Transcript
00:00.221 --> 00:08.046
And as they would walk by, they would throw the stone and it would serve as a memorial centuries later to Recall the past victories.
00:08.628 --> 00:10.795
There is a power to that, you know.
00:10.835 --> 00:24.819
Every time we give a testimony, we're recalling a past victory, and the Bible says there's a power to our testimony, and so we're going to spend this service Recalling and remembering and building a memorial to God of the past victories we've had in the year 2023.
00:25.079 --> 00:25.240
Amen.
00:26.303 --> 00:28.428
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast.
00:28.668 --> 00:34.963
Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us.
00:35.704 --> 00:40.333
If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at CityLightNYCcom.
00:41.442 --> 00:42.795
That's CityLightNYCcom.
00:44.784 --> 00:51.280
Pastor Boyan Jansic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds.
00:52.643 --> 01:02.429
As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by his grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:05.543 --> 01:07.199
Are you ready for the best year of your lives?
01:08.883 --> 01:10.105
This is what I'm believing for.
01:10.586 --> 01:19.280
I'm believing it for me, my family, for the people who call City Light home, and I want you to believe it for yourself the best year we've ever had.
01:20.083 --> 01:21.007
Let's go to Joshua.
01:22.685 --> 01:25.173
Joshua, chapter 4, verses 1 through 3.
01:25.193 --> 01:27.280
I want to show you a powerful principle from the word of God.
01:28.784 --> 01:49.280
This is after many, many years, various trials and tribulations, after the children of Israel were supernaturally delivered out of Egypt, wandered around in the wilderness for 40 years, highs, lows, temptations, finally crossed over the Jordan into the promised land.
01:49.601 --> 01:52.750
And this is what God instructs them to do.
01:53.801 --> 01:56.529
This means that it's very important to God.
01:58.542 --> 02:04.814
When all the people had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua now choose 12 men, one from each tribe.
02:05.761 --> 02:19.273
Tell them take 12 stones from the very place where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan, carry them out and pile them up at the place where you will camp tonight.
02:20.143 --> 02:21.208
What were these stones?
02:22.331 --> 02:23.280
They were memorial stones.
02:25.024 --> 02:27.670
12 men together, 12 stones.
02:28.171 --> 02:28.953
Throwing a pile.
02:29.701 --> 02:48.126
To anybody would have just looked like a pile of rocks, but to them it would have served as a reminder for them and for future generations, a reminder of the goodness of God, a reminder of past faithfulness, a reminder of past victories, and throughout the scriptures that's a common theme.
02:48.166 --> 02:51.332
The Lord says remember, remember, remember.
02:52.400 --> 02:54.165
Do you know why he says remember so often?
02:54.766 --> 03:04.240
Because we're so prone to forget, and this isn't the first time the children of Israel or a people of God were instructed to do this.
03:04.661 --> 03:14.950
Jacob, when he had that encounter with God at Bethel, he made a monument of stones Over and over again throughout the scriptures after victory.
03:15.733 --> 03:20.270
Sometimes it was one person, sometimes, in this case, it was 12, sometimes it was in the tens of thousands.
03:20.310 --> 03:21.637
Each one was asked to pick up a stone.
03:21.657 --> 03:30.974
Imagine what that looked like and as they would walk by, they would throw the stone and it would serve as a memorial centuries later to recall the past victories.
03:31.561 --> 03:32.987
There is a power to that.
03:33.522 --> 03:33.723
You know.
03:33.763 --> 03:49.240
Every time we give a testimony, we're recalling a past victory, and the Bible says there's a power to our testimony, and so we're going to spend this service recalling and remembering and building a memorial to God of the past victories we've had in the year 2023, amen.
03:50.222 --> 03:54.212
And here's what I'd like to encourage you to do, this is my wife and I we're going to do this as we ring in the new year.
03:54.481 --> 03:56.588
It takes all of ten minutes, but it's very powerful.
03:57.641 --> 04:10.280
Get a piece of paper and just write the months of the calendar year January, february, march, april, may and, next to each month, just put down one victory, the best victory that the Lord gave you in that month.
04:11.282 --> 04:11.823
Think back.
04:12.585 --> 04:24.069
If the year seems like a blur like it does for many of us when you try to think back, and if you don't journal, I found, if you just go through the camera roll of your phone, have you ever done that Like ah, I forgot I even took that trip in February.
04:24.420 --> 04:28.023
Oh, look at that, I was at such and such place.
04:28.123 --> 04:44.011
And then that causes you to remember something great that the Lord did last February, march, and just write that down and thank the Lord for every month and thank the Lord for what he's done, and get yourself ready, because I'm believing that 2024 is going to be our best year ever.
04:44.332 --> 04:46.003
Amen, hallelujah.
04:48.142 --> 04:59.222
So Pastor Mo and Pastor James are going to be helping me today, but I want to kick it off with some of our victories, some of our memorial stones for 2023 and how good the Lord has been to us as a church Number one.
04:59.863 --> 05:17.235
We were able to partner with Yovit Sobaczmanski, a missionary whom we've supported for nearly ten years in Montenegro, to plant an entirely different church in the country of Serbia and under reached nation.
05:17.982 --> 05:20.187
There's plenty of beautiful buildings, church buildings there.
05:20.227 --> 05:35.910
There's plenty of people who will say that they're Christian, but very few Bible believing churches, and if you would interview people on the street, you'd realize that the people who name Jesus as their Lord and Savior is less than 0.01% those who actually would say I'm saved because I put my faith in Christ.
05:36.681 --> 05:38.668
So a lot of religion, very little relationship.
05:39.400 --> 05:44.260
So, thanks to you, $15,000 plus dollars, which goes very far in Serbia, helped launch that church.
05:44.641 --> 05:54.513
Let's put our hands together for that victory and watch this video clip Pastor Yovit sent us from his first service just a few weeks ago when he launched out.
05:56.141 --> 06:00.748
Greetings and blessings from Mavisar Serbia, from Christ Gospel Church.
06:01.309 --> 06:05.775
In a few moments we are going to start our new church meetings.
06:06.581 --> 06:12.452
I just wanted to share this special moment with you, much, much more than Mavisar.
06:14.925 --> 06:16.068
Yeah, put your hands together.
06:17.701 --> 06:18.884
He's an awesome man of God.
06:18.944 --> 06:20.668
He reminds me a lot of the Apostle Paul.
06:20.709 --> 06:26.024
He's tough as nails and in these countries where I'm from, you start preaching the Gospel.
06:26.324 --> 06:30.969
It reminds me of the first century, where the religious people it says they gnashed at the Apostles with their teeth.
06:32.292 --> 06:40.099
We think people are angry in America when you preach the true gospel, when you start irritating that religious spirit Del Del, there's just such a violence that comes out.
06:40.250 --> 06:47.676
But he will not quit, he will not back down and we're trusting for big fruit, great fruit, to come from that ministry.
06:49.190 --> 07:06.097
Number two, as a highlight from 2023, we were able to give $25,000 plus dollars that you raised for Bonnie Andrews and Live Jam, the ministry that he has in reaching college campuses and people who haven't heard the gospel all across the country in college campuses.
07:06.410 --> 07:18.700
Let's put our hand together for that and let's look at this video Bonnie Andrews, I'm here Come on, People that are having any sort of mental health issues.
07:19.370 --> 07:21.177
They don't need drugs, but they need hugs.
07:22.072 --> 07:23.858
Would you hand together for Dr?
07:23.898 --> 07:24.159
Needy.
07:25.570 --> 07:29.838
But even though I focus on the brain, I know that the brain doesn't operate in isolation.
07:30.058 --> 07:40.517
So we still have to think about how we navigate through our lives, all the experiences that we have, how those impact our lives, how those impact our brains, and how our spiritual practices can also impact our brains as well.
07:41.070 --> 07:44.413
Give a warm round of applause for Sheena Quater Paul.
07:44.433 --> 07:45.482
We're painting from up there.
07:46.330 --> 07:52.113
I don't know of any job that films your mistakes, and so a lot of people.
07:52.133 --> 08:04.437
We had to talk about the pressure of making mistakes, because if you make a mistake it's gonna cost you A lot of people run from God, but I'm telling you tonight you need to run too.
08:04.457 --> 08:09.378
God, the only thing that's gonna heal and help their brokenness is Jesus Christ.
08:10.054 --> 08:12.676
Tell me how it won't show, not uncomfortably enough.
08:13.311 --> 08:22.165
This felt like really adjuvantated and inspired and it was really effective in getting the message across of like heading Jesus to be part of your life, god's part of your life.
08:22.631 --> 08:24.380
I'm telling you it's gonna change your life.
08:24.510 --> 08:30.144
So we have the Bible right outside the gospel done for every person in this group, but if you start, we need this book.
08:30.911 --> 08:33.078
I'm telling you, the mental health is gonna shoot.
08:33.570 --> 08:34.432
I like that.
08:34.493 --> 08:37.781
The content was direct and it was responsive.
08:38.150 --> 08:39.777
You wanted to engage in it.
08:39.810 --> 08:42.275
They didn't avoid the gospel, they didn't avoid Jesus.
08:42.330 --> 08:43.576
They looked at real problems.
08:43.910 --> 08:46.215
It was easy to get saved in this meeting.
08:49.262 --> 08:52.176
Amen, amen.
08:52.216 --> 09:00.216
The only thing that we can take to heaven with us is souls, and the most important thing on Jesus' heart is the salvation of new people.
09:01.490 --> 09:03.577
So I want that to be the most important thing on my heart.
09:04.330 --> 09:04.872
I don't wanna tell you.
09:04.912 --> 09:05.515
I'm privileged.
09:05.890 --> 09:12.237
I'm blessed that we have a church that can sow seed and bless ministries in other nations.
09:14.050 --> 09:14.994
Bless ministries here.
09:15.810 --> 09:25.295
Bless a man of God like Bonnie Andrews, who can go around now on college campuses and bring the uncompromised word of God and the gospel of power.
09:27.610 --> 09:30.837
And when I say I'm blessed and I'm privileged is because without you it wouldn't be possible.
09:31.370 --> 09:40.199
I mean, $25,000 is no chump change and we just had him preach here once and we raised nearly 90% of it that first week.
09:40.730 --> 09:42.056
Didn't even, you know, when we raised money.
09:42.170 --> 09:43.175
We don't make a big push.
09:43.290 --> 09:45.514
We just said here's the need, do what the Lord says do.
09:47.453 --> 09:49.940
And it came up right like 90% that first week.
09:50.130 --> 09:52.557
And then I phoned him.
09:52.598 --> 09:53.721
I said it's awesome.
09:53.830 --> 10:00.539
23,000 came in and we were all rejoicing and then somebody said, no, it's gonna be more than 25,000.
10:03.430 --> 10:09.614
Hallelujah, number three a memorial stone I wanna put on that pillar of victories.
10:10.356 --> 10:12.502
This year is our baptisms.
10:12.610 --> 10:16.119
We've baptized over 80 people in 2023.
10:16.220 --> 10:19.458
Amen and baptisms are important.
10:20.970 --> 10:27.016
I personally feel like there's been an intentional diluting of the power of baptism and the doctrine of baptism.
10:27.130 --> 10:31.739
It's now treated kind of as an afterthought, like if you get around to it, get water baptized.
10:31.870 --> 10:33.918
But to Jesus it was so important.
10:34.010 --> 10:35.697
Number one, he modeled it as our example.
10:35.790 --> 10:47.879
Number two, when he gave us the great commission, he mentioned baptism in there Go, preach the gospel, baptizing Amen, and he said those that believe and are baptized.
10:47.990 --> 10:50.178
Baptized when you truly believe in Jesus.
10:50.870 --> 10:51.814
It's the next step.
10:52.490 --> 11:07.458
When you truly give your life to Jesus, you want to do what his word says to do and what his word says to do next, immediately after you believe, is show your faith with a work that you have faith in your heart and demonstrate and be baptized.
11:08.590 --> 11:09.775
So let's take a look at this video.
11:10.850 --> 11:12.357
Congratulations on making it here.
11:12.570 --> 11:15.856
How many of you you felt like something was resisting you to get you just from showing up today?
11:16.290 --> 11:17.756
Yeah, that usually is the case.
11:18.530 --> 11:19.675
The enemy hates baptism.
11:19.990 --> 11:21.356
He does not want you getting baptized.
11:21.630 --> 11:23.658
It's solidifying your relationship with Jesus.
11:23.850 --> 11:25.757
It's solidifying the decision that you've made.
11:26.550 --> 11:29.600
I just want to encourage you to prepare your heart for what's going to happen.
11:29.710 --> 11:30.694
I want you to forget about.
11:30.714 --> 11:31.217
This is key.
11:31.350 --> 11:36.019
Forget about every other person who want to immortalize this moment.
11:36.070 --> 11:40.416
Just be thinking of one thing on your way to getting baptized, there's going to be people praying for you.
11:40.790 --> 11:42.617
I'll meet with you and ask you five questions.
11:43.010 --> 11:45.677
Do you believe that Jesus Christ was born in the Virgin Mary?
11:46.370 --> 11:47.504
I want you to just be thinking about Jesus.
11:48.010 --> 11:49.941
Do you believe that he walked this earth in every skin?
11:50.510 --> 11:53.267
Do you believe that he died of a claw and what he accomplished for you?
11:53.691 --> 11:55.998
And you just surrender your whole life.
11:56.893 --> 11:58.261
And that he's coming back in power, and glory for you.
11:59.951 --> 12:01.457
You wonder, what should I be thinking about?
12:01.851 --> 12:04.339
To render trust and let go, heal and surrender.
12:04.990 --> 12:05.733
In Jesus' name.
12:05.753 --> 12:06.817
We welcome your presence.
12:08.011 --> 12:10.759
In Jesus as your own personal Lord and thank you.
12:11.890 --> 12:14.618
Go and take back a lunch and give baptized to Jesus' name.
12:16.230 --> 12:28.854
Something that universal man has always understood, and that's this that there has to be a bloodshed for the forgiveness of sins, and the scripture says that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.
12:31.350 --> 12:38.889
I thank you, father, in Jesus' name, amen, hallelujah.
12:39.854 --> 12:44.534
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
12:47.110 --> 12:48.874
Thank you, lord, for such a victory.
12:49.936 --> 12:50.939
Praise God, I'm sorry.
12:50.959 --> 12:54.215
I just saw that video for the first time last service and I still can't get past it.
12:55.010 --> 12:56.616
Can I believe you let me out of the house like that?
12:56.697 --> 13:04.803
Emily, I'm looking like Tony Soprano, just missing the gold watch and gold chain.
13:04.823 --> 13:06.950
Good Lord, you were thinking it right.
13:07.612 --> 13:08.938
I said out loud what you were thinking.
13:09.010 --> 13:10.339
They're cracking up in the front row.
13:11.043 --> 13:11.990
I wasn't feeling well.
13:12.535 --> 13:18.877
I almost couldn't make it to baptism and I said I'm going to dress comfortable, pastor Mo and Pastor James.
13:19.757 --> 13:22.990
And then you see that, and it's just, my wife is too supportive, too encouraging.
13:23.391 --> 13:25.558
Whenever I say, hey, you know every husband, how do I look?
13:26.140 --> 13:28.288
And she's like oh you look great, babe, you've got to stop doing that.
13:28.308 --> 13:29.010
You've got to tell me the truth.
13:29.652 --> 13:31.216
This is not honesty.
13:31.256 --> 13:42.970
Before the Lord, hallelujah Number four.
13:43.010 --> 13:51.000
We preached through three series the book of Ephesians, romans, chapter six, seven and eight and the book of Galatians.
13:51.020 --> 13:57.077
Took us eight plus weeks to get through Galatians and I count that as a victory, because it was all expository preaching.
13:58.050 --> 14:03.090
Expository preaching is when you go line upon line and you go through entire verses of the Bible.
14:04.418 --> 14:07.887
It's actually how the majority of the preaching was done, historically speaking, at least in America.
14:08.150 --> 14:12.427
From what I've studied, topical preaching also powerful.
14:12.487 --> 14:21.910
We do it all the time the Lord lays a subject or a topic on your heart and then you find various scriptures to open up and unpack that particular topic.
14:22.010 --> 14:40.269
But it just seems that topical preaching has way surpassed expository preaching because it is so much easier and simpler on the people, which is also unfortunately facilitated a lot of Biblically literacy in the body of Christ, because sometimes you really gotta dig deep there.
14:40.471 --> 14:43.963
There's nobody juggling for you, the lasers are not, nobody's entertaining you.
14:43.983 --> 15:02.026
You gotta get in there and absorb the Word of God and I hope that, as we went through these various series and went through entire books of the Bible, that you're not only benefited from the subject matter that was preached, but that you also learned how to study the Bible and read the Bible for you, that you can see that every single verse is pregnant with truth and revelation.
15:03.036 --> 15:04.329
There's no filler material in the Bible.
15:04.512 --> 15:05.508
Nothing is there by accident.
15:07.079 --> 15:08.810
But if the Word of God gives us life, amen.
15:08.911 --> 15:13.510
So we celebrate these victories as we build a memorial to the Lord.
15:14.856 --> 15:21.410
I wanna ask Pastor Moe, our volunteer and community pastor, to come and share some of the victories that he's seen this year.
15:21.410 --> 15:22.111
He's seen this year.
15:28.410 --> 15:28.912
Happy New Year church.
15:31.791 --> 15:34.738
So I wanna give you guys a number to start off with.
15:35.732 --> 15:37.502
That number is 58.
15:38.306 --> 15:42.635
That was the number of life groups that we had this year alone at City Light Church.
15:43.417 --> 15:50.238
Oh yeah, so these are the home groups that meet from house to house.
15:50.305 --> 15:56.110
We had those in three different boroughs in Brooklyn, manhattan and Queens and also meeting digitally on Zoom.
15:56.665 --> 16:02.597
We had over 700 signups and attendees that attended these groups.
16:05.169 --> 16:06.752
No, you can clap and praise God for that.
16:09.145 --> 16:11.973
What you don't understand is there are two City Light churches.
16:13.285 --> 16:23.168
There's a City Light church that meets on Sunday morning and a guest might casually come and say, oh, this is a nice place, but then you miss out on the second City Light and the second City Light.
16:23.228 --> 16:25.675
If you attend Life Group, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
16:26.205 --> 16:36.832
That's the place where you meet your friends, that's the place where you get prayer, that's the place where you get accountability and growth and it's the kingdom of God and it truly is the family of God.
16:37.905 --> 16:50.389
I've seen so many breakthroughs happen just this past semester alone People walking in distraught, broken and hurting and leaving out buoyant, joyful and happy, eating fried chicken.
16:52.087 --> 16:53.992
Because, listen, if your Life Group ain't got food.
16:54.313 --> 16:55.355
What are we really doing?
16:57.168 --> 16:57.629
No, literally.
16:57.870 --> 16:59.997
It's a place where there is fellowship.
17:00.077 --> 17:03.149
It's true friendship, it's true accountability.
17:03.865 --> 17:09.288
Have you ever gone through trouble and made the wrong decision because you were isolated in your own thoughts?
17:10.705 --> 17:14.833
I've learned this Christianity is not meant to be done in isolation.
17:17.385 --> 17:24.794
Christianity is meant to be done in community, with accountability, with friends that'll tell you don't wear that, don't do that.
17:25.625 --> 17:27.653
See this red flag over here Beaming.
17:28.225 --> 17:29.850
I need you to see that, because sometimes we don't see that.
17:29.870 --> 17:37.293
All right, let me read you a verse from the Bible Acts 2.46 says so.
17:37.433 --> 17:45.416
Continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.
17:46.106 --> 17:46.869
This is Life Groups.
17:48.125 --> 17:57.576
This is meeting together, growing together and making sure that we're bearing fruit, because on a Sunday morning you don't really get to minister.
17:57.705 --> 18:05.072
You get ministered too, but at a Life Group you get to minister, you get to pray for people, you get to grow in your gifting.
18:05.605 --> 18:11.490
It's a beautiful thing, because we've seen our Life Groups explode and grow and we give God the glory for that.
18:12.505 --> 18:14.010
We've seen people heal at Life Groups.
18:14.211 --> 18:14.933
We had a couple.
18:15.265 --> 18:24.312
They actually went on a honeymoon trip and they left early to make sure that they were back in time for their Life Group.
18:25.665 --> 18:28.500
That should tell you the level of diligence, because they understood.
18:28.842 --> 18:30.248
I don't want to miss out nothing.
18:31.065 --> 18:32.711
If God is showing up, I want to be there.
18:34.049 --> 18:48.247
And again, it's a beautiful thing when you can have somebody walk into a room that is despondent, hurting and broken, and they sit down, they don't say a word and their Life Group members come alongside them and go hey, what's going on?
18:49.945 --> 18:54.656
And then they can share and they can open up, and then people can pray with them and build them up.
18:55.305 --> 18:58.828
That is such a powerful thing In a city of isolation and loneliness.
18:59.970 --> 19:03.816
We celebrate that God has given us community and Life Groups.
19:04.918 --> 19:06.767
Amen, praise God.
19:11.185 --> 19:14.132
Another thing that we're going to thank God for is the healing rooms.
19:15.275 --> 19:19.130
Yeah, see those sounds, those whoops that you hear.
19:19.545 --> 19:23.947
These are the people that have gone to healing rooms and they've received the ministry, basically the healing rooms.
19:23.987 --> 19:27.416
What we do is we endeavor to live out the Scriptures.
19:27.565 --> 19:31.796
It says that we would lay our hands upon the sick as believers and they would recover.
19:32.305 --> 19:41.552
So on the second Saturday of every month, we pray for the sick at 4609 31st Avenue, right around the corner where we'll be having church next Sunday.
19:43.905 --> 19:45.510
We've seen some amazing things church.
19:46.865 --> 19:47.507
We've seen people.
19:47.547 --> 19:54.391
Matter of fact, just this year one of our members was diagnosed with cancer, so they received prayer.
19:55.025 --> 19:57.654
They also received their treatment and now they're cancer free.
19:58.627 --> 20:00.011
Can we give God glory for that?
20:01.425 --> 20:03.793
I mean we've seen blood diseases healed.
20:04.105 --> 20:13.115
We've literally seen people that, excuse me, one of their legs is shorter than the other and we've seen actively seen with our own eyes, their leg grow out.
20:14.305 --> 20:19.888
They've had to get new orthopedic shoes and their doctor was like where you been, what are you doing?
20:21.625 --> 20:27.917
So the God that we serve, the Bible says that he's the same yesterday, today and forever.
20:29.105 --> 20:34.697
The same power and miracles that you see in the Bible, that you have access to that today.
20:35.705 --> 20:36.327
So we celebrate.
20:36.367 --> 20:38.854
We prayed for over 75 people this year.
20:39.545 --> 20:44.657
We've seen so many testimonies of people walking in one way, leaving out the other.
20:45.485 --> 20:54.372
I love when I see sometimes people walk in with canes and then you got to chase them down the block when the appointment is over, like you forgot your cane and they're like I don't want it.
20:56.345 --> 20:57.490
We've seen that at the healing room.
20:57.625 --> 21:07.813
So we celebrate God, we celebrate his healing power, his anointing the blood of Jesus that gives us access to supernatural healing, we praise God.
21:09.445 --> 21:13.867
And another thing that we praise God for our volunteers, oh yeah.
21:15.345 --> 21:24.032
So everything that you see here, from the lights to the beautiful decorations, even my clothes no, not my clothes, but everything that you see.
21:24.252 --> 21:26.217
You see, because we have a team of people behind us.
21:26.785 --> 21:29.753
It is not just Pastor Bo, pastor James and I that makes this church run.