SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Hi, my name is Athena Turborg and I am in third grade and I go to Eagle Geek Monastery. Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ has come in the flesh of the from God. But every spirit that has not that does not acknowledge Jesus is from not from God. This is the spirit of Antichrist. Which you have heard is coming and never and now is already in the world. You dear children are from God and have overcome them because they're because the one thing is in your great is greater than the one the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world. And the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us. But whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

Y'all show Athena some love. Show yourselves some love. You showed up to church today. And you look good too, and you look good. One last one. Pastor Lawrence has been preaching the house down these last few weeks. Will y'all show my friend some love real quick? Come on. If your team is currently losing, just stay focused on the sermon. Focus on higher things. If your team is winning, somebody say amen. All right then. There we go. We see who's watching the game in the middle of service. Hey, so so we're on this series talking about John, talking about all of his writings. In the last six weeks, Pastor Lawrence has been preaching on this, and he started last week with a confession. So I will follow suit and follow with a confession for you guys today. One of my guilty pleasures is a show that I just recently they took off like last week. Show called um catfish. Um, some some watchers out there, okay. Now, when I got introduced to the show catfish, I thought we were gonna be cooking catfish. I thought it was like a cooking show. No, catfish is just people getting cooked every episode. If you don't know what catfish is, catfishing is when people think they're in a relationship with somebody, and it turns out that that person they thought they were in a relationship with, they're not in a relationship with. I mean, somebody, one girl was like, I'm dating Chris Brown. She was dating Brown Chris. It just, it bam, that's not him. That was actually your cousin. And so it got real weird. But catfish is you know you're catfish when the person's profile picture doesn't look like how they look in real life. Have you ever met somebody in the profile picture and how they look? You like, eh? How did you do that? How'd you how'd you how'd you how'd you pull that off? That's when you are catfished. This whole series about John is him trying to talk to the believers, saying, please don't be catfished by the culture. Please don't allow the culture to catfish you. And here's the truth, if we're honest, we allow the culture to catfish us all the time into believing things that aren't true. Sometimes we get into weird habits with the culture where it begins to drive us and it begins to lead us through its opinions and what shows up in front of us. And sometimes we can get confused that we can think that our success is our status. We can confuse and be catfished to think that lust is actually love. And here's another one we can be confused and catfished to actually believe that our possessions determines our peace. And you can get your life thrown overboard the moment you believe I have everything that I need. I have peace. Ask Job about that. It doesn't turn out so well. In 2025, we live in a world where it always seems like something's trying to catfish us, something's trying to get our attention. So we actually live in a world where there's like 24 hours of just information. Anybody in here remember when TV used to go off? You remember where all the people that remember? Raise your hand, come on, come on. That's it. Look around. All the old people were right here, baby. Yeah. You remember when TV used to go off? It would be the tonight show, and then it was just tomorrow after that. And so tonight's show would go off, and then and then they picked the worst flag sometimes. It was just waving. Like, and then they had the flag waving, and then after the flag was waving, all you would hear is this for hours, for hours it was just this six hours of just noise. And people, you know, in my church, they asked me all the time, so what what did y'all do after TV went off? We just did we we yeah, we we just thought, we thought to ourselves, you have time to think. You remember when you had time to think? Before it was just always somebody trying to get your attention, mom. Remember before you had kids and you had time to think? That when you went to the restroom, you could think. Now somebody like, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, open up. Remember when you had time to think? And so John is telling them, guys, just like when TV went off, turn off the culture and let's reel it back in. Let's reset to the foundations of the gospel. What is the thing we taught when Jesus was introduced to you when you discovered the gospel? And so, over the last six weeks, you've been hearing us preach about this idea that these people were coming in to the church and they were trying to deceive them and try to convince them of another way. And here's what John is saying he's saying that the loudest voices aren't the truest voices. So don't be deceived, don't be condemned, and don't be confused. Pastor Lawrence preached a few weeks ago a few weeks ago. He said that now that you have been adopted into this family, there should be a resemblance on you and your family. Have you ever seen family members? They do everything alike. You know, there should be a resemblance. And here's what the resemblance should be: it should be that we live holy and we love deeply. When people come into this church, they'll want to know, are you who you say you are, or are you gonna be fake? And I can tell you something about this house. We love deeply in this house. People love each other in this house. Turn to the person beside you and say, I love you. Ask the person on the other side, say, Will you buy me lunch after this? Let's test this love. Put your money up, let's test it. I I love the fact that we have been diving into John because I think John doesn't get all the credit he deserves. You know, people talk about Paul, we talk about Paul a lot, we talk about Peter. We even go old school, we talk about David and Moses. But John wrote quite a bit of the New Testament, and we don't often talk about him. And John to me is a little bit special because John he always writes, I'm the one who Jesus loved. And here's John, the last living, breathing disciple, looking to make sure that as the twilight is going out on his own life, that he's ensuring, hey guys, don't get it confused. They're trying to preach to you a new Jesus, but that is not the one who died for your sins, the one you initially heard about, the one who Paul preached about, the one who Peter represented, the one that I have shown you, the one that I'm pastoring you to right now. That is the Jesus that you need to be looking for. Don't add other stuff. They are simply trying to confuse you. You know, it's one thing for an enemy to try to kill you, it is diabolical when they try to confuse you. You are trying to now manipulate this gospel. You're not even trying to say that Jesus isn't real, you're just trying to add a lie, a little lie, to a big truth. Have you ever been around a real liar? Oh, don't think about your cousin. Let me go over here. Somebody over here, they almost text their cousin like the preacher's talking about you today. Have you ever been around a real liar who can give you 90% truth, but give you 10% of a lie just enough to manipulate you? John is telling them there are these false teachers coming in, and it sounds like the gospel, it looks like the gospel, it may even feel like there's some miracles happening, but there's enough lie in this to just distort it a little bit. My wife works in middle school. No offense to the middle schoolers that are in the building. My wife says, I can get 90% truth. I'll listen for that one little small piece right there where they said, Yeah, I really went to the bathroom to use it. No, you weren't. You were outside talking to your friends. She looks for that one little piece. And John is telling them, they're giving you some truth, but we got to deal with the line because there's some imitation up in here. I grew up in Virginia where you know we were around seafood. My mom was a crab picker. My first job, I was a crab picker. So you can't trick me with imitation crab. You cannot come to me with crab with a K, talking about this is crab. No, no, no. That's just salmon that's been shredded up and packaged together. That's not crab. Real crab doesn't have a K in it. I know imitation when I see it. And but there's something in your life that you can look at it immediately and you know what that imitation looks like. Let's jump into point number one. Point number one, here's my point verification check. There always has to be a verification check. John is pushing them, saying, Hey Saints, what's the verification check right here? Is this verified or is this just viral? Some things are viral, and because we don't double check it, we just decide that's facts. There's a verification for that. Why? I've seen nine of my friends post it, it must be the Lord. I've seen nine other people say it, it must be the Lord. I've heard four pastors say it. I can tell you now in this house, I know your pastor. He's like, even when I say it, go back and run it through the word. What does the gospel say about this? Oh, I just did the new update on my phone, and I I kind of like it, but there are some things that is requiring a two-step verification, and nothing bothers me more than a two-step verification. I want what I want right now. Why am I having to verify it twice? Well, Pastor Courtney, it's for your protection because a one-step verification just doesn't seem to be doing the process anymore. You're gonna need a two-step verification. They need to make sure there is some authenticity for this and that you are verified to have access. And John tells them when he says, Dear friends, do not believe every spirit. Don't believe every spirit. There's more than one spirit out there, it's not just the Holy Spirit, there are other spirits. There are lion spirits, manipulating uh manipulating spirits. There's so many other spirits. What are the spirits that are out there? He's saying, Don't trust every spirit. That means that even the ones that make you feel the gooseies, is that God's spirit? He's saying, Dear friends, do not believe every spirit. He said, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Here's a two-step verification that John is pushing us to run into the word and running through the spirit. What does the word have to say about it? What does the word have to say about it? I heard an older preacher say one time said, He said, The word works for those who work the word. You gotta work the word. What does the word of God have to say about it? And that does not mean that you have to know every scripture. No, it's okay for you to run to whatever your search engine is and then say, Is there scripture on this? Then go to your Bible app or open up the pages. Where are the people that bought pages of Bibles? Who bought a real Bible in here? Anybody bought come on the whole front row, okay? And y'all, I see you. They bought they like my turns, and we're the ones where your Bible lights up. It's okay, no, no shade here. Go to your Bible. I see you back there. Go to your Bible and then find that scripture and run it through the word, and then run it through the Spirit of God. What is the Holy Spirit saying to you? I was thinking about this word, he's telling them don't get caught up in counterfeits. I love watching the history channel, and I can get lost in it in the history channel. And I was looking at the history channel one day, and it it was a document, documentary on the the the beginning of the secret service. And my whole life, I've known the secret service as to be those who uh protect the president and people that are in authority. No, no, no. I discovered that in the 1800s, the Secret Service was originally made because they were chasing down counterfeit dollars. Here I thought this whole time that the goal of the Secret Service was protection. And I discovered by watching this documentary that it wasn't protection at all. And they said, How did they discover when something was counterfeit? They said they never studied the counterfeit, they studied the real enough so that way when they saw something that wasn't real, they said something's off. And so the secret service is not there for protection, they're really there for detection. They can detect that something's off, and that's what the Holy Spirit is doing on the inside of you. Yes, you're here for the protection of the gospel and for the protection of the church. But can you decide what something is off? I'm detecting something's not right about that thing over there. Five point six billion dollars. Everybody say five point six billion dollars. Bring it to this church, Lord. 5.6. No, I'm joking. 5.6 billion dollars. Somebody's like, do it, Lord. Wait, wait a minute. Do y'all really believe? Say, do it, Lord. It's a lot of faith in this house right here. Almost stopped and raised the offering right there. 5.6 billion every year,$5.6 billion is lost throughout the globe from people getting scammed. Have you ever been minding your own business and you get a random text of someone saying your iPhone storage is out? Sign up here, send your Social Security and your Amex card number, and we will give you unlimited iPhone usage. I bet they will. I bet they will. You're gonna be on the phone with somebody else in a second, and it won't be them. They they text your phone all the time. Scammers are trying to get your information. And when you sign up for a two-step verification, they gotta go through some hoops. So this means that you can't just text me out of the blue and scare me with information, and I now bow to it. Let me go to you spiritually. That means that the enemy can't just come and text you some information tomorrow and get you afraid. That diagnosis can't get you afraid tomorrow, that argument can't get you afraid, that layoff can't get you afraid, right? Because you're gonna run it through what? A two-step verification. What does God have to say about it? You gotta look at your life and say, Am I willing to two-step with this thing? I'm not gonna do a two-step, but you gotta be willing to two-step with it for a second. Everybody say test the word. Say test the spirit. That word right there, test, means to discern. Discern. If you can't discern, then you'll find yourself being deceived. God gave you discernment. Here's what I wrote right here: discernment is the ability to notice difference. Discernment is the ability to notice difference. Discernment is the ability to notice difference. Discernment is the ability to notice difference. Some of us in here are able to look at things immediately and recognize they're different. You didn't know you were operating in spiritual discernment. The best way to build your discernment is to practice on yourself. I use discernment on myself. Why do I feel this way? Why did I wake up feeling this way? Why did that bother me so much? Holy Spirit, what do you want to say say to me about this? When I read that, why did that do this to me? Why did I almost fall out with this person? You want to ask yourself and use your spiritual discernment on yourself. Why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling? And if you listen, you run it through the word, and then you ask Holy Spirit, will you reveal to me why I'm feeling this way? And he will give you an answer. That means you're using discernment on yourself. And it's always necessary for you to use the tools of God on yourself before you abuse them on somebody else. Because sometimes when we just try to use it on somebody else, our discernment is not us knowing and recognizing a pattern that's different. Sometimes it can become suspicion. And we don't want to operate in suspicion. So you look at this right here, discernment doesn't just listen for words, it listens for the heart behind the words. One day the apostle Paul is teaching, and he's going from city to city, and there's a girl that someone has been using and abusing her to tell the future and to tell uh about what's happening in somebody's life. And she's following Paul from moment to moment, from place to place, and Paul is preaching his heart out, and there's a girl in here, and she's every time Paul preaches, she's almost saying the right thing, but Paul begins to find out something different about her. So Paul is preaching, and she's like, Come on, Paul, preach it, Paul. You better say it, Paul. You're looking thinner every time you come in town, Paul. All these things. I mean, if I were Paul, Paul, you're you better preach it, and all of a sudden, Paul decides, he listens to what he says, wait a minute. That's a distraction, that's not the Lord. And he begins to cast the devil out of her because he discerned though it's saying the right thing, it has the wrong heart behind it. You have to be able to determine this is what John is leaning into. It sounds like it's the thing, but it's not actually the thing. You're gonna have to actually test it. Everybody say, test it. When John was writing this, he's in a place called Ephesus. In Ephesus, uh Paul was there, I was talking about Paul. Paul was in Ephesus a few decades before, and he accidentally on purpose started a revival. He he he would he happen to be preaching to Jesus and he accidentally on purpose started a revival. I wonder if you are willing to allow God to accidentally on purpose start a revival in your own personal world. I wonder if in your family you are willing to accidentally on purpose start a revival. Are you willing to, I'm sorry, are you willing to go into your emotions, into your mind and tell your mind you cannot overthrow me? I'm willing to accidentally on purpose start a revival. Paul was willing to accidentally on purpose start a revival. And when he did, he made this whole city mad because they were doing idol worship in Ephesus. And you want to know who really got mad with them? They called them the silversmith, the guys who were making all these metal objects to other gods. And he was they were selling them to the people saying, Oh, you have a God? I can make something in this image. Here, does this look like your God? Let me sell it to you. And people stopped buying the idol worship, and Paul, on purpose, started a revival. And the next thing you know, the silversmith were mad. So when John is telling them, he's telling this city, test this, he's reminding them of what Paul did. He's saying, test the metal of the words that you're hearing. If what they're saying about Jesus isn't true, how do you test something? How do you test metal? You test it through the fire. Is it gonna withstand the fire? Some of you are sitting in here and you've withstood through all the fires of your life. You're only standing here. You may smell like smoke, but you don't look burned. You may smell like smoke, but you don't look burned. I'm gonna say it again. You may smell like smoke, but you don't look burned. Nobody in here can recognize what you've gone through because you have outlasted the fire. So you have the fire. Didn't they also test it with acid? They dropped some acid on it. I remember being in high school, you'd be walking through the mall, and the little kiosk man would say, Hey, let me test your chain to see if it's real. I'll be like, uh-uh, and I got mine for$10. Leave me alone. I know it's real. I did the bite test. Remember we used to bite on something to see if it's real? What were we tasting for, actually? What were we tasting for? All right, that's probably how COVID started. Tusting gold like that. They will put acid on it to see if it would eat through it. To see, is this real gold? Job says, I intend to come out like gold. And for some of us, we have survived acid. That's just toxicity. You survived a toxic scenario, and it's proof that there's some gold on the inside of your life. John is just simply trying to tell them, have you survived some acid moments? That means that there's some gold on the inside of you. And the third way is that they weigh it. Because people were making what looked like uh uh real silver, but it wasn't real silver, and they would weigh it to see if the weight is off. And for some of us in here, the weight is right. You've been able to last through every scenario because when they decided to weigh you, what was it? Was it was it 5'0? What was your weight? Was it was it 5'5? Was it 6'7? When they weighed you, what was it gonna be when they weighed you and they weighed you, and it turned out to be the right thing. Everybody say, get your weight up. I mean, not physically but spiritually. There you go. Somebody's like, I intend to do that after church when I go eat today. He warns them, dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit to see whether they are from God because many false prophets have gone out of the world. Let me help you really quick. I'm gonna move fast. Here's what prop false prophets want to do they want to drown you in other voices, they want to drown you in other opinions, they want to drown you in self-proclaimed thoughts about yourself being higher than the Lord. But here's what I want to tell you as they were preaching a false Jesus to that congregation, a false Jesus to that place. Jesus is always about the cross and not the custom version that they were trying to fit us for. The devil always wants to destroy you, but he really doesn't have to destroy you if he can just deceive you. Jesus one day is fasting, he's fasting, the enemy comes to him in the middle of fasting, he offers him enough truth with a little bit of a lie to see if Jesus will make the exchange. And Jesus, who's been hanging out with his father, he knows the word, he knows the spirit because he's been hanging out with his father, he's been hanging out with the spirit. Let me just say this: you gotta stay close enough so that way you can know the difference. You gotta stay close enough so that way you can know the difference. And Jesus looks at the enemy, he's like, the trade is not worth it because you're a liar. How do you know when the enemy's lying? His lips are always moving. If you ever discover his lips moving, he is absolutely lying. Proverbs 14 and 15 says this the gullible believe anything they're told, the prudent sift and weigh every word. Somebody say, Weigh it. Point number two, new Jesus, new Jesus. John is like, they're preaching a new Jesus, but I actually knew Jesus. John is saying this custom Jesus is much different than the crucified Jesus that they've been talking about. Uh, first John 4, 2 through 3 says this this is how you can recognize the spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. They were trying to preach a gospel where they were trying to say that Jesus wasn't a real man. And John is like, No, no, no, you don't understand. He was a man, he was a man and he was God, he was fully human and fully God. He said, if you don't understand that, then you're gonna miss a really big piece of this redemption story. If you miss the fact that he is a man, you're gonna really miss this idea of the story. Why? He says, I'm fighting for his humanity here, because they were coming in and trying to tell the believers he wasn't really a man, he was like a man who like God like sat on for like three years, and then right before the cross, like God lifted off of him. And John is telling them, No, that man who was a God man went to a real cross. And John is thinking in his resume with God, he's thinking, no, no, no, he was man enough to cry when Lazarus died. He was man enough to go to the garden and to say, God, if this cup can pass me by, let it pass me by. But he was also man enough to stay on that cross when he had every opportunity to get off of that cross. Come on, let me help you out for a second. You are serving a Jesus who doesn't understand what you're walking through. He cried real tears, he bled real blood, he had real issues. You're serving a Jesus who fully understands your story. John is looking at this moment and he's saying, This real Jesus, he was man enough to die on a cross, but God enough to die in my place. He was man enough to go to the cross, but he's God enough to die in my place and to come out and make sure that I have all victory. What John is saying is what I'm saying. He said, fam, that was my cross. That was my shame, that was my punishment. But Jesus decided when he looked out into the distance, he said, I know it belongs to you, but I'm gonna do it for you. I know that that was the penalty for your sin, but I'm gonna do it for you. He's saying, if you minimize the fact that Jesus was a human, you will not recognize that when he went to the cross, there had to be redemption for sin. That means that somebody had to bleed. God cannot bleed, but man can bleed. So he had to be a hundred percent man, a hundred percent God. So that way when his blood was spilled out, it could say, Now the whole world is set free because of what I did. I needed that. My life was a hot mess, and if I'm not careful, it could be a hot mess all over again. And John is saying, if you're willing to stay and have some staying power, you'll make sure that God does something great in your life. John, John's not giving a theory, John's giving testimony. You can't remove remove the humanity from Jesus. John 14, 6 says this, Jesus answered, saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes comes to the Father except through me. Point number three, I'm built different. Tell the person beside you, say, I'm built different. Or you're about to brag on yourself, tell the person on the other side, I'm built different. That means he's saying, You dear children, are from God. You, everybody in this city saying you are from God, and you have overcome them. Who've you overcome? You've overcome everything that's out there, and there is some victory sitting on the inside of you. Pastor Lawrence taught this. He said, We have been adopted into this beautiful family, and because I'm in the family now, I'm just simply built different. Holy Spirit now lives in me, and we call that an indwelling, and we could also call it some influence. If you're like me, I agree this that there were moments for me where I didn't realize what God wanted to do in me was bigger than me. What God wants to do in you is bigger than you. So it is absolutely true that greater is He that's in you than He that is in the world, greater is He that's in you than your Monday that's coming, greater is He that's in you than next year, greater is He that's in you than any trial that you can face. There's something great ruined on the inside of you. And the moment I recognize this, I had to stop all negotiations with lesser voices. I want to challenge you. Are you willing to stop all negotiations with lesser voices that have been trying to steal your destiny from you? Are you willing to stop all negotiations with lesser voices that are trying to ruin your relationships? Are you willing to stop negotiating with lesser voices that are trying to overthrow what God said about you? Here's a definition. You can take a picture of your screen if you want to, because you know, we can do that. Greater means unstoppable power, superior authority, and unshakable advantage. It's not about size, it's about supremacy. I don't care how long you've been saved, and you may say, Pastor Courtney, my faith is small, but there's a supremacy of God's presence on the inside of you. The spirit in you doesn't just match the world, it overtakes the world. There's an overtaker on the inside of you. You thought you walked in here normal, but there's literally a person who overtakes the world on the inside of you. Point number four it has to be loud versus what's lasting. Volume isn't the same as value. You ever seen somebody that's loud but they had no value to it? They just braggadocious, but they really didn't have anything to be bragging about. They just loud for no reason. Somebody just said, You're kind of loud, Pastor. Hey, just let me keep going. He's saying, I know the culture's loud, but the culture's not lasting. Don't allow the voices of the culture to overthrow you of what the gospel put on the inside of you. First John 4 and 5 says, They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. Don't trust what's trending in your heart, what is true in your spirit. Number five, there has to be a divine difference. We're from God, and whoever knows God listens to us. But whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. You got to recognize the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. How do you know that? Holy Spirit is not just here to visit you, Holy Spirit is here to validate you. There is something different on the inside of you. You have the ability to step outside of your preference and to say, God, what is your promise for me? And with that being said, 1 Corinthians 2 14, I might as well throw this one in here. The person without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the spirit of God, but considers uh them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only. Through the spirit, you are gonna need some discernment. You're gonna need to be able to decide what's true, what's real, what's authentic, what's fake, what's happening, what's going on. You're gonna need to fully be able to decide. I can fully understand why John is saying this, and I can understand how John actually got here. John has watched all of the other disciples go on, they're in heaven now, and John's probably thinking through the rolodex of his history with God, and I can imagine he's fighting so hard for this church to understand who Jesus is because he's afraid. If I don't give you Jesus, I'm afraid that you're gonna choose this other Jesus. And he's like, I've seen this in history before. I know what this looks like when you choose another Jesus, I know how this goes down when you choose another Jesus, because John is probably thinking back, he's probably thinking back to the moment in Matthew 27, verse 16 and 17. And the Bible says that the authority person bought out a man who's called Jesus Barabbas, and another person named Jesus, who we now know as Jesus Christ, and he asked the popular opinion: Do you want the one that's viral or the one that's verified? Do you want Barabbas or do you want the Christ? Do you want the rebel or do you want the one who's the redeemer? Do you want the one who's gonna leave here? Pick up a sword and fight on your behalf, or do you want the one who's willing to suffer in your place and to say, I'm gonna come out and give you all power? Which Jesus do you really want? John, he's fighting for something. Older man, he's seen it all. All of the people he was running with, they're no longer on this earth. And John is looking at them and he's trying to get them to see if you pick the wrong one, it leads to destruction. But if you pick the right one, your destiny is there. Hey church, what are you gonna do? Which Jesus are you gonna pick? Is it gonna be Barabbas or is it gonna be Jesus the Christ? And John is fighting from a place of saying, You got to get this because the false ones they're coming. You gotta get this. Because the false prophets are out there, you gotta get this because they want to add some lines to the truth. You gotta get this because you're gonna go to catching that counterfeit thing and you're gonna get nothing in return. Here's John fighting to the end saying, Choose Jesus the Christ? You can stand on your feet with me. I didn't land here at the last service. I just want to ask you, church, today, which one are you choosing? Which one are you choosing? Which one are you gonna reveal to your friends on social media? Which ones are you gonna reveal to your friends at work? Which ones are you gonna reveal to your family? Which one are you gonna reveal to your yes? And here's why it's important. Because one is gonna make the greatness on the inside of you stand up. That when 1 John 4 and 4 says this, but you belong to God. Who belongs to God? The person I'm looking at, you belong to God, you belong to God. Tell the person beside you, say you belong to God. Tell the person on the other side, you belong to God. But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory. I'm looking at a church that's already won some victory. I'm looking at individual people, you've already won some victory. You didn't walk in here bad off, you've won some victories. You're still here, you're still breathing, you overcame the moment, you won some victories already. He says, But you belong to God, my dear children. You've already won the victory over those people because the spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit that lives in the world. Another translation says, Greater is he that's in me than he that's what in the world. Say it with me, greater is he that's in me than he that's in the world. Tell the person beside you there's greater in you. Come on, tell the person on the other side there's greater in you. Tell one more person there's greater in you. Now put your hand on your chest and say there's greater in me.

unknown: 35:10

Beauty priority.

SPEAKER_01: 35:14

It can be so easy, fam, to look at your neighbor and say, greater than you. And look at your other neighbor and say greater than you, but it becomes real, real soft when we say greater than me. It can become tough to say that because you know you, you live with you, you see you. But I'm telling you now, there's victory on the inside of you. There's victory in your story, there's victory in your yes, there's victory in this moment, and John is looking at his church and out into history saying, Greater is in you. Say this with me, Lord God, today I release the greatness in my life. So, Lord, whatever it takes, I lean in. I believe you, I believe your son, Jesus, He's my Savior and my Lord. So, God, I release greatness today, in Jesus' name, with all you got. Come on, somebody, give God some praise in here all over the building, all over the building, release the greatness. There it is.