key verse for the study, Yahweh sees and hears the misery of His people and comes to rescue them and lead them to a land flowing with milk and honey
7 Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.
8 I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
the way we know we are transforming from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters
1 See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God! For this cause the world doesn’t know us, because it didn’t know him.
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.
3 Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
5 You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.
6 Whoever remains in him doesn’t sin. Whoever sins hasn’t seen him and doesn’t know him.
7 Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can’t sin, because he is born of God.
10 In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn’t love his brother.
11 For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;
12 unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
13 Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death.
15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
16 By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
17 But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?
18 My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth.
19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and persuade our hearts before him,
20 because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
21 Beloved, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have boldness toward God;
22 and whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do the things that are pleasing in his sight.
23 This is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, even as he commanded.
24 He who keeps his commandments remains in him, and he in him. By this we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
This was the opening session of a community women's Bible study called Thrive, led by Deborah at First Baptist Jackson. She introduced the study's central question: whether it is possible to flourish and experience genuine peace when the world, or our personal lives, are falling apart. The session focused on building a foundation for that question by walking through four marks of assurance that a person is truly a child of God.
What was said
Deborah opened by placing the study in context. The world's definition of thriving, she said, tends to mean health, wealth, fame, and a platform, but people who have all of those things are often among the least thriving people we see. The Bible's definition is different: to grow, to prosper, to flourish, and to succeed despite circumstances. The study's driving question is whether that kind of life is actually available to ordinary people in the middle of real hardship.
The key verse comes from Exodus chapter three, verses seven through eight, where the Lord tells the Israelites, "I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them." Deborah pulled out three things Yahweh says there: I see you, I hear you, and I am coming to rescue you. Egypt in the study represents bondage, the opposite of thriving, and the promised land represents a space where flourishing is possible even though it still contains giants.
She then made a distinction about the word "prosper" as it actually appears in the Hebrew and Greek. It does not mean health and wealth, which she named as sloppy prosperity theology. It means to move forward, nudged from behind by the Holy Spirit, and to break out mightily, specifically to break out from the wrong narrative. She argued that there are always two narratives running at the same time, one from Yahweh and one from the world, and that which narrative a person believes is what determines their actual condition, not their circumstances.
That led to what she called the A-plus-B-equals-C framework. The common assumption is that adversity directly equals the condition of our well-being. She used the illustration of a gun pointed at someone's face: the moment you realize it is a water gun, your internal condition changes even though the object in front of you has not moved. What changed was your belief about it. It is not the adversity alone that produces our feelings, she said, but what we believe about the adversity. Jesus said there is nothing that can separate His love from us, and she put it plainly: if she is not feeling peace or hope, she is believing a lie, either about God or about herself.
Before moving into the study material proper, Deborah said she wanted to make sure everyone present had a genuine assurance of belonging to God's family, because sometimes people do not feel it and sometimes they genuinely question it. She drew four marks from First John. The first is confession, the personal declaration that Jesus is Lord and Savior, which she said has nothing to do with baptism, confirmation, or a family history in the church. The second is change: if nothing in a person's priorities, habits, or patterns has shifted, something is wrong with the confession. The third is compassion, a growing love for others including enemies, and she used the exchange between Jesus and Peter on the beach to show that Jesus can work even with a very small and uncertain love if a person is honest about where they are. The fourth is how a person handles conflict and trial. Jesus told His disciples they would have trouble in the world, but also that He had overcome it, and that through faith, not just belief but day-by-day trust, every child of God can be an overcomer.
She closed the teaching by noting that God has given more than seven thousand promises to help His people thrive regardless of circumstances, and that next week the group will begin chapter one, which focuses on the name Yahweh and what it means that God introduced Himself by a personal name.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
Deborah read from Exodus chapter three where God tells the Israelites 'I have seen the misery of my people... I have heard them crying out... I am concerned about their suffering.' When you hear those three phrases, 'I see you, I hear you, I care,' which one is hardest for you to believe right now, and why?
Deborah described two competing narratives always running at the same time, one from Yahweh and one from the world. Where in your daily life do you find the world's narrative loudest, and what does it tend to tell you?
Natalie, could you give me just a little bit more guitar? Thank you. And feel free to adjust it as I go if it's too loud. Well, we're going to get started. I know some of you are still checking in out there but we're just going to get our minds right and our hearts right before we even sing a note this morning.
If you can and you're comfortable, would you stand with me this morning? Let's just honor the Lord. Would you just pray with me? Oh Lord, we give you this study. We give you this morning.
We give you our lives. And lord, we just pray today that you would meet every single one of us in this room right where we are. Maybe there's women in this room who have been walking with you and hearing your voice for years and decades. And maybe today, there's some in this room that have just taken a step encouraged to just come and hear about you. Lord, meet us right where you...
Right where we are today. Speak to us, Lord. Speak to us today. Whisper to our hearts. We wanna leave here today by you because we met you, Yahweh, the living God.
In Jesus name, amen. But
we're
just gonna sing and lift his name up. If you know these songs, great. Sing along. The words will be up there, and then I'm gonna teach you. It's probably a new song to most of you that will be kind of our theme for this study.
So, we're just going to lift his name up. Just tell him he's worthy this morning.
You're worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. We live for you. You sing this to him. Jesus the name. Jesus the name above every other name Jesus the only one who could ever say
That's our prayer this morning lord that we would be filled
to overflowing worthy of worthy of every song we could ever sing worthy of all the praise we could ever breathe we live for you Let's declare that. You are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love to those around me
That's our prayer, Lord, that we would just we would just overflow with who you are in our lives. That we would know you so close, so intimate, that we would be like you. We would just overflow who you are. We just pray that this morning. We draw close to you.
Your word says in James that you promise that you will draw close to us. So draw close to us this morning. Remind us who you are today. In Jesus' name. I'm gonna teach you this song.
It's called Egypt, and I sent it to Deborah, she said, oh oh, that's perfect for this study. And so I'm just gonna teach it to you. You might have heard it on the radio. It's kind of a newer song, but it's just a really cool reminder of who God is and what he did when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt and how he's that same God that he was then that he's today. And he's never changing and that he rescues us and that he's for us and not against us.
So if you know it, sing along. The words will be up there, but it's just the the story of what God has done and what he longs to do for us. It goes like this.
I won't forget the wonder of how you brought to live a rest to the name Jesus. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah. Is there anybody in here that's been
led out of the deep by the Lord? My goodness.
We have so much to be thankful for.
Hallelujah let's sing that together Hallelujah.
I love this firehouse.
It makes it personal for us. Because you stepped into my Egypt and you took me by the head and you marched me out in freedom into the promised land and now I will not forget you God I'll sing of all you've done and death is swallowed up forever By the fury of your love, you stepped, you stepped into my Egypt. You took me by the hair. You marched me out in freedom into the promise land. I will not forget you, God.
I'll sing of all you've done. Death is swallowed up forever by the fury of your love. Yes, lord. You're the God. You're the God who fights for me.
Lord, of every victory. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You have torn. You have torn apart the sea you have led me through the deep hallelujah hallelujah sing that one more time you're the God the God who fights for me lord of every victory hallelujah hallelujah and you have torn apart the sea you have led me through the deep hallelujah
Lord, we just praise you this morning. Just with your eyes closed for a minute, just think about what he's brought you through. Maybe it's been a while since you've thought about it. But we thank you for the provision in our lives. Just think back on that.
His word says to remember all that he's done so that when we face trials in the future, we can stand on who he is.
You split the sea so I could walk right through it. My fears are drowning perfect love. Oh, yes, they are. You split the sea so I could walk right through where my fears are drowning perfect love. Oh, yes, you did.
A
Sing that over yourself. I am.
I am a child child of of God. Yes, I am. I am a child of God. No longer. I'm no longer
One more time. I'm no longer no
longer to fear. I am. And I am a child of God. I'm no longer of I am a child of God. Yes, I am.
I am a child of God.
You believe that this morning? You belong to him.
Sing this. You're the God who fights for me, lord of every victory. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You've torn.
You have torn above the sea you have led me through the deep hallelujah hallelujah you got it you're the God you're the God who fights for me lord of every victory hallelujah sing it out hallelujah you have torn up all the sea you have led me through the deed, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Just pray with me, Lord Jesus, we thank you for today. And Lord, we just pray as Deborah comes and brings the word to us today. That you would just engage our hearts and our minds and that we would be changed by you today. Changed by your word, changed by your spirit, changed by your truth today. Who you are, the God that we serve, Yahweh.
We give you all the glory and all the honor and everybody said, amen. You can have a seat and I'm gonna introduce Deborah. How many of you guys know Deborah? Raise your hand. Is there anybody in here who doesn't know Deborah?
How about that?
There's a few.
There's a few.
Well, as you get settled, Deborah's gonna bring us a study today called Thrive, and we are gonna be blessed. We are gonna be blessed. Did everybody get their book? Everybody got it? Well, Deborah's been teaching...
How long have you been teaching?
I've been teaching twenty five years.
Twenty five years. And she has poured so much into this study. You are gonna be so blessed. Can we just give it up for Deborah, all the work
she's putting Thank to bring us this
you, Lyssa.
Actually, can
we just give it up for Lyssa because, I mean, this girl has her own church with her husband, full time ministry, and I'm like, please please sing for our Bible study. So thank you, Lissa. Thank you, honey.
Oh. Yes. Yes.
Best voice ever. Well, welcome to Thrive, ladies. I think this is our maybe fourteenth Bible study in the valley together. We didn't meet last year, which was a heartbreaker because of COVID, and I think we're all just craving that community. And I was talking to a few women who haven't done this study and they're like, don't know.
Should I go? And I'm like, look. I just wanna tell you, you show up to these studies, you're gonna meet the best women in the valley. And I look at you and I say, Oh yeah, that was no exaggeration. So just a couple changes, Nancy Erwin has been my partner for years and Nancy went and got herself a job.
So she... I know. So she is still going to be a small group leader and join us. But I have a new partner in crime, Natalie Yates. And I think...
Yay, Natalie. Who just learned the sound system for us. So, we're just gonna pray about that. Right, Natalie? And I think you have a couple of announcements for I
do have a
couple of announcements. First of all, I'm gonna leave a pile of these flyers on the table when you leave. Part of us offering this community study is for an outreach. So if you have friends, neighbors, moms in the carpool line, ladies at the grocery store, take a couple flyers and leave them in your places. I put them up in bulletin boards all over town, and a lot of them sadly were taken down.
I won't tell you which businesses took them down, but let's put them all back up now that Bible study is actually happening. That's announcement. Announcement number one, let's pepper the town with our flyers. Announcement number two is we are currently streaming this on YouTube. So if you are unable to make it to future studies, say you're out of town one week, you can just log on to the First Be Jackson website, and there's a link that you click for live streaming.
It will take you right to our YouTube channel, and the thing that will be streaming live is gonna be called JH Community Women's Bible Study. So hello, Chris. Chris is tuned in. She texted me right now. She's our little guinea pig testing it for this week.
So you can access the study that way. We do have childcare available. I think the moms that needed childcare have found their way downstairs, but childcare is available every week. And then the last thing I would ask is if you are... You do not have to be tech savvy.
However, if you have any interest in shadowing me in the sound booth, there will be two weeks that I am unable to attend. We have the whole Firstbee crew that's right over here in the office. They can come set it up, but literally just someone to, like, click through slides and make sure everything's running. So if you're interested in maybe helping out two weeks with that, I would be ever so grateful for your help. Handing it back over to you, Deborah.
Alright. Okay. So I hope everyone got their study guide. And for you new gals, just to let you know, this is our format every week. We open with praise and worship, then I do a teaching, and then we break into small group.
And at the end of the study we'll go over a little bit of the small group dynamics with you. Okay? So why Thrive? Why do a study on Thrive? What does Thrive even mean?
I think that you'll agree in the world definition of thrive would probably be health, wealth, prosperity, fame, a platform.
But if you look at people who have all
those things, are they really thriving? I mean, take movie stars for example. They have fame, they have wealth, and they're often some of the most unthriving people that we see in the media. You know the Bible has a lot to say about thriving and the Bible's definition of thrive is to grow, to prosper, to flourish, and succeed despite circumstances. Is that even possible?
I mean, this is the question I've been asking since COVID hit because our world just got boom, kind of blown up. And is it possible to have that peace that surpasses understanding when the world blows up, when our personal world blows up? We see high inflation, political unrest, the threat of nuclear war. This past weekend, I spent the weekend with my kids and my son is an officer in the army guard. And I'm sitting across from my daughter, my son, my daughter-in-law, and my almost one year old chunk of burn in love grandson.
And my son starts telling us that they have received increased chatter with the possibility of nuclear war from other countries. And hearing my son say that, just the sadness came over me. And he said, mom, it's not the world when you were 32. There's been a shift in our world. And I get emotional because, of course, I want the best for my kids.
I want them to grow up in a safe world. And I I look at my little grandson and I want him to thrive. And, you know immediately that that verse came to me that we are all born at the perfect time and that God calls us at the time he calls us and that he has specific plans and purposes for each and every one of us. And he knew my grandson would be born into this world of pandemics and supply chain issues and war in Ukraine, and he... He's got his hand on him and he's got his hand on you and me.
And I think that the question is, can we flourish and thrive? Where is the hope? I love that song that was the plague and it's one of our key verses. It will be your key verse next week when you jump into chapter one. It's from Exodus chapter three verses seven through eight.
I'm gonna read it to you and pull out some real nuggets from it. It starts off with the Lord and the Lord is capitalized and we'll really drill down on this next week because if it's capital l o r d, all capital, that's his personal name he's saying and that name is Yahweh. Names have a lot of significance and meaning and he is saying Yahweh said this. He said it to the Israelites. He's saying it to you and me today.
He said, I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them out of the land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. I love this verse because the verse the Lord tells us Yahweh is telling us what he says, I see you. I hear you.
When you pray to me, I hear you. I see what you're going through. I hear you and I care about you. I'm concerned about your suffering. I'm concerned about your stress.
I'm concerned about your anxiety. I'm concerned about your feelings of hopelessness. I see you. I hear you And then he says, I'm coming to rescue you. Wow.
Just like the song. I love that. I'm coming to rescue you and I'm gonna lead you into this space out of bondage. When you when you see Egypt, just think bondage. Not quite a picture of thriving.
Right? So it's it's the opposite of thriving and flourishing. Egypt represents bondage. He's like, I'm gonna lead you out of that bondage into a land flowing with milk and honey. We don't use that term today, a land flowing with milk and honey.
That was 1,400 BC slang for a land, a space where you can thrive. Okay? Now, was this land of Canaan without its giants? No. It was full of giants because this isn't heaven.
We're gonna have giants in our lives, in our world, and he's saying you're gonna enter into a land where there are giants, but it's a land where you can thrive if you hang on to me. If you listen to my narrative. I love this because we see what happened. The generation that left a land of false gods, I call them little g gods throughout the study. They were so affected because our environment has an impact upon us.
My daughter lives in LA, I talk to her about this all the time. Not only does she live in LA, she works in Hollywood. And I'm just like, baby girl, your environment is having an impact on you. We have to be really careful. Now the the Israelites didn't have a choice, so that's why the Lord led them out of that environment.
But for that generation that left, they just kept listening to the narrative from that place of bondage. They kept listening to the little g God narrative and not Yahweh's narrative. And it's so heartbreaking because what happened? Their whole life, they just wandered in the desert. Wondered in the desert.
They didn't prosper. Now there's some sloppy teaching in our church called prosperity theology. That's not the prosper I'm talking about. Prosperity theology says, God wants for you health, wealth, and prosperity. Well, you know what?
God may want that for you. He may not want that for you. We see all through scriptures where God didn't want that for the prophets. He didn't give that to the disciples. He didn't give any of that to them.
So he may want that, he may not. Do you know what prosper means in scripture? The real definition from the Hebrew and Greek, I find this fascinating. It means to move forward. That's what prosper means.
To move forward with something nudging you from behind. What is that something that is hopefully nudging us from behind? It's the Holy Spirit. And Yahweh told those Israelites, I'm gonna nudge you from behind to the promised land, but they resisted. They didn't allow him.
Prosper also means, I love this other definition, to break out mightily. To break out from what? To break out implies you need to break out. Right? What are we breaking out from?
We're breaking out from the wrong narrative, from lies of our world, lies in our culture. There are two narratives happening at all time. One is from Yahweh and one is from the world. Okay. So Jesus said, look, I am the truth and if you will play my narrative in your mind, this is what's gonna happen.
I have a way set out for you. Not you collectively, but you personally. You and you and you. Listen to my truth. Play my truth in your head and I have a way for you that's gonna bring what?
Life. Abundant life. What does abundant life mean? It means thriving life, a prospering life, a moving forward life, not staying stuck in the wilderness life, but moving forward. And I know the the other narrative is just coming at us from every angle, but I will tell you, writing this study guide, I couldn't even put a number on the hours I put into it.
Literally hundreds. And I think the real bottom line after all those hours of research is if I am not feeling at peace, if I am not feeling hopeful, I'm believing a lie. I'm believing a lie about God or I'm believing a lie about myself. I am believing he's not that good because ouch, these circumstances hurt. I'm believing he's not there for me or he doesn't care about me or I'm believing a lie about myself that I'm all alone in this, that I'm not worthy, I'm not loved and that's why we're doing Thrive.
To retrain those tapes that play in our head to play the truth. And you know what the Lord told the Israelites? He said in Deuteronomy twenty nine nine, if you will follow this, you will prosper. Not a cheap prosperity like the world offers, but a deep prosperity, a thriving prosperity, a prosperity where you're not anxious and stressed, where you have that peace that absolutely surpasses all understanding. And I think one of the lies the world teaches us is that my problems, my hardship, my circumstances equal my feelings.
A equals c. No. That's not true. A is for adversity. C is for the condition of my well-being.
We are taught that a equals c. I wanna do an extreme illustration because we're in the wild West. I can use my gun. Okay. So let's say this is you and a stranger points a gun in your face.
Okay. What's the adversity?
The gun.
And what's the condition of my state of being with a gun in my face? Not too good. Right? But you realize, oh wait, it's a water gun. So now, the condition of my well-being has just changed because I'm like, well, what's the worst thing that could happen?
I get wet. So here's the truth. It's not the gun is in my face, a equals c, the adversity equals the condition of my well-being. It's a plus b, what I believe about this gun that affects the condition of my well-being. A plus b equals c, not a equals c.
It's not the adversity that causes our feelings, it's our beliefs about the problems and our circumstances that causes our feelings. And you know what Jesus said? He said, I wanna tell you, whatever happens to you in this world, it doesn't matter. There is nothing that can separate my love for you. There is no person, there is no circumstance that can get in the way of me getting to you.
If you call out to me, I'm there. If you need me, I will never forsake you. You just call, I hear you and I'm there twenty four seven. My problems and what I believe about my problems equal the condition of my well-being. Earth has no sorrow that heaven can't heal.
That is the truth from the Lord. And I know that, you know, we're being indoctrinated with lies and with bad news and with scary news. It... On our phones twenty four seven from social media, from our government, our children in school systems, even some of our churches have gotten away from teaching the truth of God's word. So in this study, what we're going to do is we're gonna drill down on the enemy's tactic of trying to get in our head of his tactic of trying to make us play tapes that are not true and how he works and the foundation he works from is always deception and lies.
We're gonna talk about the ancient spiritual disciplines of how to live out this faith, how to live in a path where we can find, truly find a sense of well-being despite difficulties. And we're gonna have real practical tools from scripture that guarantee a thriving life. But before we jump into chapter one next week on thriving, I just wanna go over four points with you on how to have assurance that we are really truly children of God. Because sometimes we don't feel like it and sometimes we question if we really are. And I've taken these four points from first John.
John chapter one verse 12 says, all who believe in Jesus and accept him are given the right to be children of God. They are reborn not of a physical birth but of a spiritual birth. They have something in them they didn't have before. When they believe and receive Jesus, they have the spirit of God in them. And all of those scripture tells us every single human is made in the image of God and every human has value.
Not every human chooses to be a child of God. This is a choice that God leaves up to us. I mean, draws us and he says, come come into the eternal family. And I just wanna go over what first John says and how we can have assurance that we are in that eternal family and that we are a child of God. Romans ten nine says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and savior and you believe he was raised in the third day, you are saved.
And first John five one says, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is now born into the family of God. So this confession is really a declaration and it's something that only you can do with God. It doesn't matter if your father was a pastor. It doesn't matter if you were baptized, if you were confirmed. It doesn't matter if you went to church your entire life.
That's not what the Bible tells us gets us into this family. It says you have to confess with your mouth that he is your Lord and savior, that you are no longer lord of your life. You wanna talk about causing stress? Try being lord. Try being God.
We all know that we're not, so it's just ridiculous. We know we're not in control. The last few years have really shown us that. We're not in control. God almighty is control.
In control. And I confess with my mouth that he is Lord of my life. He is my savior. So number one, the way we can have assurance is that we have made that declaration, that confession. Number two, that confession should cause change in your life.
If there's no change in your life, if your priorities haven't changed, if it's still all about you, if your habits haven't changed, if you can still watch the same shows that you watched before that confession, if you can still say the same words, if you can still spend all your budget on me me me and all your time on me me me, something's wrong with the confession. There should be change. First John two twenty nine says, everyone who practices righteousness is born of him. We are not saved by our good works, but we are saved for good works. And if we're not doing that, something's wrong.
So number one, confession. Number two, there will be change in your life. And number three, compassion. My compassion begins to grow for others. In in the old testament and the new testament, another word for compassion is mercy or love.
And first John four seven says, dear friends, let us continue to love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and that person knows God. If you were to stand before God today, you know how Jesus met Peter on the beach and he said, Peter, do you love me? And and Peter made that declaration that he loved the Lord before he was crucified, but he he wasn't quite there yet and then he denied him. So Jesus came to him and said, Peter, do you love me?
And Peter answered in the Greek with phileo love. Yes, Lord. I phileo you. Meaning, yes, Lord. I I do love you.
Not the kind of love that I said before, but I do love you, I admire you. Jesus asked a second time, Peter, do you love me? Peter's like, well... He answers again, yes, Lord. I fileo you.
That's all I've got. The third time Jesus says, Peter, in Peter's terms, do you fileo love me? Meaning, do do you have any respect for me or admiration for me? And Peter's like, that's all I've got, Lord. And you know what Jesus said?
Okay. That's what we'll work with. I'm gonna use you now, Peter, and your love for me will grow. And at the end, Peter could say, I love you with all my heart, mind, and soul, Lord. In fact, he said, I love him so much.
I can't even die like him. Turn me upside down. So today, if you can't say, I love him, he can work with a crumb. Peter gave him a crumb. He said, look, I admire you.
I wanna get to that place where I love you. And Jesus said, okay, Peter. Let's go. Let's get busy. And how are we loving others?
This weekend, it was it was so interesting. My son, my daughter, my daughter-in-law all had a story for me of how a friend had really hurt them. And one of the kids said, I feel like I just got canceled. And they're like, what do you do when someone hurts you and betrays you or cancels you? And I said, listen, guys.
This isn't gonna change. Just because you're young, this goes on and on until the day we meet with Jesus, and then it's... Then it changes. But we can't control someone else's behavior. We can only control how we respond to that.
And I told him, I said, you take it to the mat with the Lord, and you tell the Lord that hurts. I didn't like it. I need you. And then you start praying for them. We pray for our enemies.
First John three says, the way we know we are transforming from death to life. We were spiritually dead before we entered into the family of God. Now we are eternally alive and the way we know that is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn't love is as good as dead. I'm gonna love.
Jesus is gonna give me the power to love even my enemies. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder do not go together. So we just call on him and say, whatever it takes, Lord, I need your spirit to help me, to help my compassion grow, to help my love grow. I mean, you may look at someone in your family and think I so don't love them right now. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you.
He shows up for those kind of prayers. So we confess, we see change in our life, our compassion and love grow, and finally conflict. How do we handle trouble? We're really gonna unpack this over the next six weeks. But Jesus said, told you all these things.
He's talking to the disciples. He's giving them a teaching and he says, I'm telling you something. You can have peace in me. You can have peace in me. Here in earth, you're gonna have trials and sorrows, but take heart because I've overcome and if my spirits in you, you too are an overcomer.
First John five four says, every child of God defeats the evil world. We overcome the evil one, our enemy. And John tells us how. He says, you can achieve this victory through your faith. And this isn't a I believe in you Jesus faith.
This is a day by day, I trust you Jesus faith. My prayer when it's rough is Jesus help me, Jesus heal me, and Jesus I trust you. That's all I pray when I can't pray. Jesus help me, Jesus heal me, and Jesus I trust you. That's what I say over and over.
Because you know what? He gave us over 7,000 promises to get us through, to help us thrive despite whatever is happening in our lives. I hope that you do not leave here today without the assurance that you are a child of God. You have confessed he is your Lord. You are open to change.
You want your love and compassion to grow. And when conflict comes, you're gonna trust Jesus. Next week, we're gonna come together. We're gonna unpack chapter one. So I hope you have time to do chapter one this week.
And we will... Should I do small groups now? Sure. Oh, do you wanna close in a song, or should do small group? Okay.
Let's do the small group. Let me grab my... This is gonna... Am I okay? Oh, thanks, Natalie.
See how good she is? She just muted me. Okay. So I want to introduce you to your small group leaders. And they can tell you where you're gonna be meeting today.
And your name tag is a number and that's the small group you're in. The first small group is Kathy Ward and Julia Stanley. Can you girls stand up? Okay. This is Kathy and Julia.
So if you have a number one, you are in their group. Group number two is Casey McCooey. Casey has to leave today, so Natalie is taking Casey's group. So if you have a two, you're in Casey's group. Today, Natalie's.
Group number three is Janet Whitmire. And if you have a three, you're with Janet. Group number four is Leah Chase. Where is miss Leah? There she is.
Yay. Okay. And so if you have a four, you're with Leah. Group number five is Nancy Irwin and Anne Marie. Where's where's little Anne Marie?
Is doing financial
stuff. Oh, she is. Okay. And Group six is Sammy Robinson. Yay, Sammy.
So if you have a six, you are with Sammy. And if you have a seven, you are with Susie Baldock. This is Susie. Oh, we have amazing small group leaders. I just wanna thank them.
Thank you. Alright ladies, I can't wait to see you next week. We're gonna do chapter one and we're... We will be talking about our God has a name and it's Yahweh. Yes.
That's up to the small group leaders. Whoever you wanna meet.
