So I encourage you this morning. Don’t be satisfied with an experience that doesn’t change you, where there is light. There is a source of power break. The window this morning with me,
[inaudible], we’ll be in up the windows a lot and open up the windows, let them open up the windows, let them open up the windows. [inaudible] [inaudible] the windows, the windows, the windows. [inaudible]
Thank you. That when we engage with you and we say, let light in that, you said that there’s a power in our voice. You actually said that there’s power in agreement. So today, as her saying, let light in, let light in, let light in like your presence in just as Brianna said, we just break the barrier. We don’t, we don’t just open the window, but maybe we crushed. Whatever’s blocking us from you. We just take that sledgehammer. We just, we just break it open. And I don’t know where you are in your life. You don’t know where I’m at in my life. Maybe you’re watching online. Maybe you’re in this room right now, but there’s a beautiful part about our God and that he’s present no matter where you are, no matter what you’re facing, no matter what it looks like. No matter what it looked like in the past.
And I just really feel like the Lord is saying for this service for right now that embrace a new season, embrace a newness. I feel like God is wanting to tell you right now. I don’t know who you are, but I know it’s for me, embrace newness. Don’t do the same thing over and over and over and over again. Sometimes even expecting a different result, right? We just keep kind of go in the motion. He says, embrace the newness today. So father, whatever that looks like for each and every one of us, God, I just pray right now that we would open up our hearts. Now open up our hearts right now, just you and your own place and your own heart and your own mind. Maybe just say to the Lord, I’m open. I want to hear you. I want to feel you. Maybe you have felt in before. Maybe you’ve never felt him before and today is the day that he gets to let you in on who he is and how much he loves you, How much he cares for you and your situations.
[inaudible] [inaudible] hello. [inaudible] one more time. Sing it out. [inaudible]
You know, last week I gave the vision and the dream and a lot of it had to deal with the Holy spirit. And then when we talked about it in the second song about opening up the windows this morning, while my, when I was up doing my devotions this morning, I kept hearing the word background. Um, and for those who don’t know what a backdraft is, I spent 20 years in the fire service and there’s a science behind this. And there’s three elements that you have to have. You have to have an oxygen, you have to have fire. You have to have an ignition source. You take any of those three things out and fire cannot be sustained. So earlier when we were in worship, God showed me that, you know, he’s planning his own triangle right here in the church. The oxygen he said is my Holy spirit.
The fuel is the power of the word and his promises. And he said, the ignition source is us. So you have to have all three to complete the triangle. There’s only one that we, the people have control over. And that’s the ignition source. And God says, I’m providing. He says, I, Oh, I need my people to complete the triangle so that the Holy spirit can explode. And anybody who has not seen a backdraft backdraft is one of the firefighters will scare us experiences. We tried to, we tried to prevent back drafts, but God says it’s time for my church to have the backdraft. He says I needed all three to come together so we can have an explosion of the church and of my word. If you’re ready to ignite today, I just want you to raise your hands. If you want more of the Holy spirit, I want you to raise your hands. At The Roads Church, If you’re ready to be filled, then I want you to raise your hands. You see, we can all, we all have Holy spirit. We accept
Jesus into our heart, but it’s another thing to be filled with the Holy spirit to be filled with another spirit. Other than your own to say, no, I’m not going to take my I’m not going to do my will. I want your will to be done. Lord, I’m handing over the keys of my soul to you. You are in charge now. And I do what you say because when you do that, when you do that, when you let the spirit take control, you start to realize that you are a terrible Lord of your life. At least I know I am, but whenever he is the Lord of your life, you start to realize that he can bless you more, exceedingly, more abundantly, more than you can ever imagine. He is the grain author says, Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith. You can write your own story.
You can, but it won’t be near as good as if he writes it. I’m a terrible creative writer, but he, on the other hand, he is so good. He’s so worthy. And his plans for you are so much bigger than what you can imagine for yourself, but it is letting go of that control and letting him add in the pin, letting him bright. And then you come and you provide yourself and he’ll bring the oxygen. He’ll bring the spirit and then he’ll bring the fire. He’ll light the spark. You just have to be there. You have to be the ignition source. So as Joe said, if you’re ready to ignite, I just want to pray over you right now that you be filled with the Holy spirit. Lord, I just pray over this body right now. I pray for everyone who is ready to be filled with your Holy spirit.
Lord. I pray that you show them here at The Roads Church how to submit what areas to submit it. And then you lead them in the way everlasting Lord, there is a way that seems right to man in that way is death, but you have ways and you have paths. So I pray that you show us your ways, show us your paths. That way we can, we can grow into new areas and find new places that we never knew that we never knew existed. Lord, I pray that you activate the spiritual gifts right now in the body of the church. I pray that they begin to walk in boldness and that they can walk in the confidence. That is the Christ mind. That is the new renewed, renewed mind that they are renewed by their mind every day through the repentance, through their changing of their minds, that the things of the earth no longer suffice, because they need the things of heaven that the bread of heaven, that the bread that is your will and doing your will, will fill them so much more than the things of the earth. And they begin to realize that. And then they access that in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Amen. Can we just give it up for Jesus?
Come on. [inaudible] all right. You guys wanna go ahead and make your way back to your seat,
Doing that. I’m going to take a minute to say what is up? Eat Rhodes family. How are you doing this morning? Go ahead and comment. Down below where you’re watching from. We’d love to see the scope, the range of our family. Uh, just because we’re not here in the building, doesn’t mean that we aren’t together spiritually. Hey, and if this is your first time watching online for something to say, what’s up, we want to connect with you. So pull out your phone, text the word roads to (618) 243-0900. We’re going to send you some information. We’re going to connect with you because we don’t want this to be a one-time thing. Anybody can watch a church service one time, but whenever you get plugged into the body of Christ, and whenever you say yes to Jesus, and whenever you decide you’re going to start living that way, there’s going to be resistance. And we want to equip you to overcome that resistance. Um, so there are some next steps and there are some steps that we can lay out that are going to help you. Um, and so if you’re a first time guest here in the room, we want to connect with you as well, but real quick, we just want to make some noise for those first time guests. Can we give it up for the people in the room, right?
Yes. We love you. Thank you for coming. Welcome.
So we want to connect with you as well. Like I was saying, um, so on your way in, you should have gotten a worship guide. And in that worship guide, there is a connect card. Take it out, um, fill it out and take it to the next steps table. We got one in the cafe. We got one here in the foyer. Um, and we got some people back there that specialize in getting you started on your next steps, finding out what makes sense for you, whether that be water baptism, whether that be a roads group, whether that be growth track, um, everyone has next steps. So we just need to figure out what makes sense for you. Um, so speaking of that, my Rhodes group yesterday, we talked about the spiritual gifts. Um, and so one of the things about using the spiritual gifts is you have to know what they are.
And so, I mean, when I first became a Christian, I didn’t know what the spiritual gifts were, but when you go through growth track, there’s actually a spiritual gifts assessment. So you’re going to take a test and it’s going to help you find what those gifts are. It’s going to help you find what talents you have inside of you. And then you’re gonna be able to meet with different heads, uh, different directors here in the church, and to figure out where those needs are, where those talents meet up with the need here in the church. And then you can start living in your green. We talk about living into green, where your purpose and your passion and your talents come together to fill a need in the church. And you’re going to start finding fulfillment that you’d never knew that you could have, there’s something special that happens when you begin to serve God.
And when you start to use those talents that he’s put inside of you, a fulfillment that you’ve never experienced before. And I want that for you. Um, and so we’re going to help you out with that. We’re going to, we’re going to find out what makes sense. We’re going to show you your gifts and we’re going to help cultivate those. Cause everyone has gifts, gifts on the inside of them. God has put something special in you and he wants to show you how to be a good steward of that gift. And so part of being a good steward is just saying yes, saying yes to God letting him unveil those to you as you, um, and then plugging in your church and begin to cultivate those and grow in those. Um, so here at the roads, one of our core values is we live generously. And so right now back there, we have roads kids going on. Um, and they are exemplifying that. Um, I know my, my, uh, kid he’s under fifth grade. So he goes back through the roads, kids. He doesn’t have a job, but I don’t think many of them do back there. He doesn’t bring home a lot of money, but they were able to raise over $200 last month to help our pantry,
Give it up for that. So they’re back giving
Out of their hearts is what they’re doing. They’re giving out of their hearts. Um, it talks about in the gospel of Luke, um, Jesus, actually, he was talking about giving and then there’s people that are giving that have a lot of money and they give a lot of money, but then there’s a woman that comes in. She gives just a little bit, but she didn’t have much. And he says like, she gave more than all of them. You see, God is not impressed with the number. It’s all his anyways, but he’s impressed with your heart. And so for her giving that little bit was giving way more than what they had because she was giving out of what she had, which wasn’t much, but she gave more. So, um, he’s not impressed with the number. And so it doesn’t matter what you give that those kids, man, they’re giving out of their heart and we’re teaching them how to live through that.
So I just want to, I man, I’m just so thankful for that. Um, we’re living generously. And then speaking to that, the move used, um, is doing a build for sleep in heavenly peace on the 24th of April, which is a pretty cool day because we actually have roads. Um, we have growth track, fast class on the 24th of April too. So you could conceivably go to the growth track, fast class, find out your spirit and find out your gifts, get plugged into the moon because it’s one of the best places to serve. I serve there and then you can come, thank you, Bob. Bob’s there to, um, come and serve with us and help us build the help to get to know our youth right there. I mean, you can, God will speed you up and he will bring you so many places. If you just say yes, you think, Oh, I’m getting started late.
It doesn’t matter. I got started way late in life and God has brought me so far just from saying, yes, it’s not me because I’m not that great, but God is really great. And he’s brought me super far and he wants you guys to do that as well. So, um, if you want to help with that, um, we asked you to join us on the 24th of April at the move. Or if you want to give financially, you can do that as well. Um, we’re trying to raise, um, $6,000 I believe to do a 15 beds. Um, so if you want to give, you can do the online giving site. You can text to give, um, got our booth set up out there, tents out there. Um, if you want to know a little more about the organization and kind of how it works, man, we’re impacting youth right here in Southern Illinois that might not have a bed to sleep in.
Um, it happens a lot more than what you’d imagine. Um, and I, it just being a part of something. It’s, it’s one thing to tell somebody about the gospel and tell him about how he’s a God of love. It’s another thing to show him and what better way to show your love than to give in, to help make a difference in their life and share the heart of Jesus. So I just urge you if that’s tugging on your heart and say yes, um, because he rewards people who give it says in the Bible that he blesses those who give out of the first 10% of their increasing blesses, the 90%. So speaking of that, go ahead and get out your phones. If you give online or get out your ties and offerings, you have cash or check. I’m just want to pray over those.
Your Lord. I thank you for the power of the ties. I thank you for the generous hearts that are here tonight, or that are here today. The generous hearts that are in our erodes family and the overflow room. I just pray for blessings over them. Lord, I think give out of the generosity of their heart. Lord, I just pray for blessings over the 90% of their life. Lord, I pray that that’s so gets see that the sowed, the seed is sown into fertile ground and it brings a bountiful harvest that brings souls to your kingdom. Lord, I pray for all those souls that is touching Lord and I pray that they know your heart and that they know your love, and they can see that through the generosity that’s given right here through the road’s church in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right guys. Hey, just so you know, pastor Chad is actually in Mount Carmel today, but he wanted me to tell you guys what’s up. He loves you all. Um, he’s happy that you’re here. Um, so just if you were looking for him up there, that’s where he’s at and he’s joined in that part of our family today. Um, but we have pastor Charlot today and man, I already got to hear her, her, her, um, sermon for service. It’s really good. You guys are in for tree. So we’re going to cue the road’s news and then Charles is going to be out with an awesome message.
Good morning church, and welcome to The Roads Church . We are excited to be together today to worship and connect with Jesus as one church, with many locations, our North city campus, our Mount Carmel campus and our erodes family. As you join us from your homes, through your devices all over our nation, wherever you are, Jesus is amazing. And being in his presence is everything. If you’re joining us at one of our campuses this morning for the first time, we’ll take a minute to fill out your connect card found in your worship guide that you received when you came into service and after service stop by our next steps table on your way out. We’d love to get to meet you and give you a welcome gift. And if you’re joining us online today for the first time, well, we’d love to hear from you to go ahead and text the word roads to (618) 243-0900.
If you’re ready to get more involved and learn more about the roads church will growth track is your next step. Our North city campus offers grub track on Sundays at 10:30 AM in the growth track room. And it’s a four week class. We also offer our fast track growth track every month at our Mount Carmel campus. And on Saturday, April 24th at our North city campus, fast track growth track gives you all four classes in one day and registration details can be found in your worship guide on April 24th. Our move youth will be building bunk beds for kids that don’t have beds and live right here in our own community, partnering with a local chapter of sleep and heavenly peace, a national organization that works to end child boundlessness the move. You has a goal to raise enough money in the next two weeks to build 15 bunk beds purchase sheet sets, blankets, mattresses, and pillows to provide 30 children with a bed of their own, to sleep in.
We’re excited that in just one week, our youth have met half of their goal. Thanks to your generosity. If you’d like to financially partner with our youth in meeting the rest of their goal, stop by our tent, set up at of our North city campus entrances or visit our website to find details for online and text to give options. There are so many ways for you and your family to connect with Jesus and our family here at the roads with our roads kid services every Sunday at 10 30 at both our Mount Carmel and North city campuses, our move youth meeting on Wednesdays at our North city campus and Sunday nights at our Mount Carmel campus. Our roads groups meeting in homes throughout our region and our crews serving one another in God’s house every week. Make sure to look through your worship guide, visit our website and join us on social media to stay connected. We believe that doing life together and building relationships makes us stronger. If you’re joining us at one of our campuses, we’ll take a minute to check out all of our sermon series on CD after service. Be sure to take some with you. They are all free. You can also hear the road sermons on our YouTube channel and our podcast. That’s all for the road snooze. We love you. Road’s family. Welcome home.
Hey, good morning. Rhodes church. How is everybody good? I like response. Um, I’m a teacher and so I liked that interaction, so that’s that’s good. Good job. Good job. Good morning. He roads family and good morning Mount Carmel. I know you’re going crazy. It was awesome. Being up there last week. Spending time with you in pastor, Chad is up there this morning. Um, I just want to take a minute and celebrate pastor Chad and pastor Don. Um, it is truly an honor, uh, to get to serve with them and alongside of them. And I just appreciate your heart and your heart for Jesus and your heart for people is just so big. And it’s amazing. And I’m just thankful for, uh, your perseverance and uh, just all that you do. Um, thank you so much. Thank you. Yes, yes. Yes.
Um, there is another group of people that I want to recognize and I want to celebrate and honor. Um, so if you are currently serving in Rhodes kids, will you please just stand up, please stand up and Mount Carmel to please stand up. We want, wanna, we want to see you. Thank you. We want to see you. Yes, yes. Thank you so much. I’m so thankful. So thankful for our roads kids crew. Um, they are special. They’re very special people that love children and understand the importance of, of pouring Jesus into them every week. And so just very, very thankful and our move crew as well. Who’s on Wednesday night, investing in the younger generation, amazing, amazing group of people, um, that just carries such a passion and a heart for that. And so I’m very thankful for that. I know we get, we don’t get to see them on Sunday morning, but they are doing an amazing work on Wednesday nights. And so thank you so much to move crew.
Thank you. Yes, yes, yes.
Um, before we get started, I just, just want to pray real quick. So if you will just pray with me. Jesus, thank you so much. And I thank you for your love. I thank you that you love us so much and that you have stuff to tell us every day. God, I thank you for your presence. And I just thank you that you’re here with us. Thank you. Holy spirit that you’re here. God, I just submit to you and I surrender my mind to you, Lord and my mouth. God, I just want you to speak through me. God. I just want them to hear your voice speaking through me. So I just surrender as a vessel and as a conduit for which you can speak through today. God, I thank you for our roads kids, Lord, I thank you for every child that came today.
That’s going to hear about you Lord. That’s going to have opportunity to pray and worship and God, I just thank you, Lord. I bless our crew that serving and pouring into our kids. God, I just thank you so much and we just pray in your name. Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you for praying with me. Um, so I do have a very special message. Um, today in it’s it’s called the father’s heart. Um, and so I’m just going to kind of sit and just have a talk with you today. Um, so, uh, it is about children and um, you know, God was reminding me that we’re not complete without them. Um, they make up our body of Christ. Um, they’re a part of our body. They’re a part of, of our army. That’s rising up. Um, they’re just, they’re a part. They play a part. They don’t get to play a part when they get to a certain age, they’re already a part, uh, of, of our body.
And um, he was just reminding me about how important they are and about how powerful they are. Do you know that they’re powerful, our kids are very powerful. Um, and so, uh, God calls them in the army. He calls them the privates. So when you come in to the army, you’re a private, when you enlist right. You’re apart, but you’re beginning, you’re in the beginning stages and that’s where you’re learning, you’re training, but you’re already a part you’re a part of it. Um, and so, uh, I just want to go ahead and sh and share with you guys, um, a scripture, if you guys want to go ahead and get your Bibles out, we’re going to open it up and learn about how powerful our kids are. I want to start with this scripture right here. Um, and so I love how pastor Chad says, we get excited about the word of God and we should be excited about the word of God. It was one of the things that I loved when we first came here was this excitement for the word of God. So if you’re ready, we’re going to turn to Psalm eight two.
Yes,
Yes, yes. So, um, I’m going to turn there too, but I, I, this I’m actually going to read out of a different translation. It’s the passion translation and I love the passion translation. Um, it’s not the whole Bible, but it is, it is really, really wonderful. And so here we go. Uh, Psalm eight, two says you have built a strong hold by the songs of babies. Strength rises up with the course of singing children. This kind of praise has the power to shut Satan’s mouth childlike worship will silence the madness of those who oppose you. And the one thing that God highlighted to me in this scripture was that our children, their praise has the power to shut Satan’s mouth. That’s powerful. That is powerful right there. Cause he’s all the time talking and chattering and talking and chattering and their praise can silence that.
So, so powerful. Um, and so as I was, um, preparing for this, this message actually came, um, about a month ago and, uh, God has, God has spoken and showed me things over the course of a couple of years now. But, um, the heart of this message came, uh, about a month ago. I was just having some time in the morning with the Lord and I woke up and it was just kind of in worship. And I wasn’t asking him for anything. Um, I wasn’t praying anything specific. And I just said, I want to hear your heart Lord. I want to know what’s on your heart. And, um, I had this encounter and it was, it was very, very powerful. Um, and it just really, really gripped at my heart. And it was this thunder that are heard in my spirit. And
I actually started to really weep as a, heard him, ask me two questions. It broke my heart. He said, won’t anyone teach my children? Won’t anyone invest in my children. And I knew that he was not just talking to me, but he was talking to his body,
And not just here and not just the
Across our nation, but this is global. This is something I’m hearing pastors and church leaders say from all different areas is this, this is going on right now. It’s very similar. And there’s just this war going on. I don’t know if you have, have seen this or paid attention, but there is a war going on for our children. And it is
For our children and remember powerful.
They are, the enemy goes after something that he feels threatened by. So he feels threatened by children. So he’s going after them. And it’s, we see things in the natural, but it is also very spiritual, very spiritual. And so I started to think about these things that we’re seeing in the natural, you know, we see this trafficking going on and the slavery, when we see child abuse happening and we see orphans, um, abortion and the killing of innocent lives and our identity, you know, there’s confusion right now about who we are or am I a boy? Am I a girl? I don’t know. The world is telling me how I need to think how I need to dress, how I need to look. There are things vying for our children’s attention all day long, all day long, all day long. And there are children who have never heard the name of Jesus ever.
And it’s here, it’s here in Southern Illinois. It’s not just in a, in a big city and it’s not somewhere oversea, but it’s here in Southern Illinois that there are children who have never heard the name of Jesus, not once, not once. And then he started the Lord started telling me, um, about talking to me about neglect and I thought, wow, yes, neglect. That is another big thing. You know, children who are neglected. And, but it weighed heavy on me, that one right there. And I thought, okay, there’s something to this. And so I started to look up like, what does this, what does neglect really mean? And so neglect means to give little attention or respect to, to leave undone or unattended, to, especially through carelessness, a lack of attention or care that someone or something needs. And there’s actually a legal definition, a disregard of duty resulting from carelessness, indifference, or willfulness, a failure to provide a child under one’s care with proper food, clothing, shelter, supervision, medical care, and emotional stability.
And I thought, man, those, there are some that are really severe, like that’s severe neglect. And the Lord said, that’s not what I’m talking about. He said, I’m talking about spiritual neglect for our children. And I kept hearing him say, we’re too busy. We’re too busy. And I recently did a Bible study and I do it on Friday mornings at five o’clock. It is awesome with a group of ladies. There’s, it’s really amazing, but we did this study called breathing room and it’s talking about how we need breathing room in different areas of our life. We need it in our finances. We need it in our time. We need it with our relationships. Um, but God reminded me about the time one. And there was a place in our study where we would fill in. It said, um, I’m too busy if I don’t have enough time to blank.
And we had fill in the blank and I remember sitting there and I thought, what goes in this spot, Lord, what is this? And he said, it’s your family. You’re too busy. If you don’t have enough time to invest in your family. And so that’s, that’s your husband, your wife, your children. After God, we devote our time that we give our first to God and then it comes to our family. And, um, so he’s telling me about all this. And, and he reminded me in Matthew 18, that Jesus actually talks about neglect and leading children astray. And he gives a warning and he’s talking to his disciples. And so I’m just, I’m going to summarize a little bit of this. Um, but this is Matthew 18. So the disciples are sitting there and they’re talking to Jesus. And they said, Hey Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
And I love what Jesus does. He calls a child to him and he sets the child in the middle of them. And he says, if you, I want to enter the kingdom, you must be converted and you must become like a child. You must humble yourself like a child. And if you receive a child in my name, that is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And then he starts to move on. Jesus starts to move on. There’s no break in scripture. He starts to move on. And, but God pointed out to me. He said, the child is still sitting here through this. He says, whoever causes one of these little children or one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him. If a millstone were hung around his neck and he were drowned in the depth of the seat and they talked through offenses and sin, and he says, if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.
If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out, and he’s talking to them about sin. And, but in between all of this, there’s these things about children about not neglecting them about not leading them astray. And then he goes on about the lost sheep. But before that, he says, take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones for, I say to you that in heaven, their angels always see the face of my father who is in heaven. And God highlighted that word despise to me. I kept thinking about that word. And I thought, what does that mean? We’re not to despise them, but what does that mean mean? And so I looked it up, I look up words a lot, cause I want to know what they mean. I want to understand. And despise is to regard as negligible, so small or unimportant or so little consequence as to warrant little or no attention.
It also means to look down on with disrespect or aversion towards something, with a desire to avoid or turn from it. So that turn from it, hang on to that. That’s going to be important, but the Lord was telling me we can, we can leave astray by sin, by offense, all of these things, but it can also be a wrong mindset, just a wrong thinking about something that can lead us astray. It can, it can, it, we miss the Mark. It can be by busy-ness. And God reminded me that if I’m, if I have an arrow, the Bible says that children are like arrows in the hands of a mighty warrior. And if I have my arrow and I’m aiming it at my target and I miss my target, why I still missed my target? I didn’t hit it. I w I, I thought I was, I thought I was right there, but I was a little off.
I still missed it. And God said, we can, we might think that our day and day what we’re doing is right, but maybe it’s not. And if it’s not, we still miss the Mark. And so, so I thought, Lord, how do we, well, how do we fix all of this? What, what do we do? How do we, how do we come out of this? And I heard three specific things. He said, we have to turn our hearts. We have to repent. And then we have to invest. We have to train, equip and teach. And so, um, despise, if you remember, it was to turn away from you’re turned away from, but then the Lord reminded me of the turning to, so it’s the opposite. So if I’m turned away from my children, I need to turn to my children. So he reminded me of Malakai chapter four.
So we’re going to go to Malakai chapter four. And Malakai is the last book in the old Testament. So in Malakai chapter four, God is speaking to his people and he says, behold, I will send you a lie to the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers, to the children and the hearts of the children, to their fathers. Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse period. That was it. That was all he said. And for 400 years, that was all he said, that was his last instruction. So then God said, look at the first thing that I said. So in the new Testament in Luke chapter one, verse 13 through 17, I do have a little bit of scripture for you today. Um, so in Luke, this is the first time that we hear from the Lord for 400 years.
And he has an angel of the Lord comes to Zachariah and he says, Zacharias and says, do not be afraid for your prayers. Heard so Zachariah and his wife were praying for a child. Your wife, Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name, John, and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth. He will be great in the sight of the Lord and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their God. He will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers, to the children and the disobedient, to the wisdom of adjust, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
So the last thing, and the first thing that he spoke were the exact same thing. But this time he says, it’s going to come through John the Baptist. And so this there’s highlighted things here to turn. So we’re turning, he’s turning children of the Lord to, to the Lord, children of Israel, to the Lord, and he’s turning hearts of the father and to make ready a people, we have to be a people who’s ready for the Lord and prepared. And that’s our children, too. We have to make them ready. They have to be ready and prepared. And so this word turn is to direct one’s attention to, or away from someone or something to engage in, to become focused on something. So this turning we’re turning to our children, we’re engaging with them as we’re turned and we’re focusing on them. And that two turning to two is an action word.
It’s used as a function word to indicate movement or an action or condition suggested of movement toward a place person or thing reached. And so, um, I asked the Lord though, I was like, why the spirit of Elijah, why specifically Elijah? And I’m sure there are lots of reasons why, but the one that, the one that was stuck out to me was that Elijah, when he was hiding out in the cave, he encountered God, and God said, Elijah, what are you doing here? And he said, I want you to do three things. And one of those things was, he said, you need to leave here and you need to go find Elijah, a younger prophet, and you need to give him your mantle and you need to prepare him to take your place. And so Elijah had this charge to invest in someone younger, to invest in that younger prophet.
And the Bible says whenever Elijah was taken up in the chariots of fire, alive HSA had looked at him and called father father. That was his spiritual father who had invested in him and who had, had showed him what he was to walk into and how to do it. And it, and the Bible says that when he had gone right after that Alicia grabbed his MainTel Elijah’s mantle. And he did the exact same thing that he just saw Alijah do right before he left, he took it and he slammed it down in the water, which was exactly what Elijah did. So our children are the same way. They see what we’re doing, and they follow in our footsteps. They watch this, how they learn it’s visual. And most of us are visual learners. Uh, 65% of us are visual learners. So they see, and they do.
They see, and they do. And so God says, our hearts have to turn and we have all of, all of these generations, all of us together make one big generation and our hearts have to turn. And when our hearts turn and we’re facing each other, something super powerful happens, I’ve heard other people say it’s called the synergy of the ages. And I thought, Whoa, that is a big word. What in the world does that mean? And so I looked it up and the definition of the word synergy is the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect, that is greater than the sum of individual elements or contributions. And the Lord said, put the word generation in there. So it’s the interaction of generations that when they combine produce a total effect, that is greater than the sum of the individual generations or contributions, this is his heart.
This is his heart. This is what he wants. He wants all of us working together as his body. We’re no good without a part of it. We have to be whole and complete. The second thing was repent. We have to repent. And so it means to feel sorrow regret, uh, to change our mind. And the Lord said, this is what I told. This is what Elijah preached. This was his thing. Or John, sorry, John, the Baptist, John said, we’re pit repeats for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And this is what Jesus preached the same thing. But Jesus also said that the kingdom belongs to children. And so, um, in Matthew, 1913 through 15, he says, then the children were brought to Jesus so that he might place his hands on them for a blessing and pray. But the disciples reprimanded them. But Jesus said, leave the children alone. Do not forbid them from coming to me. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. And so this repentance we’ve got to repent for. I heard the Lord that, that spiritual neglect, the busy-ness the wrong thinking, the wrong thinking of
Sunday’s enough because it’s not, it’s not enough. Wednesday night is not enough. Right?
We teach here at The Roads Church , We have to have it every day. Just like we have to have it every day. Our kids have to have it every day. And I remember God telling me, at one point, he said, Charla, do you make sure your kids do their homework every day?
Yup.
Are they in my word? Every day is so important. Guys. We have to, we have, they have
To be in their word, just like we are it’s food. And we’re taking care of our kids. We feed them with the word of God. We clothed them with the mind of Christ. With the armor of God. We give them to drink from the living word, from the living water of the Holy spirit. They need it. We can’t think we’re too busy because we’re not, we can’t be distracted with these other things that are going on. Can I fit one more thing in my schedule? No, not if your kids are not getting the word. He says, these are things that he’s spoken to me
This wrong thinking. He says,
You’re not too old. You’re not too old.
Maybe you think, well, I’ve raised my kids.
God says, you’re not too old. You’re not, and you’re not too young. You’re not too young. If God has spoken something to you, you have a little revelation on something. You are not too young. You can do it. And we aren’t perfect.
And we can’t do it without him. There’s mercy. And there’s grace every day to do these things that he asks us to do every single day. And so don’t listen to the condemnation, either the guilt and the shame, because that is not of God. That is not of God. God does not say you’re a failure. You didn’t do that. Right. You don’t have anything to give anybody else. Our lead team was talking the other day. And I don’t remember who said it, but said we win. And we learn, we don’t win and lose. We don’t win and fail, but we win. And we learn. There’s a reason that we learn. It’s not just to go, Oh, yup. I learned a good lesson there it’s so that you can tell someone else you’re investing that in someone else. So older mothers and fathers, you have something to share with young,
Young parents, things that you have learned, you pass it
Is that on you tell them those things. And so, um, so that last thing is, is investing in, in teaching and training and equipping. Um, you know, it’s actually, the Lord tells us that as a parent, it’s a command that we are to teach and train our children. You don’t have to have an education degree to do it. You don’t have to be a teacher to do that. It’s in you. God, if he’s going to tell you to do something, he’s going to give you the tools to do it. It’s just like a kid. If we say, I’m here, you need to cut this piece of paper out, but we don’t give them scissors. He doesn’t do that with us either. If he tells us, you need to teach your children, you need to train them up in the way that they should go. You’re equipped. You’re prepared. You have the things that you need. You have those tools inside of you, right?
And you have him.
And, um, he told me that there’s something really special. That happens whenever it is a parent child and you’re teaching something they’re back. And that back and forth is super special and divine. They have your DNA and they also have that spiritual DNA. So you’ve, there’s gifts that you have those things that are inside of you. They’re also in your children and you can help them grow in those things that they have. You can help them walk that out. And he says that, um, just reminded me that they’re a blur scene. And he trusts us. If he’s given you a child, he trusts you. He trusts so you to teach them and lead them and train them. There’s a trust that he has. And also remembering that if he’s done that, then you have something super valuable and important. You have another session, it’s a soul.
Yes. As a child, a human being and something great. And he, he says that if you know who, whoever is given much, much is required. So there’s much required. If, if we have been given a child there’s so much required and it will, it will mean that there are sacrifice. That’s needed that, but there’s much required of us. And we are to steward what we have been given. Um, and so the greatest thing he says, though, is what he spoke in Deuteronomy six, verse four. And this is, um, the Lord telling Moses, this is what you need to tell the people. He says, hero Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and these words, which I command you today shall be in your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children. And you shall talk of them when you sit in your house. And when you walk, by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. And you shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your Gates. So church, if we’re loving him with all that, we are our mind, our soul and our strength. That’s going to pour out into our kids. We can’t withhold that. We have to pour that out into them. And they’re going to see it’s every part it’s everything that we’re doing during the day is Jesus. We’re getting up. It’s Jesus, we’re eating. It’s Jesus. It’s everything. It’s not just a quick prayer before we eat in a quick prayer before we go to bed. But it’s everything that we’re doing. It’s everything that we’re doing. And that’s something I’ve been telling the Lord. I, I just want you, Lord. I don’t want to do anything if you’re not okay,
I don’t want to do anything. If you’re not in it, I don’t want to teach my kid. One thing, if you’re not in, I don’t want you to be in it.
Lord
It’s daily. And we have to think, he said, we have to think kingdom minded. It’s not just what’s in front of us. It’s the kingdom. It’s eternity. We think about the eternal. We with an eternal mind, what is my child learning? What is being deposited into them on a daily basis and how much I started to think about school. I’m a school teacher. And I started to think about that. And I thought, how many days do we go to school? There’s 365 days in a year. And we go to school 176 in Illinois. It’s 176 days. And the percentage on that is 48% is 48%. And if we only, if we only talk about Jesus to our kid on Sunday morning, that’s only 14% of the year.
It has to be more than that. It has to be more than that. The Lord has a great plans for all of us. And that includes our children. He has special plans and purposes for them. He wants them to come up as these warriors. That’s how we’re going to change this culture that we’re in. It starts with us pouring that into our kids. That’s how it changes. We can’t go about in busy-ness and be consumed with other things and not doing our duty to our children. He reminded me that we’re training. Even when we don’t think we’re training, it’s about the homework or, you know, you’ve had a long day. It’s okay. You can just go to bed. We don’t have to pray tonight. We’re training them to think that I’ve had a long day. I don’t have to read my devotion. I have to devote any time to go,
Right?
No, this is a hard word. It was a really hard word when he’s speaking all of it to me
As well.
But it’s, it’s a lot more than what we’re doing right now. And he’s telling me that he is preparing his church. There’s a preparation that is going on right now. And it includes our children. And the Lord reminded me that when he comes back for his bride, that’s the church. When he comes back, she’s going to be pure and spotless and she’s going to be ready because these preparations have been made. Repent, repent for the kingdom is at hand to make ready. A people prepared
For the ward. We have to be mostly concerned with spiritual investment. If you don’t feel equipped, I want to encourage you. The Holy spirit is a wonderful teacher. The Bible says that he will lead us into all truth and he will tell us things that we do not know he’s with you. If you’re a believer, he’s there. He can tell you, just ask. I know, I remember I’ve talked to him, but he’s told me, I said something about one of my kids talking to the Lord about, he said, just ask me. And I’m like, Oh yeah. Uh, what do you think about that? And he’ll tell you for every season that they’re in, he knows he created them. He knows exactly who they are. He knows the gifts inside of them. He knows who he created them to be. He knows. And all we have to do is ask him and he’ll tell us, he’ll tell us, he’ll show us how to train them up.
He’ll tell you exactly who they are. This one here. This one is a worship leader. This one over here, this one’s going to preach the word of God. That one there, that one’s going to lead others to the Lord is an evangelist. He created them for certain things to do as a part of his body. And all we have to do is ask him and he’ll tell us what we need to know. And we can speak that over our child from when they’re very little, this is who you are. This is who God says that you are. We put that in them. That’s their identity. Their identity is in Christ. And that’s the only identity that they need to know is who they are in Christ. Who are they in the Lord? And there will never be a doubt. There will never be a doubt when they get to that place where someone else says, are you sure? No, it is not because the Lord has said, this has been spoken over me. This is who I am. This is how I have been raised. This is how I have been trained. I have been trained up in the Lord and it says that when we train them up in the Lord, they will not depart from it. They will not depart.
And I want to encourage some of you who are older. The Lord said to encourage you that, um, we need you. We need you. If you think you’ve retired, you’ve not, God’s calling you up. There’s generals in the army. They’ve served a long time, but they have a lot of wisdom. They have a lot of knowledge and experience and that’s who you are. We need you. We need generals in the faith, leading us and training us. We need you. You have something to impart and we need you. It’s not time to lay down. You’ve got, we’ve got these privates over here that we’ve got to train up to one day, be generals. There’s this it’s just a process, but we need you. We need what’s inside of you. God loves family. He is family God, the father and the son and the Holy spirit. He said, he called Jesus. His son, Jesus was his son for a reason. He loves family. He is family. He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He speaks of generations. It’s generational. What he says, we have to remember that. And even just today, as I was watching little Gemma be baptized. There’s a harvest of children right now. Their hearts are so ready for him. I know of a Mount Carmel. There is three baptisms today and they’re all children
[inaudible].
Yeah. So I think I just want to pray. I do want you to know, the Lord is asking. He’s asking for us to turn our hearts. It might be hard to turn away from this rhythm that we’ve built in our schedule and our day in our life. But he’s asking us to turn and look at what is on his heart is on his heart today. He wants us to turn and repentance. We’re believing for revival, but repentance comes before revival comes. It does. And then to invest in teach. If you will just stand with me, please.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, God, we thank you. We thank you for your word. Thank you for your heart. For children that you call them precious and that they’re blessings and they need attention just as a baby. When it’s infant, it requires more attention. The younger ones in our body require more attention. It doesn’t make them less important, but they’re just need more attention. They just need a little more important to them. God, I just thank you for what you’re doing today. I thank you that you just love us so much, Lord God, I thank you that you love every family. God, I thank you for hearts. Turning fathers, hearts, turning and mothers hearts turning Lord God, show us, show us what we need to lay down. Show us what we need to set aside. Show us where we’re too busy. Show us priority. God show us priority. We need to see you your priority. Lord. We want your priority for our day, for our week, for our month, for our year and go, we don’t want to do a single thing. If you’re not in it, we want you in it. Lord, what you have for us is so important. It’s so important. It’s more important than anything we think is important. God, God, I pray that you would help us to, to be broken before you saw the weekend. Repent.
We want to show us how Lord show us how show us, how to invest. Show us God, give us specific strategies. Lord, I asked for you to create moments, moments where we can drop a seed in our child Lord moments, where we can teach moments where we can gently correct moments where we can bring you into every situation. God, even if we’re just sitting around watching TV, Lord, but we can bring it to you. You’re a part of everything that we do do Lord. Thank you for the moments. Thank you for the moments. Thank you for redeeming families. For restoring families, God restoring families, families that are saying I want, I want us in this house to serve you. Lord. We will serve you all the days of our life. Lord, I pray that foundation would be created. Lord, that solid foundation, God, for every home solid foundation of you Lord. And so when it builds, it builds strong and mighty Lord and it won’t crumble. It won’t be washed away. It won’t be washed away. It’ll be strong.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. I thank you that you love family. God, I thank you for older mothers and fathers, Lord, I pray to stirring in their heart right now, a stirring in their heart to invest God. We need them. Thank you Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for no Jesus at all. He’s wonderful. He’s so wonderful. He’s so good. And his love is so big. It is so big, but it’s hard to completely understand, but it’s good. It’s really good. We want Jesus to be the Lord of your life. Church of his asked that you would partner with me and we’re going to pray. We’re going to pray. You, you need him. We all need him in our life, but he can bring freedom and restoration and redemption into your life. He will bring you alive from the dead. He will bring you alive. So if you’ll just pray with me, church will say, Jesus, thank you that you love me so much.
I thank you that you have good plans and purposes for me. Um, I thank you Lord, that you chose to die on a cross and that you bled for me. I thank you that you Rose again to life. Thank you that for the Holy spirit that lives within me, God, I surrender my life to you. And I asked for you to be the Lord of my life. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. And there’s a couple of words of knowledge. I don’t want to miss this. Yes, two works. Um, so we had two words that if you have one of these, please come for prayer. These are things that God specifically call. And so one was pancreatitis. And the other one was for, um, a woman named Amy that you feel that you are in a constant battle that you’ve even said, it’s a fight to get up in the morning to get to work, to get to church.
You think you’re defeated and even try sometimes. But God is saying, if you’ll only lift your hands and call out my name, I will rescue you. I will give you victory over the enemy. Just like Moses did. As long as his hands were up, the enemy was defeated. Keep your hands up and call out to me. God says I am your victory. And so if that’s you please know that there are people up here that want to partner in prayer with you. If you have a need for anything else you want partnered with, even if it’s just, you want more of God, you want more of God or this message has stirred in your heart. Please come. We want to partner and pray with you. So I’m gonna turn it over to our service hosts. Now. Thank you for coming to Roads Church.