(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

It is good to see you here at Valorous Church today.

Come on.

We want to welcome all of those who are online worshiping with us too.

We are progressing on our property.

We're out of our old building.

We're in a temporary building.

Come on.

About six weeks we're gonna be moving over into the foyer of that building over here behind us.

And then hopefully in a few months we'll be moving into the arena.

Come on, church, give God a hand clap.

And we are here today as we have been doing for the past 20 or 30 minutes.

We are praising God and giving Him thanksgiving for all He has done in and through His church.

Man, I am so proud of His people.

They have been numerous people over the last several weeks that have pretty well, some of them working around the clock to make this happen today and prepare an environment for God to come and move into our hearts and do mighty and great things.

And so, man, I want to give all of those who have volunteered, given their time, energy, and resources, come on, let's give them a hand clap.

But also, you know what I want to do today to honor and praise our great God who has provided for us all the way along the journey, who's gonna continue to provide for us doing great and mighty things.

Would you give Him a hand clap of praise today?

Would you just go ahead and stand to your feet, come on, and give God a hand clap of praise in this place today.

Give God a hand clap of praise, your creator a hand clap of praise.

Thank you.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

You can have your seat.

And again, you know, this is a genesis in the life of Valorous church.

This is a new chapter.

This is a fresh beginning.

This is the first day of worship as a church family on this 60 acre piece of land that God has provided for us.

And we're grateful for that.

Again, we're not in our final building yet.

And again, we're gonna keep improving this environment every single week as we begin to put energy into this.

Again, children's facilities next door.

If you have children and wanna get those in the facilities next door.

And again, we're just honored and grateful that you're here on this first weekend.

And as we kind of kick off this first weekend and we praise God and we give Him thanksgiving and we celebrate, one of the things we wanna do is lay some foundation for what God wants to do in our hearts.

And again, you know, God wants to do a work in your heart.

He wants to do a work in your spirit.

He wants to begin to make some shifts and changes in your life.

And I cannot think of a better opportunity in the life of what God is doing of when a church is transitioning like we're transitioning now.

And so maybe on your journey, you've kind of gotten off track or, you know, maybe you have kind of gone the wrong way.

Today would be a day to begin to let the seed of God's word get into your heart.

And as that seed gets in your heart, if you would just over the next few minutes, soften your heart and let it begin to take root, then God can begin to produce something amazing out of your life.

But my friend, it is the condition of your heart.

And so if your heart is calloused, if it's hard because of something that's going on in your life, I want you today, just for the next few minutes, to soften it up and see if God wants to do a mighty work in you.

Because the real reason that God has brought us here is truly for a revival.

And I'm not just talking about a revival where we get together in a tent.

If that's what God wants to do, we'll do that here at Valorous Church.

We'll be here around the clock, seven days a week, however God wants to do it.

Come on, we'll do it.

But I'm talking about He wants to revive something in you, in us, and do a mighty work.

And so let's lay some foundation today as we turn in our Bible to God's Word, to John chapter one.

And we're gonna read about 18 verses there, John one, one through 18.

And we're gonna begin to lay some foundation for God to revive us, for God to do a mighty work in us.

And really how you begin to have faith or how you begin to put your trust in the God who created you can really begin to shape where God has taken you to.

So let's read out of John chapter one, and then we'll begin to lay this foundation.

The Bible says this, in the beginning, in the Genesis.

Everybody say beginning.

Beginning.

Today would be a great time for God to begin a new work in you.

In the beginning, the Bible says, the Word already existed.

The Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He existed in the beginning with God.

So here, the Word of God gives the Word a pronoun, and it's a he.

It says he existed in the beginning with God, and God created everything through him, the Word.

And nothing was created except through him.

The Word gave life.

Everybody say life.

Life.

So the Word, this he, gave life to everything that was created, and then his life brought light.

Everybody say light.

Light.

His life brought light through him.

It says, and nothing was created, the Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light, so that everyone may believe because of his testimony.

John himself was not the light.

He wasn't the light.

He was simply a witness to tell about the light that had come into the world.

The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, to everyone was coming into the world.

He came into the very world he created, but the world didn't recognize him.

He came to his own people, the Hebrew people, and even they rejected him.

But to all who believe him and accept him, he gave the right to become children of God.

They are reborn.

They are born again, we may say.

They are reborn, not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.

So the Word, it says, he became human, he made his home among us, and he was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.

And the writer says, we have seen his glory, his weightiness, and the glory of the Father's one and only Son.

John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds back in the day.

This is the one I was talking about when I said, someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, and he existed long before me.

In abundance, we have all received one gracious blessing after another.

For the law was given through Moses, but God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ.

The Bible says no one has ever seen God, but the unique one who is God himself is near to the Father's heart.

He has revealed God to us.

So here, the Bible teaches us that God put on skin.

He became a human, we know him as Jesus.

He put on flesh, and the reason he came was to reveal our creator, our great God, to us.

It says he comes as a revelation of God to human beings so human beings can begin to understand who God is, and then God can begin to teach them who they are.

We might say that God became human in a body named Jesus so that we may know him and step in to all he has created us to be.

In other words, Jesus came so human beings could be revived, so they could be made new, so they could have a new start, a new beginning, so they could begin to understand why they are even here on the planet.

You know, darkness has a way to take you off the right path.

Darkness has a way to begin to overshadow why you are here.

Darkness has a way to begin to snuff out God's purpose and plan for your life.

But the Bible says that there is a light that is coming to the world to shine in the hearts of people so people can come alive again in their spirit and begin to move forward with all God has in place for them.

So this word gives you physical life, and then this word becomes human, known as Jesus, and then when Jesus comes, it's to give light so you can begin to see, so you can begin to walk, so you can begin to move forward with who God has designed you to be.

My friend, Jesus came to revive you and help you come, become everything he has designed you to be.

And it's important that if we're gonna be revived, we see what God wants us to see about himself.

We begin to know some things about who God is, and this passage has some great reminders in it so we can see who God is and our spirits can be revived.

And so I invite you today to let God revive you, to let God make you new again, to let God begin to plant a seed of purpose in your life.

What a great opportunity.

You know, God may have brought you here through a sign, through an invite, because it's new, we're moving from one location to another, but whatever atmosphere got you here, whatever sign got you here, whatever person got you here, in reality, it was God working through that person to put you in a seat, to plant a seed of hope, a seed of life in you again.

It's to begin to give you a sense of walking forward again, moving forward with your life again.

God don't want you to be stuck in the dark.

See, darkness has a way to stalemate us, doesn't it?

I mean, you know, I've gotten up in the dark and I don't move very fast in the dark, because if I start trying to move forward in the dark, chances are there's gonna be something on the floor that's gonna trip me and make me fall down.

And so I've learned, you know, as the older I get, I shuffle my feet in the dark.

Come on, somebody.

Amen.

Because my wife may have left something in the floor.

And if I get up in the middle of the night and it's dark, I may trip over it, fall, and you know, and hurt myself.

Understand what Jesus did.

Jesus came so you don't have to walk in the dark.

Amen.

Jesus came so you can move forward.

He came to illuminate the path of life just enough so you can begin to move forward.

And as you begin to move forward with your spirit and with your life, God will begin to illuminate more and more about what he wants to do in and through you.

He wants to revive you.

He wants to renew you.

He wants to transform you.

He wants to do amazing things in you.

He don't only wanna save you, he wants to transform you, use you, and work through you.

Come on, somebody.

So this passage teaches us a few things about God, the God who wants to revive us.

Number one, I wrote it down this way.

God has a plan.

Look at your neighbor and say, it's hot in here.

Now look at your other neighbor and say, but it's not hot as hell.

Go ahead and tell them that.

Go ahead and tell them that.

God's got a plan.

Go ahead and tell them that.

Just so you know, we have a plan too.

And right behind that cloth on the side of this tent is a big old honking air conditioner.

And we could cut it on and put the sidewalls on this tent.

But the reality of it is it's so loud, you can't even hear it.

But the reality of it is it's so loud, you can't hear what's being said.

So we gotta adjust our plan.

And I just tell you all that to let you know that we're striving to create an environment for God to do a mighty work in your life.

Come on.

And so I invite you back and bring some people with you because we got more chairs we can put on the side of this tent.

And we can see what God wants to do in their life too.

But the reality of it is, is God does have a plan.

And not only for us as a church, he has a plan for your life.

And I want you to look back at John chapter one and listen to what this says.

It says in the beginning, it says in verse three, God created everything through Jesus, through him.

And nothing was created except through him, nothing.

The word Jesus gave life.

He gave life to everything that was created by God.

And his life, not only then his life, when he came and he was a human life, it brought light to everyone.

That's a phenomenal thing to begin to grasp with your heart.

The creator breathed life into you, physical life into you.

But then he put on skin and became like one of us, became a human being.

So he could shine light into your spirit and make you alive again in who God has made you to be.

And so he gave life, he gave physical life, but he also gives spiritual life to all of those who would believe and trust what he did when he became a human and came into this earth.

He did it to shine light in our hearts and do amazing things.

And the reason God did this is simply because he's a God who loves to create.

And when he creates, he loves to engage with what he created.

See, his plan involves us.

God has a plan and it does involve us.

And it has involved us ever since the creation story that we know in Genesis chapter one, the Bible says that God planned to commune with human beings and begin to work in the life of human beings and then work through the lives of human beings.

God loves to create and he loves his inhabitants to create for his glory.

In other words, he loves from the beginning to create human beings.

And human beings, the Bible says, was created in his likeness.

And our purpose here on earth was simply to manage what he has created, govern it, magnify him, bring glory to his name, and in the process, multiply who he is around the world.

You may wanna write that down in your phones or in your notebook.

God created human beings to manage all he created.

And then he created us as we manage it to magnify him as God in this earth and multiply his name throughout the earth, his glory, the weight of who he is, the majesty of who he is.

And God created us and when he created us, he created us in his image so we could also be creators.

This is why it's so important to be a part of God's work.

It's simply because whenever you're a part of God's work, you're doing what you're designed to do.

You're becoming a part of what he originally created you to man or woman to be and do.

I love what Colossians 3 verse 23 says.

It says, work willingly.

Everybody say willingly.

Willingly.

At whatever you do.

As though you were working for the Lord rather than people.

You know, when you work for people, sometimes you'll become tired and weary.

But when you'll begin to work out of who the creator says you are and you work for his glory and his namesake, willingly, then what happens is revival begins to happen in your life and in your spirit.

It begins to take root and you begin to sense God with you and God working in you and God working through you.

God has designed human beings to work in and work through.

I love what Genesis 2 reveals to us about human beings and God created us to be creators.

In other words, I've said it this way before, God's created us to be atmosphere architects.

What is an atmosphere architect?

It's designing an atmosphere for God's presence to reside with us so that he is known to everything around us.

In other words, it's simply magnifying the Lord through our gifts and our talents as they come together because Christ has made us alive by shining his light into our life.

And what God wants you to know about him and what God wants you to know about yourself is God is a creator, he has a plan, and he desires for you to create in that plan.

Be an atmosphere architect.

Look what it says in Genesis 2, verse 15, before the fall of man.

It says the Lord, when he created the man, he placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it, to manage it, to begin to govern it, to be a part of what God created, to be his image bearer in the middle of that garden.

The Bible goes on in Genesis 2, verses 19 and 20, it says, so the Lord God, he formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky, and he brought them to the man.

So God created them, then he brought them to the man to see what he would call them.

He gave the man an assignment.

I created the wild animals and the birds, and I'm bringing them to you to be a part of the story so you can create too.

And he says the man began to name, the man began to name the animals, and the man chose a name for each one of them.

In other words, they began to participate and create and do what God had designed them to do.

And the Bible says he gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the sky and all the wild animals, but still, as the man was doing this, there was still no helper just right for him.

So the man was doing what he was designed to do, and God says the man needs a helpmate, and so he created a woman, and now together, the man and the woman are to operate in the creativity that God has given them, and they are to work as a unit, and they're to simply do this.

They're to magnify God, and as they magnify God and bring his glory into this earth, they are to multiply, and they are to produce the goodness of God in this earth, and they're to create, they're to be atmosphere architects, they're to be people who begin to bring God in the light of Christ that shines in our hearts and our life and into the world so other people can know who he is.

This is what it means to magnify God.

In other words, we blow God up, and we do it in such a way where it begins to show his glory off to everything around us.

This is what I love about this new venue in this 60 Acres.

It's a place for us to magnify the Lord.

It's a place for us to be a city on a hill and not hide the light of Christ under a basket, but show the world that God is at work in us and God is at work through us, and God may be glorified, come on.

The reason we're doing all that we do here is to glorify God, to make him known to the nations, to begin to magnify his power, his wisdom, his heart, his unfailing love, his grace, his mercy, who he is to the world around us because that light has been revealed to many of us.

And my friend, when the light is revealed to your spirit, then the spirit of the living God moves in, and he begins to coach your spirit as your spirit comes alive, and he begins to transform you and grow you into something magnificent.

And so God has truly created you to be a creative genius.

For his glory.

Some people say, you know what?

I don't have the ability to create anything.

I can tell you right now, yes, you do.

Because God has given you the gift, the exact gift you need to put it together with what he's doing in the world through the local church.

And together, we can take those gifts and create atmospheres for the glory of the Lord to the world around us.

My friend, God has a plan, but you have to get on board with his plan.

His ways are higher than your ways.

His ways are higher than my ways.

And what we have to learn to do is come underneath his authority, let that light of Christ shine in our heart and begin to get on board with his plan.

And I do think the church, the ones who have been caught out of darkness into the wonderful light, should be the most creative people on the planet.

In other words, because we have been shown the image, the image of our creator, we have been shown his power, his glory.

And now what we're designed to do is to create environments for the rest of creation to know who he is.

It's what we're designed for.

God called you out of darkness into the wonderful light so you could get on board with his plan.

Let revival start in your heart today by getting on board with his plan.

The second thing I wrote down about this passage of scripture is this, is I'm gonna have revival start in my heart after, remember, God has not given up on us.

God hasn't given up on you, God hasn't given up on me, and God hasn't given up on us.

It's an amazing journey because sometimes it feels like God may have given up on me because something has come into my life and created a shadow, created darkness, created a veil.

But the Bible says that Jesus came so we can begin to move forward, and Jesus came to reveal to us that God hasn't given up on us.

Listen to what the Bible says here in John chapter one, verses 12 through 14.

It says, all who believe that he is who he says he is, who believe him and accept him, he gets the right to become children of God.

They are reborn, not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or a plan, but a birth that comes from God.

Goes on to say there in verse 14, the word became human and he made his home among us, and he was full of unfailing love and of faith.

And in some translations may say full of grace and full of truth.

But the point here is he came so we would realize, you know what, though we had been expelled from God's presence, God's presence hasn't been expelled from us.

In other words, God is bigger than your sin.

God is bigger than any darkness the enemy creates.

God is bigger than any of those things.

And the enemy's tactic in your life is to create darkness so you begin to believe that there is no future and there is no hope and there is no plan.

But the moment, you know what, you realize that God has a plan and God hasn't given up on you and he came from heaven to earth so you could have a relationship with you, then everything begins to change.

I love how the writer who wrote the Church of Ephesus phrases this in Ephesians chapter two verses one through five.

He says, once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins, you were in darkness.

You used to live in sin just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil.

The Bible goes on to say, the commander of the powers in the unseen world.

He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.

All of us used to live that way, following the passion and desires and inclinations of our sinful nature.

But by our very nature, we are subject to God's anger, just like everyone else.

But God, but God, the one with a plan, the one who put on flesh, the one who became human, the one who gave you life, the one that come in a human form to reveal light to your spirit.

The Bible says he is so rich in his mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life.

When he raised Christ from the dead, it is only by God's grace that you've been saved.

My friends, that is a beautiful passage of scripture.

Though you are maybe or once you were maybe stuck in darkness, remember, God came in human form as light.

He brought light into the darkness.

Light into humanity stuck in not understanding why they are designed to be here.

And when you believe in him and you know who he is and you understand he is the perfect one and he is God in the flesh and he came in human form and gave his life on a cross and gave his life in the face of death, the cross, sin, and he defeated all that by his amazing power to shine light, to illuminate a new path to you, everything begins to change.

My friend, I spoke with someone not too long ago.

And they said that for some time, though they were physically here and they walked around and they were among people everywhere every day, they felt like a ghost that no one saw them, that no one even understood they existed, that they didn't really begin to have, they said that they didn't have really any purpose because as they interacted with people, it just felt like that they were empty and they were in the dark and there was no purpose in life.

And they said that all of a sudden, they cried out to God and said, God, would you reveal and revive me?

And all of a sudden, this person had an encounter with a person that came into their life and began to share about who God is with them again and begin to shine the light of Christ into the heart and prayed over that person.

And that person's spirit was renewed again and it came alive again in Christ.

And then they began to move forward with a sense of purpose and a sense of destiny again.

See, that's how the enemy works.

I need you to know, he'll come and overshadow your spirit and he'll begin to try to hide the light of who God is and who God is saying you are.

And he'll begin to make you feel lonely.

He'll begin to make you feel like a ghost, that you're just kind of walking around and nobody even understands you exist anymore because maybe you're looking for your existence in what people say instead of who God is and what he says.

And my friend, I wanna invite you, if that is you, to cry out to God because God will show up and begin to shine the light of Christ in your heart and make your dead spirit come alive.

Because literally what this passage is saying is we were once all in a place of darkness and not really understanding our purpose and our destiny and fulfilling it and walking in it.

But it was because of God's unmerited favor that he chose to put on skin and come into this earth and reveal the light of Christ to our heart so we could put faith in him and begin to move forward.

It is only by his grace that we are saved.

It's only because God chose to step into your dead situation and my dead situation.

It is only because God is who he is and his name deserves to be magnified because he will not leave you in the dark.

He will not leave you in that lonely place.

He sees you right where you are.

He has not forgotten you.

The world may have forgotten you.

Somebody may have forgotten your name, but God has not given up on you.

And he showed it through Jesus.

And then the last thing I wrote down about this passage of scripture is not only is he a God with a plan, a God who doesn't leave you or forsake you or forget who you are, but he's also a God who prevails.

He's a God who wins and he's a God who prevails.

And my friend, when you get this in your spirit, that he is bigger than death itself because he resurrected from a grave and he is bigger than your sin, he is bigger than your problem, he is bigger than the mind games that the enemy is playing with you, he is bigger than all of that stuff.

He prevails.

In other words, what that literally means is God succeeds.

God conquers, God overcomes.

And if you want a revival to happen in your life, you want a revival to happen in your church's life, you want a revival to happen in your city, you want a revival to happen in your family, in your neighborhood, then you gotta understand God's got a plan and God doesn't give up on you and God always prevails.

So Jesus reveals that God has the power to make all things new in spite of the darkness and what the enemy has caused.

I love what John 1, verse five says.

It says, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Do you get what that says?

God came into the darkness in the form of a human and the enemy, no darkness can extinguish the light that began to shine on that very time when God came into the world.

But so many people are letting the darkness overshadow their life and what we gotta do is we gotta trust that God succeeds in all dark situation.

He is the light of the world.

He is the one that begins to never abandon us or forsake us.

He is the one that begins to revive our spirit so we can become new, so we can do the great things in life.

I love what Proverbs 11, verse 25 says.

It says, the generous will prosper.

And those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.

So that means when I'm participating, my spirit is participating with who God has created me to be.

And I'm refreshing those around me, I'll be refreshed too.

This is why it's so important for you to get involved with God's family and God's church and what God's doing on the earth.

And again, it would be great if you were a part of Valorous Church.

But if you're not from here, I invite you to get involved with the work that God's doing in this world because as you're refreshing others and doing the work that God created you to do, not grudgingly but willfully, what God begins to do is refresh you in the process.

That's why it's important for you to be generous with the good gifts that God's placed in you because it's where real refreshing and real revival comes from.

It's me and you deciding, you know what?

Today is the day that I'm no longer gonna let darkness win out because Jesus has come, showed me light.

Light has come into the darkness, light has come into the world and I'm gonna accept, I'm gonna believe, I'm gonna march forward, I'm gonna prevail because he prevails because he's gonna come again.

My friend, don't get stuck in the dark.

Don't get stuck in your sin.

Don't get stuck in the worldly view of things.

Don't get stuck in just what you see.

The Bible invites us to be people who live by faith and faith in the Son of God, faith in who Jesus is.

And the invitation we're given today is simply this, let's start a revival.

Let's start a revival in our own lives because God speaks into our heart, plants this good seed and as he revives us, he's gonna revive others and more and more things are gonna happen for God's glory.

So the question is, is will you receive what God's placing in you right now?

Will you let him make your spirit come alive and do great things?

It is because of Jesus, it's the reason we can keep moving forward and do what he's designed us to do, so let me pray for you today.

God, today, we realize you prevail.

We realize you have a plan and we realize that you include us in that plan and you're not giving up on us.

Jesus, thank you for creating us.

Thank you for creating environments for us to flow in.

Thank you for creating environments for us to work in.

And God, we pray today that you would make our spirits come alive by shining the light of Christ in our hearts.

And as our spirits come alive, Holy Spirit, would you come in.

May our hearts become a tent for you to reside in.

May a revival start inside of us today.

May we not just be statues on a seat.

May we see the work of Christ in our heart and in our life.

May we see that he came to snuff out darkness and win.

God, today, if there's a person in here today that hasn't believed or trusted, may they submit their spirit to you and may you make them come alive.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.