problems from Jesus directly. So Lord Jesus, we ask again that uh what you have for us tonight, what you have for this house, for Sigma Hill Christian Center, what you have for the individuals, Father God, that make your church here in this area, that the Holy Spirit will go directly to you, Lord Jesus, and bring to us what we need tonight. We submit ourselves, Father God. I submit myself to you, Father God, to be now a voice, Father God, for the Holy Spirit to speak what you would want your church to hear. I just pray that you will grant us ears to hear, that you would give us a heart to understand, Father God, and the ability to apply what the Holy Spirit speaks to us tonight. In Jesus name, we agree. Father, we say, "Amen." Amen. Praise God. Hallelujah. You can tell I got a little bit too excited this morning. And My voice is kind of wanting. Praise God. That's always good. Anyway, um I'm going to start with the scripture. Second Peter chapter 1:es 3 and 4 is what we finish with this morning. And then uh we read there that according or as his divine power, God through Jesus has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. Then he tells us what that knowledge brings about. es by which this knowledge have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these promises the knowledge or the understanding of these promises that through this you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. So basically by putting things into context we believe that God has already given to us and and I don't want to get too theological but you know uh I think it's 2 Thessalonians 5 says that your whole spirit your whole soul and your whole body may be kept blameless until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. But our spirit is what is born again. The minute that we confess that we're sinners. See, the word of God says that the soul that sinnth it shall surely die. So in June 2nd, 1976, without me knowing or understanding all of these things, when I walked up to the altar with my wife and then um I repented of my sins, basically God declared me dead right then and there. I have to die. See, you cannot go to the court of God and say that you're a sinner and live because God's word cannot be revoked. God's word said the soul that sinned to surely die. So when I confess my sin and admitted that I was s a sinner immediately the judgment of God was brought upon me. I was declared God the judgment of God said he's dead. The reason why I didn't die there is because Jesus, you see, Jesus provided my death in the cross. He satisfied the divine uh uh uh requirements of God. Jesus is my substitute. I think Paul writes in Corinthians when he says that he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. In other words, when I went forward and and and my wife went forward, we died. As far as God is concerned, we die. The life that now I now live, like Paul says, I live by the power of the risen son of God. In other words, God in in my spirit gave me life. He took Jesus's all of my sins that have been placed in on Jesus on the cross. He took his death on the cross as full payment for my sins. And immediately God, that's why it says that we're baptized by one spirit into one body. Baptized means to be put under. Uh it's like taking a drop of water and dropping it on the Pacific Ocean. As soon as that drop goes into the ocean, you can't tell where it's at. It becomes part of the whole ocean. My spirit was baptized into the Holy Spirit. And when that happens immediately, your spirit is alive to God. All of the promises of God are now in me in my spirit in seed form. You see, because uh we need to understand that even though salvation is immediate and and and um uh and your names are immediately written in heaven and there's rejoicing in heaven, the minute that a sinner repents, the manifestation of that salvation in us and through us takes a while. You know, one of the odd things because when I I was saved, I was radically transformed. I I mean, I I use this analogy a lot. It was just like somehow God just took the half of my skull up and he reached in there, took my brain and turn it around and put it back in and then put my skull back. It was like, "Oh, wow. Now things, you know, I begin to understand and see things uh uh from a different perspective. That's what what salvation was to me. It was like I was turned around completely, but everything that was in there was in seed form. I went home and I look in the mirror and I look the same. How that's the same me but I don't feel like me anymore. You see there was a transformation. It it it is called born again. Means your spirit all of a sudden now becomes alive. Your spirit now becomes uh uh into the things of God. It was a hunger for anything that had to do with the word of God because it had been starved all these years separated from God. Now, we need to understand that all of that, all of these great and praiseful promises over here that we were just reading, we have to apply knowledge to it. How do you know that God just doesn't all of a sudden uh uh uh gives you all of the wisdom and all of the understanding and and all of the things? One of the things you find out when you get born again that you still make the same stupid mistakes sometimes over and over again. Except this time now you have a spiritual understanding. This time now you're aware. This time now you say, you know what, this is not working for me. You know, when you're in the world, it didn't matter. This is your life. That's what you went with. But now that you're born again, you have a different perspective, a different understanding of what sin is or what sin does of of of of decisions and stuff like that. So then knowledge becomes something that is very much needed. Like I quoted this morning in Hosea, I think it's 6:4, he says that my people perish for lack of knowledge. And I think it was Proverbs um maybe 9:11, the last part. I don't remember for sure but it says that uh it is through knowledge the last part of the verse that the righteous or the just is delivered. So we need to understand there is a requirement now for us not only to study the word but to begin to put what the Bible calls spiritual principles to work. And the reason why I I I um harp so much this morning in the principle of the power of words is because that is the foundation. You see the foundation is everything that is going to be challenging you like uh uh the very first words of Satan Quarter on the Bible. Did God really say? Every challenge that you're going to have whether is sicknesses, whether it's family problems, whether it's business or work related, whatever challenge you have in your life has one root cause and that is Satan challenging the veracity of the word of God or of the promises of God to you. You see, it's going to come to this to where you're going to be faced and having to make a decision. Did God really say? Because that's what Satan is challenging. He's not, you know, God is a God of the person. That's why I love him so much. God can be so awesome and so great. But God is into people. God never invest in big buildings or big program. God, everything that God does has an individual at the center of it. Which is the reason why so many churches fail today. They can build great things, but the individual's needs are not met. God is into people. If you can come face to face to God, you will find out that God is into people. One person to God is a lot more important than a million. There can be a thousand people here tonight and there be one person there with a great need. And God's eyes focus on that person. He said, "That's the sheep that's lost. That's the one that I need to get. That's the one that and that's what God is." But Satan is not like that. Satan is like communism. Everything is is for the the system his system of of destruction. So he will always come to you to the point of of your knee and challenge the veracity of the word of God or of the promises of God in your life. Guess what? And God for the purpose of training us in in in the ways of faith because without faith it is impossible to please God. We are going to be faced with challenges that we're not going to pass until we cross that line and we make the decision and dare to believe what God says in spite of all of the circumstances. Abraham had to do that. Moses had to do that. Every person of faith that you read about in the Bible had to do that. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews 11 talks about some of them never received the promises while they were here. The Bible said they were not the world was not good enough for them. So we need to understand that that is going to be the challenge. Uh God brought the Israelites out of Egypt,