Skip to content Church Hurt: How to Heal Secret Wounds and Silent Cries || Pastor Diego Mesa Mar 23 · 51 min ...more
Church Hurt: How to Heal Secret Wounds and Silent Cries || Pastor Diego Mesa
March 23, 2025 · 51 min
Series Patria Sermons March 23, 2025 · 51 min · Patria Sermons
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492K followers
Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
492K followers
0:01 I I know those 2 little rug rats back there that were in that picture. Praise God. How many of you, grandparents love your grandbabies?0:15 Didn't sound too convincing, but I'll just accept that because I'm in a good mood today, but praise God. What a privilege to be with you today. I was sharing with our 4 o'clock prayer group0:27 that it's it's been 5 years since I preached the Saturday night service. So this is pretty exciting because we shut it we shut down Saturday service during COVID, and that was0:39 March of 20 20. And so here we are in March of 20 25. It's been 5 years since I preached. I've I've been I've been here in attendance when when pastor Adam0:51 has preached. And so these are often you you live long enough, you get very sentimental because you've been around a long time. So you've got a lot of things to reflect upon. And today, it1:02 will inevitably be 1 of those. Pastor Adam came to me a couple well, probably about a month ago, and he said, dad, there's a series that you did1:14 many, many years ago. I'm wondering if you would bring it back 2 and remake it. And the reality is there's only 2 people in this church that ever heard that series. My1:26 wife Cindy and my mom. Everyone else has never heard this series. So the reality was the first service that we had in our home 31 years ago1:38 had 30 people, but the majority of them were my family. How many of you know when you have a big gathering, your family shows up? The second week is really where the church launched, and those were the original 12 people1:50 that showed up. At that second week is when I launched this series that we are gonna preach on. It it back then, I preached for 55 minutes an hour back then.2:02 It was 4 weeks. So I preached 4 hours on on this particular subject. And I'm not telling you yet, it's behind me, what I'm gonna be sharing, but I'm just so grateful that our2:14 beloved pastor challenged me and asked me to bring this before you. Because it's the essence of what founded this church. And again, we we we don't2:26 as a younger generation, even my age, don't appreciate history. We don't value history. Back in the day, you had people that had occupations. They were called2:37 historians, and they recorded everything to tell the next generation. Actually, the Bible says that. Do not remove the ancient landmarks.2:48 Right. And so they would stack 12 stones so that hundreds of years later they would travel and say, are those 12 stones represent? Those 12 stones represent that God delivered us from this Red Sea, and when we got to3:00 the other side, we placed these 12 stones here as a marker to remember the God that delivered us from Egypt. Don't We removed all the ancient landmarks. And so when you look around and see3:12 this 14000 member church and all that it does, you've gotta say, how did that happen? Especially for you that have not been around a long time or younger generation. 1 of3:24 the pivotal points is what I'm about ready to preach. It's about what what I'm about ready to preach is is what God entrusted to us and a lot of people came3:36 during that period of time because not not for the series, but because of the anointing of the presence of God or how God used us with this message that brought a lot of healing to3:48 the body of Christ. So that that's why I'm giving a little bit of 4 1 1 on that right now. And so, father, I thank you for the next few moments. I'm really, really excited, God. And3:59 so I just pray that you talk to your people today, and we honor you in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. We're gonna read a little bit. So let's stand on our feet. Let's stand on our feet in Genesis4:11 21. We're gonna read a story that's gonna launch the principal character of the story that you and I are gonna relate to. In early in the morning, Abraham got up,4:22 took bread and a water skin, and put them on Hagar's shoulder. Remember this word Hagar. Hagar is referring to an outcast. She's a stranger.4:35 I don't know if you've ever felt like an outcast. Have you ever felt like a stranger? The word also means to flight. There was a flightiness within her. Okay? So it put wash skin and put4:47 it on Hagar's shoulder and sent her and the boy away. This was her son. She's a single parent raising Ishmael. Single mothers, single4:58 dads. She left and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba. Nothing promised to her. Don't know where she's gonna live. Doesn't know what the future holds. It goes on. When the water in the5:10 skin was gone, she left the boy under the bush. She's exhausted. No more resources. What the man gave her is over with now. Okay? Then it goes5:22 on. And went and sat at a distance about a bow shot away for she said, I can't bear to watch my boy die. Die. While she sat at5:34 a distance, she wept quietly. No. She wept what? Loud. I don't know if you've ever been at a point where you have wept loudly. That's where she's at.5:45 God heard the boy crying. It said she wept, but God heard the boy. Okay? God hears things5:57 that man can't hear. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, this is God, and said to her, what's wrong Hagar? What a silly thing to say.6:10 He's trying to locate her. Talk to me now Hagar. Have a conversation with me. I'm not Abraham. I'm not the man who hurt you. I'm your God, your provider. Talk to me. What's going on? Be real with6:21 me. Don't be afraid for God has heard the boy crying. He's heard the boy crying from the place where he is. Get up. Help the boy up.6:33 Grass his hand for I will make him a great nation. Then God opened her eyes. It was there all the time, but she didn't see it. God opened her eyes and she saw6:45 well. That's symbolic. She started to get well. Amen. Wow. Her eyes were closed. She wasn't well. God opened her eyes and she's gonna get well.6:57 Yes. Amen. So she went and filled the water skin and gave the boy a drink. You may be seated. Today, in the next few weeks, we're launching a7:09 series called secret wounds and silent cries While Hurting People Hurt People. That's what happened 31 years ago. That was the title. But I have a7:20 2 version and a remake. Secret Wounds and Silent Cries, but my remake is to be a healer for, excuse me, to be a healer for Jesus, you must let him heal7:32 you. The in the essence of that message, I said this, that we live in a hurtful and a harmful world. It is a very7:43 lousy excuse me, lousy. It is a lousy sometimes. It's a very noisy it's a very noisy and loud world that we live in that often makes us feel like victims or7:55 casualties to secret wounds and silent cries. And because of that, people often, the result of that is they become untrusting in nature. They become8:07 overly critical. They become angry. They become hostile. They become dysfunctional as individuals because of the secret wounds and the silent cries of8:18 hurting people. Here's what happened to me. I had been in a church for 15 years. I had been full time 9 years. This is what happened more8:30 than 31 years ago. I went to my pastor. I said, I don't understand it. I just feel a call of God on my life. I think I'm called to be a senior pastor, but I submit to your authority.8:42 I don't even know how to do this, and I think it's gonna take about a year for me to figure out how to plan this out. I shared that with innocence. I shared that with purity. They said, we'll pray8:54 about it. Come back tomorrow, and we'll talk about it. When I came back the next day, they put all my stuff that I had had in my desk drawer for 9 years in a box, and they told me go obey God, and if you'd like9:06 to, you could rewrite a letter, and we'll read it to the congregation on Sunday morning, and that was it. That was it. After 15 years, I get the left foot of9:18 fellowship, all my friends are gone, everything I know is gone, 30000 dollars of income that I had to pay, you know, my mortgage with, my took care of my 3 little boys with was9:30 now ripped out of my life. And I I would love to tell you that I I just said, praise the Lord. The Lord is my provider. Jehovah Jireh will No. I was full of animosity. I was full of9:41 bitterness. I was full of angry, and I was full of, if you could get this, hate. Yeah. How could someone put me in this predicament and do that? During that9:53 moment, I was in my car with emotions of secret wounds and silent cries, how hurting people hurt people. And I turned on the radio, and you're gonna hear the song that I10:05 heard that I started to weep as a baby as God began to speak to me.10:22 Have you ever been lied to, maybe mistreated, taken for granted till you just can't stand it? Were you ever10:33 mistaken,11:21 Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys.11:33 That's how it went down. I pulled off the side of the road and I wept like a baby because God was speaking through that song. God told me in that song, have you ever have11:45 you ever been lied to? Yes. Have you ever been mistreated? Yes. Have you ever been taken for granted? Yes. Till you just can't stand it? Yes. Then love takes I don't wanna hear that.11:57 Please be kind. I don't wanna hear that. And God began to minister to me. And so in the second week of the existence of this12:08 church, I broke out with this 4 week series called secret wounds and silent cries. You're gonna see the actual notepad that I still have today on the screen. That's the12:20 notepad that I preached from. Those are my notes 31 years ago. That's my notepad. Let's talk a little bit12:32 about what what we're talking about when we talk about secret wounds and silent cries. All of us have skeletons in our lives. All of us have remorces. We have12:44 shames, failures. We have guilt in our lives. We have embarrassments. We've made mistakes. We have sins. Some of us have been raped and some of us have raped other individuals.12:55 Some people have had abortions. These are skeletons in our lives. We have regrets. We've gone through divorce. We've feel guilty of something. There's wrongs in our lives13:07 and maybe we've committed adultery. We all have these skeletons in our lives that we need to be healed from. They're secret wounds and silent cries. Some of us13:19 have corpses in our lives that have actually killed us. We've been betrayed. We've been abandoned. We've been rejected. We've been backstabbed. We've been lied13:30 upon. We we we all feel sometimes like that corpse where something in me is now dead. It's not alive anymore. A13:42 crime has been done against me. And then sometimes in all of us, we just feel like a dummy. I was really dumb. I was really ignorant, misled, tricked,13:54 defrauded, deceit, lied upon, played played on, and ripped off. But all of us have this in our lives 1 way or another. This corpse in our life, this skeleton in14:06 our lives, or this dummy in our lives. And if we don't allow Jesus, and I'm gonna give you some scripture right now, to poke around and to touch those hurts. Here's what I14:17 know. You could go to heaven, but you will never fulfill the call of God on your life. You will never serve God to your potential, and you will always walk around as a victim and a casualty14:29 until you allow God like Hagar to heal your most secret wound and silent cries. And that's not always easy because we14:41 could sometimes play into that. But here's what the Bible says in in in the book of Psalms. Psalms 34 and verse 18. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He14:52 rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Here's another translation. I love this 1. If your heart is broken, you'll find God right there. If you're kicked15:04 in the gut, he'll help you catch your breath. Look at this other translate other scripture I wanna share with you. He is the healer of the brokenhearted. That's the Bible.15:17 Okay. I have skeletons. I have corpses. I feel like a dummy. Somebody has mistreated me, lied to me. But God says you don't have to stay that way. You can15:29 allow him to heal your brokenhearted. He is the 1 who bandages their wounds. And 1 more translation here says, he heals the broken hearted and he bandages their wounds.15:40 And that's what God wanted to do. There came a point in this church where God allowed me to be wounded and allowed me to be hurt and allowed me15:52 to manifest some of those things with his long sufferingness for a season. Then God says, you know what? I'm bigger than your womb.16:05 And I don't like where this is going. It bleeds. You think it's secret, but it's not secret. You think it's silent, but that's the deception of it. You're bleeding all over the16:16 place. Everyone sees you broken. You just become a functional Christian like a functional alcoholic.16:29 So in after the first year, God says it's time. And I knew what that meant. Because it would bleed out. It bleed out in my thoughts. It bleed out16:41 in my conversations. I couldn't let it go. Bleed out in my marriage. It bleed out in other relationships that I was now very defensive16:53 and protective. Didn't trust nobody no more, was half committed, no longer fully committed like I once was. Nobody's gonna rip me off again. Nobody's gonna17:04 do that to me ever again. I went up to Big Bear 1 year into that happening. Went on a 3 day fast, didn't eat nothing but drank water. And I17:16 cried out to God to deliver me because I recognized, and I'll get to that and land it toward the end, that I was not just dealing with an17:28 emotion. I wasn't just dealing with a feeling. I was dealing with a spirit. And that spirit17:39 wanted me to stay bound. Because if I was bound, I could never be used by God and never reach my potential. And so I went on a fast.17:53 And at the end of the 3 days, God said, you're delivered. And it broke. And it broke. I can't explain everything. All I could tell you, it's in the Bible, and it happened. That's for18:04 sure. And I never had those feelings of hatred anymore toward that person, animosity anymore, or just simply a non caring spirit about them anymore.18:16 Love took time, and I began to be kinder. So much so. You wanna test me? Watch this. 2 years later, I heard that18:28 she was sick. God said, go visit her. Take your young family and go visit her And say thank you for the 15 years and the 9 years.18:44 I ain't gonna do that. Then you would not be here today because this building would not exist and the name Patriot would not be here today. I18:56 promise you, the favor of God would be not beyond this ministry. But I humbled myself and I went there. Because God had healed me and God wanted to test and show me19:07 that he I was healed. That I could stand before this person and not have any ill feelings in me and really bring closure because a19:19 couple years later, she would die. I didn't know that, but God knew that. And he went ahead and he offered me this opportunity to bring closure to a19:31 situation, celebrate it, rather than shoulda, coulda, woulda been living in regret. I don't know if I'm talking to anybody. Let's go over what We're gonna we're gonna19:43 spend the rest of our time here in Psalm 16. So we're gonna go back to the story of Hagar, the stranger, the outcast, and we're gonna talk a little bit about her. But I'm gonna give you this quote from19:55 MLK junior. And this quote that he says is this, as my suffering mounted, I soon realized that there were 2 ways in which I could respond to my situation. Either react20:06 with bitterness or seek or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force, I decided to follow the latter course. There's a20:18 flower. It's called the moon flower. And the moon flower is a white flower that only blooms at nighttime. It does not bloom during the day.20:30 And there's some things that God wants to do in your night season that's beautiful if you're willing to allow him to do that in your life. Even in the20:41 nighttime, you can bloom. At your darkest hour, God can bring forth something beautiful out of that. And I'm a witness of that, and now you will see Hagar is a witness of20:53 that. In Genesis 16 in verse 1, now we go back to the origin. I fast forwarded in the beginning to show you the latter. Let's go back to the beginning. Abram's wife,21:04 Sarai, had not bore him children for him, but she owned an Egyptian slave named Hagar, outcast, stranger, flight. So Sarah said to Abram,21:16 since the Lord has prevented me from bearing children, which was a culture of the time, go to my slave. Perhaps through her, I can I can build a family? And Abraham agreed21:28 what Sarah had said. He didn't fight back at all. Amen. Praise the Lord. Sounds good to me. So Abraham's so Abraham's wife Sarai took Hagar, the21:40 Egyptian. She didn't ask for this. She didn't ask for this. What's about ready to happen? And gave her to her husband Abram as a wife for him.21:52 This happened this happened after Abraham had lived in the land of Canaan 10 years. He slept with Hagar. He slept with her, and she became pregnant.22:04 And when she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became contemptible to her. Now we're gonna see emotions start coming in now, and some wounds are gonna start taking place. Then Sarah said22:16 to Abram, you are responsible for my suffering. Just like a wife blaming the husband. It was your idea, woman, not mine.22:28 But I guess I did have a responsibility too. But anyways, you're responsible for my suffering. Always blaming someone. It's easy to blame someone for where you're at. I22:40 I put my slave in your arms and when she saw that she was pregnant, I became contemptible toward her. Bitter, angry, judgmental. May the22:52 Lord's judge between me and you. So both of them are contemptible toward each other. And Abraham replied to Sarai, here your slave is in your power. Do whatever you want23:04 with her. Then Sarai mistreated, mistreated, secret room, silent cries, mistreated her so much that she ran what? Away. Away.23:16 She booked it like Booker T. I'm out of here. I'm not taking no Jack Diddly from nobody. Okay? The angel of the Lord found her. God23:28 finds you. Yeah. You can run from man. You could try to run from your hurt. God will find you. Oh, yeah. And the angel of the Lord found her by the spring in the wilderness. The spring23:40 on the way to shore, he said, Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? There's a question. Locate yourself. Do you know what's going on in your life, woman?23:52 Do you know what you're feeling right now? Do you know where you're at? Do you know where you're not supposed to be? Locate yourself. She replied, I'm running away from24:04 my mistress, Sarai. Watch this. This is what happened to me. The angel of Lord said, go back to your mistress and submit to her a thought.24:22 The angel of the Lord said to her, watch this. I'm gonna put a caveat here. If you go back and submit to her authority, if you go over there and take your24:34 children to the house and obey me, then I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count. I'm gonna royally bless you for doing this for me.24:49 Then the angel Lord said to her, you you have conceived and will have a son. Watch this. You will con now we're we're back to the beginning now. Okay? You will conceive and remember,25:01 she's she ran away. She's bitter. But he's saying, if you go back, I'm gonna bless you, and you're gonna have a son. She didn't know that. You're gonna have a son.25:13 And you will name him Ishmael. For the Lord heard your cry of affliction. This man will be like a wild donkey. His hand will be against25:25 everyone. And this is where the Arabs come from now. Jews and Arabs come from these 2 boys now. God made a great nation out of them. Okay? Now you gotta understand back25:36 back then we refer to, Arabs, and I'm not trying to be political or anything, as Muslims. Muslims didn't exist then. Muslims only came into25:48 existence 500 years after Christ, 500 years AD. The the these Arabs were believers back then. Okay? So don't think of it as a bad thing. What what26:00 maybe I I said too much. Sorry. Everyone's hand will be against him, but he will settle with his relatives. So she name so she named the Lord so she named the Lord and spoke to26:12 her, you are Elroy. So she said, in this place, I've actually seen the 1 who sees me. We'll stop there. She she named God, the God26:24 who sees me in my affliction, and the God who sees me in my pain. I wanna talk a little bit, and and in the weeks to come, we'll talk about diff different secret wounds and26:35 silent cries, and our preachers will do that all over our campuses. Today, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the secret wound and silent cry with the rest of the time I have of church hurts.26:48 Because Abraham is like the pastor, and Sarah is like the first lady. And Hagar is like the member of the26:59 church. And so today, I'm gonna talk a little bit because that's what happened to me. A church hurt had happened to me. But before you identify with being the27:11 victim, I want you to recognize that the statistics say that 52 percent of pastors have been hurt and harmed by parishioners. Because I recognize after 4 40 years27:23 in ministry full time and 31 years in this church, sheep bite. They may be little lambs that are docile, but man, they got a bite27:35 to them and I've been bit by a lot of them. So before we think that it's one-sided, it's it's double sided. And I I I know people who say I've been to through that27:46 I'm a victim of church hurt, and you've never been a victim of church hurt. You just have been disciplined by the church, and you don't like that you've been disciplined by the church, so you call that church hurt.27:59 I have enough biblical examples for that. Peter could have said, I'm church hurt, when Paul called him out. No, you're not church hurt. You're a hypocrite, and I publicly shamed by the truth of of the hypocrisy you were28:11 doing. And so, he called out Philemon of how he was treating Onesimus. That's not a church hurt. That's speaking truth. That's discipline. Philippians talks about 2 women in Philippi28:22 arguing and God said stop arguing. That's not church hurt. That's discipline. So so many Christians call church hurt the fact that they were disciplined28:35 as church hurt, but that's not that's not church hurt. And we'll describe to that in a few moments. Church hurt is nothing new. The Corinthian church experienced some things. We28:47 there'll be a slide. In in in in the Corinthian church, they were choosing sides. I'm of Apollos. I'm of Cephas. They had sexual sexual immorality in28:58 that church. A son was having sex with his father's wife in the church. They were suing each other. They were judging each other's29:10 diet. They were getting drunk around the communion table. They were misusing spiritual gifts. There was superior spiritual superiority in the church. It's it's existed all of So if you're looking for a perfect29:22 church, don't join it. Because it doesn't exist. And if you join it, it just becomes imperfect because you're there. So let29:34 me talk a little bit about what I've seen in the years that I've been around pastoring, where sometimes some body shaming takes place in the church. Sometimes there's some body29:45 shaming going on where we shame each other in what we do. Some of the church hurts that I've seen in the body of Christ is the abuse the abuse and the29:57 misuse of money and financial integrity within the church. We've got people that are pastors who are fleecing the people for money.30:09 We've got pastors who are not stewarding the finances well. The church is always in debt. There's always some kind of gimmick going on in the church. Sometimes people are30:20 overpaid for what they do. Sometimes there's extremism when it comes to pastors. They get an anniversary offering, a birthday offering, a go to a Vegas offering, a vacation30:32 offering. They got set first offerings, second offerings, third offerings in the church. And all of that can sometimes lead to people having secret wounds and silent cries.30:45 But I recognize some things that have happened that I have seen within the church. 1 time, special offering was taken by a guest speaker,30:58 and he took up a large amount of money. I mean, a large amount of money. People gave to that. And he he quantified it by we're gonna31:10 bless our church. And I want you to give generously. And I want you to give appropriately. And I want you to give by faith. And I want you to know whatever you put in the offering31:21 basket, God is gonna give you a hundredfold return. About 100000 dollars came in that offering. That preacher walked out with a 50000 dollar check.31:34 And I asked the pastors, how could you do that? I was an assistant pastor. They said, well, he worked for it. He earned it. It's the least I could do to honor him and bless him.31:45 Sometimes people become apprehensive about tithing and giving. Here at Patria, we have an annual audit that's done. Here at Patria, we come before the church and we show you31:57 the budget of how much money come that has come in to try to maintain a certain level of financial integrity. The loaning institutions won't loan us any money if we don't have a yearly audit and32:09 pass that audit. So I want you to know that those things take place. The second thing that I've seen is sexual impurity that exists. That is being a player in the church,32:21 using the church as a dating service. I'm talking about members. And the pastor messing around with the women. Nowadays, even beyond32:32 that. It's like mambo number 5 going on, a little bit of Monica, a little bit of Rita, a little bit of Tina going on in my life. I32:47 remember me and pastor Kenny when this church was much more smaller. There was a young man in here and he'd be dating a woman, and then the next month he'd be dating another woman in the church. And the next month he'd32:59 be dating another woman in the church. And we went to him and said, brother, this is not a dating service for you. You are not allowed to date any woman in this church. The next woman that we hear, you will33:11 be expelled from this church because we are shepherds who protect the congregation and what goes on in this church. Now, he could leave this church and say, I was church hurt, but that's the kind of33:22 discipline. We're gonna honor these, our brothers and our sisters. This is not a dating service. People have been married in this church, but they come under the authority of the church. And women come and say, do you33:34 know brother so and so? And brother so and so comes and says, do you know sister so and so? And they they ask us to somehow be involved as an overseer or not to make personal33:45 decisions, but just accountability. Right. Because how do you when a when a dating date 2 people dating in church goes wrong, how do you still stay members in that33:57 church? You don't. Right. Either both leave or 1 stays, and that's not the way it's supposed to be. Amen. So sometimes we've seen34:09 sexual impurity exist within the church. Then there's the misuse of spiritual authority by the leadership. Manipulation, intimidation, domination, control, and34:21 demanding. Or sometimes preachers and deacons and elders and people in authority wanna bully the people around by throwing out their title or throwing out their giftedness or34:32 throwing out their anointing. God says, touch not my anointed. I've been there. And you gotta go to the pastor for permission on this and permission on34:44 that, and he's over overstepping his authority, and he's involved in people's personal matters. I've seen pastors say, don't don't go visit the church. You gotta be here every Sunday. You can't go out to34:56 outside events. Who do you think you are? But it's a controlling nature that exists, and it causes people sometimes to really be hurt35:08 sometimes. Then I've seen false teaching within the church. Totally unscriptural, wrong theology, wrong interpretation with spiritual and35:19 scriptural illiteracy going on within the church. The Bible says study to show yourself approved. So I've seen the hyper grace teaching35:31 in the church where there's no need to repent for anything. I've seen the prosperity extreme that based upon how much money you make shows you your level of faith.35:43 I've seen universalism within the church that everyone is saved. You don't have to accept Jesus Christ, or he just died for everyone, so it doesn't really matter. I've seen work based35:55 salvation. Everyone is basically good. Nobody has to repent and accept Jesus Christ. Relativism, everything is subjective to truth. What is truth? And then not36:06 believing the bible to be the authority in our lives or the denial of hell or judgment. And then I've seen legalism within the church that36:18 has caused hurt and pain within the church. People legalism on that you shouldn't wear makeup or you shouldn't dress a certain way. Legalism about36:30 jewelry or the length of hair. Legalism about wearing Nikes, going to Disneyland, or the Sabbath is Sunday. No.36:42 The Sabbath is Saturday. Legalism that exists. God looks at our heart, the purity of36:54 our lives. And sometimes people could get so legalistic about about certain things that women are not supposed to preach the gospel in the pulpit. You37:07 gotta interpret the scriptures right before you make a statement like that. It's a legalistic spirit that can often come into the church. Legalism.37:21 And then we see preferential treatment that exist. The bible show tells us not to show partially partiality to anyone. But there's preferential treatment when it comes to37:32 love and grace and mercy, where we give our time and the attitude and the actions that we have towards certain people and not to others. We show preferential treatment in where people get to37:44 park. Preferential treatment where people get to sit in the sanctuary based upon their looks, their status, their income, their education, or their race.37:56 I've had celebrities in our lifetime come to this church, ask where they're supposed to sit, where everyone else sits. What are you talking about? I've had political officials say,38:08 I just wanna let you know, I'm coming to your church on Sunday morning. Well, thank you so much. Come. They want preferential treatment.38:22 And so people could get hurt when they see some people are treated 1 way and other people are not treated the other the other way sometimes. And last of all, I've seen38:34 the last 1 I'll go into, times run out, is just not keeping promises. The bible says, let your yay be yay and your nay be nay. Amen. You promise to love me. You promise to give. You38:46 promise to serve. You promise to pray. You promise to live holy. You promise to disciple. You promise to witness. You promise to attend, and you're not doing that, sheep. So it goes backwards and38:57 forwards. So now I'm hurt. Why do I have to do all the promises and you don't? Or vice versa. Or pastors making promises that we're gonna own this, we're gonna buy this,39:09 we're gonna do this with the money, and you never do it. So promises have have often been broken. Back then, a promise was made to me. That promise39:21 was made that you will pastor this church in Pomona. That promise was not kept. That's why I went back and started a church in Pomona.39:36 A promise was made to me that when you become the pastor, we're gonna let you live in our house. We're gonna give you our house. You didn't give me that house. But God raised up Joe Nasser,39:48 who gave me the down payment to buy the house in Fontana where the church would be started. So where man fails you, God will come through. Do not feel disappointed. Promotion40:00 doesn't come from the north, the south, east, and the west. Promotion comes from God. Stop looking to man. So now I end this. Here's my application,40:13 and and here's where I'm gonna end it. It'll be on the screen. Here's the walk away now. Secret wounds and silent cries are never secret or silent. I told you that. Yeah. You manifest. You40:25 bleed out. It's in your attitude. It's in your cynicalism, your judgmentalness. Secret wounds and silent cries alwaysShow more
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