Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:00]:
And, we're beginning a brand new series, this week, and we'll be taking this up until Easter, and it's just called the difference maker. And and I think the reason is because all of us, we have an ache, I think, that in our soul that that we want our life to matter. Is that true? Right? That you don't want to just go through life and get everything that you can, and you know, it's not bad to have nice things, it's not bad to enjoy the good things in life, but if that's all you had, that all you had was a good time in life, but you know like it didn't really matter. Right? It's sort of like that aspect, like what difference would it make that we were here in our community. Right? I think most of us we have this sense, and deep down you know that other people and maybe yourself that we need God, and in fact, you probably there are moments that you'd wanna say something. There's probably moments where you wanted to step in. Have you ever been in that place and you see someone raising their voice in the supermarket or in a store. You see something and you want to step in because you see somebody that's kind of speaking, taking advantage of a spouse or a child or that kind of a thing, and it's like maybe you wanted to do something, but you know you're afraid sometimes of the backlash.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:15]:
Maybe if you want to tell somebody about Jesus that you're about to try to figure out how to do something and then the thought comes to your mind and you go like, I don't want to look foolish. What if they ask me a question I can answer? What if, you know, I don't want to look like a fanatic? That kind of a thing. What if they get upset? What if they laugh at me? What if they, you know, what if my friends at work, or my neighbors, or you know, they start like looking at me weird after this. Right? We have sometimes we have these voices, and the enemy uses whispers like that to keep us from making a difference, to keep us quiet, to keep us just kind of like in a safe circle, to keep us from reaching beyond But when you look at the situation through the lens of truth, then what we find is that it isn't that hard. It isn't an insurmountable barrier that we have to do to make a difference because anyone can make a difference. Do me a favor. Turn to your neighbor and just say, anyone can make a difference. Yes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:02:16]:
Right? You know, and that that means you. Right? And, there isn't much that really to be afraid of, and and sometimes we might think that, you know, I'm too old. Sometimes we might think I'm too young. Right? Like, but I don't know if you've noticed, but, that some of the revivals, revivals that have happened, the great moves of God throughout history have been have been started at times from kids, and sometimes from the sometimes from the more senior members of the society. There's a number of them, but like one of those I'm mindful of is the Jesus movement. How many of you guys have heard of the Jesus movement? That's really in the sixties and seventies, and some of us maybe we became believers. If you became a believer in the early eighties or whatever it is, in the mid eighties, you probably were kind of like the tail end of all of that, and but the Jesus movement really was started among youth and kids, and that was the original move. It was like these hippie kids and all of these things that that, you know, people hanging out together, playing worship together, and it's like these people who these kids that at that time who were rebellious at that time who were kind of in drugs and into just kind of the loosening moral fabric in society, that they were ripe for the gospel.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:39]:
And when they came, it didn't go from like, families and adults to the kids. It went from kids up and it affected the whole nation. Right? And so, again, and if you came to Christ because someone who came to Christ in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, that's really the direct result often of the Jesus movement. In, a few years prior to that, a couple decades before in, Scotland, there's this thing called the Hebrides revival, where in these little islands off the coast of Scotland, they say up to like 98% of the people became believers and would flock to these churches that that really just kind of the crazy amount of people being reached in that region, but the revival itself was started by two elderly sisters, Peggy and Christine Smith, aged 82 and 84, who met together and prayed fervently for years that God would you because they were kind of like the forgotten island. You guys ever felt like forgotten? Right? That you're like, oh, it happens in a big city. It happens in a big place, but then that's how they felt. But God, would you show your presence in this place? And it was a revival that spread in the Hebrides Islands which is off the coast of Scotland and moved across even the sea. And so, it was, you know, it's never you're never too young and you're never too old.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:05:19]:
And we're gonna read a portion of scripture this evening that we wanted to just start, our series on making a difference that where does it start? I think it starts by us lifting our eyes because sometimes what we do is we get so caught up in the day to day. You guys ever get caught up in your day to day life. Right? You're just so busy. You got this to do, you got that to do, you gotta go home and get things done, and then you have people, then fun things that you wanna do, and so we all can get caught up like that, but we're gonna read a portion of scripture found in Isaiah Isaiah six verses one to four, and the kind of the context of this passage that we're gonna read is the prophet Isaiah sees a vision of God, but this happens at a time of uncertainty. It was after one of the longest reigning kings, not the longest, but one of the longest reigning kings passed away, and he was a well loved king, a godly man. He had been a person that kinda like oversaw. I don't know if you've ever seen kind of these things that like China has gone from really a lot of backward villages to kinda like one of the most an economic superpower in a generation really. In one generation, they've experienced that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:37]:
And this kind of happened in Israel that King Uzziah was known as an engineer, as a builder. He brought financial prosperity and peace, and then he dies, and it's in that time, and we know he's died because you'll see it says this in the year that King Uzziah died, and instead, if he had been alive, we would have they would have said in the fifty second year of Uzziah's reign. Instead, it says in the year that he died. So, we know that he had passed away. So, you know what that means? It was a time of uncertainty. And sometimes, maybe for some of us in this season, it might be a time of uncertainty. Like, maybe you voted in the election for change. Right? And we've got change, and for some of us now, we never thought about how it would affect our job.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:21]:
Right? You might not have thought about how it would affect, kind of, your personal circumstance. I just had, a meeting this morning and some of my friends that work for the federal government, and they're pastors in our area as well, but he just said, oh man, it's so crazy that what's been happening, you know, in their job and people got laid off and now they're getting to call some of them back, and it's just an upheaval. So he's just saying it was like that at work. And I don't know if you feel that, but we're gonna read, together in Isaiah six, verses one to four. And would you be kind enough to stand with me? Let's read together. I'm gonna read maybe in the beginning, and then we're gonna ask you to join in a little later. He says, you know, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. And you know, like some of us that we might not be familiar, I mean ladies who got married, you guys know what a train is, right? It is that long part of the dress that comes behind like a king would have a robe.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:08:26]:
It would be that robe that goes behind, and it's saying that he saw a vision of God and that to be honest, it probably was like the smoke that filled the temple, and he's describing it like a train behind a a royal figure, and he's saying, and it filled the temple, and above him stood the seraphim. Let's say seraphim. Seraphim. What are seraphim? Seraphim are heavenly beings. It's a plural for the word seraph, which means actually a burning one. And so that they're they're really associated with the holiness and the majesty of God. And so we see these angelic beings, and each had six wings, and with two, they covered their face, and with two, covered his feet, and with two, he flew, and one called to another and said let's read this part together. This is what they said.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:09:19]:
Let's read it out loud. Ready? Begin. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of Him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And what we see is a dramatic vision that Isaiah has, and this aspect of he's not just holy. He's saying he's holy, holy, holy, and this repetition we find like in the book of Revelation when it sees God on the throne in heaven, and it's a revelation of God's absolute moral perfection and His absolute power and His absolute reign. And all of a sudden, it says it shook the room.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:09]:
It shook the earth. It shook Isaiah. And it says in that moment that he saw God for who He is. So do me a favor, just turn to your neighbor and just tell him, God wants you to see Him today. God wants you to see Him today. It's not just when we read things like this, and you can have a seat, it's not just because we want to know that Isaiah saw God, we want you to see God. And when we read something like this, it's not that God wants us to say, yeah, this happened in history, it did happen in history, but he's saying that what he did for one person, that he can do for you, he can do for me, that he can give us a revelation of himself. Now, I've had a lot of conversations with people, who aren't followers of Jesus, and often, I'll have a conversation and say Hey, if you could ask God any question, what question would you ask? And sometimes, I hear people will say Why is there evil in the world? And you know, why do bad things happen to good people? And those things, and those are very common questions, and I think that they're very, you know, very understandable, right? At the same time, I've seen some people get really kind of like arrogant about this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:32]:
And in fact, one of them I noticed I did see, it reminded me of one that I saw a video of this guy named Christopher Hitchens, who was a well known atheist who, had really gotten into arguments, and to be honest, his arguments weren't that good. It's just that he had an English accent, so he sounded smart. But, I talked to a guy yesterday from England and said, I like your accent. He says, I know. I do voice overs because I might as well get something out of it. Right? But he does a bunch of these things. An accent can give you get you a long way. Sometimes not pigeon.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:03]:
I don't know why. But, but here's the thing that, you know he says this and he's talking about God. He doesn't believe God exists, and he's very calm and rational and all this, and he had actually come down with cancer and was in the end stages. He was going toward the end stages of cancer, and it was at that point that the interviewer just asked him, he said that, you know, but if you when you died and if you were to to stand before God, what would you say? And all of a sudden his countenance changed. His countenance became it wasn't rational anymore. He got angry. He got really angry and then he would say, I would stand, and I would be pointing my finger and asking God, why did you make, you know, evil in the world and all these things? And he kind of ran off a litany of things. And you know, the part about it is I think it's easy to think that, you know, when I get to that place, I'm gonna set it right.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:58]:
You guys ever think about that maybe in your job? You think like, if I ever get a promotion and I get to the job, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna make this place run good. Right? And then you guys ever get a anybody ever get a promotion like that? And then you find out, like, oh, a little harder than I thought. Right? There's a little bit of things going on. But when people say that, that's like, man, God, if I were to stand before Him, I would ask Him. Why? Like Job Job said the same thing. I'm gonna state my case, but when you stand before one who's more powerful, more awesome, more loving, more just, more righteous, more pure than anything that you have ever encountered, You think different, right? Kind of reminds me of an old show that I used to like to watch. It's an old show. I don't know if anybody ever seen it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:46]:
Anyone ever seen a show called Bully Beatdown? Right? Okay. Dookie. That's like, okay. Sunny. Thanks. Okay. We can watch MMA afterwards. No, but that means that's what that means, but, and the show, this is the premise of the show, you know, they would they would literally have people write in, and often these kids and teenagers, and sometimes not teenagers, adults, males, sometimes mostly men, but every once in a woman, they would write into the show, and they would say, they would report this bully, and the bully would often be you know like this bigger guy picking on them, and they would think they are the baddest dudes on the planet.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:23]:
Right? Because they're picking on usually some smaller guy, a little bit more quiet kind of a person. Right? And this is what they would do. They would invite that bully who thought he was all that to come and to fight this MMA guy, and they would pay him money for every round that he would win, or they would pay him, and if he won like all the rounds, then he would get, you know, like like $6,000 or whatever, and so this is what the bully thought. Easy money. Right? And then, they would bring him in the ring and they would explain, and then they would they would be so confident, and then usually, you know, when the real fighter came out and sometimes they had like world champion guys come out to fight these bullies, and it would be you would see them change. All of a sudden, okay, I know I could beat this guy up, but when they saw that world champion guy, like standing six foot, and maybe it's the same weight, but this guy is, like, ripped, and this guy is not ripped. Right? And all of a sudden, you would see the you would see this face change. And if it didn't happen then, you know when it would happen? As soon as the bell rung, because they knew I am not the same as this guy.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:40]:
I used to love watching those guys get beat up. I'm sorry. That's just a part of my sinful nature or whatever it is, but but I would see that, but it kinda reminds me. It kinda reminds me. It's so easy to be overconfident that I'm gonna ask God, but when you stand before God, you're not gonna do that. You see every instance in scripture when people stand before God, a humility. A sense of conviction. Right? Like, I'm not who I thought I was.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:07]:
And to be honest, we need to lift up our eyes so we see God for who He is, but also you'll see yourself for who you are. And then as a result, you'll see people more correctly as well. Right? Because when I see the ultimate good, I realize how not good I am. Right? I might be good to the next student compared to the next guy or I might be compared to my friend. Right? That anybody have the wild friend? You go like, bro, at least I'm not doing like what that guy does. Right? It's easy to feel like but when you stand before a righteous and holy God Now, is God just do it to to smash us? No. It's just the result. It's just it's just that that's who He is, and and so He doesn't mean it to do that to us, it just happens.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:54]:
So this is what Isaiah said later as a result. In verse five, it goes on and it says, and I said, woe is me. Directly, this is the very next verse. He says, woe is me for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people with unclean lips. When he's saying unclean lips, it's not just saying that I say bad words, but I think it's a manifestation that so often what we said the words that we speak are a manifestation of the things in our hearts. Right? And it's like, I realize all of my faults. What he's saying is I realize how faulty and sinful and frail I am. And not only me, but the culture that I live in, that it's like there's problems.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:44]:
Right? How many of you guys ever notice there's problems in our culture. Right? We recognize these things. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away. Your sin atoned for. And so standing, recognizing you yourself for who you are, and you recognize your faultiness, iness, you recognize your brokenness, you recognize your rebellion, you recognize your sin, is that a bad thing? No. It's a good thing when we it leads us to humility before God.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:32]:
Right? The New Testament just says it like this. It says, the Scripture said no one is righteous, not even one. Right? Nobody's perfect. We all say that. Right? Did you ever say that to somebody? Nobody's perfect. Even the most, Aden atheists I hear, they'll say, it's like, no, nobody's perfect. Right? But what did he do? They admit that, but they don't think that they're that bad, really, often. They just think, nah, we all like that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:58]:
But this is what he says in the scriptures. No one is really wise. No one is truly wise. No one is seeking God, and all have turned away, and all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one. But this is what, God doesn't leave you. When you see yourself and your brokenness and your sin before God, God doesn't just go, ah, put you in your place. Right? No, he doesn't do that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:19:23]:
What does he do? He dispatches the angel in the vision, and he takes, it says, a coal from the fire because fire, this aspect is the sense of purification. We see the holiness of God has a purifying effect, like when Moses saw the burning bush in fire. It had this purifying effect. Moses needed to what? Take his feet shoes. He didn't need to take his feet off. That would be painful. But he would take his shoes off because he was what? Standing on holy ground. Right? Seraphim, the burning ones take the coal.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:00]:
But what does it say? It says it purified him. And God's word were words of comfort. You know what? You're forgiven. You've been cleansed. You see, when you humble yourself before God, God has an ability then to bring renewal in you. To bring forgiveness. To bring redemption. Right? And that we see Isaiah changed.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:26]:
You guys ever been changed by the grace of God in your life? Have you ever been changed by the mercies of God in your life? Been in that place where I know I didn't deserve it, but God showed it. God showed mercy. Right? And you know the thing is it says that in those kind of moments, that's when many of us we felt not just relief. Sometimes you can feel relief, but to be honest, often at that point you feel joy. Often in that point you feel gratitude. Often in that point you feel devotion towards God. It says it like this. I love what it says.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:04]:
Let's read what it says. Psalm 30 four:five. Ready? Let's read. Those who look to Him for help will be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken their faces. See, God wants to take away our guilt and our shame. He doesn't want you to stand in it and wallow in it. Because when you see him, he says, then it allows you to respond with humility so that he can change our life.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:32]:
Right? And And you know part of that is we need to believe that God not can change only our life, but he can change other people's lives. Because there's nobody, to be honest, out in the world that God cannot change their life if they let him. Right? But we need to see God first. If we wanna make a difference, we need to see God because He changes our life. It changes us. We're not the same. Right? And maybe you see friends that sometimes they saw you in your old days. And I've had people say it's like, wow, you don't even look the same.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:06]:
Right? Like, well, because it's been thirty years. No, but there's different things that happen. It's just a smile on your face, a joy, or the way that you carry so something changes on the inside. But you know the other thing is that we need to also lift up our eyes so that we can see people around us. If you wanna be a difference maker, you gotta lift up your eyes. First to see God, but you also gotta lift up your eyes to see around you. Because you know what happens in this passage after this, and I didn't put it in there, but, like, in Isaiah, the next verses, it says, so who will go for us? And he's talking God is talking to the heavenly host, and he says, who will go for us and speak in the world? And this is what Isaiah says. Here I am, Lord.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:01]:
Send me. Right? Here I am, Lord. Send me. And you know part of that? Is if you wanna be a difference maker, ask God to send you. Ask God to bring you into places where you can make a difference. Ask God to bring you to a place where you can bring a message of hope, a message of encouragement, a message of renewal, a spirit of that, a season of renewal. Ask God to send you. Because you know the thing is that some of us, you might feel like, Lord, I see the need.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:33]:
Send someone else. Sometimes you're thinking that, right? You guys never say, send a qualified person, send a missionary, send a pastor, send a leader. Right? Send Sonny. Sonny preaches good. Right? Like, send Ben. He's a prayer warrior. Right? Sometimes that's what we think. But you know what? Ask God to send you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:52]:
Ask God to send you. Because you know what? You can reach people I could never reach. You can reach people that Sonny would never reach or Ben would never You know who you'll reach? You'll reach people like you. You'll reach people like you. You'll reach the people in your circle, the people that you know. Right? Sometimes people would think, I wanna ask the pastor to come over, and I'll go. And there's been times you know, yeah there is a move. God has some things that He wants to do and I've had the privilege to be in that place, but to be honest sometimes they are that people ask me to come and can you come to this thing and it's like I'll go, but, like, to be honest, the only reason why they're listening to me is because of you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:24:40]:
You know what I'm saying? Like, this when, when we were I don't know if I had mentioned this, but when we were on our anniversary, we ate at my, where my son works in California. We ate at this, Japanese restaurant, and they treated us like kings. They sat us down special, they come and talk to us, the owner comes, the chef comes, they threw out this big, you know, like the kind of Funamori boat with all the special stuff on it. They're like, this is all on the house. We never even order yet. You know, it's like, this is just like, hey, this is appetizer. It's like this giant boat of stuff, But you know why they did that? Is it because of me and my wife? They don't even know us. Who did they do it for? They did it for my son.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:29]:
Right? Because they know him. That's the way it works, right? It's you guys. You guys are the best to reach the people that you know. Will we partner with you? Absolutely. Will we pray with you? Absolutely. Can we do what? Yes. Absolutely. But ask God to send you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:55]:
I think one of the main reasons why we don't kind of minister, right, and that we miss opportunities because we're just distracted in life. Right? We're distracted with sometimes our job, right, getting the task done. We're distracted by, to be honest, sometimes our phone, right, That we're, you know, kind of in the midst of that. There's a you know, you might hear me say this. I've said it before and maybe I don't know if I would say it in the service, but, sometimes I think that I'm a generally a fairly friendly person, but the one place that I know I have struggled to be friendly is when I go to the gym. And, it's and it's not like I go to the gym all the time. I might go once or twice a week. But when I go, it's because I just want to get in and get out.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:50]:
And I see some of people talking story and laughing and having a good time, but I just think that I only have a limited amount of time. I gotta get in and I gotta get out. And and it's so crowded and all this. And, often the time that I tend to go and, but you know the last couple weeks, I I've asked God, would you send me to somebody? And, you know, I got into a deep conversation with one of the guys and I've known him. And he's actually been to the church before and just hasn't come in years. And, but I saw him. And I just said, hey, you know, and we just started talking. And, and I had a chance to have a spiritual conversation with this person.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:35]:
I had this similar this week. And, you know, but when we're distracted and sometimes with our phone or sometimes with our problems or sometimes with, you know, I just go on and I don't make eye contact with people. If I don't say hi to a person and acknowledge somebody's presence, it's we look past people, you know. There's a new category of things that they, that, who is it? The National Council of Safety. National Safety Council. A new category of unintentional deaths and injury. It's called distracted walking. You know what that is that means? Like when you walk with your phone.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:25]:
They record that like this one guy walked over the edge of a cliff on a Christmas day because he was looking at his phone and the guy died. Or you know, the emergency room, physician said that we see an increasing amount of people because they walked onto the street and got banged by a car. You know, those kind of oh, they trip and they fall and distracted. And so, you know, the thing is that it's like that when you're just looking down. And so we're supposed to lift up our eyes to see the Lord, but you know what? I think you need to lift up your eyes to see who's around you. Part of that is who's in your classroom. Right? Part of that, who's who's who's in your neighborhood. Right? Part of that is like who's in your house.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:11]:
Right? Sometimes the people that we see so often, we don't even think to share the gospel with them because we just know them so well. I don't know. And and we don't think that maybe God might be changing something. God might be changing a season. But we need to lift up our eyes. Jesus said it like this. He says, do you not say there are yet four months, then comes the harvest? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes. Let's say lift up your eyes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:44]:
Lift up your eyes. And see that the fields are white for harvest. What is he saying? He's not talking about go pick pineapple. Right? You know. He's not talking about go go pick the fruit in your garden. He's talking about people, and this is what he's saying. You say, there's a saying, it's like, oh, long time more. Four months.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:10]:
I don't need to worry about it. So you don't even see, but when you look at people the way I see people, you know what you say? Now's the time. Now's the time. Now's the time to make a difference. Now's the time to say something. Now's the time to do something. Now's the time to serve them. Now's the time to to pray for them.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:31]:
Now's the time to share your story. Now's the time to say something, to pray with them. Right? So these kinds of situations, he's saying, and already, already the one who reaps is receiving wages. In other words, there's people that really want to come right now. There's people who want to come to Christ right now, and gathering fruit for eternal life so that the sower and reaper may rejoice together. When's the last time you saw the people around you? Not just as your family, but as somebody who needs Christ, right? When's the last time you saw your coworker or your customer or you know, your boss or your manager or your neighbor as somebody that somebody who God's trying to reach. I think, you know, one of those things is when we see people and sometimes I understand that when it's family, you know, there's a lot of emotion and history tied up in stuff. Right? Sometimes good things and sometimes hard things.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:39]:
And And sometimes that we have a hard time maybe sharing good news with people who have hurt us in the past. Right? Because it's just it's just because it is that way. But you know, I've had this conversation many times and I just said that you know and someone was sharing with me recently about, you know, about some difficulty, the hardness that they had in a family situation growing up, And I asked them, I said, now, let me ask if you were at church and you met this guy and he told you the story and I told his story. This happened to him but he was the guy doing it to that person, right? He was the guy doing it to you. And he's telling you I did all these things. What would you say to that person? You say, I would just tell him that, you know what? God has a grace for you. It's not too late, right, for you. God can forgive you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:36]:
God can move in your life. I know it might not be your best moment, but God's not done with you. I said to them, I said, you know that person who hurt you in your life, he's just a man. Just like that guy would be, right? He's just a mom. He's just a woman, right? And to be honest, when we see them, they're just a person. And we've all been hurt, and we've all hurt someone. Right? This is all of us. I wish that wasn't the case, but that's the truth.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:16]:
Right? We've all been hurt, and we've all hurt people. And God had grace for us. And you know what? God wants to give grace to those people as well. And sometimes it's gonna be through us. Right? Because when we say it, ask God to give you His heart for people. Not just to see them. Right? Oh, they need Jesus. But ask you to give ask Him to give you His heart for people.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:46]:
Because I don't think that, you know, we want to go out and say, you know why you get all these problems? Because you did this this one. Because you're like this that's why. Right? That's not God's heart. Right? That's not the that's not the heart of a prophet. You know, like, sometimes people think the prophets, like, they just blast people and lay it out, but you know, that's not what it says at times. It says that Jeremiah, when he saw, when he saw what people were going through, when he saw the things that were happening, it says Jeremiah wept. He wept for what people were going through. When Jesus even sees people who reject them, this is what Jesus says in Matthew 20 seven-thirty eight.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:34:30]:
Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Now, Jesus has been rejected, He's going to the cross now. Jesus came to be the Messiah, but they rejected Him in Israel. He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stoned those sent to you, how I want it to rain fire down from heaven and burn you all up. No, that's not what it says, right? It doesn't say that. How am you're gonna get it and you deserve it. That's not what it says, right? What does it say? What is Jesus' heart? How often I longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chick under her wings and you are not willing. He still has the heart that says, you know what? Man, I just want to embrace you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:19]:
I would love to minister to you. I would love to be a protection and a strength to you. That's God's heart. Right? Yes. Is it that he's saying this to like the goody goodies? No. He's saying to the people who have rejected him. That's the heart of God. When you get the heart of God for that, then you're not gonna come off with a big edge.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:42]:
And it's like, you know, sometimes this is what I hear. You self righteous Christians. Anybody ever heard someone say that before? Maybe not to you, but you just hear it. You know, to be honest, if we're a believer, we should be the least self righteous people on the planet. You know why? Because we admit that we're not good enough. We need a savior, right? And so that when we come, it ought to be with a sense of kindness. Right? And yet, at the same time, we need God's power and His presence. And Jesus promised that, right, That He would be with us to the end of the age.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:21]:
When you see Him for who He is, you know what? You're gonna get grace. You're gonna find a mercy. You're gonna find direction, right? And you ask Him, God, would you send me out there? You know what you're gonna see? You're gonna start seeing people differently. Right? And when you start seeing people, and you start seeing them with the heart of Jesus, and not just, you know, not just the old heart that we had that got hurt or offended, or whatever it is, or you wanna be right, or prove people like I'm gonna humble you. You know what? Something's gonna happen, and then something kind, something amazing can happen. And you're gonna make a difference. But Jesus said this that we also need a power that's greater than ourselves. In, Acts one:eight, he says this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:37:05]:
Let's read what it says, and it might be familiar to you, but he says this. Ready? Begin. But you will receive power. Let's say the word power. Power, right? When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses telling people about Me everywhere in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the air. And when he says power, that word dunamis is the word where we get the word dynamic, where we get the word dynamite, right? Where we get the sense of an exploding power, an explosive power, but you know what? It's also sometimes an enduring power. Right? Sometimes you need to say it's like, when you're going and when your strength runs out, you can keep going because it's not your strength anymore. Right? And so, we see this aspect, this power being released, and I was just wondering what does that really look like in the life of a person? And you know the first thing I thought about, this week when I was thinking about this was I was thinking about, Back to the Future, the first movie.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:16]:
You guys familiar? Back to the Future, right? If you don't know what a Back to the Future is, it's the eighty's movie, right, where where Marty McFly, did like a typical, you know, kind of scatterbrained teenager in the eighties. He's accidentally sent back to 1955, right, when his friend Doc Brown, the kind of eccentric crazy, wild haired scientist guy creates the time machine, right, out of what? The DeLorean. Yeah, the DeLorean, right? It's a DeLorean that's powered with this plutonium fueled flux capacitor, right, that can can make this, power to time travel. And he gets to 1955, but what's the problem? He can't just stay in 1955. Why? Because he's slowly dying. Right? He's slowly dying in 1950 because he's not supposed to be there. Right? And so, there is a death sentence for for Marty McFly. And to be honest, not just him, but anybody else who had come through his line.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:20]:
Right? And and so, one of the things that happens, his family would disappear because they would never have been born. Right? We see all these kinds of things, and and so they come up to this thing is that, well, we just gotta send you back, and, and Doc is saying, and so he's talking to Marty and Marty is explaining what Doc told him from the original time when he came from. He says, how do we get this car to move? He says, oh, yeah, it's easy. He says that you use this plutonium. So the worm was supposed to go, like down the store in the corner street, right? Like a plutonium wasn't even invented yet. So he says, well, how much energy do we need? And he says, 1.21 gigawatts. Right? And he goes like, what? He goes like, berserk. One twenty one gigawatts.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:40:06]:
We can't do that. He says, you know, the only place that you can get that kind of power is in a bolt of lightning. And did you guys know a bolt of lightning actually has enough power that when it strikes some place, it will be five times hotter than the surface of the sun in a lightning bolt. Right? It actually gives not a gigabyte, a terabyte of power can happen in a lightning bolt. And so they come up with this plan, and the plan is that they they rig this, blind that will cross over the street where they, they have to get the highest point which was the clock tower. And they rig this thing where this electrical line will go across, and so if timed correctly, that when the car hits that line with a pole that's extended, the lightning will strike the clock tower, travel down that line, and what it will feel that flux capacitor sending them back. Right? But what happens in the movie? Before the storm, yeah, the wind knocks, and unplugs the line. Right? So it cannot be plugged together.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:41:24]:
So what does Doc do? Doc gets up to that place, and he starts trying to plug it in, and trying to plug it in, and trying to plug it in, but he cannot bring the two connecting together. Why? Because the branch is still on the line, and when the light lightning strikes, he does not let go. He's still trying to plug it in, and what happens? The electricity that happens from the lightning bolt comes down the line, flows through him, and into the rest of the line and sends Marty back to where he's safe and he's alive. Because a power greater than himself didn't just happen, it flowed through him. And you know when God's spirit is on us, fills us, it is his power that flows through. You know what Gajock wouldn't never have said? It's like, oh, it's a good thing, man. I, I had the wisdom that made the car go. He wouldn't say that because he knew it wasn't his power.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:42:34]:
It was it was the lightning. It was the lightning that God sent. Right? It just flowed through him. Right? It's not because you have the greatest story or you have the greatest but it's the power of God that flows through you. And so part of this is to ask God, God, would your presence and your power go with me and flow through me? And when we look and we see God, because he gladly gives it. He says, I gladly give of the Spirit freely to all who ask. And we just gotta ask. So, hey, tonight, just as we close, we're gonna pray together.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:19]:
Would you be kind enough to bow your heads? And and let's present ourselves before God tonight. And and maybe in the midst of this, to be a difference maker, To be honest, the reason why I'm saying that we look at God and and so we can see Him and sometimes we got to look at people and see people the way God sees people. It's because when we have that vision of God or we see people more clearly, something happens, that change happens. You know where the change happens? It happens in us, happens in our hearts. Because sometimes we don't go because my pride, my convenience, my insecurities, right? It's I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. Can I say this, some of us? There are some of us right now that you felt nudged by God to go do something, to go talk to somebody, to go visit somebody in the hospital, to pray for somebody, but this is why you haven't gone. Because you say, I don't know what to say.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:44:37]:
So you, you figure sometimes you are going to wait, maybe you will call, maybe you will call the big gun, the hired gun, or whatever to come in. Now I am going to just give you a clue. We don't know what to say either. When I visited the hospital, I'm not walking in. I have a script. I don't know what to say. I need God to say something. Right? And I've seen so many people come to Christ like in hospitals and different things and God do amazing things and people get healed at times.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:45:11]:
Not because I knew what to do or I'm so great. Just God was kind. Yeah. He was merciful. He loved them already. Amen. But you know what? Sometimes it's not what you say. You gotta show up.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:45:29]:
That's the thing. When you go, then there's a possibility. It makes sense? I don't know if that speaks to somebody. Yeah. Can we just bring ourselves before him? Would you just extend your hand to God? Father, tonight we we lift up our hands to you and we we lift up our eyes because we do want to see you in all your beauty, in all your kindness, but also in all your holiness. And Father, it is a humbling thing, but it's a soul freeing thing to know that we are loved by the King of the universe, that we are loved and welcomed by the God Almighty. And it is a good thing for a man or for a woman or for a boy or a girl to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. Because it's then that you exalt us, that you lift us up.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:46:35]:
And you give us, Lord, sometimes a platform. You give us, Lord, a capacity that where we're not claiming the glory, we're giving you to the glory. And Father, with our hands open and and our heads raised, Father, we ask as well, would you give us the capacity to see the people in our lives, Not for their position, or not for their power, or not for their wealth, or not for their talent, or not for what they've done to us, or what has we've done to them. But Lord, help us to see them that they're just a man, they're just a woman, Lord, they're just a boy, they're just a girl. And Lord, someone that you love, someone that You long to embrace. Father, we don't have the power in and of ourselves, but You promised the Spirit of God would come on us, Lord. And it would be a power that, Lord, that that doesn't just come on us, but but like in Back to the Future, Lord, would it flow through us? Yes. But I know you don't want to just give us the Spirit of God so we just think that we're just all that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:47:54]:
Lord, you you gave it to us so that we could do the very things that you call us to do, to represent you, to be a difference maker, Lord, to be a person who who helps and ushers in Your kingdom. Lord, we're not for us to create our kingdom. Father, would You bless those whose hearts are like that this morning, this evening? Father, would that power flow not just in us, but would it flow in our families? Yes. Yeah. Would it flow in our homes? Would it flow in those relationships? Yes. Father, would it renew people? Would it strengthen people? Would it give people hope, encouragement? And father that and would there be a humility that ensues so that Lord that people would bow their hearts before God? That they would turn from what they know is wrong. Father, that they would find strength and encouragement and forgiveness. You know, maybe you're here this evening and we're praying for God to use us in that way, but maybe you need that today.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:49:03]:
If you don't know that you're forgiven, if you don't know that God loves you and He paid the price for you and that that your your name is written in the book of life in heaven. You don't know. You're not sure, but you'd like to be? Well, I'd love to be able to pray with you today. Because you know the the truth is that God loves you with an immeasurable love. If you wanna know how much Jesus loved you, it's like he he said, this much he stretched out his hands, and he was nailed to the cross. Yeah. He said, I love you that much. Thank you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:49:37]:
Now I'll pour up my whole life so that you can be forgiven, so you can be renewed, you can be cleansed. I'll give my life so you don't have to give yours. If you've never received that today, I'd love to have the privilege to pray with you. If that's you this evening, would you just raise a hand to God and say, God, that's me. God, I need that renewal. I need that forgiveness. I need that kind of a renewal. We're gonna pray a very simple prayer.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:50:10]:
And if you're at home, would you join us? Would you raise your hand if that's you? Raise your hand to God. We can see you. The good news is God can. Amen. Amen. We'll just pray together. Would you pray along with me? Dear God, I don't always see myself the way I really am. But Lord, today I thank you that you see me for who I really am.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:50:42]:
And Lord, although I have all my faults, and sometimes I rebel, and sometimes I do good, I need your grace today. I need your forgiveness today. Would you come live inside me today? Because Jesus died in my place that I might have life. Would you receive me today as your child? Would you lead me and guide me I wanna follow you I wanna know you and become more like you but I need your strength your spirit to fill me as well. So fill me with your spirit today. And Lord lead me in the way you want me to go. And would you bring people around me who can encourage me and who I can encourage in this journey of faith in this journey of faith. So Lord, help me to become all you created me to be all you created me to be in Jesus' name.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:52:24]:
Amen. Hey, can we say congratulations to those folks? And you know, if you said yes to Jesus today, whether you're in the house, if you're in the house that we have a yes packet in the back, we'd love to give you that and some helpful information, and I'd love to be able to pray with you guys as well, but if you need that as well at home and you're there and you'd like to have that, would you just let us know and you can text the word commit at the (808) 793-5655 number, and then we can email you something, or you could always come down and, and see us here and or at Ho'okele, and we can give you something in person. And so, hey, God bless you guys. Thanks so much for joining us tonight, and, have a great night. Have a great weekend. Have a great spring break.