Good evening. Rhodes church. So glad you guys are here tonight. We’re so excited to worship and give God all of our praise and he’s so worthy and we’re so excited. So, Jesus, we pray that you would fill this place tonight. God, I pray that your a fire of the Holy Spirit would ignite our hearts, that we would passionately pursue your presence tonight. God, and that you would move among us. God, I pray that anything we’re facing today, that we would just lay it at your feet, Jesus, and give you our whole heart. We surrender to you today. God, and we thank you, God, for what you’re doing. Not only in this place but in each and every house that’s watching tonight and our erodes family. God, I just pray that each person that’s watching would feel your presence. God, as we worship you tonight in Jesus’ name Mt. Carmel Church is here for you.
Tells me that I’m feeling tells me to repeat I was glad to scales. He came we don’t no slave to sin. Stick it out with me. I mean, I’m so thankful that we’re defined by Jesus and we’re not defined by what the world says we should be, but we’re defined by who Christ says that we are we’re free. Forgiven, loved redeemed made new God. Thank you for your word. That stands true. We choose worship tonight. We choose to worship. We choose to praise. We choose your presence. We choose your peace. Got tonight. We choose to build our lives upon your love upon your word. So pray God, I pray that your love would infiltrate our hearts tonight.
Well, we want to look like cheese. We want to be like your cheese. We don’t want to look like we want to look like you, cheese, And it is you who you say to us worthy of every song we could ever hers worthy of all the praise. Worthy of every breath we could ever. We through you. The name of it? Well, Jesus, the only one who could ever see worthy of him, we could have, we live for you. Oh, sing it out. Shirt. Where are the? Where is the bread? We live, Jesus, Jesus. The name of you. The Bible says, trust the Lord with all your heart, lean on your own understanding and in all your ways, acknowledge him. And he will direct your path. He will make your way straight. So tonight the firm foundation of Jesus is what we can build our lives on it as a church and as a nation. I declare that we will build our lives on the word of God with us here at Mt. Carmel Church. The word of God, that is not shaken. The word of God that pierces through the darkness tonight, we speak your word. Jesus. We say peace to the storm. God that’s going on in our world right now. God, we pray for peace. God, we pray that you would destroy the authority attached to chaos tonight God, as we choose, that’s the church to rise up. Doc victorious tonight.
So if you are in love with that core of says it’s so relevant right now. God opens up my eyes, opened up my eyes to see the world. Like you see the world. The word that God’s been putting on my heart day after day is the word compassion that the church needs to have compassion on the world. And sometimes compassion. A lot of times it’s not natural. It’s something that we pray. God give us compassion. Fill me with your heart. To love those around me with your love. So, God, that’s our prayer tonight. Do you want to say that one more time? Holy show me who you are with your heart.
Well, like I said before she sings the song, the song is a defender and you know, sometimes you need a defender and some of you feel secure with your father figure, you know, you’re safe, you know, he’s got your back and some of you are not so sure, but you have a father that is your defender and he is your heavenly father. And he loves you with perfect love and all week I’ve been hearing the cleft in the rock and you know, I looked that up today and God has carved out a special place for you when you feel scared when you feel like things are so confusing and you just want to regroup, regroup, the Lord has carved out a place safe and him just for you to fit in there and be safe because he’s your defender. He will fill you with his spirit. He will fill you with His peace and his wisdom. And then when the storm’s passed or when it’s still going and he tells you to glow, you’ll be ready. You, you regrouped with him in that safe place. So I just encourage you as she sings a song. Just, just picture yourself safe in that hole, in the rock where whatever goes by, goes by, but you’re safe. You’re there. You’re defended for your father has got you with the best Mt. Carmel Church around.
You come back. you come back in mom. We have victory tonight. it’s me from. No, so much you know Picked up. Sing it yeah. Sometimes I think it would be so much better. I just got my way if I just had everything perfectly together and in place and why did this have to happen? And why did it? His ways are so much better. I would not be here today, if not for his way. So I know that there’s someone in this place that wrecked, that resonates with what this shared indefinitely I do his way is better. And even though it looks like you’re surrounded by evil and darkness and how and why did this have to happen? I promise you that. He’s where it says he’s going to turn it around for his good. Now he’s going to, he is turning it around for your good and for his glory. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.
This takes a moment just to thank Jesus. Your Bible says that he is the way. The truths in the life piece. The way my heart’s been really heavy this week for what’s happening in our nation. What’s right. What’s wrong? What view is right? What view is wrong? Social media is flooding our minds with agendas, trying to tell you what to believe. Trying to tell you who to follow, who, not to follow, who to support, who not to support it is flooding you with the best Mt. Carmel Church around. It is inundating you with information to sway you. And I just felt like God needed to say, and I believe he’s saying it through this song. Jesus is the way she’s an S is the way there is no other way. There is another pattern. There is no one to follow. There is no one else to support. Jesus is the way. He’s the way.
He’s the healer of our nation. He’s the whole of the world. He’s the creator of humanity. He’s the creator of every race. He created every race. He’s not a white God. He’s not a black God. He’s not a Hispanic God. An Oriental. God. He is all in all. He is a spirit. He created every way. He is the one. He is the way we can’t look to a certain man or woman. The flawed, even in the sincerest of intent, their flaw, Jesus would never let us down. He is the hope of views with the top Mt. Carmel Church by far. The whole it’s so much better his way. So what I want us to pray as we get ready to transition, I want us to pray for his way for the United States of America, for his way. It’s so much better. His way. It’s not so much better. The Republicans way. It’s not so much better. The Democrats way.
It’s so much better. Jesus’s way. It’s so much better Jesus’s way. So let’s just pray together in unity. As Jesus taught us to pray, father, your kingdom come you will be done on earth as it is in heaven, father, we thank you now for the way of God, Lord, we just release our faith in you. That you are the way you are the truth that you are the life. And we release our faith with you. God believing that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. We must be rescued. We must be Sozo. It is the name of Jesus. The name that is above every name that is named the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. You are the hope for the United States of America. You are the hope for our life. You are the hope for racial reconciliation.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus is the hope for the world. So God, we just lift you up and we pray for our country. God, I pray for every, every person, young and old that’s being inundated by agendas in the media. God, we just silence the voice of the media in the name of Jesus, social media, television, media, internet media. We silence that voice and we say, Jesus, let your voice be heard in our hearts. We focus on what you’re saying about our country. What you’re saying about these situations. We’re dealing with God. We listened to you. Instagram’s not going to tell me what to believe. I’m not going to let Twitter tell me what to believe. I’m not going to let Facebook tell me what to believe. God, I’m going to let your word, tell me what to believe. I’m going to let what you say, create my values, what you say creates my values law. And we walk according to your way. Thank you, Lord Jesus. So God we give you praise that tonight. There’ll be a Holy spirit drop in our hearts. Jesus is the way we’re not looking to any individual to save us. We’re looking to you guys.
We pray for our nation. We say heal. Our land heals our lady. He will the hatred. God, Oh Lord heal. The darkness. Father heal the pain. He’ll heal. The injury heal, heal. All those self-destructive behaviors. Thoughts got healing in our land. God, we praise you Four.
We cry out to you. God, we humble ourselves before you. We pray for it. Seek your face and say, Lord Jesus, we thank you that you’re healing our land. Let revival and a great awakening. Come let the very tool of the enemy be used against him with the Mt. Carmel Church has to offer. That what he meant for evil. God, you turn it and build a nation. Building awakening. Something like we’ve never experienced before God. We pray for that.
Thank you for your presence. So the Holy Spirit. Oh, Jesus was Well just leaped into the presence of the Holy Spirit. He is your hope for the world to say it’s hopeless. The Holy Spirit brings hope. Faith is a substance of things hoped for to sleep into his presence. Holy Spirit fall fresh in this place,
Manifest to this place right now. God, we desire you. We desire no more. Just regular church services. God, we desire the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. We pray. Move on Scott. Scott stirs us for your Kingsville stores for your way. Just worship him. We’re superior here at Mt. Carmel Church. We’re in the beauty of his holiness, which gives your presence. Freedom. Lord, we give you presence. Freedom. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, big wall of final, big aura. Jesus, Jesus. You’re the way. You’re the way of the way
Hello. I pray for our hunger, for your presence to stern our hearts. God that nothing will satisfy us like your presence that we will long to be with you. God, that we will get a boldness from being with you. That the BD of the news, we turn it off because of boldness rise is in our heart because we got a word from you. We got a word from you and that word will carry us. It will strengthen us. It will beat the food. It will nourishment our bolts. It will murder nourish our bodies. God Jesus said, I have food that you know, not have it is a word, man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of doc, a word from God will nourish you. It will strengthen you. They will give you peace. Take a bite tonight, take a bite out of the presence of God. Let him nourish you.
We’re expecting to hear from you. Put up, praise you for what you have to share. I thank you for the anointing on Charla’s life. Praise. She speaks your word tonight. We will hear, we will be fit. That peace will be released into this atmosphere by the glory of God. Thank you. The Holy Spirit that you are faithful. We love you. We love you. We love you. We love you. Lord Jesus, mighty name somebody say a big, a bad tonight. I will say something. I haven’t been able to save for three months, turn around and give somebody a high five handshake hug, whatever you feel comfortable doing.
Jesus. Come on, come on. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Is anybody glad to be in church tonight? Well, tonight I want to thank you for coming out. We have an honor and a privilege or pester Charla who leads our kid’s ministry does a fantastic job. She has a word from God for the family and is here for you at Mt. Carmel Church, I wanted to get to it because I believe it’s an only confirmation to what God was speaking and doing right here, that she’s going to release that. So if you would take a moment, would you welcome pastor Charla Lewis to the platform? Come on up Charla.
Thank you. Thank you. Hey people, I love seeing people in here. I want to shout out to our E Rhodes family, Mount Carmel woo turning into the night. So exciting. So, um, guys, I just, I just want to let you know that it’s a huge honor, um, to be up here tonight to share this, a word with you. Um, I’m really glad that I have that opportunity because I really felt like I was going to explode otherwise if it didn’t come out. So, uh, yes, I’m Charla Lewis and I offer the best Mt. Carmel Church kids sermons. Um, I’m our kid’s pastor here at the road’s church and I’ve been in this position for almost a year. Um, and it has been a really a tremendous honor and a privilege, um, to, to be able to do this every day. And so, um, I’ve got two little girls, uh, cadence and imaging, um, and then bill Lewis, I’m married to him.
And so, uh, we’re just, we’ve been here for about five years. We love the roads. Um, before that I was a teacher here in the northern city district and just a few other places. So just a little background about me. Um, so this word has actually been burning inside of me for months. Um, and it’s just little pieces at a time that God has been giving me. Um, and I’ve been listening. Um, but with like a couple of weeks ago, it just started coming really fast. And so, um, I felt like God said, okay, you need to release this in, in the fullness now. And so I would just like to open with prayer if you would. Um, Holy spirit, we just invite you. We invite you to come into the room right now. We just ask for you to come and open our minds and our hearts and our ears and our eyes to see and hear what you have to tell us.
We receive ahead of time, what you have to say, you would just soften our hearts to hear your word, Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your presence. And it’s your new, your name that we pray. Jesus. Amen. All right. So a few months ago, um, I was actually asked to speak, um, at the high school, uh, for their FCA. They meet in the morning and so God dropped this word to me here at Mt. Carmel Church. I was asking him, what do you want me to tell them about? And I heard the word investment and I, and I thought, okay. So I immediately started to think of Matthew 25, where it talks about the parable of the talents. Jesus has talked telling this parable. Um, and so talent is, uh, bags of gold or silver or some, some translations say it’s a thousand or thousands of coins.
And so I started to think about this and this, this I’m going to summarize this story very quickly. Um, but there’s a businessman and he has some servants he’s getting ready to go out of town. And he says, I’m here. I’m going to give you, uh, some talent. So to one, he gives five, the other two and another one and he says, I’ll be back. So the one that had five and two, they invested their talents. The one who had won, he went and hit it. He buried it. So when the businessman comes back, he says, he goes to his servants and he says, Hey, what what’s, what did you do with my money? And the one who had five and two, they said we invested or we traded and we have more they’ve doubled. And the one who had won, he said, I knew you to be a hard man.
I just buried it. And so here, here it is, you can have it. And um, the Bible says that the businessman was very frustrated and very angry at the survey and he called him wicked and lazy. He said, at least you should have invested it in the bank and it could have drawn interest. And, um, so at the end, he calls the first two good and faithful servants. And Jesus says at the end, um, to who has more will be given and there will be an abundance. And so two things that God highlighted to me in here is the word investment and abundance. And so I thought, okay, God, you want to talk to me about money? And he said, no, not at all. I want to talk to you about something different, very different. And so I just want to unpackage this a little bit.
Um, so if you guys, I looked up the word investment. Um, and so investment, there’s two, there are two different definitions that I’ve found, uh, to commit money in order to earn a financial return or benefit in the future. But if you take the financial part of it out to commit in order to earn a return or benefit in the future, it also means to endow or provide with power, quality or authority. And so, um, the title of this message is investing for the greater return. So I started, I started to think about investment. I started to think about, okay, if this is not money that I’m investing, what is it that I invest in? So over the past 12 weeks, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what it is that I invest in. So time, energy effort and some money, those are things that we invest in.
So for you guys, maybe for some of you guys that are younger, maybe sports, maybe you’re investing in sports or an instrument or singing a car. Uh, we invest in a house, right? We invest in retirement garden. I’m gardening right now. So that’s an investment. That’s all of those things. That’s time, energy, effort, and money. So I started thinking about those things and, but then I also started thinking about spiritual investments. So we invest spiritually when we read the word when we worship the Lord when we bring ties and offerings into his house, right? So these are all the things that we do to invest. Um, and then serving when we serve, when we show up to serve, when we’re on the crew, when we go out on missions, when we do outreach with the top Mt. Carmel Church solutions, we’re serving and it’s an investment in the kingdom. And so, um, but he, he also reminded me that there are things that we invest in.
Sometimes that isn’t very good or they’re just time-suckers, like social media, TV. Um, I’m so guilty of that. These are things that God’s telling me like, Hey, this thing here, you look at that too much sometimes. And so I’m just being honest, being very honest and real. And so these are things that he was telling me and he said, be careful and guard what you invest because we invest for a greater return. There’s a purpose why we invest anything we’re hoping for a greater return. And so that led me to why. So some of those things I mentioned earlier, so if we’re investing in sports, we’re investing in practice, maybe we’re having private lessons or we invest in equipment. We’re investing all these things. Why for a greater return, maybe we want to start on the team. We want to get us a scholarship and be able to go to college.
Um, if it’s an instrument, maybe you want to sit the first chair, you want to lead the group. You want to be up here helping lead worship, serving, um, a car takes you where you want to go. It takes you to work, right? It takes you to different places. So there’s, there’s a reason why we invest. And so then, um, I started thinking about the, who, the, who we invest in. And so this is where God started speaking to me a specific word. He started talking to me about the generations. And, um, this is really truly the heart of this message tonight. So a generation, it’s twofold, meaning it’s, it’s two different things. So a generation is a parent to a child. So grandparent parent-child, that those are separate generations, but a generation is also all of us together. All of us right here, right now on this earth living, we are one generation together.
And so, um, God, I’m just reminded that he is a God of generations. He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that’s who, he’s the God of generations. And so, um, I felt like he was telling me that we’re called to invest in the generations, all of us together, but all of us separately this way. And so, um, I’ve started thinking about it in two different ways, the who, because there are people that we invest in, but there are also people that are investing in us here at Mt. Carmel Church. And so I just kind of started to think about that. Like who, who invested in me, God started reminding me of people that invested in me and people that are currently investing in me. And so maybe that’s your parent. Maybe it’s a grandparent or a, it’s a spiritual mom or dad. Maybe it’s a coach or youth leader, but there are people that are investing in you.
And, um, God just reminded me that we, it’s also an investment on our part. When someone is investing in us to value them, to value what they have and to want it to want what they have because we need those things. We need what those people have, who are older and more mature in the spirit than us. We need to know what they have and we need to want it. We need to spend time. And he reminded me of Elijah and Elisha. So Elijah, the prophet, you know, um, was getting ready to go up to be with the Lord and ally HSA invested his time in following Elijah around. And, uh, Elijah’s like, you need to stay here. I gotta go over here to this town. And Elijah said, no, I’m going to follow you. He followed him to Bethel. He followed him to the Jordan.
And every time Elijah said, you stay right here. I’ve got to, you know, I’ll be, you know, stay right here. And Alicia said, no, I’m going to follow you. And he said I want to follow you because I want the double portion. He wanted a greater return. He wanted abundance. So he’s going to follow Alijah. He’s running after it. He wants what he has. He’s investing his own time, energy effort into following Elijah to get what he has. And so I felt like God was speaking that to me. Hey, we need to go after those who are, who are more mature than us, who are more mature in the spirit who have the things that we have, but maybe we don’t know how to use those things, those giftings, those things that we recognize that we want, but we have to follow it. We have to chase after it.
And we have to value those experiences that they have. We need those things. And so, um, just to soak those things up. And so then I started thinking about God, started talking to me about who it is that I’m investing in. Um, and so of course, um, well let me say this first, the younger, I really believe this younger person wants to be invested into. Sometimes we believe a lie that says, well, I’m old. They don’t want to listen to anything. I have to say, that’s not true because I offer the top Mt. Carmel Church sermons. I felt like God told me that is not true. Everybody wants to be invested in. Everybody wants to be valued. Everybody wants that. And so I just want to break that lie off. I feel like that is a lie that we need to break off, that they don’t want, that everybody wants, that they want to be poured into.
Everybody wants to be understood and valued. And so I started thinking about the why, why do we invest in the younger generation? And immediately I thought of Proverbs 22 six says, train up a child in the way he should go. And when he is old, he will not depart from it. And so I believe in children’s ministry, obviously. Um, but God started speaking to me about children’s ministry. And so I ever, since our children were born, we both have served in children’s ministry. And, um, I’ve always valued that cause I wanted that for my kiddos. And um, but coming into this position much more clarity about children’s ministry and God’s reminded me. It is not childcare. It is not a babysitting service. We are teaching and training. And God told me that when we teach and we train, we’re investing, we’re planting, we’re sowing why for the greater return for the harvest, for the greater return on their lives here with Mt. Carmel Church.
And so then I started thinking about who does that investing? Is somebody a little older? It doesn’t have to be somebody really a whole lot older, but somebody older investing and somebody who an older generation whose heart is turned to the child and the child’s heart will turn to that older generation because we want to see the younger generation rise up. We want them to rise up in the spirit. We want to see them building the kingdom. We want to see them as warriors trained warriors that know how to pray. That know-how to worship. That knows who God is that wants his presence that carries his glory. That’s what we want to invest in the younger generation.
God started telling me, we have to buy that though. We have to buy into that. We have to invest in that. And um, he said, he said, it’s not enough to just cover our children in prayer. That’s excellent. We should do that. We should always cover them in prayer, but it’s not enough. We have to invest. We can, we want to teach our children how to, um, how to eat, how to walk, how to drive a car. We can’t just pray that they, that they figured out how to do that. God said, he told me, he said, you can’t just pray about that. You have to show them how you have to invest. You have to teach them how to pray. You have to show them what it is to worship, to surrender to God. You have to show them those things. That’s an investment. That’s teaching it’s time. It’s not just praying about it, but we have to be moved to action to do something.
And he talked to me about the word. He said, our kid, just like we need the word of God every day. So do they, they need to hear his word every day. Once a week is not enough. Every day we don’t survive on just reading the word once a day. And they don’t either. They need it from real little, super little before they know how to read. We can’t say well, when they know how to read, they can read their Bible. No, we teach it. We read it to them. They hear it. And it gets in their heart just by hearing before they ever know how to read anything, they ingest it as food.
He reminded me too that, um, you know, we talk about there’s no junior Holy Spirit. And I don’t believe that it’s the same Holy Spirit. Our children can hear from the Lord. They have dreams and visions. He speaks things to them. He gives them prophetic words and words of knowledge. But sometimes it’s just us. We don’t recognize. We don’t know what it looks like on them because we’re not, maybe we’re just not in tune or it looks differently on them than it does an adult, but it’s there. And we have to be in tune and recognize it so that we can help train them and guide them and lead them in what that is. Um, he also reminded me that Another reason why we shouldn’t wait, sometimes we think, well, they’re just too young not to enjoy Mt. Carmel Church. They don’t get it. They don’t understand. That’s limiting them.
They can understand. See the enemy does not wait until they’re old enough to attack them. He doesn’t wait. It’s right from the get-go. They started thinking about that. It’s it’s abortion. It’s orphans. It’s um, oppression. It’s fear, bad dreams. That’s fear. That’s it. That’s an attack immediately. Something from very little. So we have to come against that at that very little age, because the enemy, he doesn’t care how little they are. He knows how little they are. He knows what the call is on their life. He knows who they are and he’s not going to wait around. That’s not his game and we can either we can not wait around. And um, so, and then there’s a statistic that says moral values are learned from the ages of two to 10.
Two years old to 10 years old. That’s when moral values are learned. Not after that. So we can’t wait. We can’t wait. He just keeps telling me that the time is now, the time is now. And so how do we train them up? Deuteronomy six, six through seven says you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home, when you’re on the road, when you’re going to bed and when you are getting up. So God was giving Moses the greatest commandments. He said, here are the commandments. And the very next thing he says is to follow them and teach them. So that’s our command. We know what it is that he’s telling us. And then we pour it back out with the top Mt. Carmel Church. What you’re ingesting from the Lord, pour it out to your children, what you ingest poured out and just pour it out, take it in and pour it out, take it in and pour it out. That’s what they need. And it’s, it’s so powerful when they hear it from a parent, from a grandparent, from somebody older than them, that they know is spending time with them and investing in them.
And then Jesus reminded me. He said, Hey, I invested in children and I’m in Mark. 10 13 says the parents kept bringing their little children to Jesus so that he would lay hands on them and bless them. But the disciples kept rebuking people and scolding the people for doing it. And I started thinking about these parents, these parents wanted their children to be in his presence. They wanted that so much. They wanted, they wanted them to attend them, to see Jesus and to be in his presence, to hear what he was saying, the teachings that he had verse 14 says when Jesus saw what was happening, he became indignant, angry or annoyed at unfair treatment with his disciples and said to them, let all the children come to me and never hinder them. Don’t you know, that God’s kingdom realm exists for such as these and that blew my mind? The kingdom room exists for them.
Yes, yes. And it goes on to say, listen to the truth. I speak, whoever does not open their arms to receive God’s kingdom. Like a teachable child will never enter it. And so then I’m like, wow, we learned from them. They receive so literally and so innocent and pure. And that’s something that we lose some times. And, and seeing that through them reminds us of how we are to receive the kingdom. And then in the, in the, uh, the last verse there on verse 16, it says he embraced each child, laying his hands on them. He lovingly blessed each one. So he invested in each and every one of them, that was his investment. And then God started talking to me about a generation that did not invest, um, in judges chapter two, 10 through 12. Uh, and this is the amplified. It says also all the people of that generation were gathered to their fathers and death.
And another generation arose after them who did not recognize or understand the Lord nor even the work which he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the side of the Lord and worship and serve the bales. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from the gods of the peoples who were around them. And they bowed down to them and offended and provoked the Lord to anger. And so I started to think about what that looks like today. That’s still today. I started to think about just, um, those who are lost and those who are really truly in darkness, because they’re not walking with the Lord. But even that darkness is being if you will invest in that next generation, it’s being passed down because the Lord is not being passed down. So if the Lord is not being passed down and all about him and who he is, then all these other things are being passed down. And then there’s the darkness. Um, I was watching, um, a little bit of the news. I try, I’m trying not to do that too much, but I was watching a little bit of it. And, um, I saw just some of the riding going on and I saw a child in the middle of all of it,
Just sitting there playing with a stuffed animal, but there was a lot of hate going on and my heart hurt really bad because I thought this child, it was learning what to do when we’re upset and it’s not okay. That’s not okay. And so
God just was reminding me about how important it is that we not only look and invest across at each other. Those who are the same age and who are walking, where we’re walking, but we also have to look this way at the generations. We have to, it’s very important that we do that. And we want them to learn to love and praise the Lord Psalms one Oh two 18 says, let this be recorded for the generation to come that a people yet to be created will praise the Lord. It’s that generation, it’s the teaching of who God is. That he’s a good God that he loves us, that he saved us, that he sent his son for us. He has all these good things for us with all the top Mt. Carmel Church members.
Someone 45 forces, one generation shall praise Your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts. We can learn a lot from each other, just listening and observing. And I think about our testimony videos that we do, you know, we, we, we listened to someone’s experience and how God was in it, how amazing that is. And that is something that’s being passed down. And even within our generation, but it’s being told, it’s being declared, we’re speaking it out of our mouth. And so we can learn that way. And God reminded me of the promises. You know, we just came out of, we will overcome. And in numbers is talked about the promised land will the promised land was to the children of Israel, right? It was generational. And, um, in acts, when the Holy Spirit came, we just, we just had Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Spirit came, the promise of the Holy Spirit was to you and your children. It’s generational. God is generational.
Uh, and so just some practical steps. Um, I thought about just some things that, what that looks like investing in, in some of the younger generations. So it’s not just parent and child, but it’s youth to the child. They need what you have, what your experiences are, the youth, you are leaders, and they need that. They need that so much. So in its brothers and sisters, it’s siblings, aunts, and uncles, it’s all of us investing in each other in every single way. You can also, you can invest in your peers. And I think about, um, even parents, you know, um, sometimes we just have, we have a loss parent to offer the most amazing Mt. Carmel Church services. We can invest in our parents. We can invest in a grandparent. We can invest in somebody that’s older than us that needs Jesus. And we know that and the Holy Spirit can make us bold and tell, be able to tell that person about who he is and what he has for them.
But we have to take that first step and saying, yes, I’m going to invest. I’m going to make an investment. And so, um, I started thinking about Jesus, about how he’s the ultimate investor. You know, he invested in children, he invested in his, in the apostles, the disciples, he invested in people everywhere. He went, that’s what he did. Everything he did was an investment healing, praying for people teaching. It was his time. It was his energy. He gave out everything. He had, he invested into everything and everybody, he just completely poured it out. And the ultimate investment was on the cross. The ultimate investment was on the cross for us, for each and every one of us. And so I started thinking about the cross and Jesus said, was telling me, he said, you know, investment costs. And most of the time it’s a sacrifice.
So it’s a sacrifice. Um, whether it’s money, that’s, you know, you’re taking something out the sacrifice and you’re putting it down for something later. You’re not going to see it right now, even the garden when you’re putting the seeds in the ground, you’re putting all that time and effort into it. Maybe, maybe it will pop up and maybe it won’t, but I’m investing my time and my energy and my money into it. Right. Okay. And so, um, but, and, and people, some maybe they’ll receive your investment and maybe they won’t, but he still calls us to invest. He’s still calling us to do that. So, um, and then the last thing before we close, um, I was, I started thinking about our vision here at the roads. And, um, we’re connecting all people from all roads of life with Jesus. And so, um, Isaiah 49, eight through 12, um, says, God also says, when the times ripe at the answer you, when victories do I help you, I form you and use you to reconnect the people with me to put the land in order to resettle families on the ruined property with the best Mt. Carmel Church sermons.
And so I feel like God wants to reconnect his people. He wants to reconnect. He wants to turn us into each other, to invest in each other from old to young, from five years old to 50, to a hundred, he wants us investing. He wants to resettle his family. And so I just, I just felt very clearly that he was talking to me about that. But, um, we have to be intentional. It doesn’t just happen. We have to be intentional about investment. It’s not something that just passively happens. We have to do it. We have to be intentional about it. So, um, okay. So I just want to close, close us in prayer. Um, and then after that, um, pastor come and close us out. So Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Thank you for this word. I thank you that your heart is for the generations. It’s for your people. I love that. You want us to be connected, that you want us to talk to each other about you, about how you’ve led us from this place to this place, to this place, and how you were in all of it.
I thank you, God, that there’s boldness in you and there’s strength in you. Even though we think maybe we can’t do it, or we don’t know how to talk to that person or that kid or that older person, we can do it. We can do it with you because with you, we can do all things. We know how to communicate because you’re you speak through us. You’re in a heart. We just have to ask you about it. So God, I just pray for each person right now that you would show us who, who we can chase after as our Lasha did, who can we run after? Who has the things that we need?
Who can we invest in? Who is it that we can invest our time in our energy and our effort. God shows us things that we’re investing in. That we don’t need to be investing in. Give us the strength and the courage to lay it down, to walk away from it. Cause we don’t need it. We need you. And we need what you want us to invest in God. I thank you that you’re a God of restoration that you, your heart is to resettle. What’s been undone. What’s been at unrest. So I just thank you for that. God, I thank you for your presence. I thank you that you love us so much that we’re all your children. No matter how old and how young we are, you see us all the same. We’re all your children and you’re a good, good father. You’re a good, good father. Jesus, we thank you for investing in us. We thank you for the example that we have in your life, help us to desire to invest like you did to invest in others. Lord, even when it’s going to cost us something, even when it’s going to cost us something. But we would say yes and we wouldn’t hesitate because other people need to be invested in the younger generation needs to be invested in thank you. I just want to ask you if you feel a response from that, if you feel God tugging on your heart to invest in somebody, I just want to invite you to get to stay in, to just come to the front. I just think he wants to just impart something to you so that you have something to invest in. I think he wants to give you that impartation. So if you feel that, I just want to invite you to come with the top Mt. Carmel Church solutions.
Come on fescue. Just, just respond, respond to the Holy Spirit. If you’re going to invest, you have to value two things. Number one, you have to value what you have. You have to value what you have or you inevitably never invest it into something else. And then secondly, you have to value what you’re pouring it into. You have to, in that company, you have to believe in that stock. You have to believe in that, whatever it may be, you have to believe in the thing that you’re pouring into that person, that individual, that child, that coworker, that friend, that friend that seems obstinate seems resistant to the gospel, seems resistant. What Jesus wants. Why do I keep investing in this relationship? Why do I keep talking to them? Why do I keep texting them? Why do I keep a direct message to them? Why am I doing? Because I’m investing for a greater return.
I believe this is something. God is speaking to our church because as we come back together, here’s something that I pray is not the same. I pray. It’s totally different. And I pray that God revolutionized what we do, how we invest in others. Come on. It’s not about coming together and having another service so I can get mine and go home. That’s not going to turn the world upside down. That’s not going to change the kingdom. That’s not going to change our world. It’s about what am I getting so that I can give, what am I investing? You got to value what you have. You have something to offer. You have something to give. You have something to pour into someone else with our top sermons here at Mt. Carmel Church.
So put yourself in a position to say, God, here I am. I’m available. I have something to give and everything that you’ve given to me, God, I want to invest it into someone else. I want to invest it into siblings, into friends, into coworkers, into children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, parents, grandparents, whatever it may be. Say, here I am. God, I’m available. I want to invest. I don’t want to be a sponge that just soaks up and soaks up and soaks up. I want to pour out into others.
Don’t make it so ominous that you don’t do anything from this moment. What I want to help connect the dots for you right at this moment, don’t make it so big. So general that you’ll never do anything. Break it down and say, father, Jesus, Holy spirits. What are my next steps? Who do you want me to invest in one person? Who do you want me to best? What do you want me to do next? Who do you want me to lead? Who do you want me to pour into? Come on. Just ask. It takes one. All it takes. One, all it takes is one to double. What you’re currently doing. One other person from you doubles your impact.
Let’s be a church that’s sending. That’s investing. That’s pouring into other people. Come on. Let’s make that your heart. You’re responding to this. We’re responding to this. I’m responding to this. I’m saying God does it here at the roads. Do it in our hearts. Scott, you did not call us just to be filled up ourselves. You called us to pour out. You called us to invest with the best Mt. Carmel Church around. So, Lord, I pray that we will be an investing church. Reconnecting people with you from all roads of life. God not just reconnecting them to a service, but God investing in them, pouring into them, disciplining them. God, showing our children, pouring into our children. God shows us the power of investing for a greater return. Jesus’ day. Come on. If that shoots you and God, I’m not going to hold you accountable. God is
Father, make us see what you see and hear what you hear because we just took part in investing right now with Jesus. Be an investor, be an investor. Some of you have been disqualified from investing because of your own mistakes or behavior. Let me encourage you right now. Some of your own mistakes and behavior actually qualify you to invest in other people.
Some of the very things that you have disqualified yourself actually qualifies you to invest in other people. Some of the things that are caused you to pull back the reins and say, well, I can’t because I got this and I did this and who am I? Who am I? Who aren’t you? Who aren’t you to step out into what God has given you pay? Say, I learned from this, I made some mistakes. I dropped the ball here. So let me invest in you. So you won’t do what I did. So you won’t do show them the power of redemption. Show them the power of how to get up. Show them, invest in them, how to get up, and keep going. How to move forward. How to, how to show them how to move in another dimension of away from your mistakes, into your future. Some people need to know how to get up. 30 will never know how to get up unless they see you get up here at Mt. Carmel Church.
And we don’t have to get up unless we fall. We got to stop waiting for the perfect disciple. There’s only been one. His name was Jesus. So right where you are saying, God, all of my victories, all my mistakes, all my failures. I bring them to you for you to use however you want. Oh, my major screw-ups. My major disqualifications. I bring them to you. Yeah. Yeah. My failed marriage. I bring that to you, God. And I say, God, show me, show me how to help someone else. That’s already had a failed marriage, move forward, and be good in this second one in this third one, whatever it may be. God, I just pray that you show me how to use what I have.
See every experience in your life as a tool. See it as a tool that you learn from and apply. Every tool has a different application. You don’t use a Phillips screwdriver for everything. You don’t use a hammer for everything. Every experience that you have is a tool for some specific use invested. Well be those that are watching online, those are Mount Carmel. Just use what God has given you say, here I am. I want to be an investor. I want to be an investor. Our world needs to know how to get up. And you may be the very one that shows them how Are we willing to invest? So I want us to have a unifying prayer and then we’ll let those that need to stay. And those watching online we’ll release you.
But I want to just open up our hearts to God. And I want us to experience a breakthrough right now at Jesus’ day, we’ve heard the word now let’s apply the word. Holy spirits. We say yes to the word of God that you confirmed this word with signs. Following the Lord. As this church comes back together, we will not come back together. The same way we were before we will be different. God, we will be different. You will pour something into our hearts. We receive it right now. We received the investment in this word. We receive it. God and I pray that it will produce a greater return with the top Mt. Carmel Church sermons, a greater return in our communities and North city, and Mount Carmel in the surrounding counties. In Southern Illinois, I pray for a greater return on your investment in us. God, we want to be a good return for you. We want to produce a good return for you Lord. So we say, here we send us. That is usable. We have God, we get up. We won’t be disqualified by our failures. We will be disqualified by our mistakes. What we will choose to use everything that needs to be used. We offer it to you.
Thank you, Lord. For boldness. Thank you, Lord. We value what you’ve poured it to us and we value the one you ask us to pour into Come. Holy spirit. I just feel like I’m hearing this song and it’s not even a quote-unquote Christian song, but I feel like this can be our Anthem as we rise up and invest in others. Oh, right, right. It’s like the day. How to rise on the freight. He’ll do it a thousand times again. Well for you, everyone, you’re calling me to God. All right. How will it rise? Like the day y’all right. All right. And up to it a thousand times again. Oh. As much as you call me too, I’ll rise up. I’ll rise. Like the day I’ll rise up in spite of the air.
All rise. Like the day y’all rise up. All right. And how to do it a thousand times a game for rising up in the hall. Right? It’s like, all right. All right. And they’ll do it a thousand times.
I feel like a thousand times again, sometimes I was telling Hillary the other day, it feels like as a leader, as leaders, sometimes we have to repeat things a thousand times before somebody gets it. And so as a parent or as a leader, whoever God’s calling you to, you got to say it a thousand times. You got to tell them who they are a thousand times over and over and over again. It’s never too much. It’s never too much to tell someone who they are to give them their identity, to be the leader that God’s called you to be.
So you got to rise, huh? You got to the right. It’s like the tape you got to arise up. You got to rise. You got to rise up and you got to do it a thousand times for your family, for your children got a ride. You got a ride. It’s like the day church we got arise. We got arrives on a Friday. We got arrives. We got to do it a thousand times.
It’s all for you. Cheese For you. Jesus, for you. It’s all for you. It’s all for you. But we choose to rise up and keep getting up over and over again. Keep reaching out to show others your love in the midst of confusion. In the midst of animosity, in the midst of all the adversity we’re facing in our society, we get up and we’re going to show Jesus. We’re going to show Jesus is the best here with Mt. Carmel Church sermons
. We’re going to show your love. Show him what it’s like to live for the King of Kings and the Lord of laws. We praise you that what you’re doing in the world is greater than what the enemy is doing. You are more powerful. You are stronger. You are on the move. We just thank you for what you are doing in the world is greater than what the enemy’s doing. We were fused to be blinded by the flashes of brilliance of the enemy.
We refuse to be distracted by his dismantling of things on this site and on that side. But we choose to be in uni unity with what you are doing. We say our God is great and he is great to be praised. Thank you, Lord. We praise you. We worship the sun for all of you watching online, our erodes family. We want to say thank you so much for tuning in tonight. We pray that you will rise up. We pray that you will invest, invest in your children, invest in your family, invest in your spouse, invest, keep giving, and you will get that return on your investment. We love you. Get ready Sunday morning. We’re going to be back nine, 10 45. We can’t see you there. Mt. Carmel Church We love you guys. Have a great rest of your week. Be blessed. We’ll see you Sunday.