Thank you for listening to this message from LifeHouse Church.
We are only a couple of weeks away from officially launching that campus.
There's been lots of activity going on up to this point up at that campus, but we are
getting ready to launch.
There's going to be thousands of mailers that are going to go out and we're going to be
announcing the startup there and a message series that we're going to be doing here and
there simultaneously of course.
And we're excited about what God's doing.
We've been praying.
We've got everything I think pretty well set.
They're actually doing a pre-launch gathering up there today.
Shout out to East Shore and they're doing a pre-launch today to make sure we're getting
everything working right before the community comes in, make sure everything works right,
all the buttons we can get turned on properly.
I don't know if you know this or not, but there's an awful lot of buttons they push
back there to make this all happen.
And if you ever want to know, just go talk to them guys in the booth.
They do a lot and there's a lot that goes into the technology that gets us from here
to there and they're going to be simulcasting or casting the messages up to that location.
So we're just excited about what God's doing.
And here's what I believe.
I believe this.
If God is speaking to you this morning about that campus, maybe you got a little nudge
in your spirit as that video took place.
We believe that there's going to be people from this campus that are going to go along
up there for a six month period and help support that campus, help get that campus off the
ground.
If that's you, please see me.
See Pastor Eric.
We want to get you informed.
We want to let you know what's coming up and then we're going to see you go along up there
to get things started.
I don't know about you.
Life House was a church plant.
We started in our house many years ago and I like starting new things.
I get excited.
I almost get giddy with it all.
So I'm pretty pumped about what's coming up in a few weeks and what God's going to do.
How many know God does new things in our life?
Amen?
Amen.
It's true.
Listen, I just want to commend you and thank you for praying and just minister to one another.
I was watching a little bit while the break was going on here and people were praying
for one another.
They're talking with one another, encouraging one another.
We come together as a church to do that.
You know that we come together to lift each other up.
So I want to commend you in that and just thank you for being a part and really just
worshiping and serving as you come here.
Some of you serve an official role.
Some you come in and just minister to people as you go the whole time.
So thank you for that.
This morning I'm going to preach a word and I'm going to start off with a question and
here's the question.
Have you ever had someone just give it to you straight?
Come on.
Raise your hand.
You got somebody just gave it to you straight.
They told you what you needed to hear when you needed to hear it.
Anybody talk with know what I'm talking about?
Do you ever have somebody who gave it to you and you might not even wanted to hear it,
right?
You might not.
You might not ask for it.
You might not said, please bring it on.
They just gave it to you straight.
Someone gave you the long and the short.
Somebody gave you the skinny.
Somebody gave it to you with zero sugar added.
Amen.
Come on.
Just they didn't mince words in the conversation.
Someone just put it out there about either what you did, what you didn't do or what you're
about to do.
Right?
And sometimes we need people like that in our lives just to give it to us straight.
And I kind of feel like that's what the apostle Paul was doing with Timothy in this in chapter
two or chapter three of second Timothy.
So you got your Bible.
You can start turning there.
We're going to go into second Timothy.
And if you haven't noticed the last couple of weeks, we've been parked in second Timothy.
We've been working out through the chapters there.
And this is chapter three.
This is part of a letter that Paul was sending to his young protege, right?
Timothy and Timothy is pastoring a church in Ephesus.
He's been there approximately four years at this point.
While Paul is not there, he's in a Roman prison.
Now experts don't know if he was actually in the prison cell or if he was actually under
a house arrest.
He experienced both.
But either way, he would have had a Roman guard attached to him and he would have been
in prison.
And Paul was well aware that he is possibly steps away or one step away from death.
He knows that he's going on trial for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And it could be his last in history tells us that it was his last letter that he wrote
and he's writing to encourage Timothy.
But he's also writing to him because Timothy is going to face some hard stuff.
He's going to have to handle some difficult things.
He's got opposition going on in his church in Ephesus.
He's got false teachers who are rising up.
He's got people that are coming against him.
And he knows, Paul knows that for Timothy to follow Jesus Christ in the culture that
he's in, it's not going to be easy.
It's going to be tough.
We live in a culture that might make it difficult to follow Jesus.
Now probably not the same difficulty they did, but you might run into difficulty if you follow
Christ.
You're probably going to hit some opposing views.
Amen.
If you get out there and get talking, everything about Jesus is completely amazing, but it
does not mean it's easy.
It doesn't mean it's without opposition.
The world around us doesn't see things like Jesus sees things.
They don't hold the same priorities.
They don't hold the same values.
They don't understand God or sometimes don't even care about God.
They certainly don't have the same opinion on sin if they even call it sin.
We're called to see things like Jesus, to live like Jesus and to respond like Jesus
and see through the lens of God's truth and not popular opinion, popular bias or what
the culture tries to pass off as truth.
So on some scale, somewhere along the way to what Paul was saying to Timothy, the word
of God is saying to you because you're going to hit opposition if you follow Jesus Christ.
And opposition is much easier to handle if you're prepared for it.
If you know it's coming.
Amen.
I may like to see what's coming.
You know what's coming at you.
It's a lot easier to handle that opposition.
So again, second Timothy chapter three, verse one, and I'm going to pray before we read
God's word.
Lord, we thank you for this day for your mercy and love.
I thank you, God, for the ministry.
It's already taken place in this house.
And Lord, as we open your word and God, as we look into your word, God, make it apply
to our own hearts and spirit.
Holy Spirit, speak to those that are here.
Those are listening online.
Those are these short and just drop the word in their spirit that they need to hear this
morning.
We give you praise and glory in Jesus name and everybody said together.
Amen.
That was a good amen.
All right.
Second Timothy chapter three, verse one says, but know this, that in the last days, perilous
times will come.
Say perilous, perilous times will come in the last days.
It's going to get tough in the last days.
It's going to be difficult in the last days.
There's going to be risk and danger.
That's exactly what perilous means.
All right.
For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without self control,
brutal, despisers of good traders, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God having a form of godliness, but denying its power.
And from such Paul's telling Timothy's turn away for of this sort are those who creep
into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various
lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Now he gives an example.
Now as Janus and Jane Breeze resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth.
Men of corrupt minds disapprove concerning the faith, but they will progress no further
for their folly will be manifest to all as theirs also was.
Timothy is hearing this letter from Paul.
Paul's writing to Timothy and he's saying, Hey, it's not the greatest news, buddy.
All right.
So how many know sometimes you don't get the greatest news.
He's he's telling you're going to have opposition.
Things are going to get tough.
You're headed for some problems.
There's going to be issues.
Right.
Aren't you glad I'm back from vacation preaching this positive stuff to you?
Right.
And in the last days, this is what you're going to see around you.
Anybody seeing any of those things I just described around you.
Right.
Let people that are lovers of themselves, lovers of money, bolsters, proud slanderers,
man, people slander these days like it's their job.
Right.
Unforgiving, unloving, unholy lovers of pleasure.
As I looked at this, I thought, well, you know, I do see that around me a good bit.
You know, this could be very well the last days.
And some of this, honestly, we've seen since the beginning of time, right.
Since the Garden of Eden, the fall of mankind, we've seen some of these things take place.
But I think while some of these have been around since the beginning, I think there
really is some things that are at epidemic level in our society today.
One of those things that it says is men are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Our society craves pleasure.
Right.
Now, I don't know if you know this or not, but pleasure is on the number six list or
line item in the American budget.
All right.
If you if you're talking now, if you have a budget, it's good to have a budget.
But if you have a budget, number six slot is for pleasure.
Now you might think, well, that's pretty good.
Right.
Didn't hit number one, didn't hit number two or number three.
It's way down or number six.
Well, you got to look at the five things that are ahead of it.
All right.
The five things are ahead of it is food.
I mean, that's a necessity.
Come on.
I am.
All right.
Shelter, right.
Transportation, insurance, retirement and health care.
The first five are all necessities.
And then number six is pleasure.
Thousands and thousands of dollars per year set aside per household on pleasure.
Now, I'm not preaching against pleasure.
I just got back from vacation.
All right.
I had a pleasurable time.
All right.
That's not what I'm talking about.
Pleasure is not the problem.
It says the love of pleasure more than the love of God is the problem.
Right.
Americans spend thousands and thousands of dollars on pleasure, but they've hardly poured
anything into the ministry or into the godly work.
Forty four percent of Christians give less than one hundred dollars to the church or
a ministry per year.
Only two point eight percent of Christians give give more than a thousand dollars to
a church in a giving year.
The word of God says this in Matthew six, 19, do not lay up for yourselves treasures
on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves don't
break in and steal for where your treasure is.
Okay.
That's where your money's at.
That's what your treasure is.
Right.
There your heart will be also.
It's not a problem having pleasurable things in your life and doing pleasurable things.
It's just you got to make sure that the love of God trumps all that.
Right.
It's got to fall somewhere else down on the list, but it's got to be about that.
And Paul told Timothy people are not in love with Jesus.
They're not in love with God.
They're in love with stuff.
They're in love with themselves.
Right.
Lovers of themselves.
They're in love with other things and there's going to be opposition in your life because
of this.
You can count on it.
You need to under he's telling Timothy.
He's telling him, understand the struggle.
He's saying, understand the opposition.
Don't put your head in the sand.
Don't run away from what's in front of you.
Don't go looking for ease because it's probably not going to come.
Don't downplay the opposition.
Don't run and hide.
Timothy, you will hit opposition.
And Timothy, have I mentioned that I'm in jail for the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Right.
Paul shoots it straight.
This is what I call a suck it up cupcake conversation.
All right.
Take it with me.
Suck it up cupcake.
Turn to somebody beside you.
Tell them, suck it up cupcake.
Some of you wanted to say it at somebody for a long time.
Suck it up cupcake.
I'll never forget a conversation I got in.
This was years and years ago, but we were with some friends of ours who we knew really
well, but they had some friends that I had just met, literally just met them.
So it was a group of us adults and we're all together and we're hanging out together.
And I had this blister on my foot that I had gotten from earlier today.
It was from shoes.
And I'm whining and complaining a little bit about this blister in my foot.
And I was in some serious pain here, folks.
It was a blister.
All right.
So I had his blister and we're talking and this person that I do not know, the wife of
this gentleman looks me dead in the eye and she says, just suck it up cupcake.
I was like, what?
And I wanted to say something cool back, but I had nothing.
All right.
And I'm like, all right.
Think I will, you know, just like suck it up cupcake.
Right.
Sometimes you need somebody to shoot straight with you.
You need to tell you, you're going to have some opposition.
You're going to have some difficulty.
If you follow Jesus, suck it up cupcake, because there's going to be struggle.
There's going to be opposition.
It's not going to be a maybe.
It's not going to be a could be.
It's not going to be a possibility.
It is a guarantee.
All right.
Is why Ephesians six instructs us this way.
Ephesians six, 10 says is finally my brother, be strong in the Lord and in the power of
his might, put on the whole armor of God.
Do you know why it says to put on the whole armor of God?
Because you're going to get into serious opposition.
You don't need just a piece or two of the armor.
You need all of it.
Right.
It's going to come and then you may be able to stand against the wilds or the plans or
the execution of the devil for we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities
against powers, against rules of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness
in heavenly places.
Never take up the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand within the evil
day and having done all to stand.
We're in a struggle with the devil.
We're in a struggle with the enemy.
We are in a fight with Satan and his works that are unfolding in the world around us.
There will be evil days that will push in on us.
They're going to push in.
There are principalities.
There are powers.
There are hosts of darkness at work in the world around us.
There are evil minions.
There is a devil.
There are demons.
There are things that work in the society around us and we need to understand it.
It's a wrestling match.
It's a war.
There's opposition, right?
So buckle up, armor up, wake up, cupcake.
Come on, because the struggle is here.
And if we're walking with Jesus, we're going to be in a fight with the devil.
Do you know that the Bible refers to us in scripture as children of light?
Do you know that darkness and light are always in a struggle?
And if you don't believe me, just this happens every single day, every single day when you
get up, if you get up early enough, I didn't because I was on vacation.
I didn't see this happen one time.
But if you get up early enough, do you know what happens?
The sun rises.
It really does happen.
Right.
And the darkness that's on the earth.
What does light do to darkness?
It dispels darkness.
As soon as that sun comes up, right, the earth's rotation takes place and that sun comes up.
It dispels the darkness.
And at the evening, when the sun begins to go down in the evening, darkness begins to
overshadow the light.
It's all they're always oppressing on one another.
They're always in opposition to one another.
So when your light, when you're a child of light and you walk into darkness, what's going
to happen?
Right.
Opposition is going to take place.
Or if you're in a room and there's light and darkness begins to come in, there's going
to be opposition that takes place.
You got to armor up.
You got to be ready.
You got to have the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, you know, the breastplate of
righteousness, your feet shot with the preparation of the gospel, the sword of the spirit, which
is the word of God in the Holy Spirit.
You got to be ready not to fight people, but to fight the evil that is working to overwhelm
the earth.
Now, I know that happens sometimes in people, but we're not fighting people.
We get this all jacked up sometimes as Christians, right?
We get this all messed up.
Sometimes we think we're in a fight with evil people, right?
Well, we're in fight with principalities, powers and rulers of darkness.
We're not in a fight with the people.
We think we're getting ready to fight people.
So we armor up to fight people.
How many of you armor up different?
You're just going to fight somebody else, right?
You'll you'll arm up a whole lot different and you won't weaponize yourself spiritually.
You just weaponize yourself to take somebody else out, maybe verbally, hopefully not physically,
right?
But you'll weapon up it in a different way.
And if you're not ready for the opposition that is evil and powers of darkness and principalities,
you won't weaponize.
Right?
If you come into the fight, you'll bring a knife to a gunfight.
Okay.
How many know you don't do very well if you have a knife and a gunfight?
If you don't get ready spiritually for the evil that's out there and you don't arm it
up in a spiritual manner, you'll bring a knife right to a gunfight and the enemy will crush
you.
He will take your feet out from under you.
We're not in a fight with people.
Paul was reminding this young minister.
That's evil sometimes works through people, but you're not there to take the people out.
You're in the fight with the evil one.
You're in the fight with the enemy.
Understand this.
Understand Jesus took he on Jesus understood the fight.
Do you know that he on he always he always had people opposing him everywhere.
Jesus one he had people opposing him all the time, but he understood the fight.
First John three eight says this.
He who sins is of the devil for the devil has sinned from the beginning for this purpose.
The Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.
It does not say that he came to destroy people.
Matter of fact, Jesus came to seek and save those who were lost right to destroy the works
of the devil.
You armor up to destroy the works of the devil.
You get ready for the opposition to destroy the works of the devil.
Jesus when he came through the earth, he didn't come to fight the Romans.
The Romans were in power at that time.
They were heathens.
They did not believe in God.
They were brutal.
You can just read about the Roman Empire and find out how brutal they were.
Jesus didn't come to fight the Romans.
He could have he could have taken all of Rome down.
He could have done he did.
He came to fight the works of the devil.
He came to crush the works of the devil.
Right.
Love God, love people every day.
That's our that's our mission.
Right.
Love God, love people every day.
And maybe we should add to the end of it.
Destroy the works of the devil.
Okay.
Love God, love people every day, but destroy the works of the devil.
We want to make sure people come to Christ and then will crush the work of the enemy
in the meantime while we're walking them through.
Right.
Paul was centering Timothy for the fight.
Focus on the right struggle.
Let me pick up at verse 10.
But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering,
love, perseverance, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions.
He's encouraging Timothy, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what
persecutions I endured and out of them all the Lord deliver me.
Yes.
And all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
You see it again.
But evil men and apostles will grow worse and worse deceiving and being deceived.
Then in verse 14, Paul shifts gears out of suck it up cupcake mode.
Right.
He starts to lean into coaching more.
He's coaching Timothy.
He's doing it the whole time.
A good how I know a good coach gives you a picture of the reality that you're in at the
moment.
That's what a good coach does.
A coach gives you a picture of your current reality.
Right.
The opposition that's in front of you.
And then a coach begins to instruct you.
They begin to instruct you on how to get through the opposition.
And 14, he says, but you must continue in the things which you have learned.
Right.
You must lean into your training and be assured of knowing from whom you have learned them
and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures.
You've got the right tool.
You've got the scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith,
which is in Christ Jesus.
He says all scriptures given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be complete,
thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Good coaches give you the playbook.
They give you the strategy to win.
Good coaches correct bad habits.
Right.
They'll tell you they'll speak it straight.
Good coaches confirm your current reality.
Good coaches equip you to overcome the opposition so that you can be complete and thoroughly
equipped for every good work.
Everyone needs at least one Paul in their life.
Everyone as a believer, as a follower of Jesus, everyone needs one Paul.
They need one coach, at least one to pour in them, to speak it straight, to give you
to you straight on.
Every Christian needs someone who will help you walk through the spiritual battlefields
that are in front of you to understand the opposition.
You need a coach to give you a picture of your current reality.
You need a coach who can help equip you.
You need somebody that will and will be willing to correct you if necessary, right, to cheer
you on to the end, to make sure you get to the win.
As I get ready to close here and as the campus up at East Shore gets ready to close, I want
to read a story that has a little bit to do with coaching.
And this comes out of Jim Collins' book, Good to Great.
He writes about a high school cross country team who went from being ranked in the top
20 in the state to consistent contenders for the state championship in both girls and boys
division.
It says that the coaching staff of a high school cross country running team got together
for dinner after winning its second state championship in two years.
The program had been transformed in the previous five years from good, right, top 20 in the
state to great.
And contenders for the state championship on both the boys and the girls team.
And one of the coaches said this.
He said, I don't get it, said one of the coaches.
Why are we so successful?
We don't work any harder than the other teams.
And we what we do is just so simple.
What does it work?
He was referring to their simple strategy.
We run the best at the end.
That was their strategy.
We run the best at the end of workouts.
We run the best at the end of the races.
We run the best at the end of the season when it counts the most.
Everything is geared to this simple idea.
And the coaching staff knows how to create this effect better than any other team in
the state.
For example, they place a coach at the two mile mark of a 3.1 mile race to collect data
as the runners go past.
Then the coaches calculate not how fast the runners go, but how many competitors they
pass at the end of the race from mile two to the finish, right to the 3.1.
The kids learn how to pace themselves and race with confidence.
We run best at the end and they think at the end of the hard race.
So if I'm hurting bad, then my competitors must be hurting a whole lot worse and they
win a good coach makes you aware of your current reality and then gives you the tools and the
strategy to overcome the opposition to get through in the end.
Let me give you a little bit what it looks like as I'm getting ready to close and the
praise team begins to come.
Let me give you a little bit of what it looks like without a coach.
See without a coach, you will be unaware of your current reality.
Do you know why that is?
You're not very good at looking in.
You're great at looking out.
Right?
God gave you two eyeballs.
Go ahead.
Just point your eyes right now.
Right?
He gave you two eyes.
What are those two eyes do?
They look out.
Right?
They do not look in.
All right.
If you can flip your eyes backwards and look inside yourself, that's just freaky.
First of all.
Okay.
That's just weird.
But I've never met anybody that can do that.
Right?
We can't we can't physically look backwards and look inside of ourselves.
So we're not very good at seeing inside of ourselves.
We're geared.
We're built to look out.
So you need somebody who can look in that they can give you a perspective of your current
reality because we're not very good at assessing our own current reality.
You need a coach.
You need a Paul in your life who's willing to stop and take a look at your life and give
you honest feedback about where you are and tell you what your current reality is.
I'm not very good looking.
Matter of fact, I look at I look out and I'm seeing a reflection.
I'm like, yeah, you're doing okay.
You know, and then I got some people into my life and saying, not so much.
Right?
You need a Paul in your life.
You need a Paul.
You need someone who's going to coach you the entire you.
You need somebody who will help you not learn things the hard way.
That's what a coach does.
A coach.
Now, listen, I understand.
Right?
People say, well, experience is a good teacher.
It is a good teacher.
It's not a great teacher.
All right.
Sometimes you can experience something and you don't make it through the other side of
the experience.
Right?
I got people come to me all the time.
Pastor, I experienced this in another church.
I experienced this.
What happened in my past?
I experienced this back here and they're stuck, man.
They're jammed up in their lives because of what they experienced.
Do you know what's better?
If I learn from somebody else's experience.
Right?
I don't know if you heard this saying, wise people, they learn from the experience of
someone else.
Smart people learn from their own experience and stupid people never learn.
Right?
That's what that's the saying that goes around.
And you need a coach, somebody who's gone where you haven't gone yet.
And you need them to pour wisdom in your life.
They'll tell you where the pitfalls are.
They'll tell you where the potholes are.
They'll tell you don't go there because you don't walk in there and break your leg.
It's going to lay you up for a long period of time.
I mean, it broke your broke your leg emotionally.
Right?
And it just lays you up for a long time.
You need a coach.
You need a Paul in your life.
You're going to hit opposition.
It's going to happen.
If you follow Jesus, buckle up, cupcake.
It's coming.
All right.
Buckle up.
It's going to happen.
And you need someone in your corner, just like Paul was with him.
He's in jail and he's still coaching this young man.
I'm going to ask you to stand.
Jesus did this all the time.
In Matthew chapter 26, Jesus is meeting with his disciples for the very final time.
They're having what we call communion or the Last Supper.
The Last Supper is taking place.
It's what we base communion off of.
We're supposed to practice this to remember Jesus.
So while that was taking place, he looked at his disciples and he said, basically, all
of you are going to stumble because of me tonight.
All of you are going to fail tonight.
Right?
I mean, like that for a final meal.
Right?
And Peter's, of course, is the first one to jump up and say, not me, Lord.
I'm not going to fail.
I'll follow you to the death.
I'm going to go over and all the others stop.
Yeah, us too.
That's what they were doing.
You read the Word of God.
Go ahead and read it in Matthew 26.
And they're all doing it.
And Jesus looked at him.
He told him, this is the current reality.
I'm going to get arrested.
My current reality is I'm going to get arrested.
I'm going to be brought in.
I'm going to be falsely accused.
I'm going to be beaten.
I'm going to be tortured.
I'm going to be crucified.
And you all aren't going to make it through the first round of this.
That's the current reality because I can see what's in you.
You're going to make it through.
Why was he telling him that?
He's preparing them.
He's letting them know so they can look back.
And he's coaching them.
He meets with them after he comes back from it.
Right?
When he rises from the dead, he meets with the disciples and he coaches them on.
You need a Paul.
You need a Jesus in your life.
You need somebody who's coaching you.
Yes, we have the Holy Spirit.
He is our coach.
He is our guy.
But you need somebody physically on the ground.
How many of you know we can shut the Holy Spirit off sometimes?
Right?
You can't shut my mouth up sometimes if I'm standing beside you.
It's true.
So I've got one question.
I've got one question for you this morning.
Who's your Paul?
I'll give you a few seconds.
Who's your Paul?
I'm going to ask you to close your eyes.
Who's your Paul?
You will face opposition if you're following Christ.
And you will make it through because everything is awesome with Christ.
Even the struggle.
Even when it's hard.
If you're listening to me this morning and you don't know Jesus, I can tell you about
one who will be with you in the struggle.
His name is Jesus.
He'll never leave you.
He'll never forsake you.
The Word of God says that all you have to do is recognize that He is the Son of God
and that you believe in your heart that He died on that cross to save you from your sins
and you can be in relationship with the one who will never leave you, the coach that will
always be by your side.
If that's you here this morning, all you have to do is pray that prayer.
If you're listening to me online, if you're at the East Shore campus, you can meet Jesus.
But for those who know Jesus, you will hit opposition.
You will be in the fight with evil and principalities and rulers of darkness count on it.
I'm here to let you know that.
Who's the coach in your life?
Who's the Paul?
There can be more than one, by the way.
Some will be in for a short period of time.
Some could be long term.
Some could be just in moments in your life.
Who are the Pauls in your life?
You got to ask yourself this question.
Father, we come to you right now.
I thank you, God, for each person that's in the house.
I thank you for Paul and Timothy and their relationship.
What we see in the Word of God, it's Jesus with the disciples.
Lord, we need coaches.
Lord, we need people who will pour into us.
God, we need people who will see what's going on in our lives and are willing to speak.
We need people that want to see us win as battle as we want to win and make it through
the struggle and make it past the opposition so that the darkness will not overwhelm us.
God, I pray right now for each person in the house.
God, if they don't have a Paul in their life, God, help them to, Lord, fess up right now
and say, I don't.
I need one.
I've got to find one.
I've got to search that out.
I've got to seek that out.
Lord, God, I pray right now that you would just help, that you would guide, that you
would direct them, Lord, in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name.
They might even be praying right now and there's a name that begins to pop into their mind
and they need to contact that person and say, listen, I need this to be more of a surface
thing.
I need this to be more than just a little bit of coffee now and then.
We need to get real with one another and I need you to get real with me.
I need you to see.
Find somebody who's spiritually ahead of you.
We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name and amen.
Can I tell you?
Listen, if you want to find a coach, go to where the coaches, spiritual coaches hang
out by the way, all right?
I don't know if you can go find one at Walmart.
Could happen.
I don't know.
But I know this.
You want to get where the body of Christ is, right?
You want to go to church.
You want to show up at a life group.
You might find somebody there that you're going to get to know that can connect in with
you.
You might want to serve on a life house team, right?
You might want to get where people come and Christians congregate.
You might want to go to that Christian concert where everybody's getting together.
There's people from your local area.
You might find that person, right?
Seek out a coach personally.
Do it.
This is a very practical thing.
This is a very practical thing, but it will make all the difference in your life.
It will keep you from getting stuck.
It will keep you from sliding backwards, and it might keep you from dying in the ditch
alone.
Amen?
Way too many Christians who've died alone in the ditch, that should not be in the body
of Christ.
It should not be.
So I want you to think right now.
In a moment I'm going to dismiss the prayer teams back there.
They'll pray with you about any need that you might have.
But we're going to close out just singing a song.
I want you seriously, seriously, if you did not, if names did not pop in your mind while
you were praying, if you haven't seriously, I want you to seriously question yourself.
Unfortunately, you don't got anybody.
I could have somebody beside you kind of speak in your life, but they may not know you right
now.
Come on, sing it.
It was my cross you bore, so I could live in the freedom you died for.
And now my life is yours, and I will sing of your goodness forevermore.
Worthy is your name, which I will sing of your name.
Worthy is your name, worthy is your name.
Jesus, you deserve the praise, worthy is your name, worthy is your name.
Jesus, you deserve the praise, worthy is your name.
As I think about this message, I think about a couple I knew years ago.
And we walked beside them, we were pretty close to them, and they got stuck in the ditch.
They actually moved away, physically moved away.
And while they were there, they got stuck in the ditch.
And they're not serving God any longer.
From all things I can see on the outside, they cut off people who probably would have spoken to their lives,
and could have walked them through and got them through some difficult places, but they cut off, they isolated.
And we watched, from the outside we've watched.
I do not want to see that in this house, with any part of this LifeHouse family, for those who are listening.
This is incredibly important.
Get connected.
We say it all the time.
I know it sounds like a mantra and a thing, but we just get up and say, I'm telling you, it's scriptural.
It's part of God's prescription from keeping you from dying, to keep you from getting taken out.
Amen?
It's true.
It breaks your heart, it breaks my heart, to see one person, one person, breaks my heart.
Don't do it.
Amen?
Regardless of your personality, some of you, I know you've got anxiety about getting in a group, go find one person.
That's a group, by the way.
Okay?
Even if it's just two.
Amen.
I'm going to pray a prayer, blessing and favor.
Again, if you need specific prayer, and that team prays all week long for the needs of this church,
and if you've got something that you need to talk with them about or just need prayed over in general,
if you need healing of any kind, they're back there, they want to pray with you.
We see a heart of one healing already this morning.
How cool is that?
All right?
You might want to jump in while God's moving.
All right?
It already took place before the gathering.
All right?
Father, I thank you for this day.
I thank you for each one in the house.
God, I pray, God, that your hand would be upon them.
God, I pray they take serious, Lord, finding a Paul in their life.
And Lord, God, I pray that your favor would be upon them, that your blessing would be upon them.
Lord, as we go out and face evil, God, as we work to crush little works of the enemy and the devil,
God, I pray that your favor would shine upon them.
God, that the Holy Spirit would be alive and active in their lives and continue to be.
And Lord, as they move forward, crushing the enemy.
God, we have no power in ourselves.
It is only by the blood of Christ.
It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we move forward.
Lord, we just give you glory and praise.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Amen.