Beyond The Roman Road - I Call Him Abba | Kevin Wallace Ministries | @rttnchurch

0:00 I'm not going to take very long today. Uh but I do just have something to deposit uh from the book of Romans on this Father's Day. I want you to go with me to um to Romans 8 verse 14. My subject today is I call him Aba. Yeah, about 12 of y'all caught it, but it's all right. Look at your neighbor say I call him Abba. Now, the world can call him whatever they want to call him, but I call him Aba. Amen. Romans 8:14, for as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you did not receive, verse 15 is very key here. Catch it. For you did not receive the

0:46 spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Aba, Father." Verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And I didn't ask them to have this ready, but man, 17 is a blessing to my soul. And if we are children, then we are heirs. Now, children is about who I am right now. Heirs is not only about who I am right now, but heirs is about where I'm going and what I'm going to be in the future. Come on. If you're a children, there's a reason to praise God. Because if you are a child of God, then watch

1:33 this. You are an heir with Christ, a heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. if indeed we suffer with him that we all may also be glorified together. Now, how many know we got some suffering to deal with in this world? But don't let the devil ever make you forget that one day there's a glorification coming. And the same one you're suffering with right now is the one you're going to be glorified with in the future. Somebody say, "Praise God." So, I want to talk for just a moment today on that thought. I call him Aba. Come on, let's pray for each other. Father, we give thanks to you and we rise this morning to say thank you to the greatest father that a people could ever know. You have been faithful and kind. You have been loving and you have

2:19 been true. I speak blessing over this house today and every person in this place whether the father relationship they have is one that they celebrate. Father, if it is one that they are uh just tolerating or even if there someone in this room today who's lost their father, someone who has a broken relationship with their father, I just pray for grace to come and tailor this message to every heart so that every ear that hears it receives something that is lifegiving and nourishing. How we need you today, Lord Jesus. And we ask it in Christ's name. And everyone said, "Amen." You can be seated in the presence of God. I have been in the book of Romans now for about the last five weeks and I recognize that there are people who want me to get back to, you know, uh

3:05 teaching and preaching on a breakthrough or deliverance and blessing, but actually the truth does all that. And I think sometimes we we we want a blessing, but we don't recognize that our ignorance prevents us from walking in the blessing God wants us to have. And I don't mean ignorance critically. I don't mean that like critically. And and I certainly don't mean to indicate by that that I'm the sum total of information or even revelation, but I feel incumbent. It's incumbent upon me as a shepherd to make sure the sheep actually feast on the truth of God. And sometimes the truth is is challenging to swallow. Sometimes it's difficult for you and I to digest that because especially in American church, in American culture, we've heard so little of the truth and when we finally come in contact with the truth, it has a way of

3:50 offending us. But the truth doesn't leave you offended. It actually leads you to freedom. And you can be initially offended by truth. And I can be initially offended by truth. But if it is the truth, the intent of the truth is to set us free. And I am convinced that there are precious people who love God with all their heart. But they're shouting on top of bondage and they're shouting on top of all kinds of things in their life that the truth was intended to break them free from. I do not just want us to have great church services and and mask and put band-aids on bondage and yolks of bondage that Jesus died to set us free from. And I really do believe that one of the keys to you and I walking in true freedom is to become acquainted with and even confronted by the truth of God. You shall know the truth and the

4:35 truth shall make you free. If the son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I read a gospel and I read a Bible and I look at the lives of those who come to the church where that Bible is supposed to be preached. And there is not a harmony between the life we're living and the truth God gave us. And the reason sometimes we find the disconnect in the truth we have heard and the life we are living is because we really haven't heard a whole lot of truth. And sometimes the truth again, it offends. And it's easy to build a crowd when you're telling people peanut butter and jelly theology. But when you start talking about roots and loving God and suffering with God and faith and keeping the faith, not everybody in here can relate to that. But there's some

5:20 seasoned saints in this room who are thankful that when they look back over their life, the God they serve kept them through some stuff. I know you I know you and I want to act like no bad stuff ever happens in the life of godly people, but many are the afflictions of the righteous. The Lord is the one that delivers us out of them all. Not everything that happens to us is a good thing, but he does work all things together for our good. And sometimes we just need to be reminded that it is the truth we need. We need to be confronted and challenged. We need to be told the truth. And it's important that we hear the truth in love. And I said all of that because that is exactly and precisely how Paul treats the Roman church. I shared with this with you on the first Sunday that I that I started

6:05 this Roman series. The Roman church was filled with both Jews and Gentiles. If you missed that, then you misunderstand um you misunderstand the agenda of Paul. And even you can misunderstand a part of what Paul is saying as he unpacks the revelation and theology in the book of Romans. Why? Because sitting in the church of Rome was a Jew who had been taught their whole life, I got to work to please God, be circumcised to please God, keep the law to please God. Sitting beside that Jew in the Roman church was a Gentile who had just walked off a strip pole and came up out of a brothel and walked away from a life of addiction. And they're sitting in church and have no point of reference for law, for what is good or wrong or right. They

6:51 just know they were a mess. Heard the gospel, trusted in Christ. Now they're not who they used to be. They've been born again and saved by the grace of God and and and they have they are both sitting in the ch same church beside each other and they're trying to work out their junk. And I have found out that when everybody in the church looks the same, acts the same, dresses the same, thinks the same, it's easy to pastor in a context like that. But the gospel never gives a recipe for leading a homogeneous church where everybody looks the same, acts the same, dresses the same, went through the same thing. We all went through life in different ways. We all went to church in different ways. We all heard about Jesus in different ways. And we're all trying to process our own sanctification through the lens of everything we've

7:36 been taught in our past. And if you don't think that's challenging, that is an incredibly tall task for a man or a woman of God to stand up and preach the word to people who have heard it and and have lived life in all kind of ways. And Paul comes to the Roman church filled with all this diversity, filled with all these theological conclusions that may be different. And he reminds them all. And I'm going to remind you this morning, whether you are Jew, Gentile, red, yellow, black, white, rich, poor, left, right, wherever you're from, all of us were born a mess. All of us were born offensive toward God. We sinned and were created and born in sin. And sin marred the image of God. It wasn't just the Jew that needed Jesus. It wasn't just the Gentile that

8:22 needed Jesus. There was no hope for any person in this room, any person watching me online. There was no hope of us ever pleasing God outside of faith in a man who came and was nailed to a cross and took my sin and nailed it to the cross when he died. And because I said yes to Christ, I am now a child of the living God. It doesn't matter what I've done or where you've been or what you have done in your past. If a man is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have been made new. We got to preach that. And it's one reason why the American church is the most divided place on

9:08 Sunday morning. I said what I meant to say. We're the most divided place on Sunday morning. It's because we forgot we were really all the same. No matter what's different about us, at the end of the day, Jesus is the one that saved all of us who are saved. And Paul reminds the Roman church that works don't save you. I'm just rehearsing real quick. Works don't save you. Circumcision doesn't save you. The law can't save you. I told you that on one Sunday. The law is a mirror. Who? Come on, sisters. Tell the truth. Don't lie. You'll go to hell. Who in here? Who in here? I'm making sure y'all awake. Who in here goes to the mirror and the mirror fixes you?

9:56 The mirror don't fix you. The mirror reveals what's messed up. That's like the law. The law is the mirror. And when you stare in the mirror, you don't come away looking more beautiful. You come away more aware of the fact that you are screwed up. And and and if if the mirror fixed me or fixed you, we'd spend more time in the mirror. But the reason we want to hit the mirror, put our makeup on, fix our hair, and run is the mirror reminds us. No matter how much you tuck it, lift it. Oh, yeah. No matter how much you invest in it, the weave, the extensions, the color, come on, somebody, the two paint, whatever it is, no matter what you do to try to fix it, the mirror reminds you you're getting older and you're not what you used to be in your flesh. But the law, the mirror was never called to be our deliverer. It pointed us to the fact that we are

10:42 messed up and we are bound. But he didn't leave us there. The law taught us that we needed a savior, but the law was not a savior. And I'm thankful today that the savior didn't wait on the law to fix me. The savior came to make me whole. And because we are in Christ, we have been made new. So to the Jewish people who had been following Christ, been following God through the law, Jesus was an interruption to their lawkeeping. And a painful reminder that no matter how much you keep the law, if you break one law, you broke it all. It's like people who say, "I'm not a liar." Well, have you ever lied? Yes,

11:27 I've lied, but I'm not a liar. Well, how many times you got to lie to be a liar? is like five times. And the reminder of the law is that we are imperfect and incapable of pleasing God in lawkeeping. That was for the Jews. For the Gentiles, they needed to hear. You can actually come out of your old life because people who are proud of their old life often want to refer to it. But if you were a mess before Jesus found you, you want to run as far from you as you can from who you Oh, y'all. Y'all, y'all ain't fooling nobody. I said, y'all ain't fooling nobody. I know we are sitting up in here with three-piece suits on and we look like we got it all

12:13 together. We know when to snap our neck and we know how to talk in tongues and we know how to sing religious songs and that's wonderful. But you were not born and I was not born talking in tongues, quoting and giving paricopies and giving giving scripture. We were all born a mess. And how many are thankful that even for the Gentile who may have been hooked on dope uh a month ago, hooked on a strip pole uh three years ago, a mess and everything falling apart. You may not want anybody to know what you came out of. I want to tell you right now, if they know, and now that they see where you are, it is only a testimony that the grace of God is greater than all of our sin. For I hear the Apostle Paul saying

12:59 in the sixth chapter of Romans, "Where sin does abound, grace does much more abound." You are not sitting beside somebody who arrived. You are sitting beside somebody who's been led led out of a life of sin, led out of a a a place of darkness. And now, because of the grace of God, we are standing free today. And although I am not what I'm going to be, I can look back at who I used to be and I can give God praise that I am not that man anymore. In fact, on Father's Day, let me hear from some men who if you look back over your life, I know you are not what you want to be yet. But can I find some brothers who are thankful that they are

13:46 not who they used to be? Now, now, now, so Paul works to get the Jew off the treadmill of trying to please God through works. And he and he writes to make sure the Gentile knows you are not who you used to be. The old you is actually dead. I didn't say that. The Bible did. Romans 6 says, "The old man was crucified with Christ." So the next time the enemy comes and tries to remind you of who you used to be, remind the devil that man is dead. So this lawkeeping thing produces people who do not have an understanding of

14:33 sunship. They can only relate and connect to God through their lawkeeping. And Paul wants them to know here in the eth chapter of Romans that when you got saved, you didn't get the spirit that led you back. Put Romans 8:15 up for me, please, family. You didn't get the spirit that makes you go back into bondage again. Hear me very carefully. If you missed this, you missed the whole thing. The bondage Paul is speaking of here is not even sin bondage necessarily. We think you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear the spirit of bondage. The spirit of bondage and you hear that and you think you didn't receive the spirit that leads you back into alcoholism or drug addiction or or

15:20 or sexual sin or what or lying or whatever your sin was. You you didn't receive that spirit. That's not what he's talking about here. The bondage he is speaking of is actually religious bondage. Y'all not going to say nothing. It's religious bondage. It's not even the bondage of being bound by sin. It's people who think that God is hard to please and that God is difficult to deal with. And he's saying to them, to the Jew and the Gentile, when you got born again and when you're led by the spirit, you didn't receive the spirit to go back into religious bondage, put you back on a religious treadmill and make you afraid that one day you and God are not going to, you know, our relationship is not going to be right. He said that is not the spirit God gave you. You did not

16:06 receive the spirit of a of bondage. Can I tell you something about religion? It is bondage. We often feel sorry for the drug addict and the and the homosexual and the person struggling real bad with sin. But I'm going to tell you who I feel most sorry for. It's people who sat in church all their life and believed a lie about God. Y'all not talking to me. You can actually tell a drug addict there's hope in God. You can actually tell tell somebody struggling with addiction there's hope in God. Those people can come out of that kind of bondage just simply by putting faith in Christ. But you let one them old, crusty, mean-spirited Christians who've been sitting in church for four decades feasting on a diet of religion, told that they can't please God. Not

16:52 only are they unsure about God, they're unsure about each other and they don't like other people. Y'all ain't going to talk to me. And they got a nastiness and a shell. And why? Because religion will keep you on the treadmill. Y'all remember this message? Keep you on the treadmill running and you have gone nowhere. If you're going to sweat and burn calories, you ought to get off the treadmill. Get out on the road, run around, and let God take you and show you things that your religious mind has never seen. Too many people have been stuck in religion. And it produces a mentality in a mind. It's like you think you're hopefully saved enough to go to heaven,

17:37 but your whole trip to heaven, you never step into the identity of a son or a daughter. It's like rolling dice. Let's see if he likes me today. Was I good enough yesterday for him to love me today? Paul said, "When you got saved, I'm trying." When you got saved, you did not receive religious bondage to go back into a works. Man, I want to help somebody today. I have no desire to just preach a great sermon. I want to help a brother or a sister sitting on this sitting on a seat somewhere in this room today who wonders if God loves them because of all the mess they made. Hear me. Hear me. When you got saved

18:27 and God redeemed you, you did not receive a spirit of bondage. I I don't I don't want to be so graphic, but I want to be faithful to the text because in the Greek, the spirit of bondage, the word bondage is actually an adjective. Comes from the root of a of a noun. The noun is dulos. Doula, it's where we get the idea of a servant or a slave. Paul said when you got saved by grace, it wasn't so a spirit of being yolked to religion could come back on you. I think some people need to go and have a praise session to God. Not just for healing their body and

19:13 delivering their mama and and getting them a new house and finding them a new job. Some people need to praise God that he delivered them from religion. Look at your neighbor right now. Tell them neighbor God saved me from religion. Tell them by grace I survived religion. Oh Lord have mercy. I might be able to stop right there and end the whole sermon because there are enough praises to God that he's worthy of in this room right now for every person on every row who can say by the grace of God religion and man's oh let me preach on man's religion because it's really not God's idea. What happened is man got a hold of God's idea and instead of God's idea happening in the church, man's religion

19:59 happened in the church. And now if we don't like you, you can't have our God. Well, you a lying wonder. You are not God's ambassador if you don't have God's nature. And God is love. And he don't just love people like you. And he don't just love people who look like you. And he don't just love people who came from where you came from. God actually likes everybody. And he loves every. And if you think I need Bible, I got some. John 3:16. For God so loved the whole world that he gave his son. It'll blow your mind how many people sit in church and think they know who God don't love and they actually think they get to negotiate and tell people God don't love

20:44 you. You ain't enough like me. You I don't want to be like you. I want to be like Jesus. [Applause] So Paul says, I don't want to spend so much time on the spirit of bondage, but there's some people sitting in here today who have it. You actually love Jesus, but you're not aware of the fact that when he saved you, it wasn't to keep you in bondage. And I'm going to show you what it manifests like. Let me let me just show you this real quick. Go take your Bible and open it to Luke 15 and and give me give me five or 10 more minutes. I'm gonna let you go. That's a lie. But it I'mma try. I'm gonna try. Okay. Check it. Check it. Check it. It It is It's going to be about that. Watch this. Luke 15. Luke

21:31 Tell me if this don't sound familiar. Luke 15:1. Certain man had two sons. You know this story. One was young. The younger of them said, "Father, give me all my goods that I may go and live and divide to me my spoil." So he divided to him his livelihood. Verse 13. And this is all in Luke 15. Not many days after the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far away country. How many know sin will take you far away from God? He spent everything he had, wasted all of his possessions on prodigal living. When he spent all that they that he had there rose a famine in the land, a severe famine, and he began to be in want. That means he got hungry. Everybody starts thinking about home when they get hungry.

22:20 Y'all, when I when I get hungry, even as a grown man, I want to go home. I don't want to play golf. I want to go home. I'm hungry. I want to eat something. How many know you when you get hungry, you want to go home? Y'all looking at me like y'all don't get hungry. I see some of y'all. Y'all been eating all right. We know where to go when we're hungry. Come on, talk to me, somebody. He said, "I want to go home." But look at his watch how religion will make you negotiate. Watch this negotiation in his own mind. He said to himself, he he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the the pigs ate, but no one gave him any of those pods. The pigs are doing better than this, brother. Verse 17, when he came to himself, how many, he said, of my father's hired servants, Greek word,

23:06 doulas. Okay, if I just go back home, I don't get the privilege anymore being a son. When I go back home, I'm okay with the fact that I can slide back into the house and just serve and take orders and not live with the privilege, but just get in the house. He said, he came to himself. He said, "How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare and I'm perishing with hunger? I will arise and go to my father's house. Verse 18. And say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you, and am no longer, watch the negotiation. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants." And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father

23:53 saw him and had compassion on him and ran to him and kissed him. And the son said to the father, now check this out. This is a beautiful picture, painful actually, but it is an accurate picture of a person who is sorrowful over the mistake and the sin and they think they're going to go back home and be negotiated back into servantthood and they'll never be able to be a son again. And he said, "I'm just going to go back home and say, Daddy, I'll serve whatever you want me to do in the house. I I I I'll work with all the rest of the servants." And the Bible said when the father saw him coming, The father did not wait on the son to get home. The father went to the son and fell on him

24:38 and had compassion on him. It actually says he fell on his neck. Y'all, do you know what that looks like? It looks like when a child jumps up around their daddy and grabs them by the neck. You know, uh, Asher and Genesis, uh, they're the little ones now, and the other four used to do it. And there are times when you want your child to say, "I love you." So you you give them something. I do. Y'all, I'm not gonna lie to y'all. I ain't going to hell for none of you. I'm just telling you, there are times I want to hear, "I love you." So I say, "Aser, you want a popsicle?" And you give him a popsicle. And he doesn't say love. He says, "I love. I love you, daddy." And there are time Genesis a little more high maintenance.

25:25 You got to do a little bit more for her. She going to have to have a doll or some kind of, you know, uh uh uh crown as a princess or something. And and oh, he's talking to me now. Asher over here giving me a witness in my sermon. So So I I give them something. And Genesis, very rare, but sometimes she just I give her something. She say, "I love you, Dad." And then she peace. I She don't She don't have to have all that. But there are other times when a child runs up to me and jumps on my neck, I should squeeze you and say, "I love you, Dad. You didn't do nothing for it. He just wanted to show." But how much crazier is it to think that a father who did nothing wrong, looks at the son who did everything wrong, and doesn't

26:10 wait on the son to run to him and give him a kiss. He actually runs to the offending son and jumps on the son and says, "I love you." A grown man jumped on your neck. You feel that weight? And he, watch this. He said, "Can't you hear this? I can see this in my mind's eye. This is not in the text, but I can certainly see it from the text. The the son is walking up and the dad takes off and jumps on him and says, "I love you." And the son says, "Daddy, daddy, daddy, I'm I'm so sorry. I I I I did all this wrong that and and the and I can say to the the dad said, "Hush. Bring me the ring. Bring me the robe. Bring me the sandals." And remember that

26:56 fatted calf? I wouldn't let none of y'all eat. go get the fatted calf and strike up a party and call everybody in the neighborhood and then uh and call aunt uh aunt so and so and uncle uh-huh and all the cousins and everybody get the whole family over. We getting ready to have a cookout because my son who was dead is alive again. Here's what I'm trying to tell you. The church often has funerals for people Jesus came to have a party over. We are trying to bury people and God is saying, "I don't know who you think you are. I don't know who called you to lead this thing, but I'm the one that gets to tell when we going to have a party. And I'm not just going to have a party of a bunch of people who've never made a mistake. I'm going to have

27:42 a party for somebody who wasted everything, lost it all, and they got it back through grace." Now, watch watch. I will go back home and be a servant. And he says, "No, you won't. You're a son." I read that when I was reading Romans chapter 8. And that's exactly what Paul's talking about. You did not receive the spirit of bondage to come back to God and just be a negotiated servant. You receive the spirit of adoption. Come help me. Uh, Seth, I'm about to wrap up. Uh, you receive the spirit of adoption, whereby

28:28 you cry, "Aba, father." Everybody say, "Aba, father." He did not just say, "Aba." He said, "Whereby you cry, aba, father." And and that is actually established in the original. And I know sometimes people like, "Why are you talking about the Greek?" because there's something there. The word aba, write it down. Take notes if you're taking them. The word aba is not a Greek term. It is an Aramaic term. It's not a Greek term. It's an Aramaic term. It It is this language of affection. In the Greek, it is the Greek word pat. It's where we get the word paternity.

29:14 When Paul says, "We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but we've received the spirit of adoption." That that and there's all kind of theological consternation and conflict and conversation about was he talking about when he said the spirit of adoption, was he talking about you received the Holy Spirit, who is the spirit of adoption, or was he talking about in your human spirit, your human spirit received the spirit of adoption? And as I kept reading behind all of these theologians, it come to it come to me. I think he's talking about both. He is talking about the Holy Spirit who came in and adopted us. But when my spirit becomes the place where God's spirit abides, I am not any longer a servant.

30:02 I'm a son. You cannot be a son if you got an old spirit that makes you feel like a servant. A son is somebody that has stepped into a family. We keep wanting to join churches. God keeps wanting us to be a family. Do you know how many uh play at the cross or play something like that for me? I I'm I'm going. Do you know how many people go to church every Sunday who have never stepped into the revelation of family and fatherhood? It's dysfunctional. And we think if I wait and work and wait and work, one day I'll make myself worthy. No, you won't. You won't.

30:49 I told you this on the second sermon I preached in this message. Religion keeps you trying to believe one day you'll become something God already declared you are. One day I'll be righteous. No, you won't. If you trusted in Christ, you were made righteous the moment you said yes to Jesus. You don't get more righteous than righteous. That's what's wrong with the church. We got all these concentric circles of Christianity. Saved, kind of saved, sort of saved. Let's see. How many have trusted in Christ? If you've trusted in Christ, the moment you said yes to Christ, God said yes. He's got a whole lot of sin on his

31:34 account, but let me wipe all that away. And now I'm going to put my righteousness on his account. So then when a just God looks at him, the just God doesn't remain an enemy. But the just God sent his son to reconcile the enemy back to the God who really loved me more than I could ever understand. You've received a spirit of adoption whereby you, this is what got me, I never saw it. Cry. Do you know what the Greek word means for cry? Scream. Don't you just want to scream sometimes? No, no, no, no, no. I know some of y'all just, you know, life is too good for you to ever think about screaming, but sometimes [Music]

32:20 you may feel like you want to scream and I'm defeated and scream because life is too hard and scream because you can't handle anymore. And scream because the bills are mounting up and scream because the kids are acting crazy and scream because the marriage is in a mess and scream because you lost your job and scream because the world looks like it's going to hell in a hand basket and you just want to scream. And Paul says, "You can scream, you can holler, you can even cry out, but not like people who are not in the family. Cuz if you're in this family, the cry of your heart, aba, father, father is the Greek word pernity.

33:06 Aba is the Aramaic word aba and it is a term of affection. And here's what I think Paul is getting at. God is the creator of all mankind. He's the father of all flesh. Come on. I said God is the father of all flesh. So in that sense, he is father of everybody. But Aba, those who don't know the family don't know father to be Aba. You haven't learned the father like servants who are not in the house. You have come into his presence. And the transaction of your salvation was not just on paper. It is evidenced by his presence.

33:52 I called my family this morning. I said, "Uh, Zion, I want you to go to my safe in my office and I want you to get out [Music] I want you to get out the adoption papers of Actsure and Genesis." She said, "Daddy, why you want me to get those?" I said, "Just don't ask questions. Do what I your dad. Do what I say. Do I am father?" [Music] So she was so kind and she got the adoption papers and then Devon she sent me a text. You can't give these to nobody. This is I said I just let me preach. I am father. [Music]

34:39 Come here. You want to preach with me? Come on. I got the papers. They were in my file cabinet in my safe. Yeah. This says final decree of adoption from the state of Tennessee. And it has his name and the name of the judge. And it talks about who was in the presence of this judge and the petitioners who sought [Music] who sought for the adoption of

35:27 Isaac Asher Wallace. And then it has Devon and I's signature, the judge's signature, and at the end it says, "This is an irrevocable." [Applause] I know y'all got to go, but I'm having some kind of moment here. It said it is an irrevocable agreement. Do you know that the laws protect those who are adopted more so than even those who are biological? It does. We learned all of this. And here's what I heard the spirit of God say to me in prayer. It's why I brought him and I'm done. God said to me, Kevin, do you know

36:14 what makes him yours? It's not just that you have the papers, it's that he has your presence. [Music] Some of y'all think the only reason y'all are in God's family is cuz you got some papers. church membership. Got my papers. But it's not just because you got papers. [Music] He calls me dada. [Music] And because he calls me dada and he knows I'm there, that's what makes him mine. And that's

37:01 what makes me his. And some of y'all have lost your joy because you're living. My You're living on papers, but you've lost the presence. You don't cry. You don't cry father. Father, you cry aba. [Music] You did good. I love you. My point is this family, you are not bound to God by simple contracts. You are bound to God by his spirit.

37:49 When you truly tr trusted Christ as Lord, you didn't just get your name on a membership role. His spirit came to live on the inside of you and he put you in a family. Stand with me. Jesus, today I pray you'll save people. I pray you'll work in hearts. Two groups of people I want to pray for today. First are people who know they're lost, away from God, and in need of a savior. I don't know if you've been I don't know if you've ever been to church or never been to church. If you've heard about God, never heard about God. If you feel like one day when you were, you know, younger, you said yes to God, but today you don't you don't quite remember. You're not sure.

38:35 Here's what I'm saying. Let's just cut through it all. If heads bowed, eyes closed. If in your heart right now, you know you're not right with God. It really is irrelevant. if you ever were right or if you ever knew you're right or if you never were right with God. If in your heart right now you know you're not right with God, but you want to be reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus Christ and you want to be his son or his daughter. I want to count to three for you and I want you to lift your hand. Say, "Pastor Kevin, would you please pray for me? I want to be right with God. [Music] I don't want to just have a spirit of religion and bondage. I actually want to have a spirit of adoption. And I want to come into the kingdom. I don't want want just a savior who will forgive me of my sins. I want him to be

39:22 Lord and actually call the shots. I want to make him Lord of all. If I'm talking to you while your head is bowed and eyes are closed. When I say three, just lift your hands. Say, "Pastor, pray for me." I want to be I I just I want to give God my heart today. One, two, three. Yep. I see your hands. God bless you all with your hands up. Thank you, sir. Ma'am, thank you. God bless you back there in the corner. I see you. God bless you. You can all put your hands down. Everyone look at me real quick. If you're in this room right now and you lifted your hand, or you should have. I'm getting ready to ask everybody to do something. And this takes great courage, but it also will change your life for the rest of your life. If you're in this room and you lifted your hand when I asked you that question, or you should have. I'm about to give you an opportunity to make Jesus Lord of your life and to respond to what

40:07 we call the spirit's call. what you felt when you lifted your hand as a response to the knocking on the door of your heart. You know God's talking to you today and you know you need to say yes to him and this is the moment to come into the kingdom. I just believe that with all of my heart. I want you to look at the person on your left and on your right. Whether you've known that person your whole life or you've never met them before today. I want you to ask them one question. Do you need someone to go to the altar and pray with you? And if you lifted your hand or you should have lifted your hand when they ask you that question. I'm going to stand right here and I'm going to wait on anybody who wants to give Jesus their life and wants to be forgiven and wants to be a part of the family of God. Surrender to the lordship of Jesus. Lift your hand if you lifted your hand or you should have. We don't come get people. We're not going to come drag anybody. But if you lifted your hand, God bless you, broke. Thank you for coming. People are coming. If

40:53 you lifted your hand, I need to get right with God. Come on. They're coming down the aisles right now. They're coming down the aisle. I need to get right with God. Come on. I don't care what it is. There is no shame in this place. There is no judgmentalism in this place. If you want to be free, come out of your seat right now. There are people coming. There are people coming. Come on. There's room for everybody who wants to come this morning. Come on, sweetheart. God bless you. Come on, dear. Come on, sir. Come on, sir. Come on. They're still coming and we're going to keep on clapping and we're going to keep on praising God because somebody's name getting ready to be written down in glory. Come on here. Hallelujah. I need my pastors and my leaders to come help me right now. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Anybody else that wants to come? Come on. Any They're still coming. Come on. They're still

41:38 coming. We give God praise for salvation. Make all things new today. Make all things new today. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. [Music] At the cross. At the cross where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there. Everyone that can pray, would you stretch your hands toward this altar full of precious souls? And would you pray for these precious brothers and sisters like you wish somebody would have prayed for you the day you gave your life to Christ. Real soft. Sing that again. Come on. Says, "At the

42:24 cross." At the cross. At the cross, where I first saw the light, the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there. [Music] I received my sight. Now, if you're in this room and you say, "Pastor, I love Jesus, but I find myself in conflict in my mind between sometimes feeling like a servant when in reality I just want to be I want to know in my heart I'm a son. I'm a

43:09 daughter. I I want to pray today because here's what I do want to pray. that God would break an orphan spirit. And it's caused by religion. I feel the Lord here right now. Thank you, God. It's caused by religion. It's an orphan spirit that makes you think you got to keep trying to become something that you already are. If you need, I know this takes courage, but if you would say, "Bishop, I need a religious mentality and mindset broken off my life so that I can step into this identity of sunship, of daughtership, and a revelation of Aba, lift your hand right now where you stand. Don't be ashamed. Lift your hand. I know it ain't everybody, but if you need broken free

43:56 from religion, if there's somebody got their hand up near you, even if it's half mass cuz they just they just don't want to they don't want nobody to know what they're struggling with. If there's somebody got their hand up, I want a person full of love to lay hand on any shoulder of any person that got their hand up right now because God wants to set people free this morning before we leave this service. Father, right now, I lift up every brother and sister that raised their hand to say, "God, forgive for free me. free me from this this religious thing that keeps me bound, always trying to please God, always feeling like a failure. Father, I pray for every person that lifted their hand or even those that wanted to but couldn't find the courage to. I pray a freedom over the people right now. I break off of people right now, God. A religious spirit that has produced an orphan mindset that they are alone, left

44:44 alone, never pleasing, that they're never good enough, that they're never accepted. I bind the lie of the enemy that has been loosed over their life through religious teaching, and I take authority over every religious spirit that has worked to keep them in deception and bondage. I l I need some people to pray with me right now. I need to Father, I need you to release grace to set captives free in minds right now. Loose them from the fear of religion. Loose them from the grip of religion. Loose them from the lie of religion and let them step into a manifestation of peace, of freedom, of true joy. Some of them don't even know what it feels like to be accepted. But I declare right now,

45:31 God, that you are melting the lies and you are removing the walls. Even walls they built up themselves. They're going to be set free from it now by the power of God in the mighty name of Jesus. In the mighty name of Jesus. And I declare your peace and your blessing over them now. Now, everybody in this room, lay hands on your brain, on your mind. Come on. Before we leave, just just as a symbol, Father, I pray right now for every person who laid hands on their mind, let their mind be renewed according to the word of God. I pray now against every lie of the enemy that has penetrated their mind and has set up a stronghold that has empowered deception to rule in any area of their life. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I hear the Holy Spirit

46:16 saying, "Tell them to come out of agreement with the lie." Tell them to come out of agreement with it. Some of you have been in agreement with a spirit of religion and it's got you thinking you'll never please God and you'll never be who God wanted you to be. But right now, I feel like somebody ought to take just a step even in your seat. Just take one step as a sign. I am stepping out of agreement with a lie. And I am stepping into agreement with the truth. And the truth is going to make my mind free. Do it right now all over this building. Do it in the name of Jesus. Do it by the power of the Holy Ghost in Jesus name. And the family said

47:03 now let's give God one praise for every soul that has come into the kingdom and for the lives that are going to be transformed. Listen, if you just prayed and gave your life to Christ, I believe there's going to be a a a QR code. Put it up on the screen, please. You can take a picture of that and you can go to that QR code and it's just going to be a way for us to minister to you, every new convert. We want to know what's happened in your life. And we want to walk with you on this journey of becoming everything God's called you to be. So, take your phone out if you just gave your life to Christ. If you need to learn more about it, shoot a shoot that QR code on your camera. It'll take you to a just a a a

47:48 resource that we're going to give you here. And we want to walk with you. We love you. Listen.