WE are the Champions – Sharing Victory and Joy! Purity 1176

To see today's photo, go to mt4christ.org or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter. Good morning. Today's photo of a parking lot and a stand of trees highlighted by the beams of a late afternoon sun to display their glorious autumn hues comes to us today from yours truly as I pause for a second to capture this magic moment while standing in the lobby of Starpoint Church as I was preparing for another meeting of the Celebrate Freedom Recovery/Discipleship growth group. Well, it is Thursday, and while today's photo doesn't follow my habit of displaying a pathway to, to visually encourage my friends to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship, it does highlight a destination where every disciple's pathway should take them regularly: a local Bible-believing, Jesus-following church. This photo was captured from the inside of a church, and if you are walking and talking with God, you should be making visits to a local church at least once a week. But rather than being at the church for a midweek service like some other churches, uh, provide, I was at Starpoint Church to lead Celebrate Freedom, a growth group whose focus is on helping Christians to overcome their hurts, habits, and hangups with God's help, Christian community, and Christian discipleship. Recovery and community freedom ministry materials and encouragements. Our group focuses on our relationship with God, with each other, and with the spiritual practices of our faith, the ways we can put our faith into action. When I began preparing to lead this group in the spring of this year, I was blessed to be able to enlist the help of Debbie DeYau, uh, to be our women's leader. And was surprised to be approached by Scott Salvador, who volunteered to help with the ministry, stating that he knew about recovery but wanted to learn more about Christian recovery and serving in ministry. I was thrilled to have another, uh, volunteer and saw in Scott a great potential to lead, so I immediately enlisted him to be the men's small group discussion leader. Over the past 6 months, Debbie, Scott, and I have faithfully walked together leading the Celebrate Freedom growth group. And we have seen people come and people go. We, we have been filled with hope for each person who has come to our meetings, and unfortunately we have seen far too many stop coming without the freedom and victory that we know is possible with God. But we have remained faithful to serve because some people have kept coming, and those who have been faithful in trusting God to help them have received a measure of hope faith, peace, victory, freedom, and joy that they didn't have before coming to Celebrate Freedom. Last night during our meeting's regular check-in, where the members introduce themselves and share a little about their lives and are prompted to reflect on something they are thankful for, I prompted the members to end their check-in by completing the sentence, "At Celebrate Freedom, we blank." For instance, I shared that at Celebrate Freedom we can be open and honest. From what I can recall, others shared we give thanks, we talk about our lives, we support one another, we practice gratitude, we receive hope, we share our lives, we have fun, and we worship. I had already led the group in a brief quieting exercise, a minute of box breathing, after which, in the stillness and silence, I affirmed everyone in their identity in Christ. Christ by methodically reading through the "Who I Am in Christ" list, changing the verbiage to "you are," like, "you are accepted in Christ," "you are free forever from condemnation," "you are forgiven and redeemed of all your sins," etc. I did that to affirm their individual identity in Christ, but I did this at Celebrate Freedom We exercise to foster our community identity. As a group and as members of the group. The whole focus at Celebrate Freedom has been on A) Appreciation, practicing quiet and practicing quieting to develop the ability to calm ourselves in the face of adversity and to quote-unquote return to joy by focusing on the things that are true about us and the good things we are thankful for, thus building emotional resilience. And B) Beliefs, we focus on our thinking, renewing our mind with the truth drawn from God's Word and who we are in Christ. Our beliefs drive our emotions, and when we think about who we are in Christ, we can replace negative thoughts with life-giving ones. And then finally, we focus on C, community. We form, quote unquote, joy bonds with one another. We're happy to see one another as we come together to support one another in our walks of faith in the presence of God. Thus, we also commune with God as we increase our love and joy bonds with him. So last night we affirmed who we are at Celebrate Freedom as people, uh, have— as people who have come together. Let's see, as we have— well, like, let's see. Yeah, I'm messing up here. As people who have come to As, as a people, we have come together and shared our struggles with one another, but we have also shared our victories. And last night, the Lord saw fit to move things in his sovereign timing so the group could experience a dramatic victory filled with joy together. If you didn't know, other than being a faithful servant of his local church and to celebrate freedom, Scott Salvador was also named the mullet champion of 2022. Yesterday we were all hoping and praying for good news as Scott had recently, had recently been campaigning to be the first ever back-to-back mullet champion. And we started last night's meeting waiting for the results to be announced. As the Lord would have it, Scott was doing his check-in at Celebrate Freedom when his cell phone rang and he got the news that the results of the 2023 mullet championship were in. The group waited with breathless anticipation as Scott played the video announcing the results on his phone, and we exploded with joy as we realized that the third and second place contestants were named and they were not Scott, meaning that as Jared Allen finally announced that Scott Salvador was the 2023 mullet champion. As Celebrate Freedom We share our victories, and the Lord blessed us all with this triumphant moment for Scott and how we— he would once again use it as a platform to encourage others to follow Jesus Christ. My journey of faith on the path of Christian discipleship has taken me places I've never dreamed of going and meeting amazing men and women of faith. And last night, the Lord showed his favor once again to those who make their purpose in life to give Him glory. So keep walking and talking with God. When you put your faith in Jesus and follow Him with the way you live your life, you can experience what true freedom and victory means. And in the fellowship of the saints, you can share the joy. Today's Bible verse comes to us from the Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Cruis. This morning's meditation verses come from the section on bitterness. Resentment and Hate. Um, today's verse that we're sharing is Genesis 37:4 from the NIV. The word of God says, when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Today's verses fall under the fifth point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on bitterness, resentment, and hate. Um, to— and that fifth point is Joseph's brothers allowed bitterness to grow into hatred and murder in the heart. Our resource actually lists all of Genesis 37 to illustrate this point, but for brevity's sake, we cherry-picked the verse that— today's verse that exposes the root of bitterness that led to Joseph's calamities. Today's verse points out how jealousy can drive even members of the same family to hate one another. And Joseph's story highlights how one can suffer because of the bitterness of others. My wife Tammy Lynn and I, uh, I are currently reading, uh, through Joseph's story, which runs from chapter 37 to chapter 50, uh, the end of Genesis. And even though I have read through and been moved by Joseph's life journey several times, I was still shocked and appalled at how Joseph's brothers' hatred was so sharp they could actually— that you were actually thankful he was only sold into slavery. Remembering Cain and Abel and maybe Lord of the Flies, I could all too easily imagine a sudden outburst of brutal murderous violence in the desert. As it is, the brothers cover up their selling of Joseph by faking his death by pouring a goat's blood over Joseph's multicolored tunic and corporately lying to their father, who's absolutely heartbroken. That's cold, man. You figure at least one of the brothers would be grief-stricken with guilt and let the cat out of the bag, but they don't. However, years later, their secret sin still weighs heavy on their hearts as they rationalize their bad circumstances as just punishment for what they did years ago when a disguised Joseph threatens to imprison them for spying in Egypt. Luckily, Joseph is a faithful man of God and sees God's divine will in the events of his life and sees how his brothers' evil deed was used by the Lord to save countless lives from famine. But let's not count on our bitterness being used by God, uh, by the Lord for good. We don't want to be the one whose evil was used for good. Instead, humble yourself before the Lord, forgive others as you have been forgiven, and let go of any bitterness that could grow into hate. As always, I invite all to go to mtforchrist.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. Today we continue sharing from A.W. Pink's The Holy Spirit And, uh, it's, uh, we're sharing from chapter 31 on the Spirit endowing. And, um, today's section is on the gift of discernment. And it's a short section, but if you want to read it, it's at the end of today's blog post at mtforchrist.org. And also at the end of that blog post, you'll see an encouragement to join our Victory Over the Darkness, the Bondage Breaker, and Freedom in Christ series of discipleship classes via the M.t. for Christ 247 podcast, and that's on our YouTube channel as well, and the links are there. And if you wanted to take a deeper dive in those classes, you can always email me at M.t. for Christ 247@gmail.com to receive the class materials and share your progress if you felt moved. I'm blessed, I was blessed by the material in those classes. They're based on the Word of God and the work of Dr. Neil Anderson of Freedom in Christ Ministries, and they were transformative in my life. And so I got trained in Leda Community Freedom Ministry in 2021 where I taught those classes, and someone asked me to podcast it and I did, and they're still out there for you to listen to or to, you know, watch and listen to on YouTube, although they are just audio recordings. So, a word of caution. However, the material is good and I continue sharing it. One of the people— actually, two of the guys that Celebrate Freedom are now going through the Freedom in Christ course, one of which I've already scheduled a freedom appointment with as part of, you know, basically his growth and maturation in his faith, and it will help me to gain my certification as a Deeper Walk International School of Prayer Ministry graduate. So we'll be a certified prayer minister prayerfully and by the end of December. So we're looking forward to that, and we're looking forward to another day in God's kingdom. Uh, even though it's Thursday and we have to work, we focus on the good. Um, the fact I have a job and it provides for me. And, um, you know, the Lord, the Lord's been with me and guided me to see these amazing things like Scott's victory last night. So we just thank him, and we thank Scott and Debbie for their faithfulness to our ministry, uh, at Starpoint Church, you know. And I thank all the people, um, who, who've been brave enough to come and and be real and get healed and set free by walking with the Lord. So, and it's a work in progress for some people, but it's good. It's not me who does anything. I just, you know, we provide the environment where you can get the support and teaching that'll launch you on a pathway to freedom, and it's amazing to see. And, you know, it's amazing to see, but I have to tell you, you want to keep walking and talking. You know, the reason I say keep walking and talking with God, um, it's because unfortunately I've seen people experience freedom and then stop walking and talking with God, or walk into a bad relationship, or back right back to their sin. Um, you know, our relationship with the Lord is supposed to be forever, so our freedom and victory can be forever. But it requires that we abide with Christ and continue to follow him with the way we live and increasingly do that as we, you know, seek to surrender all the areas of our lives to the Lord and be transformed in all the areas of our lives. So, you know, this pathway of Christian discipleship, you know, it's supposed to be followed continuously. And when you do that, amazing things can happen in your life. So, so we encourage you to do that, and that's why we do the podcast and the blog, because I didn't know this was possible, and I'm pretty sure a lot of other Christians don't really, really believe that God can set you free from the things that, you know, those sins that beset you and those addictions and those problems you have and the way you think and the way you feel. But the Lord's given us a new life, and And we can, uh, we can do it, um, we can live it with his help. Amen. So let's pray. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom. Lord, we thank you so much for the joy and victory we got to share with Scott Salvador last night, and for the joy and victory we experience every day when we keep on walking and talking with you. Lord, we pray for anyone who's listening or reading today's message, that they would be blessed that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, because we know you're faithful. When we draw close to you, you draw even closer to us. So we pray that for our friends who are listening or reading today, and we pray that for ourselves, Lord, because as always, we want you to go before us. Um, we know you're sovereign and in control. We recognize it when good things happen in our lives, and we lean on you when we need your strength. And when— when by not so good things happen in our lives. Um, one way or the other, we want you to go with us. So we pray for you to go before us today, open our eyes to the things you want us to see, and move our steps into the ways that you would have us walk. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, and we love you. And we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.