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God wants to use every believer as a vessel for His glory. Your usefulness isn't determined by perfection but by preparation—cleansing yourself through God's Word and righteous living. Scriptures: 2 Timothy 2:20-26, Matthew 22:14, Ephesians 4:22-24, 1 Corinthians 15:55, Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 17:22, Matthew 9:37-38, Hebrews 4:12
We are a local Church in Orange County California who are passionate to witness lives being renewed in Christ, strengthened through discipleship, and to thrive in the fullness of living for Christ.
Get connected to us by visiting www.c3oc.com or emailing us at hello@c3oc.com
Hi, thanks for tuning in to this Week's message at C3OC. We hope that it blesses you, equips you, and fills you with faith. Let's dive in. This week we had Stephen Burgess, who is part of the executive and Global team for C3, and he gave us an update on some of the different regions. I just want to Let you know, C3 is an international movement, and there is around 700 churches that are meeting right now around the world. We're not just lone out there in the middle of nowhere. No, we have a family. There is a tribe. It is growing. He gave us an update throughout the nation of Africa of the growth that has been happening there. And I can't specifically remember all of the countries that it has been advanced. C3 has been advancing within. But I want to tell you that God is upon C3. There is an advance of the kingdom and there is life in his house. Amen. It's great to have members of one of our C3 churches in Canada here today. Can we welcome them here? Yeah, you guys are awesome. They're down here on a holiday. And I'll tell you, this Orange county is a place people want a holiday in. We live in paradise, people. I'll tell you that. And they have a baby Jew. When's your baby Jew? June May. Oh, my gosh. A little baby girl that is coming along the way. Shower them with love and encouragement today. And let's come around the word. And I think it's actually, this was not planned, but we're going to kick off a new series today and a collection of messages called Vessels. And we're going to be focusing on preparing ourselves to be a vessel that carries God's glory, that carries his purpose, that carries mission, that carries his mercy, that carries his peace. Because God's plan for us is to be the advancers of the kingdom. In the Bible, it says, lift up your eyes, see that the harvest is ripe, and pray for the laborers. For the laborers are few. And I think that's a very sad scripture that saddens my heart that even in the context of the harvest is ripe, just lift up your eyes and see all the goodness of the work of the kingdom that needs to be done. But, man, the workers are few. The laborers are few. And as soon as we start praying a prayer like this, you know, because he goes on and he says, pray for the laborers. So pray for them. Pray for them. As soon as we start praying for the laborers, there is a quick response from God that says, guess what? Buddy, you're the laborer in my kingdom. It's time to go forth. And this is the exciting work of the kingdom. And as disciples that we are called to carry out, so we're going to be focusing in on being made into a vessel that is used for God's purposes. This first week is going to be based around, is everyone awake? Is everyone alive? It's good. I'll preach shorter if you are louder. I promise you that. If not, I'm just going to do teaching. I'm just going to sit here and I'm going to go now. Now, in the Greek means okay, you know, the church is alive. I'm telling you, it's okay to laugh. You know, Proverbs says, laughter is medicine. It's medicine for the soul. It's good to laugh even at my terrible dad jokes. But I don't think it's just by random occasion that on Super Bowl. So here's a dad joke. Super Bowl Sunday, we're going to talk about being a vessel for God. And today is, you know, all about a couple of teams bashing each other up and seeing who has the most points at the end. And I just gotta say, coming from Australia, you guys wear too many pads. You don't need the helmets. I'm telling you. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I just lost half the room. You're like, I'm 20 years an American, okay? I'm sworn in. I've got red, white and blue in my blood. But I think it's an important matter for us. The prophetic word that I feel like has been given to us as a church this year is the word equip. And if we are to be an equipped people, we need to be a formed people. We need to be a people who know how to empty ourselves and be filled up with God's purpose, with his vision for our lives so that we can pour out what he has for Orange County. Pour out upon your household what he has for your household. Pour out upon your business or your workplace, upon those who live next door to you. Pour out what God has for them. Because God plants in you a tree that produces fruit that is for others to experience. I've never seen a tree eat its own fruit. Think about it. I've never seen a tree go, oh, my gosh, this orange looks delightful. I'm just gonna eat it. No, the fruit is for the experience of those that are around the orchard, for the people who come in. And I'm telling you, you might deny it. For yourself, you might say, oh, I'm just this and this and I've just gone through this and I'm not good enough for this. I'm telling you, God has fruit in your life. That other need. There is a light that is burning within you to be out of you so that you can live as a witness for God in this world. I'm telling you, there is one answer for this world, one answer for everything that is seemingly incurable. And it is Jesus. The blood of Jesus is not weak. And I think sometimes we just get this place, oh, you know, I've got Jesus, but Jesus ain't enough. So I need to now continue on in this area. This is the way that I am going to see change in this area. And it's taking outside our faith, outside of Christ. I'm telling you, Christ's blood is not weak. It is powerful. It is still living today. It is still available today. It is still fresh today. And for us to actually understand that, we need to not only be recipients of salvation, but be those who prepare ourselves to be workers in his kingdom. Amen. We're going to be focusing on 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 2, verse 20, 21. And if you got your Bibles, and hey, I want to encourage each and every one of us. I know we've got digital Bibles and some of you know the Bible off by heart back to front, and that's awesome. And you can recall it in your mind. But can I encourage you to get a. A hardcover Bible, like a hard copy? Do you know what the good thing this is? The battery does not run out on this. When I open this up and I'm reading it, it doesn't go, ding, here's a bill from the irs. And then all of a sudden you're stressed. Ding, here's a message from so and so. No, it doesn't have any of that. So I'm just encouraging you get a Bible. I like this one. And I'm just going to be very practical to you. This is a new Bible. That's why there's no writing in it. Okay, before you judge me, I like this one is the old Pentecostal charismatic saying, that is clean Bible, dirty Christian, dirty Bible, clean Christian. Okay, so in here you'll see there's wide margins. Get something with margins so you can start writing. Scribble what God is showing you in his word circle and underline. Let it be living in your life and meditate upon it. I'm just telling you, get something that's paper and put Pen to it. Amen. Okay, 2 Timothy 220, 21. Hurry up, Joe. We're going to get through this in awesome time because you guys are going to be so loud. Okay, so 2 Timothy 2, 2021. It says now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood, clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy and useful to the master of the house. Ready for every good work. We're going to center around this theme today. How to be useful to God. How can we be made into a people who are useful to God? This is about preparation, about preparing ourselves for what God wants to pour out upon his people. I don't want to get to the end of my life, and I don't think anyone here wants to get to the end of our life and feel like. And actually understand that we were not as useful as we could have been. That there was potential that was not pursued. Whether it was because we were so focused on all of these other things, whether it's because we thought so lowly of ourself and forgot the identity that Christ has given you, that we traded for a lower life than what God has called us to live. I'm telling you, you are useful in the kingdom of God. There is no disqualification. There is nothing that you have done within your past that takes you away from being an honor vessel. And I don't want to get to the end of my life and think that there was all of this opportunity that I could have been prepared in something into something that God could have used powerfully. And even in the sense of me being a pastor, I am still being formed to this day. I will not relent or put myself to the side of the potter's wheel. I want to be surrendered at all times, saying, God, prepare me. Prepare me for more. Keep widening the vessel that I have. Keep widening the capacity within me that I would have peace from God and not peace from my own understanding. Because we can certainly live our lives. And I've said this over and over, we subscribe the spiritual gifts as spiritual only activity that when a prophecy happens and it doesn't feel spiritual, it's kind of made up, it comes from somewhere else. Something goes off within you. Like, oh, that feels weird. When a healing happens, it can only come because it was a spiritual gift. But then we kind of push the spiritual fruit to the side and we say that the Spiritual fruit of the spirit is more character traits. I'm not a joyful person. My response is good. For the fruit of joy comes from the spirit and not from us. I'm not a patient person. Good. Surrender it to God, man. Let him form and shape that patience. For it's not by your own strength, it's not by your own might, but by his spirit, says the Lord. So we kind of put this out and then we might run to our self help sides and we go, oh, if I could just. And like I've said in the past, I'm not against you organizing your life and getting it all structured out. But I'm telling you, the spirit empowers you to live a life that is worthwhile and useful to God. And so I want us to be a prepared people. How many people have had the dream that they've, I don't know, had to make a speech at their workplace? I can tell you, I have had so many dreams where all of a sudden I'm standing here and I have no message to preach. And like an unprepared moment. And it is scary how many people have been in unprepared moments before where we just thought, I'm going to set aside the time. But you don't and you get distracted or whatever else. And then all of a sudden it's midnight the night before and you're like, oh my gosh, what's going to happen? It's a scary feeling to be unprepared. It's a scary feeling to be kind of. I have not adhered myself to these things. And what, what Paul is writing out here is a preparation plan for you and I that we would be used. There is no one. And let me just be clear on this. There is no one who cannot be used by God. For those who will say, I submit and surrender myself, cleanse me. I will cleanse myself alongside. Amen. We're going to walk through this scripture. It's not really going to be point 1, 2, 3, and you know, bish bosh, bash, let's get out of here. No, this is going to be. We're going to walk through each of these moments within the scripture and begin to unpack it. Are you ready? So he opens up and he says, now, in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use and some for dishonorable. Paul starts with our identity before he starts with the responsibility. You are a part of a great house. And in a great house There are vessels of various kinds that are put all through. Some are made of gold, some are made of silver, some are made of wood, some are made of clay. But the greatest thing here is that the house that you are in is a good house. It is a house that believes and encourages. No matter if you say, I'm just a clay vessel that looks at you and says, you are supposed to be in the great house where the Master sees you, where the Master cleans you, where the Master fills you and you are used for his purposes. The house of God is great. It's not a broken house, it's not a failing house, it's not a weak house because it is built from the cornerstone of Jesus himself. That matters. Because Paul is not critiquing the house. He's not saying that because of the dishonorable ones within the house, that it is a critique against the house. No, because a great house sees the potential in every vessel, sees the potential in every life. It's one of my favorite things to do, is to meet with people and speak to the potential that God has given them. And they go, oh, but you don't know my story. And I say, well, you don't know Jesus's story then. You don't know the redemption story. You don't know the regeneration that happens within the soul from the past. The redeeming nature of what once killed you is now bringing life to others. I love looking at the vessels and being like man. God wants to use you so badly. He wants a vessel to fill. He says, my eyes search to and fro across the earth, looking for a heart that is purely after me. Oh, man, I want him to stop over C3OC. It's one of my deepest prayers to say. I found a house whose people, their hearts are after me. They are after my face. They want to know me. They want to know my heart. They don't just want to know my hands. His hand is good. His hand will prosper you. His hand will heal you. But man relationship with Christ will instill identity in your world that is unshakeable. All of those little mystery past adventures that come up in your mind and start haunting you in the middle of the night, you begin speaking against them. Because Jesus has called you to be different and he's called you to be a part of a great house. And I love it. Because no vessel is left alone. The vessels are together. An isolated vessel off to the side. It goes missing, it goes unused. But when the vessels are gathered together, God can do so Much in the Great House when the vessels are together. A vessel, by definition is something made to carry something else. I guess we all knew that, right? A vessel, by definition, is something that will carry something else. It doesn't carry itself. It's not supposed to carry itself. It's not supposed to cave in on itself. It's meant to carry something that is of value. Paul didn't struggle, or people don't struggle with being vessels, but we struggle with what we're willing to carry. And that is the point of what I would call repentance. And we're going to talk more on this next week. But I think a lot of us, man, some of you will not like me for saying this. Some of us are more full of ourselves than we think. Some of us are more full of ourselves than we'd like to admit because we think pride is only reserved for arrogance. Oh, yeah, look at me. I'm the man. And you're all like, oh, that's that arrogant guy, the jock in every move. I don't know. You know the character of arrogance. We all know and can see and hear that kind of character. But it's also the ones who would think so lowly of themselves that God cannot use you. That's called pride because you're relying upon your own strength, your own personality, your own story that I am not good enough. You have been championed by Christ because he carried the cross for you. There is no disqualification from the kingdom for those who are willing to say, use me as your vessel. I will follow your ways. I lay down my life and I submit and surrender. So we got to understand, what are we willing to carry? Are we ready to empty ourselves of ourselves and say, I need God to fill every facet of my life? You can be present in the house. You can be serving in this house, you could be attending in this house, and still not usable by the Master. You can be present and still not prepared. I think that's one of the scariest things. I think that's one of my great reverent fears in life, is that I would stand at the end and Paul would say, I end my life. I have poured everything out. There is nothing left. I have squeezed every drop out of the life that God has given me. I'm telling you, the defining factor of the Great House is that it sees potential in every vessel. But there is a responsibility on the vessel side to actually say, yes, I lay down my own preference. I empty myself. Repentance is not just saying sorry. It's actually saying, I Will make a change. I commit to making a change. I will turn away from who I used to be and start running down the road who Jesus is calling me to be. Amen. He goes on and he says, there are gold, there are silver, there are wood, and there are clay vessels. I love it. Once again, a great house has a various array of vessels. It has the gold, it has the silver, it has the wood and it has the clay. And this is kind of a misunderstanding in this passage that Paul is not using this illustration to say there are various worths within the house. He is saying there are various kinds of vessels that are around the house. He's not saying gold is the better Christian. He's not saying the clay is the worst Christian. Okay, have we got that understanding? If this were about material value, then this passage would contradict the gospel because all of us were made from dust. All of us were made from dust. Usefulness to the Master in this illustration has nothing to do with the material you're made of. It has everything to do with our cleanliness. It has everything to do with our consecration to God and saying, less of me and more of you, Father. That I would take what Ephesians says, where it says, I take off the old or Corinthians as well. I take off the old and I put on the new self. And I start to live in a way. I'm telling you, when you start to live in that way, it's kind of like you live in the dishwasher. You get out there and all of a sudden there's this automatic cleaning. I repent. Every morning I would pray, I come to God. Fill me with strength. Cleanse me. I am your child. Let me follow you, Father. And we find ourselves just being cleansed and ready for use. But this is not about the material that we are made of. This illustration is about function. Not worth. The gold chalice or the golden bowl or the silver goblet that is filled with poison is still unusable. The clay cup filled with clean water still saves the life. Nothing is disregarded because of its look, its material. We were meeting in our forge men's group. Our forge tables meet on Fridays, the first three Fridays of the month. And actually tables has. Has relaunched. If you've yet to get connected with the table, I encourage you at the end of the service, you can text tables to the church number and we'll get you LinkedIn and connected. But we were meeting there and Gary Feldman gave me such a great illustration. He's sitting here. So I have to give him else I would have said, I had this story that came to my mind. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. There was this one time when I was. No. And so Gary brought up a story where he was serving a mission and they were having to feed around about a thousand people. So he turned up and it was a little bit of chaos and disorganized, and they had to make coleslaw for a thousand people. That's a lot of cabbage. That's a lot of shredding. It's a lot of work. And they did not have a container that was big enough to store it and to mix it all up. I said, you know what Gary Feldman did? This is what I'm saying, be careful when you're eating at the Feldman's house. But I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He went and he got a trash can. And he spent the next hour cleaning and sanitizing this trash can, washing it, hot water pouring in, getting down in the edges and cleaning it all out so that it was now a sanitized vessel. All of a sudden, pour all the coleslaw in there. They start mixing it up. No one got sick. Isn't that awesome? Because he had cleaned out the vessel. And we can look at trash cans and spend our life going, that's for trash. And maybe you yourself look at yourself and say, all the trash I've accepted in life. Let me tell you something. I was a drug addict, a dirty covered drug addict with depression and depravity in my life. How does God use this kind of trash can to preach the good news of the gospel to people who in Orange County? I'm telling you, it's not the material you're made of. It's not the life or the choices that you might have made to drag you down. It's what you begin to clean yourself with. And I'm telling you, God will use any vessel that says, I put myself aside to you, father, that you would clean me, that you would cleanse me, and that I would adhere to your ways. I think that's a beautiful story. And some of you might be telling yourself, I'm just a trash can. Maybe it's people around you, man. I'll tell you, how many times have I had people reach out from my past and say, you do that now you're just a trash can. You need to get around people in the great house. There are relationships you should cut off in life. There are relationships that you need to say sayonara to. He may be hot she may be hot, but hell is hotter. That's an old Pentecostal thing. It's an old Pentecostal thing too. But he wears blue jeans and a white singlet. I'm telling you, there are relationships that you need to cut off because they're dead. They have no part of what is living. And so if people are around you, if you are still labeling yourself a trash can, I don't care if it was yesterday that you were making decisions that you say, I'm throwing trash at me. Today is the opportunity to say, God, I put it down on the street. Jesus comes along with his dump truck, trash truck, whatever it's called in America, still very Australian, the dump truck. And he comes over and he lifts it up and he dumps it out. He puts it back down. And then we're left with a vessel that now needs to be cleaned. That's called discipleship. I want to tell you something because it says, cleanse yourself. Cleanse yourself. Cleanse. This is not about self salvation. Salvation is a gift that is freely given to you and I. You are cloaked so that you have standing in front of your Father. You are what is called cloaked with Christ that you would stand before your Father. But your usefulness is dependent on your submission to God's word, on your submission and surrender to his will for your life. And that can sound a little curious at times. God's will for my life. Now there are unique callings for your life. There are unique giftings that God has given you. There's only one of you, for goodness sake. You don't need to be like anyone else. If you're a clay pot, don't be a silver pot. He's made you that way for a reason. And we can get so pulled apart trying to be something else when God has designed you uniquely. But there is also a base call for each and every one of us to live. And you will find it right here. You will find his vision for your life right here. You will find his purpose for your life right here. He says, cleanse yourself. Here's a interpretation of this passage in the esv. It says, from what is dishonorable. It's actually better translated to be, and cleanse yourself from these. Cleanse yourself from these. This is where you have to look at the context of the scripture that Paul is preaching. And so if you go back and you look up, just go north. A couple of scriptures. He's speaking to Timothy and he is saying, hey, listen, there's a couple of guys who are Bringing false doctrine into the church. There's a couple of people who are preaching falsities and leading people astray. And this isn't just, you know, theologies that are like, hey, it's okay to have drunken orgies as a Christian. It's not wild based, you know, theology all the way out there. There is also doctrines that will lead you astray from truth down to places which will discourage your faith. Might sound good at first, might feel really good at first, but it's not a pathway to truth. And I'm telling you, the best way to get good doctrine in your life is to read. Read His Word. This is not dead pages. These are living pages. This is a living word that when you begin to say, hey, God, can you speak to me through your Word, I don't want to read this like Harry Potter. I don't want to read this like Lord of the Rings or some kind of leadership book. No, no, no. I want to read this as your living word. Too many people would complain to me. I don't hear God's voice anymore. Do you read His Word? Because this is his voice. This is his voice still speaking today to you and I. And it will clear up doctrine in your life. And then you get around to people, vessels who have that and they can pour into you real truth, real meaning. We will not stray from the truth of the Word in this house. We stand firmly upon this. And so we have to also ensure that at the beginning of cleanliness, and I'll get into this in just a moment, that at the beginning of cleanliness, we have to understand what, where are we drinking from? What sources are we putting within our cup? Are they good sources? Are these just TikTok faces and a nice tickling of the ears because it sounds good. And it was 32 seconds and it was a snapshot. And now I'm basing my life on this or it's forming a doctrine within my life. What does the Word say? What does the Word really say about this? That we would take the full counsel of God and not just impartiality, just a little section that would suit our needs out of context. Amen. This is where he goes on and he says, therefore, if anyone cleanses himself. And I get back to the point, anyone. I'm adamant about this because people disqualify themselves so many times, oh, I won't come to church. I need to clean up my life first. That is the worst decision you can make. I need to clean up my life on my own accord. And then I Can come and present myself to God. Listen, God is in the cleaning business. He's the best cleaner that's out there. He says, I will take all of your stains and wash you white as snow. He's the bleacher of bleachers. He's the Mr. White of Mr. Clean. Mr. Clean of Mr. Clean. He can take any situation and clean it up. He's Mary Poppins, but way, way better. Okay, terrible. But this is the gospel continued, this is the gospel continuing in our lives. That you would say, you know what? Anyone that means me, anyone can be cleaned. Anyone that says, I cleanse my life from what is old and I step into what is new. God is not looking for perfection. He is looking for those who are surrendered to say, oh, God, please, I lay down my life for this cause, that I will be used for your purposes. For some of us, like I said before, you need to stop thinking that just because you used to live a trashy life, just because your life was filled with so much that is thrown out, so much that you think disavows you from God's presence that cuts you off from his grace. Some of you need to stop thinking that way and say, I might be a trash can. I still think I'm a trash can. And I'm happy to be a trash can. I like the redemption of a trash can. Love it. Fill me up with coleslaw so I can feed people. I'm telling you, like, God can use any situation, even the ones that sting in your life. Most of you would know I was sexually abused as a kid. I held hatred in my heart for so long. Bitterness that put a film of old smelly stuff within my life, within the vessel of who I was. Bitterness and hatred and anger and frustration and a low self esteem, A hatred of self and a hatred of people. And it was a stinky occasion. You know what happens is that there's nothing that's able to be poured into that. He's saying, you need to clean yourself. You need to say, I forgive this person. Which is what I did through nine months of heaviness. Of heaviness trying to forgive this person. And then all of a sudden I felt a. And I sat down with them and I was able to say, I hold nothing against you. And still to this day, I have no dreams in my mind. I have no bad will towards that person. I'm telling you, God's power will redeem any situation. I still have the memory of it. But the sting of death is go. And now I can't tell you, I didn't talk about until I was 32 years old, 31 years old. And I can't tell you how many people that even just as a testimony, people have been touched by that story and led through moments of healing. You have a story that is powerful and it's a shining light for other people to walk through. Amen. So how do we cleanse ourselves? Because he says, you know, we need to now, therefore, if anyone, anyone would cleanse themselves. How do I do that? What's the process? Well, he actually lays it out in verses 22 to 26. He says this. So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. That's. Other people in the great house have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth that is the opponents. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him. Do his will. He gives us four. Five is the one I talked about before, but four very clear points here. He says, flee youthful passions, flee youthful anger, flee youthful lust, flee youthful passions that are driving and building up within us, and start adhering our lives to mature pursuits. He doesn't just say flee. He tells you where to run when you're fleeing. Flee from those youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. If you really want to chase those things, you've got to surround yourself with people that have a pure heart, that have a cleansed vessel, man. They will encourage you in the hardest of days. They will lift you up in prayer. They'll make you laugh, too. I said before, some of us just need to laugh more. Some of us just need to understand, like, the joy of the Lord is your strength. Oh, Peter. Yeah, but you don't understand what we're going through right now. Just laugh. Let the Holy Spirit start to fill you up. Drink from that. And I've got to be serious to get through this laugh. I know it sounds light. It's like, oh, come on. I think it's a very holy attribute. I think it's an attribute that says, I trust God enough to enjoy this moment because I know the outcome is going to be incredible. He goes on and he says, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know, they breed quarrels. I mean, do I have to spell this out? Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies, for you know that they breed quarrels, man, so many people are fishing for your comments, your attention, your peace, your joy. They're fishing for it, man. They want to just take it out and they got the bait that's going so that you can just live a quarrelsome life over meaningless things. Do you know what the word fool actually is in the original? It's called moros. Do you know what word we get from that moron? I'm not kidding. He's saying, have nothing to do with moronic and ignorant controversies. Stop breeding up the quarrel. Stop fighting. Start bringing truth into every occasion. That does not mean tolerate the world, doesn't mean that. It's just saying, man, bring peace into every occasion. Number four says, be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. Man, be kind to everyone, Be kind to those who are around you, even your opponents, correcting them with gentleness. The reason he says be able to teach is because he wants you to know his word and he wants you to know false doctrine. I spoke on that before. The fifth is the hidden one, which is not being ignorant of these, these teachers that are out there that are preaching a false doctrine. We want to be cleansed from bad theology. We have to be open to the correction of half truths that we might have grabbed onto in our life, of the false use of scripture and be turned to the full truth, to the full counsel of God. I see my friend Melanie here today, and she was in an interview recently and the lady said something that is a half truth, which is, God won't give you more than you can handle. It is actually not a biblical principle. It's a nice bumper sticker, as she said, but she corrected in that interview. That little moment. If he only gives us what we could handle, how would we see his manifest strength in our life? He applies a grace to us to be able to handle things that are in our life. How many times I've been in a place, I cannot handle this. It's the turning back to God saying, oh, but he can. For the Bible does say, you and I will experience tribulation. We will experience hardships, we will experience people opposing what we believe. So we, some of we just need to hand over our sensitivity to God and say, God, equip me, fill me with your strength that I would stand strong. Amen. Here is the promise. Here is the promise that we receive when we apply the word of the Lord to our lives. This promise, he doesn't say he might be a vessel. He doesn't say he could be a vessel. He could be a carrier of my peace. He could be a carrier of my purpose. You could. You might. No, he says he will be a vessel. That's a promise. That if you cleanse yourself, you will be a vessel for his glory. That you will be a vessel that carries his purpose. Man, you want true meaning in life? Stop trying to make the most money in this world and start trying to be filled with the most of God in your world. All of those other things, they will come. Seek first the kingdom, and all these other things will be added to you. But, man, that you would say, nothing will pollute this cup that I am. Cleanse me. I lay down my life. I lay down my opinion, and I submit and surrender to you. You will be a vessel not because of the material you're made of, not because of talent, not because of visibility or charisma or personality, but because of cleansing, because of cleaning. God is not asking for perfection. He's asking for preparation. Let's all stand here today. That happens. You are set apart as holies. Holy doesn't mean untouched by the world. It means untouched by compromise. Means that you would say, I am out here and I live. I don't live in the bubble, but man, I bring the kingdom to where I go. I don't step out of it. And he says at the end, and he closes with this, he says, and you will be ready for every good work. Ready for every good work. You'll be ready. You'll be available, and you will be usable. You'll be ready when pain shows up, when darkness presses in, when chains need keys, when people are trapped and don't know how to get free. You'll bring healing into diseased areas. You will carry light into dark places. You will be salt in decaying spaces. You will pour out hope where despair has settled. And I'm telling you, you will discover a unshakable identity, the one you've been searching for, the one you thought existed on the license that life has given you. It's a new identity that is poured into you that you would subscribe your whole life to. And here's the truth of the gospel. Here is the truth of it all so you don't fall into moralism and just. It's all on my own accord, man. Jesus died so that you would be filled with the Holy Spirit and Empowered to live a life that he has laid out for us. He is a good God. He does not leave you alone. But he is searching for people who will say I am choosable, make me chooseable in Matthew 22. For many are called but fewer chosen. And it can sound like you know, the schoolyard pick your team moment, you know, and for many a call. But just the few are chosen and feel like the guy is left last. But what it actually means is it says for many are called but few are choosable, few are choice. We are granted the opportunity to become a choosable person for God's will. That is so exciting. That is so exciting that we would be a people that say, man, I don't just want to live a life where I've been called by Christ and I'm called a Christian. No, I want to be chosen as a disciple and a witness and a testimony and a light and salt to this world. We get to make that decision. We get to say I surrender and I submit. Dear God, I thank you for your word. I thank you that it is living and active. It is sharper than a double edged sword, able to discern between the soul and spirit. I thank you Father that truth would reside where the soul has tried to plant lies, where emotions have depicted something different in our life. I pray we hand over the script writing to you that you are the rider of our purpose and not our past. I thank you Father that no matter what kind of vessel we think we are, you can use it. No matter the choices we have made, no matter what we've filled our life with, you can clean and cleanse a heart that says, I am yours. So here today, Father, we say, I am yours. Just tell him here today, I am yours, Father. I am yours, Father. Say today, teach me to cleanse myself. Teach me to pray. Clean me before. Use me. I thank you Father that you would empower me with your spirit. In Jesus name, Amen. Hey, thanks for tuning in. There's a bunch of different ways that we connect throughout the week, including Sunday mornings and we would love to see you there. You can check out all the details@c3oc.com.