Hallelujah. Well, can we give Jesus praise? He’s the one that deserves that. Oh, come on. We can do a lot better than that for Jesus. Can we give our Lord and Savior the praise he’s worthy of? I’m so grateful to be back here at Cherry Hills. I really consider this like family. At this point. I get a chance to see some of you that I’ve met throughout the years again, and it’s really just refreshing others of you. I’m meeting for the first time, and as I touch down, I use them with my, my family’s usually with me. But my wife is now newly retired from education. She’s been in education for about 35 plus years. And so pray for me because my wife has five masters and a PhD and is extremely focused. And so when she does not have a regular job, she finds other jobs for me to do <laugh>.

So as you look at that prayer book for praying for America, pray for me <laugh> but also y’all just so grateful for how God has been gracious to me and allowing me to have an amazing daughter, just one child. But she’s an environmental scientist, married a great, great husband and bless me with the most adorable and anointed and intelligent grandbaby that has ever walked the face of the earth. And this is Ella. I just want you to take a look at Ella. Yeah. Put up the other picture of Ella. Yeah. And, ah, so I am papa, and she says, your name is Papa. Your name is Harvey. It starts with an H. And your favorite C animal is a dolphin. And your favorite color is light blue. I’m like, I melts like nothing in the world. She has me wrapped around our finger, and I’m just so grateful for that.

But I also am grateful for how God has allowed our country to experience 250 years. Can we just give God praise for our nation? Amen. Amen. And so you all, I I, I’m honored again on this holiday weekend to be invited back and be invited back in the middle of a very significant series. And, and I’m looking forward to, to diving into that. So let’s pray as we approach the word of God together. Father, we honor you and we bless you for this time that we gather together as your children not just to be in community only. Not just to worship you only. Those things are so significant, but also, Lord God, to approach your word. Your word is a lamp into our feet. It’s a light to our path. It leads us in the way that we should go.

And so, holy Spirit, would you speak to us so that your logos, your printed word, will come alive and become a spoken arama word to our souls. We’ll be careful God, to not take any credit or attention to ourselves, but give all the glory and all the honor and praise where it belongs. And that is to you, our Lord and our Savior. And we pray this prayer in the name that’s above every name in Jesus’ name. Amen. And so you all, I’m so grateful for the series that this church has embarked in by really addressing kind of the elephant in the room. If someone were to ask someone, how are you doing the typical answer, I’m doing fine, doing great, everything’s fine. But the truth be told, that’s the lie we tell ourselves. Everything’s not fine. If we could actually have a bubble, like the little cartoon bubbles that would actually say how we actually felt versus what we said with our lips, or maybe with our demeanor, it would be, I’m anxious.

It would be, I’m overwhelmed. It’d be I’m depressed. It, it’s that I’m dealing with a, a trauma that I can’t unpack and can’t feel, feel what to do with. So I’ve kind of packed it away. It may be abuse, it may be addiction, it may be a hangup, it may be whatever. But the bottom line is that every single person that’s listening to this message right now in some form or another, is not okay. And you all, one of the first steps and the, and the great things about this series is that these 12 steps from the big book are steps that have been tried and true in a lot of circles. But, but what I love about this church is they’re taking the courage to take a tried and true process and bring it under the umbrella of what we as people of faith would walk in and allow.

That these principles, which are transferable to the world, really starts with the church that God renews our mind, not just by some external mystical thing, but there’s some practical steps that you and I can take when I, when I came up on the stage is, is spry and strong and handsome as I am. IIII didn’t jump from the floor to the stage. I did what I took steps. And so none of us arrived at our desired end just by desiring to get there, we have to take steps. And so this church has taken the courageous really act, and when they <laugh>, so when they told me about this and they said, you know, so do you mind preaching on, you know, independence Day weekend on, you know, the subject of 12 steps, steps two and three, do Harvey, how’s that sound for you? I’m like, okay, easy lift.

Not so much. I preached a sermon in Canada, you all years ago, and it was a church in Windsor to, to, to come see actually, and the pastor said it’s Dr. King’s birthday weekend. We cannot miss a significant weekend like Dr. King’s birthday weekend, but we’re in a series past and we really wanna keep the series going. And you’re a guest speaker, so would you please be kind enough to kind of be in the in, in the middle of that series, we’re looking at old covenant practices and old covenant things that God did with God’s people. And we want you to talk about circumcision. So would you talk about, so would you com would you connect circumcision to Dr. Martin Luther the King, please, <laugh>?

Well, well, you all, I believe that honestly, this particular series and this particular series of messages, they didn’t know it. They had no way of knowing it. But this is actually the story of my life. They had no way of knowing when they reached out to me and talked about this, that this is actually what I ended up having to walk through in a different form. So last time we talked about in this step, step one was to admit that, you know, we are powerless over the stuff that we’re dealing with. You know, to just admit where we are, you know, to acknowledge that this is where I am. Have you ever been driving with someone who doesn’t acknowledge that they’re lost? Yeah. Worst thing in the world. And so for, for, for those that are, that, that are desiring to move forward, the first step is to admit that I’m not okay.

Everything’s not okay. But the second step, can we put it up on, on the screen, come to believe that the po that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That something someone greater than you is going to be the, the entity or the catalyst to restore you and me to not being so cuckoo for Cocoa puffs. Number three, make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. So basically to make the decision to, to, to trust God. So not only acknowledge that there’s a higher power, but then make the decision to do something with that acknowledgement, right? To say, okay, I believe that there’s a higher power. I believe that there’s a God who has the power to do anything, but I’m not just gonna stop at that acknowledgement. I’m gonna follow it up with a practical next step, which is taking an action of trust.

So I guess if I could just give you two simple words, believe and trust. And so you all, several hundreds of years ago, 250 to be exact, some colonialists got tired of the tyranny that was being exacted upon them by the tyranny of the King of England. And so they decided this ragtag group of people that had no military training and no other kind of abilities to declare something that has now changed the world, they pinned a declaration of independence, independence on the tyranny of, of England independence from taxation without re representation. But even more than that, not a declaration just from, but a declaration too. We’re not just declaring ourselves free from the of what was, we’re also declaring ourselves what we desire to be. They say we desire to be a people that would believe that everybody has inable rights and endowed by their creator, and that all men are created equal.

These words had never been pinned before. And that for the first time in human history, a government would not be a top down, it would not be a oligarch, it would not be a monarch. It would not be just some government system, but that a government would actually always be of the people. And you all this experiment has now ended with us becoming one of the greatest powers of the world. And to God be the glory that on this 250th year, we celebrate a nation whose experiment is still working. And can we just give God praise for that? Amen.

But I know some of you all are saying, well, I know that was yesterday, but why are we in church today? And you’re talking about that because I believe just as those early colonists pin those words, that became a declaration of independence, that we have the ability right now, today, you and me, us right now, those that are watching, whether now or later, you have the ability to make the decision to make your own declaration, but not a declaration of independence, but a declaration of dependence, a declaration to declare that, you know what, I’m no longer going to try to do this on my own. Because if the truth be told, that’s what you’ve been trying to do. You try to bring yourself out of what you’re in, you try to ignore the, the issues that are underlying your life. But can I tell you something?

If you ask your spouse, if you ask your kids, if you ask your siblings, if you ask your coworkers how do they perceive you, many of them will see the outcome of those aggressions, of those poor self images, of those traumas that have not been addressed. Now you all, not everybody in here has the same set of challenges. Not everybody in here has the same set of problems or issues, but the truth be told, all of us have something that we’re contending with. And the question is, what are we gonna do about it? For some of us, we say, well, I’ll just ignore it. But guess what? Some things cannot be ignored. Jesus said, I came that you might have life and have that life to the full, have it abundantly. And you and I should not be okay with everything not being okay when Jesus came to make everything okay, we should not be okay with things that are not right.

And so you all, this is very personal for me because several years ago I actually stood before my church and decided to go on a sabbatical for an undisclosed amount of time because I felt the tidal wave coming. Have you ever felt something coming and you wanted to get ahead of it? And I didn’t know what it looked like, but I knew that I had tried everything to deal with my childhood trauma growing up on the south side of Chicago to an amazing mom, single parent mom from Mississippi who went to Chicago with the promise of kind of moving up north with the great migration up north. And my mother as a single parent mom raised me by herself and put me through Jesuit prep school, Northwestern University, a woman with small means. But big dreams allowed me to live the kinda life that I’m living.

But in my childhood, there’s some things that occurred along the way, some traumas that began to define me. I was abused as a kid, consistently, not by my mom, but by some other dynamics that really were extremely life changing. Not only that, I suffered from extremely low self-esteem. And so for my entire life, I compensated those internal feelings with achievement. I know none of you can identify with this. I felt like if I could be better at this and I could show up to the world this way, if I could create this image, then I can show the world that I’ve made it and I’ve dealt with my stuff, dealt with nothing but able to show up. Yes. And so it was a public success and a private failure if the truth be told. I think that story is not just mine. There’s some of us that are listening right now that we are public successes of private failures. And so you all, growing up in the Baptist church and and Black Baptist, we believe that Jesus will fix anything. We didn’t believe in therapists that was for white people.

I’m being honest. I tell people about the therapy you about to go, you about you about to pay somebody to talk to you. You pay me, I talk to you. You know all that. So they would ing these songs, Jesus, he will fix it. Oh yeah, about 20 hours of that song, he still had not fixed me. And so I gone from place to place, from person to person to pray for me reading the word of God. I’m serious, y’all genuinely saying to the God who I know is able, and he still is, he could choose. Listen, God can choose to deliver and heal any way that he wants. But listen, the earth is the lord’s, the fullness of thereof, the world and the people in it. Sometimes God will do things divinely and sometimes God will do things with the world that he owns and the people that are in it.

So sometimes God will utilize people to be used by him to do something for you. And so I decide to go to a Christian therapist and and to unravel the trauma of my childhood. I hated myself suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts. And I’m not the only person struggling with that because some of you have. And so I left from the church and for nine months entered into this season of dealing with this trauma and dealing with unpacking some stuff in my life. And you all, the journey was incredibly difficult, incredibly challenging to face myself. But at the end of this, I kind of realized at the beginning when they kind of gave an assessment, they said, you know what? You are emotionally and you are developmentally about a 7-year-old. ’cause That’s where your trauma happened and that’s where you stopped. So imagine being a husband that is a 7-year-old.

Imagine being a father that is a 7-year-old, a pastor, a preacher that is developmentally and emotionally seven year olds. This is gonna help somebody’s marriage right now some of y’all are married to you are married to a 7-year-old. That explains it. You’re like, there it goes. I knew, I knew it. Listen, you are just because you chronologically age, it does not mean that you have emotionally matured. Just because you’ve gotten older doesn’t mean that you’ve dealt with things. And so this church loves you enough to not allow you to stay where you are. But to say, you know what, let’s take things that have been used in the world to bring people out of unbelievable addictions and unbelievable hardships and, and widen the net. So it’s not just about addictions, but about any issue that you may be having knowing that A, we gotta admit it.

And number two, realize that there’s a God who has all power. And number three, we’ve gotta make a step to trust. And so today, you all, I want us to not just talk about the Declaration of Independence that happened back in those days, but today we’re gonna make a declaration of dependence. We’re getting ready to make a declaration to depend on God, to do only what he can do. And there are three ways that we’re gonna address this today. Three ways that we’ll address this declaration of dependence. And it’s found here, it’s gonna be a spark, the spark, the surrender, and the strength. So three things, the spark that helps us get there, the surrender that we own to get there, and then the strength to sustain it. Philippians chapter two, verse 13 in the amplified gives this rendering not in your own strength for it is God who is all the while effectually at work in you, energizing and creating in you the power and desire both to will and to work for his good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

So you all this scripture is telling us a lot. It’s telling us that God a desires that you be pleasing to him. The scripture tells us that God desires that your life and my life would be a delight to him. But then he backs into the ways in which that can happen. And it begins you all with the spark. We said that the second step is to believe that we have a God who has power to fully restore us. And so you are, we need to first believe that there is a God and that God is able to do anything you all. I believe that God is able to do anything. We have a God who is able to do immeasurably above the things that you’re asking or seeking. We have a God who holds the power of the universe in his own hand. We have a God that stepped out on nothing and said something in the nothing and nothing that was became just because of what he said light had never been.

But because light was now spoken, light had to be ’cause God said it and light said it. We’ve never been. But because God said it now light will become and that God has now created everything that exists. And everything that you see in this world has been made by the word of God and sustain by that very God. And God has all power to even take a Jesus who was dead in the grave and by the power of his own hand, raise him up to now sit forever at the right hand of God to make intercession for us. And you think that he’s not able to deal with your depression. You think that he’s not able to deal with your addiction. You think that he’s not able to deal with your trauma. We’ve got a God who has all power of heaven and earth in his, in his head. God is able.

God is able. So we start with that, the source or the spark to even want to do anything. Believe it or not, it’s not starting with you. I know you think everything is about you, don’t you? I think you, I bet you think this song is about you. Don’t you, don’t you, you all. The spark is the little bitty thing that doesn’t seem significant in its beginning. But every fire starts with a spark. It only takes a spark to get a fire going. You remember that song? The, the Revolutionary War started with the spark. Your car started with the spark. Every fire, everything that moves starts with the spark. But know this, whether you think that you’re starting the spark or something else, lemme tell you, is not even you. John chapter six, verse 44, John’s gospel says this, listen, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them and I’ll raise them up at the last day.

So Jesus opens up by saying, you listen. You can’t even come to me unless I draw you. There’s another text that says, you didn’t choose me, but I chose you. Each and every one of us that are listening right now, that are following God, or maybe some of you all that are not following you’re, you’re still seeking and still discovering and grateful that you’re here, grateful that you’re listening. But guess what? That desire, that that spark that’s in you, it’s not you. It’s the one who made you calling to you and drawing you to himself. So the desire for freedom isn’t just from within, it’s actually from him. The desire to be free, the desire to be all that God intended you to be. The desire to be great in this world for the kingdom of God is not starting with you. It’s actually starting with God.

He said before your parents had a twinkle in their eye with each other before you were formed in your mother’s womb. I had a purpose and a plan for your life. Your steps are ordered in me and your life is not an accident. Listen, can I tell you this? I wondered why God allowed me to be abused. What loving God would allow that. Now I understand that even my trauma worked for his glory because God says, oh, I said, all things work together for good. Well, Harvey, why And how could that work for good? Because now I can talk to somebody who has been through what I’ve been through and they know I’m not just talking about it conceptually, but I’m talking about it experientially. And because I can identify with them, I can help somebody in a way that I could have never helped them had God not graced me with my issue.

So could it be, could it be that the thing that listen, wow, the thing that you’re angry at God about. Isn’t that something God, somebody can’t even get to God? ’cause You’re like, why would God allow it? So how could I trust the God who allowed it? Because God, first of all, we in a fallen world, man, it’s not God that wanted bad stuff to happen. It’s this fallen world. Adam and Eve decide they blame them jokers. When when I get to heaven, I got some words to say, where Adam at? Come here Adam, come here dude. Come on man. Come on. I gotta talk to you. God didn’t intend for that to be murder. He didn’t intend for that to be abuse. He didn’t intend for you to be handled that way. He didn’t intend for you to be treated by your parents. He did not intend that. But sin is in the world. But God says, when I get a child of mine, I’ll even take the sin that has happened to them. And I’ll take what the devil meant for evil and I’ll use it for my good to God. Be the glory He can redeem your life.

God, God, God is giving you the freedom from without. He’s also starting the very desire. Jeremiah, I love this scripture 3 31 and three says, the Lord appeared to us in the past saying, watch this. I’ve loved you with an everlasting love and I’ve drawn you with unfailing kindness. Oh listen, some of y’all are like, man, I didn’t know I was gonna come to church and hear this. You know what? He’s drawing you. I didn’t know that my life would have me in such a situation where every word I’m hearing today seems to be so connected to what’s happening with me. God is drawing you and he’s not drawing you with judgment and shame. He’s not drawing you with making you feel bad about what you’re doing or what you’ve done. But he’s drawing you with unfailing love. And so I wanna begin by reiterating that you can trust the God who is now drawing you to freedom.

And he’s drawing you to freedom with love. The spark to set a blaze the fire of freedom is starting with God in you, the hope of glory. But not only do we need to have this spark to start the fire, we gotta actually get the fire started. We’ve gotta surrender to this. So Proverbs, chapter three, very familiar past the scripture passage that we’ve heard many times. Proverbs three chapter three verses five and six. Listen, trust in the Lord with some of your heart, with a little of your heart. Trust in the Lord when it’s convenient. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. And lean not to what makes sense to you. Lean not to your own understanding. And in all of your ways, submit, surrender, trust him and then he will make your path straight. We want to get to the end of the text without the process of the text.

Lord, make my way straight. Have you trusted me? No <laugh> have you have you acknowledged me all your ways? No way. But make my way straight. Make my path straight. He said, dude, there’s a, did you read my word? First of all, I need you to trust me. When I was youth pastor, I did an exercise every probably every quarter where I would have the youth stand on the stage. It was similar to this, but didn’t have steps. It was just like the stage and then the floor. And I would, I would stand, I have the youth stand on the stage and I’d be down there. I, I would have other guys kind of in the wings to help me. But I say, okay, young people, I wanna find, I wanna teach about trust. Turn, have you played this game before? Turn and put your hands like this and fall back.

And you can always tell how a person feels about your capacity to hold them if they either just fall straight back or if they do this. Because the ones who do this don’t trust you can hold them. I don’t know what it was in my youth pastor that all of the ones who trusted me the most at least weighed 200 pounds. <Laugh>. I ain’t kidding y’all. I mean, every last dude was like, I trust you pastor. And I’m like, I don’t trust me. And I say, yeah, but I caught him. But the bottom line is this, trust means I’m willing to fall back on God knowing he has the power and the love to hold me. I’m willing to trust him, not with some of me, but with all of me. And for some of you right now, we can hear cognitively with our head that God is the source and God is the one who has the power. And then the process to surrender is trust. But the truth be told, watch this, your theology, which is your view of God, your view of God will inform your relationship with God. And if your view of God is that he can’t be trusted, I don’t care how much the scripture tells you to trust him, you won’t trust him.

I can’t convince you to do that. I wish I could. As a matter of fact, my right, right now, my heart is breaking because some of you are the only deliverance you have is God. But because you’re blaming God, ’cause you’re blaming God, you won’t trust God. And because you won’t trust God, the devil has ensnared you in a, in a trap you’ll never get out of. So I don’t know who’s struggling with trusting God. ’cause You felt like if he had all power, why didn’t He protect? If he had all power, why didn’t he intervene? If he has all power and he’s, God, why didn’t he allow my child to leave? I, I, I can’t trust you. I’m not gonna say that. That’s easy to reconcile. But what I’ll say is this, someone who has dealt with trust issues. ’cause Once you get abused, you build walls to protect yourself.

And it’s safe, but it’s lonely. But, and the walls that you build don’t just keep people out. Sometimes it keeps God out. So I don’t know who I’m talking to and I haven’t even felt this way in any service. Somebody is angry with God and therefore the second step of depending and surrendering to a God that you don’t trust is a too big of a leap. So all I wanna say is this. I can’t guarantee anything. And I’m sorry that you feel this way, but take it from someone who has had trust issues. He’s never let me down. He’s never failed me. In the middle of my sabbatical, I’m an only child. It’s me and my mom. No dad, no siblings. It’s me and my mom in the middle of me seeking my, my own mental and emotional and spiritual freedom. My mom died suddenly 70 years old. I had dinner with her one minute and I was her phone call. The only one she made. And she died. Like when I got to her, she was having an aneurysm and she just basically went brain dead right in front of me.

I didn’t know how I was gonna make it, but I, I, all I can say is this guys can’t say why I was allowed to have the pain I’ve had. I can’t say why I was allowed and graced to experience what I’ve experienced. But I tell you through my mom’s passing through my own abuse, through my own trauma, there’s never been a time, but all my life he has been faithful all my life. He has been so, so good. For every breath that I am able, I still will sing of the goodness of God. There’s not been a moment, even in my darkest moments, in my darkest spaces where I didn’t even want to live that God has not been there. So I don’t know who I’m talking to, but I’m saying to you, it’s time to let down the guard a little bit and trust him and don’t trust him with a little bit of your heart, but trust him with all, all of your heart. And he says, guess what? When you do that, I will straighten you out. If you wanna get to the straightened out life, it starts with first of all, trusting in the Lord with all of your heart. And stop relying on what makes sense to you. Your own understanding. ’cause Your own understanding got you to where you at. You ain’t that smart. Tell a person next to you, you ain’t that smart. Tell ’em, tell ’em now tell your second choice. You really ain’t that smart on the other side. You really ain’t that smart.

That was a specific word for somebody. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and he will straighten out your path. Matthews gospel, chapter 16 verse 24. Jesus said, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves. Take up their cross and follow me. What is trusting God? Taking up your cross? What is trusting God dying to self? What is trusting God? Take listen. Taking it up daily. It’s not like I laid my cross down in 1923. No <laugh>, I I made it down at 10 23 and at 1123 i I every day, right? He says, the ones who wanna follow me, and I believe you all are here today, those that are watching you watching because you desire to follow God. You desire to be a follower of him. Well, if that is your desire, that desire is fleshed out by denying yourself that denying your will, denying what you want, for what he wants from you.

And so you all, I want you to know that this surrender has all to do with God telling you to trust him. So now let’s get to the heart of the message in the eight minutes. I have left six minutes. 8, 8 0 6. Okay, here we go. The ability to trust is not entrusted to you. He, he doesn’t trust you to be able to do it. So back to the Philippians text. It says, not in your own strength for it is God who is all the while effect at work in you. Now, you all in the Greek, which is what the New Testament was primarily written in the word work comes from this word ener geo, which where we get the word energy from and it’s, it basically means that for God is all the while effectually energizing you, giving you and I the ability to do this. You all, how many of y’all have made decisions to do things and did not follow through on those decisions? How many of y’all have projects that are uncompleted right now at your house? Don’t look at me like that. How many of y’all have signed up for courses and you never took them? How many of y’all have subscribed to a service and you don’t even know which service it is to unsubscribe?

Right? All of us have done this. And so God knows that this task is too big for that response. He says, so I cannot own your ability or your energy to keep this going. So he says, God is the one energizing you. Hallelujah. He said, I’m going to be the one by my power on the inside of you working so you can do the thing that you desire to do to be free. He says He’s the one at work. This is the source of your surrender God, not you. I’m so glad that I am not depending on myself to be the one that delivers on my outcome. ’cause I am as fickle as the day is long. But God is not. He says he’s at work. But listen, he’s not only at work in you watch this now, but he’s also giving you and I the will or the want to do it.

It says watch this now. He’s at work in you energizing. And God is creating in you the power and desire both to will and to work. He says, I don’t even trust the desire to come from you. I’m going to place in you the desire. This word for will or desire is the word they they low. All right? And this word literally means the desire, the inclination or the resolve or the want to do something. I love this song by the Hawkins family. It’s a gospel psal that says, what is this that makes me do right when I want to do wrong? What is this when I’m down low, he gives me a song. Whatever it is, it won’t let me hold my peace. God says, I’m going to give within you the capacity to want my will, to want my will, to want my will for your life.

Jesus is now in the garden of Gethsemane, remembering that he’s got a great passion ahead of him and not so much worried about the cross, but being separated from God. He said, is it possible since I’ve been with you since before the beginning, is it possible for this cup to pass? ’cause I know that when I become sin for them, I’m gonna be disconnected from you. Is it possible that this cup could pass from me? But he said, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. That’s the same thing he’s asking for us to do. He also knows that depending on the day or the time, you and I might not choose that. He says, so guess what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna be your helper. Holy Spirit, he’s a helper. I’m gonna give you both. Listen, I’m gonna give you both the energy, but I’m also gonna give you the desire and the want.

Is there anybody that wants to be free? Is there anybody that wants the chains broken? Is there anybody that wants the addiction to be snapped in half? Is there anybody that wants to see our people without having to look through the lens of skepticism? Is there anybody wanting our authentic and true relationship with other people? But it’s been fraught because you can’t connect because of stuff. Is there anybody that wants a better version of what you can be? I, I submit to you that that want isn’t just inside of you, but it is from God for you. He says, I’m both in you both to not only have the energy to do it, but even the desire to do it. I don’t know about you, but that’s good news to me that I don’t have to rely on myself to get this done. Will Harvey bring it to a close brother? Yes, I will. Three minutes left.

You’ve already reminded us that there are some steps that we gotta take. We just can’t get from the floor to the stage. We gotta take some steps. And the first step is to admit that we on the floor and I need to get up. But the next step is to acknowledge that there’s something greater in someone far greater than me, which is God, Jesus Christ, to get me to this next stage. But then after that, I need to trust this Jesus and whom I’ve decided to put my my life in and that he’s worthy of that trust. And then when I decide to trust him, he says, okay, now that you’ve trusted me, lemme give you something. I’m gonna give you abilities, energy, desire to accomplish the thing that you wanna do. ’cause I don’t trust you with it. I’m gonna make sure I give you all the tools you need.

Well, pastor, I got it. So I’m getting ready to leave. Now, how do I sustain this when I leave this room? I’m glad you asked. It is with the strength of God. You’ve heard this scripture before in Isaiah 40, verse 31 is, is one of the most favorite, my, my, my grandbaby also says. And and and papa, your favorite bird is an eagle because a eagle knows how to soar. And a hummingbird does this. Anyway, this is the thing, alright, I’m sorry. It says in Isaiah 40, 30, 31, those who hope in the Lord. I just got a question. Is there anybody that is listening that hopes in the Lord? Is there anybody hoping in the Lord? Right? Alright, if, if you, if you alright, that’s it. If you, if those online, if you’re in the chat, just type in, I hope in the Lord, I hope in.

If that’s you and you hope in the Lord, here’s what it says, those who hope in the Lord, here’s a promise from God. This is what God is saying to you. Those who hope in me, those who desire to be free, those who desire for the trauma and the issues and the burdens and the stuff that has happened to you to be made right. Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar with wings like eagles. Why? Because eagles don’t flap. They just connect the adversary winds to move up higher. That means when the winds come at them, they catch the adversarial winds and soar higher with the winds that are opposing them. That means that when stuff comes at you, you are not allowing those things to take you out. But by the strength of God, you are soaring above your problems and your issues by the power of God because you hope in him, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not be weary. They will walk and not thank child of God. This is not your New Year’s resolution. This ain’t the gem that you have a membership to and you’ve never been. This is God on the inside of you, giving you the ability to run the race and finish the race. It’s not given to the swift, it’s not given to the strong, but the one who endures to the end child of God. You might get on a step and take a step back, but you better get back up again and keep it going. Keep it moving, keep it moving. Tell somebody next to you. Keep it moving. Tell somebody, here it is, last one, I’m done. I’m Baptist in my background. So we closed three times. Here it is the last one.

Here’s the last one. Paul got an issue. We don’t know what the issue was. Paul begged God, God, take this issue from me. God says, Nope, my grace is sufficient for you. I’m, I’m sure Paul says, excuse me, God, I know you’re busy. You got a lot of stuff going on. Maybe you misinterpreted my prayer request. I did not ask for grace. I asked you to remove my situation and make it better. God says, no. After you came to me three times, my answer’s the same. My grace is sufficient for you. Now let me explain why watch this, because my power is made perfect in what you can’t do. My power is perfected in weakness. So Paul says, oh, wait a minute. That means that when I’m weak, I’m strong. He said, therefore, our glory in the things I can’t do so that I can glory in the things that God can do, God is able to do in you what you could never do. And you’ve got the strength of God behind you to conquer every addiction, every trauma, so that your children will be blessed and your children’s children and the children after them and your bloodline will be redeemed from the curse that’s been coming after your family. Is there anybody hearing me?

So as I take my seat on this 250th celebration of our nation’s independence, I declare today a declaration of dependence. A declaration of dependence, a declaration of dependence. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Be free. Be free. Be free. In the name of Jesus.

All right, you have served us so well. Three services. You have poured your heart out, you’ve listened to the Lord. We’re just so grateful for you taking the time. We’re gonna pray for him. Would you please hold your hand out for thank you Lord, we thank you for this servant. We thank you for your son. We thank you for this man Lord, we thank you for preserving his life so that you could use him to offer life to others. Lord, thank you for giving him the humility to face his traumas so that he could lead us in facing our traumas. And now, Lord, we just pray for your blessing. We pray for your renewing grace. We pray for your strengthening touch in his life. You’d give him safe mur safe travel mercies as he returns to Detroit. Lord, this would be a special season in his marriage with Nancy as together Lord. They would be co-laborers growing your kingdom and being used by you. Thank you Lord for the blessing He’s been to us and we just ask your protection and blessing on him. In Jesus’ name, amen.