Growing Faith | Pastor John Greiner

This message unpacks 2 Thessalonians' praise for a church whose faith grew exceedingly and whose love abounded, arguing the two must rise together through five practical keys: guarding what you listen to, acting on what you believe, praying consistently, following the inner witness of the Spirit, and choosing love even when community gets messy, illustrated through personal stories including a tense building search years ago that shows faith without corresponding action and love stays stagnant.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Expectation

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. So, Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be here today. I have an appointment with the anointment. My ears are open to hear. Not just these ears on the outside of my head, but the ears of my spirit. I have ears to hear what the spirit is saying to me today. I'm not listening for someone else. I'm listening for me. I need help. And I'm receiving it today through the word and the spirit in Jesus' name. Amen. Praise God. And if you don't need help, it must mean you're not doing anything. Hallelujah. All right. 2

Growing Faith And Abounding Love

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Thessalonians, chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians. It's hard to say that when you're half drunk. Or am I the only one? All right. 2 Thessalonians. Thessalonians. You know, 2 Thessalonians is an end time book. 1 Thessalonians. I call them end time book because they talk about the end times. The whole book isn't, but they've got some jewels in there. And so I want to teach you out of this chapter 1 here, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, verse 1. And he's big on big long greetings. Paul in Savannius and Timotheus under the church of the Thessalonians and God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace unto you. And peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. See, it's kind of like dear Thessalonians. Only he puts it in about 30 words. It's the amplified version. Verse 3, this is the one we look at. We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet or as it's right. It's right that we thank God for you. Because, everybody shout, because that your faith groweth exceedingly. And the charity or the agape. Charity is an unfortunate translation of the Greek word agape, which means God's love. The agape of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth. So now notice, you know, their faith grew exceedingly and their love abounds. So today I wanted to share a message entitled Growing Faith. Growing Faith. You know, we talked about last week faith in the name of Jesus, and we've been taught a series on prayer. We said you don't pray for faith, but prayer is the mother of faith. Prayer is where you get intimate with God, and He's able to impart to you the things that you need to believe. You need to get His perspective. Your faith begins where the will of God is known, and you much of the will of God comes from the Word of God and through prayer. So you have to have, everybody say, a word life and a prayer life. Amen. And then you can start to have growing faith. But you know, faith also has to have some alongside it, love has to grow because faith without works and faith without love. You know, love love, faith worketh by love. And 1 Corinthians 13 says, if I have faith to move mountains, have not love, it profits nothing. So here they have the recipe in Thessalonica. They are commended for their growing faith and their love that abounds. And

Why Faith Must Grow Now

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uh again, this is the end times. I mean, if they needed this 2,000 years ago, let me tell you, we need uh triple portion of that right now because the devil is going crazy. I mean, communism has come to this country. And people are voting for the most idiotic candidates I've ever seen. And who is it that's voting? Well, the people that are indoctrinated in our colleges and universities, the ones that say free Palestine. They don't even know where Palestine is. They don't even know where Israel is. They don't even know what they're saying. They're just repeating. They've been brainwashed, and now they're voting for communists. I tell you, we need to get rid of the communists. Send them back where they came from, anyway. So growing faith, we need our faith to grow. Their faith grew exceedingly, which means increasing above the ordinary degree, increasing beyond measure. So growing faith, you know, growing faith, that can either be described in your faith as an adjective. My faith is, I've got growing faith, or I have shrinking faith. You don't want shrinking faith, do you? No, you want growing faith, but then growing can be a verb. See, growing, I'm growing in, I'm growing my faith. I'm growing my faith. I'm not shrinking my faith, I'm growing my faith. See, it's both sides of this is a verb or an ad adjective. No extra charge for the English lesson. So end times, we've got to think about the end times and how we need this message right now. Our job is to keep you fed the word of God so that your faith will continually increase. Why? Because the pressure against us is growing. So we've got to have growing faith. And so, really, this is in line with God's desire for us. You know, when Jesus walked the earth, he was always looking for faith and measuring it. I mean, he just couldn't stop it. I mean, he went around, I mean, you know, he was not so kind to his own disciples. He said, How is it that you have no faith? I preached this whole day and now you don't have any for where is it? So he's looking for it, he didn't find any. He told Peter, when Peter walked on the water a couple of yards before he started to sink and he said, Oh, you have little faith. Why did you doubt? You could have walked all the way out here. Oh, little faith. But then, you know, he commended the uh Roman centurion. He said, I have found not, I have not found so great a faith. No, not in Israel. I mean, he he marveled at the faith of the Roman centurion who was not Jewish. And then the Syrophenician woman, she had a daughter that was, you know, demon-possessed, and he said, Oh woman, great is thy faith. You know, he didn't ever say that to the disciples. It's it's kind of amazing that the the two examples in the in the gospels where he where he magnified somebody about their faith were both Gentiles, which I believe speaks to the church now. I believe that's a prefiguring of the church and our opportunity to grow and have growing faith. So uh in Luke 18.8, you know, he just got through teaching on prayer. The Lord teaches to pray, and he told them how to pray. We preached on this before. But in Luke 18, 8 he said, you know, nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, see, he's talking about the second coming, when the Son of Man cometh, is he gonna find faith on the earth? See, I mean he's gonna still be looking for faith, and right now the church has got some growing to do. I'm talking about the church at large, and we can all improve, can't we? We ought to always be improving. So in Hebrews 11, 6 it says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. So obviously, if we're growing in faith, we're growing and pleasing him. I don't know how many of you want to please God instead of making him aggravated and mad? See, unbelief, I tell you, God gets mad at unbelief. Jesus got mad at unbelief. He didn't like it. So I want to give God and I want to give our Father more of what he likes.

Great Faith Comes Through Battles

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So, you know, uh, the devil always opposes your faith when it starts increasing. I mean, he's not gonna just sit around and watch you grow in faith and not do anything. There's no great faith without great battles. Brother Osteen used to say this all the time. There's no great faith without great battles. There's no, you know, there's no great victories without, you know, great battlers are no great faith without great tests. That's what he said. No great faith without great tests. We're not looking for a greater test, but that's the only way your faith is gonna grow, is when you overcome everything the devil throws at you. And be don't don't doubt it. He's gonna throw bigger things at you the more you grow in things. You ought to not think it not strange concerning the fiery trial that is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. No, no, that's when you belt up and say, Bring it on, devil, I'm ready. Amen. But in Hebrews 10, 23, it says, Hold fast to your confession of faith without wavering. For he's faithful who promised. See, hold fast. See, why? Because the devil's gonna try to snatch it right out of your hand. Where is your hand of faith? Well, it's really your mouth, it's your tongue. What are you saying? I mean, you know, he's gonna try to get you to shut up and get back in the corner and be invisible. You don't have a testimony, you're sick. Get out of here. Don't even come to church. You're you're too sick, you're too weak. Just don't, yeah, they don't need you around there or you dragging around and see. No, see, he's a liar. I mean, the best place to be when you're not feeling well is church. Quit giving in to infirmity, quit giving in to all kinds of outside pressures. Hold fast to your confession of faith. What? Without wavering, hold fast. I said, hold fast to your confession of faith. Hold fast to your confession. Hold fast to your confession, hold fast to your why? Because he's coming to snatch it out. He's not gonna get it out of my hands, he's not gonna get it out of my mouth. I'm I'm gonna keep keep speaking the word of faith and believing. See, we've got to speak it, but we've got to believe it. Amen. Hold fast. Some of you are gonna get this about three o'clock this afternoon. So uh I've got uh uh five things. I don't know if I'll get all of it today, but if I don't, I'll pick it up some other time. But uh uh I've got five ways for you to to grow your faith. How many interested in finding out how to grow your faith? So uh let's turn in uh Mark chapter four.

Mark 4 And Hearing Deeply

SPEAKER_00 10:23

And uh, you know, this is a famous chapter where the Jesus is speaking and he's teaching on the sower-sows the word, and he and he talks about how there's there's four four kinds of dirt. Three of them have a crop failure. Three kinds of dirt don't produce. Dirt is your spirit. Faith is a spiritual force. It's in your spirit. It has to be, it's not in your head, it's in your spirit. And so when you and so he talks about how the devil can come and steal the word right out of your heart because it's not, it's not really, you just heard it here with these ears, but you didn't get it down in there. And then sometimes people get it down in there and it just they get offended when things don't go their way, and then he steals that. And then another time he puts the heat on you for a long period of time, and you finally just you know, the cares of this world, the seafulness, riches, lust, or other things entering in, and it's and it chokes the word. So the the word can be stolen, scorched, or or strangled. And you get what? Nothing, no crop, no results. But God's looking for faith. God's looking for production, he's looking for fruit, he's looking for a people that will bring forth fruit. What is the fruit he's looking for? That we can have whatever we say. Whatever we demand of the covenant for ourselves and other people comes to pass. That's the kind of thing he wants to see happen. That's so shall you be my disciples, John chapter 15. So uh so here in verse 24, after he says all that, he said, now he said unto them, take heed or pay attention to what you hear, for with what measure you measure it, it shall be measured back to you, and unto you that hear shall be more given. Hear what? Hear the word. And I don't mean hear like this, you're these ears here. I'm talking about who have a revelation. See, Romans 10, 17 says, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Again, it's not talking about these things on the side of your head. Yeah, we all hear it, but do we hear it? See, I mean, you've got to get a revelation of what God is saying. That's not just instant. I mean, it's got to get down on the inside. It's got to get down on the inside of you until the Holy Ghost illuminates to you, and all of a sudden now you know something. You know what God said, you know what God meant. And when you find that, faith is there. There's no struggle. You've got it right there. It comes right with that revelation, with that level of hearing. He said, Those who have heard, say the next verse, verse 25, for he that hath heard, to him shall be given. See, he's gonna get more. If you've heard, he's gonna give you more. If you've heard the word down in your spirit, he's gonna give you more. Because you're what? You're being a good steward of what you heard, you're putting it to work. And then it says, and to him that hath not heard, see, that's not said, but that's understood. That that verb heard is understood. You've got to read your Bible and be alert when you're reading. You just read across there and you miss the whole meaning of what Jesus said. This is in red, it must be important. If you haven't heard, the word from him shall be taken, even that which he has. Well, God's not gonna take it from you. Who is the devil is gonna take it from you? And you won't even have what you had before. That's why that faith cannot stay the same. Faith is either growing or faith is shrinking. I mean, there's no treading water, there's no leveling off in faith. You're either growing or you're shrinking one of the two. And so you've got a you've got a prize and you've got to look at yourself and look at your your your faith walk and all of that and your spirituality and and judge. Well, am I growing or am I drawing back? See? Because if you're growing, then God's gonna give you more food to grow with, and you're gonna get bigger and stronger, and you're gonna bring more fruit. That's what we've got to have right now. We have to have an awakening in this country, and it's gonna be through disciples, not just not just getting people saved. That's just the first step. Saved, they're still babies, they can't do anything much. A baby is gonna require more care. And so all the care we give to babies comes out of going out and reaping the harvest. And so, you know, I mean, it it we're gonna have to have some disciples. That's laborers. I mean, we the preachers can't do it all, but it's the believers' ministry. This message is for the believers' ministry. How many of you believers this morning? How many doubters? Anyone got any doubters in it? Nobody left. Thank God you didn't raise your hand. Get you saved. All right. So

Feed On The Word For Growth

SPEAKER_00 15:18

uh so it said here, take heed. Take heed. See, that's the subject of these five things I'm gonna give you. So the first one on the list is take heed what you hear or how do you hear. Take heed. And so what does that mean? Pay attention to what you're listening to. Uh what do you listen to? Well, number one, you listen to my messages. I'm your I'm your pastor, I'm anointed to feed you the right diet. I mean, you know, if you if you left your five-year, if it if you left the the menu up to your five-year-old as to what you're gonna have for supper, it'd be Snickers. Cheetos and Snickers. Chocolate malt. We don't even make malts anymore. I like malts, but anyway, chocolate is chocolate shake. I mean, it'd be junk food, wouldn't it? And snap is supposed to pay for that. Our food stamp is supposed to pay for junk food. Isn't that stupid? I mean, that's the most expensive food you can buy, sugar. Has no, in fact, it has negative value and it hurts you. Sugar is a nit, sugar's almost like poison. I hate to say that because I love sweets. But I have to watch it. So uh uh with the messages that I preach, and of course everybody that's in this pulpit preaches, it's designed to give you a balanced diet to where when you when you hear that word, it's going to develop you on all the different areas of your life that you need development. We don't just preach on one subject. We we we spread it out. You know, years ago we moved in this building and God spoke to me one morning. I was, I think I was in the lobby, and he said, There's a dearth of the word. Dearth of the word. Dearth means famine. And I said, Well, Lord, there's a church on every corner. I mean, could there be I mean, you mean a dearth? He said, Yeah, but your children don't know what you know. And he was talking about you. I thought he was talking about children's church. I had a meeting with children's church, and I put the ball in children's church, and I was tired of having these guys, I had three men teachers, and they were all trying to outdo him one another and trying to gain the favor, and I heard the little kids say, Oh, I like uh brother so-and-so. He's my favorite teacher. And oh, I like the other one because he gave bike last Sunday. And so they were buying pizza and bikes, and they were they were coming out of their pocket with gifts. And uh, and then God, when God said dearth of the word, your children don't know. I I mean I had a meeting and all three of those guys left the church when they didn't get their way, see. And we saw, I said, we're gonna have a curriculum, we're gonna we're gonna teach our young people what the word says about everything. We're gonna teach them how to get baptized in the Holy Spirit. That's been 20-some odd years ago now. And I mean, our children's church has developed and developed and developed, but he really wasn't talking about children's church, he was talking about you. He wasn't talking about Jay and Claire and my you know, Selena and James. He wasn't talking about them, he's talking about the next generation doesn't know what you know. And so I thought, wow. And then later he said, teach what you take for granted. So that's what I'm teaching this morning. I'm teaching things that I've learned for a long 40 years. I'm teaching something I learned a long time ago and put in practice, and it might not be new to your ears, but it's still needful diet. It's something you need to process and you need to get it down in your spirit. Because we need to grow, don't we? And so you you listen to those messages and then you feed on them. What does it mean to feed on? Well, you listen to it again. And listen to it with your Bible open and follow along. Well, I already went to church. Well, that's just the first step. You haven't really heard anything yet. If all you ever do is come to church, hear me preach, and go home and live normal, your your faith is not gonna grow very much. It's gonna just increment. It won't be enough for the end times. That's what I'm saying. I mean, we're gonna have to put it in overdrive, folks. We're gonna have to readjust our. This is a behold, I make all things new. There's some things that we need to throw overboard that we're doing that is God is through with it. And reorder our priorities. Oh, I didn't get a lot of amens on that last one. So uh feed on them. I I had a beautiful note uh from Peggy Ryder. Where are you, Peggy? I mean, your note just really touched me. I went first part of the note, I kind of wept at all the things that she's been through. I had tears in my eyes reading it. But then the last part made me shout. And she said, I have listened to your message on uh the cry against. That was on a Sunday night. The cry against. Not all our prayers are asking for positive things. Sometimes we have to cry against. You know, and I taught the whole thing, and one of the things we cry against is the devil who's defrauded our wages. You know, your wages that you've been that you've that been robbed from you, you you should have that money, but you've been passed over for promotions, you've been denied raises, you've been underpaid. Uh, you don't know all about it, but God knows every dollar that belongs to you that's been diverted and defrauded and it's buried over here in somebody else's account. And you have a right to that money. Because why? Because that money has a voice. That those wages are crying out to the Lord of the armies of heaven. And then one time I was reading that verse 20 some odd years ago, 2006, 20 years ago, I was reading that verse, and God said, You know, you word of faith people talking to me. He said, You word of faith people don't know much about crying out. He said, You ought to have enough sense to agree with your wages. Your wages are shouting and crying out. Why don't you cry out? I mean, it says the laborers, the cries of the laborers, he said, y'all haven't been crying. Boy, we started crying out then. Are y'all getting this? So she said, I listened to that message over and over. And I mean to tell you, Steve and I, we're gonna be we're gonna finance the end time harvest. Bless God. I agree with you, Pete. Remember when I called y'all up and I had something in my hands for you? I believe it was related to what you discovered. I mean, she I mean, she'd been through, I don't even know all the things that you've been through, but God knows what you've been through. If you'll hear the word and feed on it. See, you can't just hear it once, feed on it until it gets down in there. Oh my goodness, the devil is trembling. And

Tune Out Naysayers And Noise

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so, um, and then number three, avoid the naysayers. I mean, you've got to turn. Tune out the noise. There's a lot of noise. And some of it's on Christian television. Don't just sit there and turn on Christian television like a zombie and think you're being spiritual. There's a lot of junk on there. And let's be selective about what we listen to. You know, let's be selective. I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to listen to a Baptist preacher. He didn't got nothing to say that I need. I'm sorry. I've got, you know, I've got ears to hear the word of faith. I want. If some if somebody's on there like Keith Butler earlier this morning, I turn on Keith Butler. I'll listen to Keith, boy. I like him. But not everybody can I listen to. Some people I just I heard one guy going on and on about Judas Iscariot, and he was, he spent 15 minutes talking about the name of Judas, and I thought, why do I need to know that? That doesn't help me defeat the devil at all. I don't want to even hear his stupid name. Jesus said it was better for him that he was never born. So why are you talking about it? Is this a Bible school? Quit to not the noise. Some of the noise comes from your friends. And things that God has no godly purpose for some of your associations. Find out what those are and cut them off. Just let them die. Let them just die. You don't have to be ugly about it. You don't have to be, but just quit giving time to people who suck the life out of you. Who don't believe what you believe. Are y'all getting this this morning? So here, take heed what you hear. Pay attention to what you're hearing. We're here today because 30 years ago I took heed to a word that God spoke to me when I was looking at land, and he said, this is a regional center. And so we're not just a local church. We are a local church, but not just a local church. A local church might have five or six zip codes of the members that give into the church. Well, we've got a hundred and some odd. I haven't counted lately, but it's a lot of zip codes that give into this ministry. I mean, it's all over ten counties. It's a regional center. Did I do it? No, God did it. But I had to agree with him. I had to take my eyes off of just 1960, see? And I had to take my eyes off and let God do what he wanted to do. We're here today because uh 27 years ago God told me to wake up the church. So we started waking it up, and we're waking up the church to a greater degree now than we've ever been. I mean, people are waking up now. I mean, you know, God's using our association. We rub up against people and say little things to them, and boy, and the next thing you know, I've never heard it like that. You mean God has a side? Yeah, God has a side. You need to be on his side. We're always asking God to get on our side. That's not gonna work. We need to get on his side. This is his side right here. This is his side. You get on this side of truth, and then he can be on your side. And you take this with you into the voting booth. See, they hadn't heard that either, see. So we're rubbing up, we're waking up the church. 14 or 23 years ago, I heard that word I talked about dearth of the word. 23 years ago, I heard the dearth of the word. And so we're preaching what we take for granted. So take heed what you hear, how you hear. Number

Act Like The Bible Is True

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two, take heed what you do or how you act. James 2, 17, faith without works is dead. Being alone. Uh one version says, faith without corresponding action is dead. So faith requires words. That's the initial action. Your words have to line up with God's word. You have to confess. Confess means to say the same thing as. So if the Bible says you were healed, what do you say when you're sick? You don't say, Oh, I'm so sick. No, you you say, I'm healed. I was healed, I am healed. Or you're lying. No, you're agreeing with God's word. And maybe you're calling the thing that be not as though it were. I mean, you may have actually a viral. I mean, a few weeks ago I had a procedure on my heart and they had to intubate me, and they gave me some kind of virus. I got home with all kinds of crud in my throat. I mean, man, I could hardly, you know, I'd go to sleep wheezing and all this kind of stuff. It was just, it was, they gave it to me. The best place to get sick is at the hospital. I mean, they try not to go there as much as you can. Try not to go there. Unless you're visiting somebody and then take on the whole armor of God when you go. And so uh, you know, I had to go through all this, but I got rid of it. I mean, I resisted it. Are y'all with me now? I just kept saying, I'm healed. All right, so, but that's the initial, so you have to, you know, the simple definition of faith is faith is acting on the word. Or faith, I like what Brother Hagin would say, faith is acting like the Bible is true. So once you've spoken it, you've got to act like it's true. It was just that simple. I mean, you you can't confess you're healed and just stay in bed all day long and do nothing. So, you know, Gladys has had a challenge. I mean, we've been we've been going through some of the greatest challenges we've ever gone through in our marriage with her uh conditions that she's had to fight through. And every time we get out of bed and every time we walk, you know, we have to overcome the difficulty that takes. Every time we come to church, it's not just easy to do. We come, and what are we doing? We're saying, devil, you're a liar. We are healed. All pain is gone in Jesus' name. You have to act like the Bible is true. That's our that's our faith uh action. If we didn't do that, she'd go to heaven. I mean, you can't lay in bed for months and not and and you finally just get we everything goes away, and then you finally just die and go to heaven. We're not doing that. Oh, we got too much to do. Are y'all with me now? All right. So uh act like the Bible is true. Uh,

Build Faith Through Spirit Led Prayer

SPEAKER_00 28:14

number three, uh take heed. So we take heed what we hear, take heed what we do, take heed, number three, on how you pray. That means you have a prayer life. And it ought to consist a lot of praying in other tongues. Let's get out of this habit. And I preached a series on prayer. If you didn't listen to it, go back and meditate on it. Get it in your spirit. It'll help you learn how to pray correctly. I mean, a lot of people just say, give me this, give me that, give me the other. Lord, give me, give me, give me. Give me, give it, get, give it to me, give it to me, give it to me right now. Give it to me, give it to me. No, that's just baloney. No. You pray in tongues a lot. When you pray in tongues, your spirit prays. Your understanding is unfruitful. You don't know what you're praying, but your spirit's praying. It's a spiritual exercise. Jude 20 says, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost. 1 Corinthians chapter 14 says, He that prays in an unknown tongue edifies himself. The word edifies means to build upon a foundation. You are strengthening yourself. I prayed a lot in tongues early this morning. I edified myself so I could come to church and edify you. I mean, I can't edify you if I'm not first edified. I can't bless you unless I'm blessed. Right? And so when you pray in other tongues, you know, you're not praying for faith, but you're you're doing entering a spiritual exercise that will that will cause your spirit to become dominant. And your spirit is what needs to be dominant for your faith to operate. Because your faith is a spiritual force. It's in your spirit. Healing is in your spirit. It's not what the doctor does, it's not any place else. Healing starts in the spirit realm. Now they can treat things, they can give you medicine. I mean, some doctors understand that medicine, all medicine really is supposed to do is help your body do what it's designed to do. But we've gotten into all kinds of things that medicine is not designed to do. It's horrible, and we've seen the edges of that. They kill so many people during COVID with these stupid vaccines, which are not vaccines. They they called them vaccines and they're not. They were experimental gene therapy. And if you took the jab, I'm you're you're gonna have to fight what they deposited in your body. We've seen people go to heaven just because they got the jab. And I believe it's in the millions across this country. I don't know. I mean, Fauci ought to be hung. Anyway, get off. But what I'm saying is uh, you know, when you pray, your spirit becomes dominant. So uh when you're gonna pray in English, pray that Holy Ghost prayers, Ephesians chapter 1, Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 3. How about Philippians chapter 1? Oh, I pray that my love may abound yet more and more, knowledge and all judgment, that I may approve things that are excellent, that I may be perfect and sincere without offense until the day of Christ. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, under the glory and praise of God. You think I prayed that a few times? I mean, I have to pray it because you're, I mean, I I could not love you. I get mad at you, you know, make merchandise of you, you know, treat you like, you know, like your second-hand clothes or something like that. No, I filled with love. I love. That's got love has got to be behind everything I'm doing. Or it won't profit. Are y'all with me now? So pray those inspired prayers for yourself and others, and uh, and you begin to see. Take heed how you pray. Quit just asking for so many things. Let's just get into let God change you. Let let you you finally your spirit gets so dominant that you'll know what things to let go and what things to acquire. What new assignment. Everybody's got a new assignment now. Have you found it yet? Yeah, let's let's let's get serious. Let's I mean there's new, there's God. This is behold, I make all things new. Make means throw some stuff overboard and make room for the new. Praise God. All right.

Follow The Witness And Unction

SPEAKER_00 32:28

So then take heed, number four, take heed what you know. Take heed to what you know. So uh 1 John 2.20 says that we have the witness. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. You were born again through the witness of the Spirit. It's not a voice, it's not an angel talking to you, it's not a vision, it's not a dream, it's the witness of the Spirit. It's the primary way God communicates with you, it's through the witness. And and you have it. I said you have it. So when you have the witness, you have the knowing of what God wants you to do. You're tapped into Him. It may or may not be the jot and tittle of the Bible of the Word. Not everything you need is in the Bible. Some of it is it's not against the Bible, but you're you're gonna need extra information. For instance, I use this, I use this example uh a lot over the years. You know, when I prayed and was receiving direction about starting this church. And it was with a lot of personal uh uh pressure. I mean, we man, we were having a tough time financially. And uh and here God's wanting us to start a church. We're just about broke. Got almost no money. You know, I finally got a credit card. I think the month before we started the church, I finally got the first credit card I'd had in five or six years. So when you operate without any credit, that means every dollar you have, you've got to be mindful of that money because you don't have any safety debt. I mean, you can't roll it over on visa if you don't if you run out of money at the end of the month. And what happens? Well, you do without. Do without food. You know, you can do without power. Do without your rent. Uh-uh. Rent and power, number one on the list. Food, I can do without food a little bit. I'll do without the food so the kids can eat. That never got to that point. It never did. But I'm just saying, you know, we had to learn how to live a little bit more, you know, on purpose. And so uh talking about the witness of the Spirit. We have the witness in it. And so there nowhere in that, in, in, in what God told me was it was it said that that uh your church is gonna start at 6827 FM 1960 West, where the super target is now, right across from Champions Park subdivision. That's where our first building was. It's not in the Bible. The location of it wasn't in the Bible. How did I find out, the witness? I saw I saw a sign. I kept thinking about a building that I used to eat uh barbecue in. It was called uh Big Ben's Barbecue. Years ago, me and me and my builder friends would go and we'd have a whole big old table of 10 or 12 and we'd order three or four pitchers of beer and we'd drink beer and eat barbecue. I I believe that eat barbecue, you must have beer. That was the doctrine, the grinder doctrine that I went by. In the same building, we started our church. I mean, what how can that happen? See, if you don't think that's God, I would point to the post. I said, I used to sit right there, drink beer, and eat barbecue. But now here we're preaching to God. Here we're saved and filled with the Holy Ghost. I don't need beer, I've got the Holy Ghost. Used to make my own beer, except when I was at Big Ben's and I'd buy his, all right? Still had the barbecue pits in the back. And God led us to that building. What? By the witness. And the favor followed the witness. I mean, we had favor. Are y'all with me? And then, of course, 1 John 5.10 says you have an unction from the Holy One. So we need to learn how to function in the unction. The unction is just a knowing. The unction is the witness. The unction is that it's indescribable in English words. It's just a knowing that you have either not to do something or to do something. And your faith is locked up with your obedience to that. I mean, if you don't learn to obey the unction and the witness, then you're going to miss God's best. You're going to start doing things that you manufacture. Unless the Lord builds a house, guess what? They labor in vain that build it. Doesn't say they weren't built it. You build it, but you labor in vain. And so I don't want to labor in vain. I don't have time to labor in vain. Amen? So we need to pay attention to what we know. And once you know down in your knower, you need to obey. See, the word of God is God's general will. It's his general will. You've got to do that. But then the witness and the unction are God's specific will for you at any particular time. You need to know God's specific will. And I remember in 1999, we were in the Baptist church down the street. Back then it was Champion Forest Baptist. We'd leased it because we ran out of room in that first building. So we leased their building because they had moved out to build a new building and new campus. And Jay had heard about it. So Jay and I drove by there one night, and both of us had a witness about it. So we pursued it. Took several months. Finally, I got a meeting with the pastor. None of the board of demons, uh board of uh none of them paid any attention to us. But the pastor heard about it. I just now found out that y'all wanted to rent this building. I said, yeah, it's been three months. And so we got together, hammered out a deal, and he said, 90 days uh notice we got it up for sale. It was up for sale for 6.2 million. I thought, nobody's gonna pay 6.2 million. They had 14 million dollars in it, a parking garage, which they had suited, they had lawsuits. I mean, they my cousin went there, was one of their elders. And so I knew a lot of inside information. And uh and so they're asking six million dollars for an old one about at that time is 30 years old, just musty, gut, dusty, has an old-timey air conditioning system and breaks down all the time. And and uh I wasn't interested in buying it at all, but he said, Hey, I'll sell it to you for six. It's 6.2, but I'll sell you, I'll make you a really good deal, six million. I said, Well, thank you, but we've got our own land around the corner. So we leased it. I said, Can you give us 120 days if you sell it? Can you give us 120? No, no, 90 days. He would not budge. So they sold it out from under us. I think they just didn't like the Holy Ghost moving in their building. I mean, we would run the aisles, we would, I mean, we had the wild, I prophesied to the brick wall. You're gonna see and hear things you've never heard before. Had a big old brick wall behind. Anybody remember that brick wall behind the pulpit? Man, we had a time, but they didn't like it. They had they had their spies, you know, and they didn't like it. And they they gave the building away for three million dollars. I'm glad they didn't offer it to me for three million. I might have been tempted to buy it. And I would have departed from God's will, too. But anyway, they didn't offer it, and we had 90 days, 90 days to move a whole church. So the first month I kept thinking about, hey, let's try to occupy our land, and that's when I found out that you can own land, and there's so many non-elected officials that they they had all these rules and regulations, there was no way we could we could pitch a tent on our own land and have a church service. I'm not talking about building a building, I'm talking about pitch a tent and have uh mobile bathrooms that are air conditioned for the people to go to, and they wouldn't let us do it. Oh no, oh no, you've got to do this, you've got to do the other. That ate up a month of the three months. So now I've gone only two months. So then I heard about a Seventh-day Adventist church. That uh they're there on Saturday and and they're looking for somebody to rent their building for Sunday, and and you know, so I thought, well, I guess we could do that. So we found we West Houston uh Seventh-day Adventist all the way down, almost to I-10 down uh the beltway, way 15 miles from here. And so we we go and get an appointment with Dr. Pagani. He's a uh doctor, he's an Indian doctor, and not the woo-woo Indian, but this kind of Indian, like Stephen back there. This kind of Indian, not the woo-woo Indian. Gladys, that's a runny joke for Gladys today. So don't look at me with a saying I'm a racist. I'm not racist, I just got a sense of humor. Come on. So he loved me because he knew Brother Osteen and was connected to India, and I had favor with Dr. Pagani. So Dr. Pagani wrote, went through the building, you know, and I thought, man, this will work. You know, everything I saw in the natural looked like it was gonna work just fine. And uh, you know, yeah, we can do this. And then he shot me a price that was off the charts, but we could do it, but it was higher than I expected, the rental. And so uh I said, well, uh let us talk for a little while and get back to you before we leave. And I said, Oh, Gladys, honey, do you have a witness? I don't have a witness. Do you have a witness? No, I don't have a witness at all. I didn't have a witness. There's no witness. And everything my eyes and ears are seeing and hearing looks great. Why won't you give me permission? I said, Jay, do you have a witness? No. Selena, have you got a witness? No. Claire, do you have a witness? Ethan, it's three. Ethan, do you have a witness? I did. I did. I said, Ethan, do you have a witness? No. You don't remember that, do you, Ethan? We left there with no witness, and I'm thinking, now what are we gonna do? That was the best, you know, thing I had going, and it gets right up to where we've got to move out, so we had to get storage. We started moving out, we started getting stuff in the storage, and and and and we don't have an office, so we're gonna have to move the office into my house, and and and man, it's getting so last Wednesday night, Holy Ghost said, now get up there on the platform, don't have anybody up there but you, and a corded mic, and you sing and lead worship with tracks only, don't have anybody else up there. And I thought, okay. And so we did that. We had a service, and at the end of the service, I said, Now look, you know, we've been looking for a place. We haven't found it yet, but God's got one, and by Sunday we will have a place. So y'all just sit tight. We will be calling you between now and and Saturday to let you know where we're gonna meet Sunday. You know, and while I was saying that, several people that I loved and thought, you know, had confidence in me. They left and and and just in my face to let me know that they didn't uh like what they were hearing and they didn't have any confidence, and two of them were my on my worship team. They didn't want them to be up there faking it. You know, let your love be without dissimulation, see. Let your love be real. Don't be saying you love me when you're really plotting against me to leave because you'd lost confidence. So, I mean, that was kind of tough, you know. I went home and I'm thinking, wow, man, that's a tough these people left. Okay, well, whatever, God, you didn't leave. And so the next morning, so it's just Thursday morning, Sunday's coming. This is Thursday morning, 9 o'clock. Phone rings. And I go over and pick it up. And it says, and Pastor Griner, this is Dr. Bagani. I said, Oh, Dr. Pagani. He said, Where are you? We need you. And I mean, I dropped the phone, started crying because hit me from top to bottom. It's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. See, God had us all the way to the edge of the pier before we're going into the shark-infested waters. I mean, if you ever took a long walk off a short pier, it's not a lot of fun. And I mean, he took us all. What did he he tried our church? He proved everybody in the congregation out. About half of them didn't make the cut. About half. Listen, this is a regional center. We're doing business in deep waters. Not everybody's able to do what you guys are doing. I respect you highly for being part of this. It's not for everybody, but thank God it's for you. And God's got an anointing for you. And I'm just going down the list of what how important it is to follow the witness of the Spirit. And then to know what you know down in your knower. And follow that. Praise God. And

Walk In Love To Keep Unity

SPEAKER_00 45:16

so, and then finally, take heed how you love. You gotta love. You know, faith worketh by love. You've got to watch your love walk. Remember, the Thessalonians were congratulated and commended for their growing faith and for their abounding love for each other. And uh and sometimes, you know, it's hard to love people because they're human and flesh, and a lot of times, you know, you have different levels of spiritual growth. Some people are brand new, and some people are not brand new, but their flesh is still in charge of them, and they're kind of hard to get along with, and you get into a big old family. I mean, how many of you get uh along with every member of your family? I mean, most people have a little trouble with one sibling or another, or an in-law or another, or a mother-in-law, or a father-in-law, or something. Most families have some amount, some amount of dysfunction. When you imagine a big old church like this, not everybody's gonna just, ooh. You know, what well, what do you do? See, what do you do? Well, you love them. See, you love them. You gotta operate on the love of God, not on human love. Human love is selfish, it's self-centered. No, the love of God is other people oriented. And uh, you know, faith works by love, Galatians 5.6, Romans 5.5. You know, love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. We have the love of God in us. It's a decision. Love is a decision, not an emotion. It's not goosebumps, it's not warm fuzzies, it's a decision that you're gonna treat someone with respect and you're going to love them. Let's look at Ephesians chapter 4. This is a recipe for walking in love in a church. And uh it'll help you. Because if you'll do this, your faith will work. I mean, if you don't do it, your faith will stop working because you're not walking in love. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Now, see, that kind of describes a battle. That describes a struggle. It's not, it's not just falling off of you like cherries off of a tree. I mean, you have something to do with whether you walk in love. Well, what first thing says, it says, be lowly. In other words, loneliness and meekness. Loneliness means don't think so well of yourself. Think less of yourself, think of yourself less often, is what I say. It's not, it's not depreciating yourself, it's just quit thinking about yourself so much and get tuned in on that other person. And and maybe that you've had some difficulty. Maybe they stole your seat in church when nobody owns any seats in here. And nobody has any parking spaces either. I had one rich couple leave the church because I wouldn't give them a parking space. Well, phooey on you. I mean, it's not not that far from the worst parking lot, for parking place in the whole place. It's only about 50 yards or not even that long far. You know, what do you you don't need a parking space? See, that's where you get in trouble. You start, you start trying to give in to flesh. So it says here, uh, with meekness. Well, what's meekness? Weakness? No, meekness means, you know, uh I heard James teach on this. Meekness, you meek a horse by getting, you train them to ignore a battle, a battle stallion. You're gonna ride a horse into battle. They had to be meeked. They had to be trained to ignore cannon fire. They had to be trained to ignore all the noise of a battlefield. They had to, they had to be meeked. You've got to train them that way. Well, we've got the same way. We've got to, we've got to ignore the noise of people that are maybe walking in the flesh. Maybe they say something they didn't mean, and here we got our feelings on our sleeve. No, we lowless and meekness. And it says forbearing. Long suffering. What's long suffering? Slowness in avenging wrong. That means you're gonna have wrong done to you. That means not everybody's gonna treat you right. Some people are gonna treat you wrong. What are you gonna do about try to treat them back wrong again, back to them? I had a lady one time, and she was very talented, you know. She could, you know, I won't describe what her role was here, but she was very, very gifted at what she did, but she didn't want to work with anybody. She just didn't like people. And so we we tried to bring her along, you know, tried to learn now. Look, this church, we need teams. We got part of the it's not just the work, it's not just the job, it's it's having a team work together to accomplish something, and in that we we are able to uh you know get to know each other and knit together and love. And that's that I mean we don't want just somebody working all by themselves. The job is not that as important as the people. Well, she wouldn't hook on to it, and finally one day, you know, we'd have trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble. So she emailed Claire, you know, she resigned. Claire called me. I was across town, she called me, so so-and-so resigned by email. I said, receive, accept it right now. Send it right back to her, say, I accept your residence. Thank you for all you've done. We love you. Thank you. Well, as soon as she we got we accepted her resignation, well, then she tried to undo it. Claire called me back. I said, no, no, it's we need her to leave. We need her to go on. If she leaves the church, she just leaves the church. I mean, she's not playing with, she's not walking in love. She's create, she's a rock in our river. Do you know when you see a river that's flowing, it's got rapids. What are the rapids created by? Boulders. You hit a boulder, you're gonna go under. So, no, we don't want any boulders in our river. We don't we want the river to flow with God, with no boulders and those people that are unwilling to learn a new thing. Are y'all getting anything out of this now? Talking about love. And she didn't have it, and so we had to let her uh go. And we love her, we still love her, we forgave her, but she missed God's best by not doing these things. Forbearing one another, long-suffering, forbearing one another. Hold up erect and firm in love, steadfast and patient. See? And uh and that's the recipe for walking in love.

Giving Shows The Proof Of Love

SPEAKER_00 51:36

The last part of love that I want to address, 2 Corinthians 8, and this I could, you know, receive an offering on this one, but I want to I want to connect it to love, 2 Corinthians 8. And uh Paul is taking an offering uh from all the churches for the poor saints in Jerusalem. You know, they had it tough, and there was a lot of persecution there, and you know, you all the the temple was destroyed, and the Roman Romans did, you know, they killed a million Jews. A lot of people don't know the history, but they need to know history. And so the poor church, and so he's receiving an offering, and he starts bragging on the Macedonian church. He said, Man, they gave, they surprised me. I didn't think they could do that. And I've been I've been bragging on you now, talking to the Corinthians. I've been bragging on you, and I know you're gonna do it. I know you're gonna you're gonna give in this offering. And he said, uh verse 8, I speak not by commandment, but by occasion of the forwardness of others and to prove and to prove the sincerity of your love. If you really love, you're gonna give. You can't say you love and don't give. Love and stingy are not compatible. I said love and stingy are not compatible. And see, this was an extra offering. This was not for their church, this is for somebody else. This is an offering for poor saints in Jerusalem. So he's he's been talking to them about it, and I want you to get this offering ready, and I'm gonna send Titus. Titus is coming, Titus is gonna be there, you know, and finally he says like this right here in the last verse. He said, Wherefore show you to them and before the churches the proof of your love and of our boasting on your behalf. See, he's bragging on them, and don't make me look like a fool. And it's what? The proof of your love. So, you know, if you want your faith to work, then you're gonna have to uh let God show you how to uh be a cheerful giver. Amen. God, God wants you to be, he wants you to be successful in every way. It's amazing how many verses have to do with your prosperity that have to do with love. Love is is absolutely without fake. It's no fake in it, it's real. And if you really love people, you'll reach in and you'll help them. You don't, you know, people, you uh people in this church have given each other cars. I mean, we had one one person that gave a car to someone, needed a car. I think it's happened more than once, actually. And we've had we've had instances where you didn't call the church and say, I want to give this and you give it to them. No, we're not we're not a clearinghouse. We can't do that. We can't launder your money. We can't give you a tax write-off or what your God is dealing with you about. Go just go take care of it. Go bless the person when God tells you to bless them. And I tell you, God will bless you, and I'm telling you, your faith will grow exceedingly. Your love is being expanded in an abounding fashion, and you're going to be successful in the kingdom of God. Come

Lift Your Hands And Receive

SPEAKER_00 54:45

on, lift your hands and receive today. Praise God.