Speaker 1: 0:00

What's up Free Church? Come on, you can do better than that. What's up Free Church? Oh, so good to see you, man. What about that? Fire worship right there? Ethan sang his voice straight out.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Man, if you can't fall in love with what's happening in this house, you need to maybe you need to, I don't know. Fall in love with what's happening in this house. You need to, maybe you need to, I don't know fall in love with it Because it is something so special happening around here and we always say there is no place like this place near this place. So this must be the place, and it definitely feels that way today. So welcome everybody. If you're a guest, welcome. My name's Chuck Urshana and I have the privilege of pastoring this incredible family and we're so thankful to be with you today. In this holiday weekend, I hope everybody had a safe and wonderful I mean you're here, so it must have been partly safe and I hope you got your feel of all the good things you can eat and family time and, man, we had beautiful weather, so so glad you're here today. If you're a guest, I know you could have been in a thousand other places today, but you chose the right place and I'm glad you're here. Church family, let's welcome our guest today and then those of us, those of you watching online today, all over this region and around the world. We welcome you as you join us and I pray you feel the same atmosphere that we're experiencing, because that's what I love about the Lord. He is omnipresent, meaning he can be all places, at all times. So the Lord is very much, just as much in your living room or in your car where you're listening, or wherever you might find yourself connecting to this service. The lord is with you just as much as he is in this house. And we have a special day today. We're in the middle of our summer shorts series and we're getting sun soaked. Come on somebody. And our goal is at the end of this summer. People say, man, you must have been with the sun, in the sun this summer, and not just s-u-n but because we like to have fun, but s-o-n because we love Jesus and we have a treat for you.

Speaker 1: 2:16

We have three speakers today that are going to share with you. Three speakers for seven minutes each. They're going to just deposit a good gospel message into you from one of their favorite gospels and one of their favorite passages and what the Lord has put upon their heart. And first it'll be Noel Massey. Noel is man, he is a blessing to this house and he helped us lead Next Level Leadership Luncheon. It was his efforts and man. He spoke incredibly.

Speaker 1: 2:48

He just released a book entitled uh, congrats. You've Been Promoted and it is a powerful book written for young leaders. So every young adult, everyone who feels young a powerful book for you regarding your impact and your influence in your workplace as you lead and as you develop new responsibilities and increase your influence. Write about this with some expertise, a lot of expertise, actually, because Noel served as the vice president at UPS for US operations and delivery, had over 140,000 employees, 12,000 supervisors that he led, and he is a wealth of information. Anytime we have lunch together, I go home so encouraged and so challenged and thinking about new areas and levels of leadership. So you're going to love hearing from Noel.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Then you're going to hear from Retta Robite. I can't roll my R's like she does, but Retta is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design. She helps lead. She's on the leadership team with Tyler and Skyler, leading monastery young adults. She leads in worship and she is a powerhouse. Get ready, fasten your seatbelt. She's a powerhouse. And then Julian Hernandez is going to close it out. Julian Hernandez is going to close it out. Paid them. Paid them to do that, paid them to do that. Julian check this out is a student at Concordia University. He is studying to be a teacher. He's going to teach in our public school system by assignment from the Lord. He's one of our up-and-coming leaders. He leads in witness and in monastery. He is a head football coach at Morton Park High School and coaches softball as well. So listen, we're going to lean in. I want you to give your best amens your best. Come on now. That's good. Whatever you have to do to cheer them on as they speak. Would you welcome Noel Massey?

Speaker 4: 5:08

Thanks, pastor. Hello Free Church. So we were asked to choose our favorite parable, or what we believe is an important parable, not just our favorite parable. So I chose if you want to follow along, luke, chapter 10. You can see it. Oh, I thought it was behind me. I guess not. Luke, chapter 10, verse 25. It's the parable of the Good Samaritan. I'll give you a minute to find that. In these times, particularly now, I think it's very, very important to grab the message in the parable of the good Samaritan. So I'm not just going to read this to you before I say, I'm going to challenge you to think about how you are living this. That's what it's about, verse 25, the parable of the good Samaritan.

Speaker 4: 6:13

So Jesus, as he was was charged to do, was teaching and he was teaching. And in the middle of his teaching, an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus replied what does the law of Moses say? How do you read it? What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it? The man answered you must love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself, right? Jesus told him Do this and you will live. The man wanted to justify his actions, like so many do. The man wanted to justify his actions like so many do. So he asked Jesus and who is my neighbor? Jesus replied with a story.

Speaker 4: 7:22

A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up and left him half dead beside the road. By chance, a priest came along and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and he passed him by. Later on, a Levite walked over and looked at him and he also passed by the other side.

Speaker 4: 7:53

Then a despised Samaritan came along. When he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and banished them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I'll pay you the next time I'm here. Now. Which of these three would you say was the neighbor. To this man, jesus asked, and he replied the one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said yes, now go and do the same and I'll let you think on that. I'm going to turn it over to Retta.

Speaker 2: 9:05

All right, thanks, thanks, wow, wow, hi everybody, wow, it feels so good to be here, to see all of you, all the faces, all the family together. Yeah, so I'm also gonna read a parable, but we're gonna jump to Matthew, the book of Matthew, chapter five, and we're going to start at verse 14. So it reads you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives life to all those. In the same way. Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father, who is in heaven. So the entire word of God is light. Right, we can all agree that it's the light that shines to all the deepest and even darkest parts of our lives. But I think there's this underestimated torch that all of us have been given. All of us have it individually, and it is the most, one of the most powerful gifts that the Lord has given us, which is our testimony, because we know we are saved by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, right? And so today I'm here to share my testimony and also to encourage you all to share your testimonies, as it is the light to the world that Jesus is talking about Now.

Speaker 2: 11:02

You might be thinking sitting here oh well, my testimony is boring. I grew up in church and I follow the Lord. The Lord has always been my Lord and I've never strayed away from him. And I'm here to say, wow, what a testimony that is. Wow, every parent wishes that testimony for their child Like. That's so powerful and it makes faith rise in the room. When they hear a testimony like that, do you agree with me? Yes, and then let's say, you're on the other side. You're thinking, wow, my testimony was nothing like that. I strayed away from the Lord so far that I almost feel the shame and guilt talking about my past, thinking, oh, I don't relate with that anymore, I don't want to. I almost don't want to remember it myself. Um, but that exact testimony has the power to shine into those deepest, darkest places of our world, to go out into those people that that have maybe never heard of the power of jesus, and they see you as a living, living testimony, speaking of of all that Jesus has done in your life. That's faith, that is it. That is the power of the light that Jesus is giving to all of us through our testimony, and so my testimony was not a very smooth road. It was full of ups and downs.

Speaker 2: 12:40

As Pastor Chuck said, I went to an art school and while I was in art school I encountered Jesus for the very first time in a worship set, and I remember right then when I felt the love of the Lord for the very first time, that's where the enemy said hold on, wait a minute. And then he Grabbed me in a way that I've never experienced before, and so I got into a relationship with a guy that was an atheist and that, in and of itself, was it invited a lot of things in. One of those things was there was always drugs happening in the group that we were in, from alcohol to weed to even harder drugs like acid and and mushrooms and stuff. Although I didn't partake in the hardest of the drugs, I was very much experimenting with weed, overdosed one time, so bad that I could not remember anything past five seconds I was. I was just so just shaking in a corner thinking none of nothing is real. Nothing is real. I thought literally I was gonna die like it was. It was the scariest experience I've ever felt.

Speaker 2: 13:58

And, as you know, the enemy doesn't just walk in by itself and on its own. No, it brings in more things, opens the door to more things. And so, through the group, there was also this rebellion that was happening against just our school and all the money that we needed to pay. And so the the group decided we're gonna go to the art supply store and we're gonna take whatever it is we need for classes. And I remember well, if my friends are doing it, well then I'm not gonna pay the full price. I was thinking, oh well, if this is that easy, well, why not, why not?

Speaker 2: 14:38

And then, as soon as that happened, I opened the door to theft, just wide open, and of course it brought in greed and it brought in shame, because every time I would go into a store it didn't have to be an art supply store I would hear voices in my head saying I can take this, no one's going to see it. And then, as soon as I would leave, it would be why did you take it? Why, like? Why did you do all this? Look at you, who are you Like, all these shameful pointing fingers? And I didn't know that that was a spirit.

Speaker 2: 15:11

I was convinced that was just me, and so it wasn't until my senior year of college that my friend reintroduced me to Jesus, told me about the power of the name of Jesus. What were we singing today about? Call on the name of Jesus, right, jesus. What were we singing today about? Call on the name of Jesus, right. And so she shared her testimony with me of a radical salvation. And then I felt urged to share my struggle with her. I'd never opened up about it. I was so ashamed and scared because I thought, oh, that's going to change people's perceptions about me. I don't want that. But but as soon as I opened up, she said she called it out. She called it out into the light, called it out as a spirit and said okay, we're going to pray for it right now, but next time that you hear that voice come up in your head, you just rebuke that in the name of Jesus.

Speaker 2: 16:04

And so the next time that I went to a store and I was standing at that self-checkout counter, I thought, and I heard those voice come back up again. All of a sudden I identified them Wait, that's that spirit again. And I said in the name of Jesus, I rebuke the spirit of theft and the spirit of greed. I just whispered it under my breath, thinking, well, I'll just do it, just in faith, just to see if it'll work. And those voices went down. They quieted down and I had never experienced a freedom like that before. So next time, every time I would go into a store, maybe those voices would surface back up. I would just rebuke them again in the name of Jesus. Every time I would feel that freedom and another chain come off and another chain. And it was just until I couldn't hear them anymore. It was gone completely.

Speaker 2: 17:03

And so through this story, I know I was struggling, even at the very beginning, to share my testimony. I thought, oh man, like what are people going to think about me? And and all those things I didn't know I had to set, get set free from fear of man. But that was. That was later as well. But it just shows how shame and guilt don't come along with you sharing your testimony. And Jesus is the one that is. The light is being shown on, yes, it shines on your imperfections.

Speaker 2: 17:35

But who is the main character of that story? Not you, it isn't you, it's him, it's entirely him. It's kind of like that woman at the well, who was who was encountering Jesus, and Jesus is calling out all the bad things about her life and she's just like, with just shock, hearing all the things he's saying, drops the water, goes all the way to the village and screams he told me everything I ever did wrong. And isn't that crazy? That's a light that is not covered. That is a light that is shining everywhere. She's not ashamed, she's just screaming out. That's the messiah, that's the one. He's the one that we should all be looking to.

Speaker 2: 18:26

So, to conclude, I just want to encourage you all. You all have a testimony, no matter how you think, oh, this is big, this is small, god's doing a miracle in all of our lives. Maybe you're here sitting today and you are thinking wow, I think I'm in the midst of it. I think I'm struggling with something right now that I had never felt freedom before. Well, well, I am here to encourage you that Jesus sets free and that you can come to him with all of those things and he will break off all those chains. So, with all of this, I just want to ask that you all surrender to the Lord, surrender your testimony to the Lord and see all the miracles that he can do with this light.

Speaker 3: 19:16

Thank you, Well good morning Free Church. Well, again, my name is julian hernandez. I have the honor and privilege on serving on our amazing witness youth ministry, have you see, right here? Um, before I start, I just want to say thank you, pastor shark, for giving me this opportunity to come here up here and speak to you all. Um, without further ado, let's dive right into the word. So it's going to be up on the screen, but, um, if you're flipping it in your physical bibles, we're're going to go to Mark 11, 12 to 14.

Speaker 3: 20:11

At this time, just to give you some context, this is when Jesus is cursing the fig tree. So here we go, verse 12. The next day, when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry, seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves. He went to find out if there was anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it may no one ever eat fruit from you again. And his disciples heard it. So to give it, just break down. One big thing about that verse, right there is Jesus is cursing his fig tree, not just because he's hungry and there's no fruit to eat now. Okay, jesus is cursing his fig tree because it's giving the pretense of fruit. Okay, he's cursing it because it's giving the outward appearance that there's fruit bearing on the tree.

Speaker 3: 20:53

Hey, can we put the fig tree up on the screen real quick? So just imagine looking up at this. You're in a distance, you're walking, you're hungry. You see the fig tree. Let me give you a quick fun fact Fig trees tend to bear fruit before the leaves even show. So now here's jesus coming up to this tree. He sees leaves. You're right to assume there's fruit bearing on it. If we go on walks in nature, we see trees, we see plants. We're right to assume there's something growing on it. So jesus is looking at it. He sees it. Okay, there's fruit, I'm hungry, let me go. So he goes up to it and he shakes it, but then there's no fruit at all. You see, you may be asking okay, what do you mean by that? I'm saying this If we apply this to our own lifestyle.

Speaker 3: 21:30

Sometimes, if we are not checking our own spirit, we tend to put on a facade that we are actually bearing spiritual fruit, but in reality we're not bearing any spiritual fruit at all. That we tend to put on that leaf show, but in reality there's no spiritual fruit at all. But let me tell you this it says in the scripture that our father, god, knows the heart. So you may try to put on his facade, but your father, your creator, knows that too, and we can't put ourselves into the situation. Because let me tell you this If you go down to verse 20, he goes early in the morning, as they were passing by, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.

Speaker 3: 22:06

Then Peter remembered and said to him Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you cursed has withered. So now, if you again you put yourself in that situation, us as believers, if we are not, if we are putting on this facade, you're going to wither. And it says it in scripture too that you must be able to put yourself, if you're going to act, a part, actually show it in part two.

Speaker 3: 22:28

I'm going to just give you guys a quick story. So, like PC said, I'm the head freshman football coach at Morton High School. I played football there. Never played football a snap in my life until my freshman year. I sucked. Just going to keep it at that.

Speaker 3: 22:40

Okay, at the freshman level there is an A team and a B team. The A team tends to be your more talented competitive players. The B team be your more talented competitive players. Your b team not so much as you would assume. I was a b team player.

Speaker 3: 22:50

Okay, your 18 players in the hallways and I could attest to this as I'm a coach now too. They had the eye black, they got the chains, the wristbands, arm sleeves, everything. They walk, talk the game, put their arm around their girlfriend in the hallways. You know they act, they try to like, act, all that. The b team players tend to keep their mouth shut because they know they suck and I'm, and that was me too, you know. So what ends up happening every single year at Morton is that by the senior year of those freshmen speaking from my own story those beat team players end up starting over those 18 players by their senior year. You may be asking how? Because they endured the process and they trusted that day in and day out. If they gave their time, talent and effort, after those four years in senior year they will reap everything that they've been sowing. They endured the process, they gave their time, talent and effort and you're like okay, so what are you trying to get by that?

Speaker 3: 23:47

I'm going to jump down to John 15. It's going to be up on the screen too, but verse 1, it goes I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it would produce even more fruit. Go to verse 4. Remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains undivine, neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am divine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me. So in other versions this is the most famous verse where it says abide in me and I in you. And if you study the word abide in Greek, it means meno. I may be mispronouncing that, but meno means I stay, to remain, to endure. He's saying right there that if you lay your life down at the feet of Jesus and endure this world by staying on his word and staying and trusting in him and laying everything that you want that you just seek for at his feet, but abiding in him and him alone, you will grow, you will produce much fruit.

Speaker 3: 25:01

What is that fruit that you're talking about? It's the spiritual fruit the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the self-control, the gent, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the self-control, the gentleness, the faithfulness. That spiritual fruit allows you to endure this world so that, regardless of the circumstances that you're in, when you're struggling financially, you're struggling at home, mentally that you find peace in Christ and Christ alone. When you're struggling to feel loved, you are created by the heavenly one who loves you like no other. When you're in a moment where you're getting persecuted and mocked by non-believers, but because you stand ten toes down on your word, you have the self-control to keep your mouth shut and speak life to those around you. That's the spiritual fruit that he's talking about, and that's only if you have yourself truly surrendered to the holy spirit.

Speaker 3: 25:51

But if you don't, let's put up the dead fig tree real quick. It says in scripture if you go john 15, 6 if anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire and they are burned. If we are dead, fig are burned. If we are dead fig trees, that's because we are stuck in our own arrogant and cocky, prideful ways that we say Lord, I could do this world by myself and I don't need you. You think of a dead fig tree? Put it back up real quick, please. Think of a dead fig tree. You walk by it. It cuts you, it's dead. It sticks out because it's in its own way. It has no foundation, it has no roots. The fig tree was withered from the roots up and if we don't have a life that's set on the word and the word alone, we will wither like a dead fig tree. We will wither, and that's that eternal separation from the father. I'm going to finish off with this. I saw this on social media. Let's put up the graphic real quick. Us on social media. Let's put up the graphic real quick.

Speaker 3: 26:51

The branch that bears the most fruit bows the lowest, the believers, those who want, even the non-believers, those who truly lay their lives down at the feet of Christ will bear the most fruit, not just for yourself but for others to see around you like how are you still smiling at the end of the day? Because I have a savior who leads me on, who has eternal victory for myself, and I know that I'll get brought through these trials. The fruit, it says if you go in verse two, every branch that does does not produce fruit. He removes, but he prunes every branch that produces fruit. So produce even more fruit.

Speaker 3: 27:23

That the fruit is not just for yourself but for those around you. Like red has talked about being a salt in the light, that's that fruit for those around you to believe that when you truly surrender to the lord, that he blesses you. Fruit not just for yourself but for those around you and for your kids, over generations upon generations, upon generations, in abundance in favor. So as I finish off church, I just want us to be able to lean in. We've been saying it from the beginning of the year our best year yet, best year yet if we believe in the overflow from christ, surrendering and knowing that not only he sees you now, he sees you where you were beforehand and he sees you in the future to come to? Can you receive that word today?

Speaker 1: 28:19

Come on, give it up for all three Powerful day.