9/27/09 Sermon - Gulf Coast Worship Center

Sunday morning Mike came down here to the coast and picked me up and took me to church with him (which I desperately needed at the time.) The Gulf Coast Worship Center is a non-denomination charasmatic church and this Sunday was the last Sunday that he was preaching there. God was telling him to plant a church in south Atlanta, and the replacement pastor was coming next week for GCWC.
I kept comparing things to River of Life. I did not mean to, it was just a natural reaction. Granted, we did step in a little late, but the church did not seem to be as warm and inviting. Worship seemed a little forced, by the worship team and by the church as a whole. By saying this I am not criticizing the church there, becuase I have been just as guilty as any of them in the past when it comes to it. I was just making note of noticeable points of the church. The pastor, however, was lit on fire with anointing.
Before the pastor walked up to stage, they played a video interview of Sarah Kelley. I had no idea who she was, but she is a music artist. She gave her testimony and how she was suicidal when younger and previously was a 'cutter'. Their pastor stood up on stage and told the men in the church to listen even though this sermon was not going to be directed to them. He stressed the importance of the message to both the men and women of the church and then started to pull moisturizers and scented beauty supplies out of this decently large box. As he stacked them together he elaborated on the fact that they were 'all the good smelling things' that his wife had did not have room to take with her when she already moved, and that she had taken the best things of hers already. His point with this boiled down to one word: beautiful. It's common sense, or at least should be to men that women want to feel beautiful but its much more deeper than that. The are created with an innate longing to to feel beautiful and it overlaps with being loved and cared about. He talked to the married men telling them that their wives want to be and need to be called beautiful.... not hot, not sexy, not cute.... beautiful.
Men and women try to find significance in things apart from God. It's part of sinful nature, though the things between the sexes vary. According to the pastor there are six things that they find identity in: appearance, house, kids, relationships, career, religion, Christ.
Appearance is self explanatory. Culture teaches and brainwashes that less clothes and more make up will produce and give more attention, BUT no matter what you do (or do not wear) it does not ever change how beautiful you are. My thoughts on it is that beauty is in no way skin deep. With our corrupt culture, women always compare themselves to otherss and always find 'faults' with themselves and attempt to change who they are so they are considered beautiful. The second object on the list is house. If nothing in a woman's house is in order, neither is her life. However, any kind of extreme could point to something. A house is an extension of who she is and once again society stresses the fact that everything involved with it should come first (and as a result sometimes marriages suffer becuase of the time poured into it which causes neglect in the husband/wife relationship. The next object that women find their identity and worth in is her children. Moms blame themselves for their kids mistakes and failures. Their imperfections take away from a mom's value placed on themselves. If a kid burns his hand on the stove, even though the mom has told their child not to touch it, they blame themselves for not seeing it about to happen. A woman who places full identity in her children and not in Christ will cause her to devalue herself because no child is perfect. Fourthly, majority of women tend to gain their identity through relationships. Relationships in a broad term inlcude other female friends, coworkers, etc. This is where gossip circles and cliques can take a brutal hit to someone. In an opposite sex means, relationships can do even more damage. Younger naive girls in relationships with corrupt guys can do a lot of damage mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Even after marriage to a godly man, it is easy for a man to unintentionally neglect his wife to the extent of not giving her all the the praise, attention, and loving care that she needs and deserves. The pastor made this a point for the married men to always tell their wives that they were beautiful (and absolutely mean it.) Even godly men are imperfect and cannot fulfill the full extent of needs as the Father can. Next he followed through with careers and made mention that there is no such thing as a perfect job. Careers will always bring problems and making it your center focus of life is meaningless and pointless. If you allow your career to effect your home life and to take precedence before it, your life will end up wrecked as a result.. Equal to all of the above is religion in and of itself. Religion, as he stated, was the redundant and repetitious cycle of doing things becuase of a checklist. Religion focuses purely on attendence and out-tithing the Jones'; everything about it misses the entire point of Christ. It produces gossip chains, cliques, and 'church.' 'Church' can be condescending becuase not everyone in church is perfect. People in church are working on and refining their lives to be more Christ-like: it is a process. The pastor said, "Do not let imperfect people harm your relationship with a perfect God."
Directly proceeding this he boldly proclaimed, "I have one word to sum up all women in here... and despite some skeptic looks, this will shock you becuase it sums all of you women down to a T. You ready...? " I expected he was going to say beautiful, wouldn't you? Instead he paused for a few seconds and released, "Tired." He mentioned all women in our society are tired, and rightfully so. They are impressed and depressed with all of the weight that is being rolled on top of them about self image and self worth. "So what do we do?" he said. "We look at God's scorecard, not the world's. Completely forget culture."
He continued with three questions we should ask:
1. Who are you listening to?
Who you listen to determines what you do.
He used Psalm 45:10. God is everything that our fathers on earth should be. Women should not settle for a crumb when God wants to give us a cookie. Speaking to the men he said for men to commit to women, and not to play with emotions. Be a man and treat her like a lady and for married men to treat her as you did when you had started dating. Back to speaking to ladies, he told them that they are a daughter of the King and need to dwell on that.
2. What does God think about me?
He used the first part of Pslam 45:11 and Psalm 139:13-17. Enthralled, he said, in Hebrew literally means captivated/spellbound. The same word was used to describe Adam and his feelings towards Eve. He said that "damaged goods", "divorced", etc, are all worldy labels and they have no legitimate value in themselves and that if you allow that label for yourself, then you are not claiming the label of a daughter of the King (i.e. princess.) Any thing that anyone says that is talking down or demeaning you is contradictory to God. A very important thing he also iterated was for ladies to stop asking god to change them and accept who he has made them. "If you only knew how God looks at you, it will change your perspective."
3. Who do I live for?
The pastor asked this question and told everyone to write it down: what woman do you admire most in life and why? I wrote down my mom becuase she wholeheartedly follows God. He then mentioned that noone has written: becuase they are pretty, becuase they have a clean house, becuase their kids are perfect, becuase of how many boyfriends they have, becuase they have perfect careers, etc. He then asked another question, "Why would you spend your life for things you do not even truly admire?" He then went over Pslam 45:11b.
His closing point was to live fore the one who sees your beauty, not for the one who tries to make you what he wants you to be. The Lord sees your true beauty and so are the men that follow him.

The preacher asked his worship leader to sing the beginning of this song that we sang in worship that sang, "I stand in awe of you" and not to sing the part of the chorus that sang, "Our Holy God." He wanted all of the women to sing that, soak it in, and realize that that is how the Father sees them: in awe, enthralled, captived, and spellbound. The worship leader seems to give a slight look of disgust almost and then he disregarded what the pastor wanted and sang the whole thing anyways and seemed to give the pastor an arrogant look after it was over. The pastor walked back and said something to him in passing and then came off stage after it was over. I saw it and realized that dealing with people is not always easy and that I'm fortunate to have the group that we have.

That is onlypart of what I gathered Sunday going to church with Mike but it sure is a lot of information.