 How are you guys doing tonight? Good. I'm so excited to be here with you. I uh, it's funny. I was telling some people it's not very often that I get nervous, but to this day Speaking in front of people still makes me nervous No matter what you've seen me before however you think that I do it still makes me nervous to this day But I'm really excited To be before you guys tonight because I want to share with you guys a little bit of What is on my heart the things that God has been doing in my life that has been changing my heart changing me and progressing me and moving me forward and I'm so excited because it was about a year ago. I remember I was asked to preach and I was standing on this side of the of the sanctuary and Only the seats on this side were filled and I remember that my pastor Vlad He said that we're moving into a new level where we're gonna see both sides of our sanctuary filled and it just is so refreshing To see that a year later both sides of our sanctuary are filled that people's lives are being Incredibly changed when we hear the testimonies of what God is doing in the lives of people we hear testimonies Like Louise's testimony how God set him free from addictions to drug my brother Andre over here Who has recently been sharing his testimony about how he was addicted to drugs for seven years and how God? Miraculously has set him free. This is only what our God can do and it's an it is a result of prayer and I'm so inspired. I'm so happy and I'm so excited for what God is doing because everything that you see today Everything that you experience is a result of prayer You are here today because somebody was praying for you You are here today because it is a result of somebody's prayer interceding on behalf for of for you for your life and for your benefit and tonight I want to share with you what God has been doing in my own heart in the aspect of prayer and My brother once told me that I have the gift of gab so I can talk a lot So if you guys don't mind, I'm gonna go ahead and jump right into our scripture before I talk it away So if you guys could open with me really quickly to Luke chapter 10 and verse 38, I'm gonna read to you Scripture tonight that's gonna help get us through the message today So it's Luke chapter 10. It's between Mark and John in the Gospels It's right in the beginning of the New Testament. So if you need a little bit of time to find it You can search for it. I have it up here also as well, but I'm gonna go ahead and read it from my Bible in verse 38 It says this as Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem They came to a certain village where a woman named Martha Welcomed him into her home. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet. Can you say at the Lord's feet? Listening to what he taught but Martha was distracted by the big dinner. She was preparing She came to Jesus and said Lord doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here? Well, I do all the work tell her to come and help me But the Lord said to her my dear Martha you are so worried and upset over all these details There is only one thing worth being concerned about Mary has discovered it and it will not be taken away from her and When I read this scripture, I know I remember I've read it quite a few times You know when in reading the Bible and And after I've given my life to Jesus Christ almost 10 years ago now Which is exciting to say because it's been a long journey and it's been ones of ups and downs and Reading the scripture. I think every single one of us We want to say that we're Mary that we're the ones who sit at the Lord's feet and if you're taking notes tonight the title of my message tonight is called at the Lord's feet and Some things about Mary and Martha is that Mary or Martha? She was very distracted when Jesus came knocking on the door when he came knocking he came to visit them Martha was right away on her feet. What can I do for you? God? Let me cook you dinner Let me do this for you. Let me clean the house. Let me make a place for you and Jesus was sitting down and then here comes Mary and Mary sits at his feet and Martha gets confused because Mary is getting all of the attention Mary is the one who's at his feet and he and Jesus Christ himself is with her. He's talking to her He's consoling her. He is being with her and Martha is over here. She's doing a ton of work She's doing everything for Jesus and yet she's busy. She's worried and she's like excuse me Why is my sister Mary get to sit and rest and relax while I'm over here doing all of the work and Jesus confronts Mary and he says or confronts Martha and he says Martha you have it all wrong See the issue is it's not what you can do for God That will draw the heart of God. It's sitting at his feet and being with him One thing that we've been talking about tonight that you can see as the general thing We've been talking about prayer is that God is not concerned about what you can do for him Because whatever you can do for God will never match what he can do for you It will never ever compare to what God can do in your life So it's not about the work that we do but it's about the relationship that we maintain with Jesus Christ That's what Christianity is all about. It's not about how much we can do many people in religion They work a lot. They do a lot and they have to earn their salvation But with Christianity it is not God is not concerned about what you can do for him He's concerned about what he can do for you and being with you and tonight. I want to share with you a few points About being with God and the importance of prayer in our lives and seeking after his face the things that I've learned over the last couple of months and Going through ups and downs and and good times and hard times and the things that the Holy Spirit has been working on my Own heart and tonight the things I'm going to share with you will be brutally Transparent to my own detriment, but I hope that whatever comes tonight that will touch your heart and hopefully inspire you to seek after God All the more because he cares for you because he wants to be with you He desires to have a relationship with you He wants to have a relationship with you the way he had with Mary where Mary sat at his feet And he said Martha you're worried about all of the details but Mary has discovered something so important the beauty of a relationship with Jesus Christ and So last year I preached a message Called from danger to destiny. It was last March. I remember it very well It was during a time in my life where you know I didn't know all the things that were gonna happen to me that year and I was really excited So I really thought a whole bunch of really good things were gonna happen to me and little did I know that my world Was about to take the biggest turn of its life And through all that time I the message I preach I reference acts chapter 27 where Paul is about to enter into his destiny. He's leaving He's leaving Israel and he's stepping into Rome the very place where God had promised that he is gonna reach to the Gentiles That God had promised him that you're gonna reach my people and you're gonna walk in this destiny And he was so excited about it that he spent all of his time and all of his effort trying to get to Rome And finally he gets on a ship and he starts sailing on the ship boom You would think that his life was set you would think that he's his destiny is awaiting him and that he's gonna get over there smoothly and everything's gonna happen great and he's gonna walk in in power and all of the stuff but Paul quickly came to find out that Those waters were not smooth waters. It was not smooth sailing for Paul He encountered a storm and the storm was very rough to the point where it began to wreck his ship and Yeah, there was something very particular about Paul And very peculiar about Paul while everybody else on that ship was scared. They were crying They had no food. They had no water They had nothing and while everybody else was cursing God and saying what's gonna happen to us We're all gonna die here Paul said wait Calm down It's okay because God is with us and he has promised that we will make it to the other side because the angel of the Lord has visited me And Paul had a relationship with God He had a relationship with the Holy Spirit that even through his storm even through the rockiest Time of his life even through shipwreck. He said wait God is with me and the first point that I want to share with you tonight is that at the Lord's feet We find his rest and we find his peace At the Lord's feet we find our refuge in him He brings us peace in the storm So when the chaos of our life is going on when things keep going wrong and things are going contrary to what you thought It was gonna be like when you thought that you were gonna have Smooth sailing and you were excited because you were crossing the bridge You're crossing over from one place into your destiny and you thought it was gonna be smooth sailing But it turned out that you were actually facing a storm But at the Lord's feet a relationship with the Holy Spirit You can have peace in the storm and you can find rest in Psalms 23 King David talks about this kind of rest. He says that you lead me beside the still waters You make me to lie down in green pastures. You restore my soul That even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because you are with me that even in the storm you can have peace Jesus Christ said in John 14 27. He said I read it for you right here. I am leaving you with a gift Peace of mind and heart and the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give so don't be troubled or afraid The Bible says in Psalms 91 first one He says that those who dwell in the secret place of the most high shall find rest in the shadow of the Almighty I Remember a little over a year ago on Sunday. We this past Sunday on the 12th. We celebrated my grandfather's One year ago when he passed on to be with Jesus and our family got together just to To be with each other and when I was there I was reminded of something very particular that my grandfather had said to me a couple months prior to his death As we were kind of like reminiscing over some stuff and I remember my grandpa stopped me. He said Brittany I have a question for you Okay, what's your question grandpa? He goes Brittany. Where is your secret place? And I'm not gonna lie I felt pretty good because I have this at the time I had this chair in my house where I'd wake up 445 in the morning spend time with God read my Bible Had it every single day read a few chapters spend a little bit of time in prayer And that was my secret place and that's where I was with God until I told my grandpa. Well, yeah, grandpa I have this chair. It's really comfortable. I wake up super early in the morning I felt really proud because I was like, you know what this is something new for me Something that's changed in my life ever since I came back from Skowen in Nigeria from the first time that I went and He was like, no, no, no, no, Brittany. That's wrong No, it's not grandpa. It's not wrong. That's my secret place He's like Brittany. He was I want to tell you something really important. I want you never to forget this He was the secret place is not a place. He was this is your secret place Your secret place is right here. This is the place that only God can touch Where only you and God can be together your secret place is not a chair For some of us we have our time that we spend with God maybe in our bedrooms Where we feel the presence of God, but the secret place is not a physical place The secret place is your heart because it is our heart that experiences God It is our heart in our spirit that is one when the Bible talks about your spirit is talking about your heart When the Bible talks about your heart, he's talking about the Bible is talking about your spirit They are one in the same and the secret place is your heart And so in Psalm 91 when it says those who dwell in the secret place of the most high God shall find a rest in The shadow of the Almighty is not talking about a physical place The psalmist is talking about being with God wherever you are Jesus Christ promised us that he would never leave us nor forsake us that he would be with us Even to the ends of the earth wherever you go. He says I'll be with you one thing that Jesus said is that that when he was on this earth and He was telling his disciples. I'm gonna send you someone greater. I'm gonna send you an advocate I'm going to send you my comforter He said because it's better for you if I go on to heaven because the disciples were so used to being with Jesus You know their only way of experiencing God was to be with Jesus But Jesus said that I'm gonna send you something even greater because right now you can only be with God when you're with me But I'm gonna go to heaven I'm gonna send you my Holy Spirit and now the difference is is that you don't have to be where I am to be with Me wherever you are there he will be with you The secret place is here at the Lord's feet you can find rest and you can find peace You will find peace of heart Psalm 91 and verse 9 also says that those who make the Lord their refuge those who make the most high their shelter no evil will conquer you and That brings me to my second point which is at the Lord's feet we conquer fear When I'm when I think about the the scripture in Acts chapter 27 with apostle Paul and He's going through the storm Everybody else was afraid but Paul had a supernatural peace and he said we're gonna make it to the other side He said don't worry. We're gonna get there But I also think about another biblical character and there's his name is Job and Some things have gone through my mind and I want to share with you tonight There's a scripture in first Corinthians 1013 and it says that God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able We all go through seasons of life of ups and downs trials and tribulations and Jesus Christ said that we would and John 1633 he said in this life you have will have trials you will go through tribulations You will go through seasons of pain you will go through seasons of hardship But fear not because I have overcome the world At the Lord's feet we conquer fear when we're with God We can overcome and conquer every fear that stops us because like what Vladimir was saying tonight And even like what Martin was saying that fear can stop us that if Satan Satan cannot stop God from answering your prayer But he can stop you from praying that prayer and fear is one of the number one things that stops us from being with God Fear of our situation fear of what we're going through fear That if we pray to God that he won't hear us that we somehow are the Exclusion that when we pray to God that he's not gonna listen and he's not gonna answer our prayers because we've experienced rejection before We've experienced pain before and the pain of that was enough to stop us from praying because we're afraid that it didn't work out For us before so it's not gonna work out again So I'm just not gonna pray because nothing happens But that's not true God cannot answer prayers that are not prayed God wants to know your heart He knows who you are. He knows you back and forth. He knows every single hair that is on your head He knows you in and out, but he needs you to pray. He needs you to come to him and tell him your heart You can't expect that God is gonna come and just intervene on your behalf because God is a gentleman He will force you into nothing He will come when you call. He said those who call upon me I will answer them. He said those who seek me will find me that when you draw near unto God The God will draw near unto you and the best part about our God is that when you take one step towards him He takes the thousand steps towards you He plays a greater part. He's constantly chasing you. He's constantly nudging on your heart But Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He will never force you into anything. I At the Lord's feet we conquer fear back to the scripture that I had first said in the first Corinthians 10 13 it says that No temptation shall seize you except that which is common to man and That God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able and a lot of people Misconstrued this scripture. They say well God will not give me more than I can handle He said God will not give you more temptation Than you can handle and even then he will help you in your weakness He will help you to overcome that temptation, but God never said he would not give you Circumstances that are more than you can handle Things will happen to you that are more than you can handle the storms that happen in your life Sometimes there will be more than you can handle when Paul entered in to the bridge crossing a bridge to his destiny When Paul entered on to those waves He didn't know they were gonna be stormy and he didn't know that it was going to wreck his ship completely The Bible says that his ship was torn to pieces and everything that he ever knew was shattered and behind him He had only one way to go was forward He had only one way to go because he was too far down this road He was too far on this seat to go back one way is forward At the Lord's feet with the Holy Spirit. He will help you to move forward No temptation will seize you except that which is common to man It is temptation that God will not allow you to have more than you can bear But there will be situations in your life that are more than you can handle and maybe you might say Why would God allow that to happen in my life? Why would he give me more than I can handle? Ask Job and he will tell you God gave me more than I could handle No one had it ever like Job had it. Job was afflicted with sickness Job was afflicted with sores his Children were struck dead. He lost all of his wealth He was the richest man in the world and in one instant He became the most poorest man in the world and his wife even turned her back against him and said curse God and died because God left you Job Encountered more than he could handle But Job handled his situation differently than maybe you and I would possibly do today if we face the same situation Instead of cursing God and dying he got down on his knees He lifted his hands to heaven tore his clothes and said the Lord gives and the Lord takes away But blessed be the name of the Lord That he will help me he will be with me. It doesn't matter what anybody says It doesn't matter what kind of humiliation that he faced It doesn't matter the storm that he was in he knew that God would be with him And he knew that God would help him all throughout the book of Job You see his friends saying you must have done something wrong It must be because you've sinned and must be because of that But the Bible says that Job was a righteous man that he was a good man that he loved the Lord But Satan was like you know what he only loves God because he's blessed because he has it all He's the richest man in the world because everything works out for him God said no, I know Job better than you do. I know him He loves me not because of the way I've blessed him But he loves me because I am his God and I am his father And so when God lifted his hand of blessing off of Job's life Job stayed true to God because he knew that somehow Somehow God would restore to him what was taken away from him At the Lord's feet we can conquer fear There are things in your life that will be so much more than you can handle But how you handle them is up to you God chooses what we go through but you choose how you go through it You choose what's going to happen in your life You choose whether you're going to throw in the towel And whether you're going to say I'm done I give up I'm not going forward I'm going to go back to the world I'm going to go back to my old life because you know what at least it was comfortable there Or like Job you can lift your hands and surrender and say God You give and take away but blessed be the name of the Lord And in that moment Job found peace In that moment he was able to conquer his greatest fears He had nothing he was stripped of all his wealth He was stripped of everything but in the end of the story In the end of that chapter we see that everything was restored back to Job Three times more than what he had before Everything was restored to him And his relationship with Jesus Christ with the God of all nations Was taken to a new level and he received a promotion We know that if gold is to be gold it must first pass through fire If gold is to be gold it must first pass through fire As gold is tested by the furnace of fire So is the human character tested by the furnace of humiliation And we can learn this example from Job Everything was taken from him he was stripped of all of his glory He was stripped of everything that he had ever known He was stripped of it all And humiliation shaped him and molded him And everything was restored back to him and he became a new person He became when when his friends looked back at him after he was restored back to his former glory And even better than it was before they saw him as a new person and he was set on high In Psalm 91 verse 14 it says Because he has set his love upon me therefore I will deliver him Because I will set him on high because he has known my name When you know God and when you are with God he will give you peace in the storm And he will equip you to conquer every fear because on the other side of fear is freedom What happens when your worst fear happens to you? What happens next? What are you going to do when you're faced with your worst fear? The bible says that where there is perfect love there is no fear and where can you receive that perfect love? Only with God only in relationship with him only at the Lord's feet because at his feet He will teach you to conquer your fears He will challenge you with things that will cause you to step out of your comfort zone And do things that you never did before because what God is really doing is he's looking to promote you You can never be promoted to the next level in life unless you face challenges When you face challenges in the university of God you you will be promoted to the next level Depending on how you handle them and some people they fight the same fight over and over and over again And in my life I found that to be the case. I was fighting the same fight Over and over and over again. I couldn't understand why I couldn't get to the next level I couldn't understand why I had all these dreams of things I wanted to do I wanted to be used by God. I wanted to do all these great things, but I never could seem to get there I'm like, but God I I get up at 445 in the morning and I pray and I read my bible and it's my routine I pray yes, I read my bible two chapters a day. Thank you Jesus I I'm learning a lot and things are going really great and I was experiencing a lot of good things but in Psalms 27 This david says say In his heart he said the Lord said to me come and talk to me And he said my heart was responding Lord. I am coming And that scripture resonated in my heart over and over and over again come and talk with me and my heart responds to you Lord, I am coming and I realized The holy spirit was saying come and talk to me, but I wasn't saying Lord. I am coming why? because I was distracted Because I was worried about everything else happening in my life I was worried about all the things that were going on I was in school more than full time. Some of you guys know my story Double booked in school taking 20 22 credits at a time while I'm working full time While I'm coming and doing all this stuff that I do at church and constantly being faced with challenges Last year when my grandfather died It was a really hard time for my family and it just seemed like one thing after another after another And then my worst fear happened the greatest fear of my life happened to me and my ship was completely wrecked And I had a choice What am I going to do? Am I going to curse God and die like everything inside of me wanted to do? Or am I going to be like Job and go against what everything inside of me wanted to do? Am I going to lift my hands and say you know what? Blessed be the name of the lord anyhow And I made a decision I made a decision at the beginning of this year. I said God you're calling me You're saying come and talk to me and finally Finally almost 10 years later. I'm saying lord. I'm coming And I'm going to know you more than ever before and that's in the moment when I decided to take a next step with God when It would be in the middle of the night And I would wake up out of nowhere And I would feel the holy spirit say come and talk to me And finally I said lord i'm coming And I reached a moment in my life Almost about five weeks ago Again, like I said I'm being very Brutally transparent with you guys to the point of my own detriment But I hope that whatever I say tonight will touch your heart and inspire you a little bit more to go after the holy spirit About five weeks ago. I had this point where right in the middle of the night It was on a saturday to a sunday and I had reached this point where I literally had this mental and emotional breakdown. I don't know what i'm going to do god What do you want from me? Why challenge after challenge after challenge? Why is this happening to me? Why me? What did I ever do to you god? All I ever did was work for you All I ever did was give you everything that I have do everything that I could do for you And he said you got it all wrong See you want to be married, but your real name is martha You're so worried about the details. You're so worried about everything that's happening to you But you forget the most important thing So don't be mad when other people are married and they're sitting at the lord's feet. Don't get mad at them Because they discovered the most important thing and I want you to discover that as well And the most important thing is to be with the holy spirit It's to be with god because when you are at the lord's feet There you will find peace there you will find his supernatural rest and there you will conquer fear amen And lastly I want to bring my third point to you at the lord's feet. You will find purpose When I made that decision about five weeks ago When I had this complete emotional and mental breakdown like I don't know what I'm going to do next I said god If you get me through this if you get me out of this mess, I promise you I will give every last breath that I have devoted to you holding nothing back And from that point on I began to dedicate even more of my time More of my heart more of my spirit to god Dedicating myself to coming to church every time we had morning prayer making it that I was going to be here at 6 30 in the morning 6 45 for me, you know seven But being here early I live far away. Okay. I have an excuse Being here and making the decision To go after god more than ever before that when I take my lunch breaks. I'm not going to go and have lunch I'm going to come and I'm going to pray and I'm going to be here I'm going to do what I need to do to be closer to you And when I made that decision something in my life changed I found purpose I realized that there was so much more to life that I was missing out on there was so much more that I was missing But in him I found my purpose in him I realized that there was more than I could even understand Available to me and my heart began to change things in my life began to change And I began to realize that when you sit at the lord's feet You will discover his heart and what is his heart beat for his heart beats for souls his heart Beats for people because the only thing that god is concerned about is people's hearts Because he wants to be with you He wants you to be like mary and sit at his feet. He wants a relationship with you Even if you've given your life to jesus christ already He wants to be with you every single day and if you haven't given your life to jesus christ I'm telling you tonight that he wants to be with you and that's why you're here today because somebody prayed for you Because they touched the heart of god and god said told them go And bring them to me Go and make disciples of all nations like he's commanded us in matthew 28 19 And when you're with god And you develop a relationship with him the relation the reward of a relationship with god is power And god will give you power to do the impossible Our dreams and our vision here in church is to see people getting healed set free and delivered that when people walk into this place The sickness is no more that people will no longer be bound by depression They will no longer be bound by demonic spirits that are stopping them from being able to go after god That they will no longer be bound by addiction by drugs by alcohol by gambling whatever it might be The chains that are holding people back that those chains will be broken in this place But you cannot see that kind of power operating this place if you do not have a relationship with jesus christ Because the reward for a relationship with jesus christ is power and when jesus christ comes on the scene Everything changes from there everything is broken And when i made that decision that i'm going to go after god i'm going to devote my life into prayer I began to see things happening in my own life everything one thing after another For a year long it seemed like everything that i was the most afraid of kept happening to me and boom I made the decision to sit at the lord's feet and everything changed for me at that point I began to see tons of breakthrough at work. I had this dream that I wanted to uh to do like leadership training and and uh grow in in my own workplace and to uh have this basically position in my work that didn't even exist I never said anything. I work for my mom. I never said anything to her. I never told her about it I never said this is what I want to do and last friday Um my mom and our other owner They took me out to lunch and they were like you know what? britney we've seen in you something that we haven't seen in anybody else and you have this ability to Gather people together and they were like We want you to be our trainer. We want you to do leadership meetings We want you to to teach in our staff meetings and we want you to be our person who goes from place to place building teams And little did they know that I had this dream in my heart a year ago When I took a class with my professor matt kinkade in leadership and this dream was set in my heart But I didn't say anything about it But god answered my prayer god answered the desire of my heart the moment that I made His desires my priority He made my desires his priority The reward of a relationship with jesus christ is power and at the lord's feet We find his purpose and I want to encourage every single one of two of you tonight that you don't know him Tonight is your night that if you don't know this powerful god who promises you peace who promises you rest Who promises to equip you in times of trouble that you can know him tonight Then maybe you're thinking that in your life I have nothing going on. I have nothing to look forward to I have nothing to do. He'll give you purpose And that it is important to get connected into a living church Where where god can develop this purpose in you exactly like what we've been talking about tonight And developing a relationship with jesus christ one that lasts because christianity is not a religion It's a relationship. It's not about the work you do like martha But it's about the relationship you maintain like mary and the atmosphere produced by that relationship What you will do for god is greater than what you can even imagine when you're partnered with him And you're walking with him and you're walking with the holy spirit in prayer You will even surprise yourself