7:59
And going we're the
8:14
in midst Alright. Good morning. Good morning. So I grew up in the eighties where there was, like, roller skating rinks, and you would roller skate, you'd roller skate, and then you're tired, you would come get a little Dixie cup of root beer, you're like, and then like like, Van Halen's jump would come on, and you're like, I gotta get out there and get skating. Can anybody else relate to that?
16:22
Alright. Alright. So there is a call on the skating rink floor inviting all dancers this morning. If you're a dancer all the timer, this is for you. If you are, I I don't dance.
16:40
This invitation is also for you. I just feel like the Lord is calling all dancers to the dance floor. Now, don't know where you're gonna do that. It might just be in your seat. Nobody's looking around.
16:55
It's an act of worship unto the Lord. Find whatever space you can, but all dancers, good, bad, otherwise, let's celebrate and worship the Lord. Come down, Holy Spirit. Come down.
27:35
The we're worshiping right now. Think about who he is and what he's done and you can come before him today freely like this. But the God that we're worshiping is almighty. There's nothing that can stand against him. There's no principality, dark force that can stand up against him.
28:11
And we declare that and that is our inheritance as sons and daughters of the most high king. So when we sing this, just think about that inheritance that you have in him that even death could not hold him. That's your father.
30:18
Zacchaeus. Yeah. I had to get a little elevated. This morning, doctor Laura Sanger is in the house with us. If you are familiar with her ministry and her work, then fantastic.
30:38
If you have no idea who doctor Laura Sanger is, then just buckle up. She she's gonna be sharing with us this morning, and doctor Laura and our family have got to spend time with their family this weekend. And you are going to be blessed. You will be challenged. Doctor Laura Singer is a speaker.
31:02
She is an author. She is friends with the Blurry Creatures folks. If you're familiar with if you're part of the Blurry family. So we're we're honored to have doctor Laura Singer bring us the word this morning. She just lives down the road in Salt Lake City.
31:20
So maybe, just maybe, if you are well behaved, she'll come back. We'll see. We don't want you to commit to that. Just see how it goes. Alright?
31:30
And so she also has a table out there with some of her stuff. So if you haven't got to check that out, you can read more about the work and the ministry that God has placed on her heart out there when service is over. We got one more song. Right? What is the name of that song?
31:50
Forever. Holy forever. Yeah. Yeah. That one.
31:54
That one. Alright. One more song. One more song. You got one more in you?
31:59
I know you I don't know what you've done to them, but these guys are whipped into a frothy frenzy this morning. So I said this the other day, but let me just say one thing about the the holiness of of God. We use that word in church a lot. God is holy, but that word doesn't really extend beyond the boundaries of the church too much. And when you're in the church, you sing about the holiness of God.
32:27
You're like, yeah. Like, it's kind of like a a a churchy word to use. Like, you use, like like, Merry Christmas at Christmas Eve, you know, or during the Christmas season or eggnog. It only comes out at Christmas. We use the word holy only in church when talking about God because we think it's a nice word.
32:45
Well, this song, the theme of this song is about the holiness of God because it is an incredible, attribute only attached to the God of the Bible. Now that word holiness, it can be used to describe his holiness, the Dalai Lama, or his holiness, the new pope. But it is so far inferior compared to the God that we are serving here because the word holy means separate, set apart, sacred, and the Bible tells us that God is outside of this created order. So that means that everything else in this or any other parallel galaxy is subject and within his creation. He is lord of all.
33:39
All of the other little g gods are subject to him. Exodus chapter 15 verse 11, Moses is speaking and he says, who is like you among the gods? Only the God of the Bible is holy. That's right. That's what we focus on when we sing this song.
34:00
And here's what that means for you today. I don't know what you came in here with, but it means that because God is holy, it means he's bigger anything that you are going through. He is outside of it. He sees it. He sees you in the midst of where you are today.
34:23
And when you sing the words to this song and meditate on his holiness, my belief is that the God of the Bible will meet you right where you are, and you will encounter his holiness. Let's just press in. Give it everything we got. Alright? We
34:49
sing for an audience of one
34:53
this morning.
34:56
We worship you. Than any shape. You're bigger than any anxiety today. We just declare that right now. Whatever it is you're struggling with, just declare that he's big.
40:32
His name is higher than that thing. Let us try to hold you down. And we stand today and we just declare lord, speak to us, use us. We welcome you in this place to change us today, to change our mindset. We invite a spirit of revelation in this place today.
42:11
We tell you we love you. What an honor and what a privilege it is to come together like this. Let us never take that lightly. You are worthy, worthy, worthy. Raise our expectation right now of what you wanna do in each and every one of us today.
42:30
That we would leave those swinging saloon doors different than we came in because we met with the risen, living God of the universe today. Come have your way in this place today. We pray over what doctor Laura would share with us today. We pray that our hearts would be open to receive your truth. That's with God.
42:56
Even
42:57
if
42:57
it's something new, something foreign we have not heard before, Lord, let it speak to us. Your truth speak to us today. We give you permission in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. What great worshipers in here today.
43:14
I always say the best worship set is when I can't hear myself. Those are the good days. Those are the good days. Turn around and greet somebody this morning. Tell them the Lord is here.
45:43
Alright. We are gonna dive in this morning. I have to say that worship among you all is like the sweet smell of victory, and you'll understand more of why I say that as I share this morning. So I don't know how many of you are familiar with with who I am, but one of the things that I often do is I ask the Lord for the scrolls for each audience because He knows exactly what you all need to hear, even the phrases or the stories I might tell. And I love when I'm in the receiving end of someone that has spent the time before the Lord asking, What is it that you want to say?
46:23
Because invariably, it will confirm something that the Lord has been showing me, or it will challenge me right where I'm at. And, you know, sometimes it just is like they're reading my mail when they're speaking. And so years ago, I asked the Lord. I said, I want to be a conduit of that. And he said, then ask me for the scrolls.
46:43
And so that's what I do. And this morning's scrolls is called Victors Not Victims. And so the worship that we did was declaring that, and it's it just was perfect. I love how the Holy Spirit weaves everything together. And so I often get people that reach out to me, which I love.
47:05
They'll reach out to me via email most of the time on my website. And the other day, I was reading through an email, and the person said something that is so common, I think, among believers, and that is they asked me, they said, Why does the enemy seem like he's winning? You know, why is evil advancing so rapidly? And I paused for a moment, and I thought about how often I think each of us, to some degree, has entertained a question like that. And while it may seem like we are living in the darkest of times, I think we are living in the best of times, and I consider it such a privilege to be alive during this epoch of history, and so I want to just share a little bit, kind of set the stage for what it means to be victors, not victims.
47:59
So first of all, I think it's important that we recognize that we are in a battle that began at the dawn of humanity, and this is the seed war of Genesis three. And back, you know, long long ago, the fallen sons of God, what they did is they chose to leave their heavenly abode. They rebelled, and they invaded the earth realm by descending on Mount Hermon. Now Mount Hermon, or Mount Hermon, however you've heard it, that's located in the Middle East. So one slope is in Israel, another is in Syria, and another is in Lebanon.
48:34
So it's a very strategic mountain. Well, on top of this mountain, the fallen sons of God descended long ago, and what they did is they began watching, stalking women, the daughters of men, scripture says. And they found these daughters of men so beautiful that they began lusting after them and plotting how they could take them as their own. And so what they did is they captured these beautiful women. They forced them into marriage.
49:07
Then they sexually violated them by raping them, and they defiled the human genome by impregnating them with a hybrid race of giants known as the Nephilim. Now this is in Genesis six and also in the extra biblical text of the book of Enoch. I write about it at length in both of my books, but I wanted to set the stage because if you're not familiar with what the seed war is, then you don't recognize the battle that we're in the midst of and why some people feel like the enemy is winning. So what happened was the Nephilim agenda, it was unleashed during the days of Noah, And what the Nephilim agenda is, is it's the plan to defile our human genome through the mixing of seeds, and that was to stage a coup d'etat against almighty Elohim. Now, what happened as a result of their traitorous acts, the fallen sons of God got locked up in Tartarus, which is the deepest, darkest place of Hades, and they were locked up there, but their offspring, the Nephilim, they have been wreaking havoc on Earth, under the Earth, and in other realms ever since.
50:16
And so what they want to do is they want to wipe out the children of God. And while evil has matured in the Earth, we have understand that this Nephilim agenda, it is trying to strangle the lifeblood out of humanity. You know, you can look at what life has been like just since 2020, and we can see how how much mind control there has been, how much tyranny, infiltration of agendas that has infiltrated our schools and almost every institution in our land. Well, is part of the Nephilim agenda, but just as we sang this morning, there is no name that is greater than the name of Jesus. And so Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, resurrection, he already won the seed war.
51:08
Now the battle still rages until the end of days when Jesus will return in his full glory as king, and he will put an end to the longest war in history, and that is the seed war. Now until the return of Jesus, like I mentioned, the offspring of the Nephilim, they are trying to wipe out the children of God, and so we are in a critical hour, and so we have to recognize that the God fearing sons of God need to arise into our rightful position and wield weapons of warfare that we have been given. We have spiritual power in this warfare. Our worship was a warfare this morning, a weapon against the enemy, against this Nephilim agenda, and we shift the atmosphere when we worship in spirit and in truth. And so shifting the atmosphere in this place, imagine what's going to happen when people come in tomorrow into this location.
52:10
We've already shifted it from that worship, and that's how powerful worship is. If you were with me last night, I talked about, I think it was last night, we were in Columbia, Tennessee, a group of us, and we had opportunity to worship. Charity Gayle was doing her live recording, her latest worship album called Rejoice, and it was incredibly powerful worship. It was throne room worship. I call it vertical worship, you know, where you just go straight into the throne room.
52:45
You have an audience of one, and you're worshiping among the angels, among the 24 elders, among the four living creatures. Well, that's what that worship was, and it was a power encounter because the next day, two psychic operations closed in Columbia, Tennessee. So that's how powerful our worship is when it's worship in spirit and in truth. Well, we have to recognize that we are God fearing sons of God, some of us, and we can wield those weapons of warfare that are mighty to tear down strongholds that are entrapping humanity. So what I want to do, that's kind of the overview, but I want to dig into Scripture and look at what does it mean to be a God fearing human son of God.
53:30
Now, one of the things that I'll do is I sometimes I ask rhetorical questions, so I I probably will ask some rhetorical questions, but I'm also going to ask questions for us to interact, and I'll let you know when we're going to interact. So in digging into scripture, we're going to look first at Romans eight fourteen. So if you have your Bibles, turn there, and I'll be referring back to this scripture from time to time. So maybe just put, I don't know, your finger in it or something. Okay.
54:05
So it says, because those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. Now, before diving into this passage, what I want to talk about is, you know, those of us in the room that we have accepted the free gift of salvation that Jesus Christ has offered us, we are children of God. We've been adopted into Yahweh's family, and this is basic Christian theology. But does that mean that we are also sons of God?
54:40
Not necessarily because not all children of God mature to become sons of God, not at least on this side of eternity. And so we're going to look at scripture to help us understand what does it mean to be an infant, a babe in Christ, a child of God, and a son of God. So one thing I have to say as well is as I talk about sons of God, I am not just talking to the men in the room. Just like when we talk about the bride of Christ, we're not just talking to the women in the room. Sons of God are men and women.
55:13
Okay? So here in this passage, we see that the sons of God are led by the spirit of God. And if you look at the Greek word for led, it's ago, and it means to guide and to lead, And it often, is an image of an animal, with a rope tied around its neck. It will go wherever the owner takes that animal, and this creates an image for us of what does it mean to be a son of God. It means we are so fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit that we will go wherever the Spirit sends us.
55:49
We will do whatever the Holy Spirit asks us to do. We'll say whatever the Father commands us to say. It's giving Jesus our yes, no matter how difficult the situation is. Now interestingly, this Greek word ago is the root word for agon, another Greek word. And that means well, is where we get the English word for agony.
56:10
It comes from this word, and it means a fierce competition, an intense conflict like a wrestling match or a struggle of the human will. Well, this describes the nature of the battle of the sons of God. It's a battle over our will. It's a fierce competition for our heart. Will our heart be single hearted?
56:32
Will we be solely devoted to Yahweh, or will our hearts be divided? Now, in this passage, Paul talks about, he says, Those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God. Notice how he didn't say, Those who go to church are the sons of God. He didn't say, Those who call themselves Christians are the sons of God. He didn't even say, Those who read their Bible are the sons of God.
56:57
The criteria for being a son of God is those who are led by the spirit. Now, where does the spirit lead us? The spirit leads us to repentance. That's often a word nowadays in churches that isn't even talked about. The Spirit leads us to consider others better than ourselves.
57:18
The Spirit leads us to love and to truth, but the spirit also leads us to the refiner's fire, also to the threshing floor. Now, in some of my travels, I've discovered some false doctrine within the American church that I want to address because it ties into this, and it's this. It's the notion that as we mature as believers, we should be able to make decisions based on our understanding of Scripture and not have to ask the Lord for direction. And the analogy that they use to back this teaching up is the analogy, as a child matures, they are less and less dependent upon their parent. Do you see how subtle the twisting is there?
58:02
Because most false doctrine is only slightly off base. And so, it's true that as we mature, we should have the word of God stored up in our hearts and minds so that it guides our decisions, but it doesn't mean that we become so wise that we stop depending on Jesus. And so this teaching is partially true, but as a whole, it's unbiblical. And all we have to do is look at Jesus as our example. You know, you think about if anyone was qualified because of maturity and faith to make their own decisions, it would be Jesus.
58:39
But yet, at every turn, we see him completely surrendered to the Father's will, and that has been so deeply challenging to me. In John fourteen ten, it says, Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the father living in me who is doing his work. So Jesus is saying, it's not me doing this stuff.
59:08
Now that Greek word for the phrase are not just my own is ematu, and it means pertaining to myself or my own initiative. So in other words, what Jesus is saying is he is not his own person. Sons of God are not their own person. They do not make their own decisions, and this is incredibly difficult in our independent culture of being Americans. Now, I do want to pause here because I want to ask a question for some interaction, and that is I want you to think, just a few of you because we can't go around to everyone, but I want you to think of a time where you've lived this out, meaning the Holy Spirit has asked you to do something that was far beyond your comfort zone, that you knew he was leading you to do, and you obeyed, and you did it.
1:00:02
Maybe share what that was like to step out, and then what the Holy Spirit did through that. Anyone have ideas or examples?
1:00:20
The time that it happened, I I work at the airport, so I just walk around a lot, and I see a lot of random people. And I was beginning to follow the Lord more closely at that time. And I saw a man reading a bible in the terminal, and God told me to go up to him and ask him what it looks like to live out my faith, which was awkward because I didn't know that man. And he sat there and talked to me for twenty minutes about what it looks like to follow God, follow Jesus. Yeah.
1:00:57
That's awesome. That's awesome. I think
1:01:02
There was a time in my life first of all, I grew up with like a Norman Rockwell family. We it was just perfect in my in my life. And my mother left us for my brother got killed. She basically had a nervous breakdown and she left us. My dad had just had a stroke and we were devastated.
1:01:24
So for three years, she was gone. It was like she died and we didn't have a funeral. And I'm driving down the interstate one day. I hadn't spoken to her. And I'm driving down the interstate one day, horrible rain, and the Holy Spirit said, call your mother and tell her you forgive her.
1:01:42
And I start crying and I say, I can't. And it was like God himself was sitting in my car. And he said it again. And I called her, and I said, mama, I can't talk right now, but I forgive you and I love you. And that opened the door that restored my family.
1:02:06
Oh, wow. Wow.
1:02:07
And it's like nothing ever happened. We are all back together and just, you know, happy. Wow. But had I not listened to him, I don't know how it would have turned out. But praise God, it turned out beautifully.
1:02:22
So even when you know you're angry and you don't wanna do it, sometimes you need to do it.
1:02:37
Did you have something? It's hard to follow that.
1:02:46
Okay. Lee has one. I
1:02:55
don't even remember how many years ago this was, but Colleen and I were new Christians, and we were in Sanger, California. Ah. Yeah. At a big evangelist meeting. And this guy gets up on the stage and he says, we're not gonna do anything until somebody that wants to start a business, we gotta come down here.
1:03:27
And, you know, Colleen's going like this, and we're way back up in the top. And I told her, I says, every man here wants to start his own business. So I'm I'm not going down there. And I had a good job with Department of Food and Agriculture, and nobody's going and nobody's going and nobody's coming down, and this guy is pacing the floor. And so I go down there, and all he did was he put his hand out like that, and I went flying through the air, hit hit the deck.
1:04:07
Anyway, so we get back up and I walked back up to the top. And the next day, I called my best buddy at he was a researcher at UC Davis, and I said, Charlie, this is what happened. And Charlie is an atheist. And I said, Charlie, this is what happened. He says, that's it.
1:04:26
I'm quitting. You're quitting, and we're gonna start this business. And so I had to call Sacramento and tell my bosses I have a two week notice and Wow. And we we had no contracts. We didn't know what we were gonna do.
1:04:45
I thought I got two little kids, and Colleen, and we're gonna starve to death, but anyway, here we are. Successfully.
1:04:56
I love that. And it's, you know, following the Holy Spirit is a grand adventure, but oftentimes we're asked to go so far beyond what our comfort zone is, and then he stretches us in that moment, and he can do so much more when we give him our yes, which is beautiful. Now in looking at John seven, this is Jesus. This is verse sixteen and eighteen. Listen to what he says.
1:05:21
He says, my teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth. There is nothing false about him.
1:05:49
So this passage is saying when we speak on our own, we are actually trying to gain honor for ourselves. And another question I have for you to think about is, you know, what how do we use our intellect yet not speak on our own? What does that look like? It's open for discussion. So, again, how do we use our intellect yet also not speak on our own?
1:06:24
Did I stump you? I
1:06:31
think it all goes back to how much time you've spent with him beforehand, getting to know the father's voice. And so whether it's reading the Bible or prayer or listening, like you're spending time so that and mentally checking in. But there's relationship already established there so that you know that you're not speaking on your own. Like, you can kind of tap into both of those things. You can feel your spirit leading.
1:06:57
Your mind is engaged, but also being checked by your spirit at the same time because of that relationship and how intimate and how one that is within you.
1:07:25
I think you touched on this a little bit last night too, but I think it comes down to obedience of doing the Lord's will. And just because you feel like you have something to share, and it it could be wisdom, doesn't mean that it's always the right time to share. And I love, like like, when it comes to, like, intercessory prayer or whatever, we're not always called to just storm the gates of hell and, like, like, just attack the enemy as often and as much as we can. Like, there's a there's a time, and and God knows when he wants to do things. So we need to listen for when that is.
1:08:09
I think I'm just doing. I don't know. I don't, I'm not really good at reading because I don't comprehend a lot of the a lot of the scriptures, but I listen. But I'm in the meantime, I'm doing. So I'm not I guess I'm not, like, busy writing down notes or I'm busy reading every single day, but I feel like I'm using my intellect by just listening, and he knows how I learn.
1:08:36
I'm just trying to keep a steady line to him because he is he is just putting it in me in kind of a way, and I'm just listening. You know? I'm not I'm not speaking because a lot of the things that I say, they might be what I've heard or incorrect or I misled, but so I I often sit silent and just connect and just feel like I'm I'm just doing what the the good man told me to do. I don't really know, but I'm just doing it. So
1:09:18
I think in relationship to what everyone has shared, it's also learning the voice of God and the manifold ways that he speaks so that when we know something in our intellect, we also are open to the myriad of ways that he might encounter us and speak to us to help us either apply what we're thinking in wisdom or come in opposition to what we think might be good, but it's actually not him or not his timing or Yeah, something like
1:09:48
that's good. You know, I think too about the passage in Isaiah 50 five:eight-nine, that our thoughts are not his thoughts, neither are our ways his ways. His ways are so much higher than ours, and one of the things that I often do is I put on my armor every day, and one of the things I do is I bind my mind to the mind of Christ, because I want my thoughts to be aligned with his thoughts, and that's how he can use my intellect, and that's how I surrender my intellect to him so that he can use it for his glory. And one of the things, you know, as I was just meditating on these things, what really struck me is that thinking about Jesus, like, he didn't even speak on his own, and so that has challenged me, and my prayer lately has been, Father, if I'm about to say something that is not your words, just shut my mouth, because people don't need to hear what I have to say. They need to hear what you want to say through me, And there have been times where he literally has shut my mouth because I was about to respond to a text that wasn't how he wanted me to respond.
1:11:00
Or in situation where I could have shared something, I was silent, and it gave Bryson an opportunity to share, and it impacted the person that we were with. And so just learning to surrender our intellect to the Father so that He can use it for His glory. John twelve forty nine through 50, this is Jesus. He says, For I did not speak on my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it, and I know that His command leads to eternal life, so whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say. Now this blows my mind.
1:11:41
This is another question for you. You know, thinking about Jesus being fully God, fully human, he only spoke what the father commanded? I mean, didn't Jesus also have the authority to speak what he wanted to speak? Why did he surrender all of that to the father?
1:12:12
I think in the same way that he did a lot of things, like is to set an example for us where he could like I love the picture of like, he didn't need to be tempted in the desert because he's God. Like he knows he could beat the devil any day of the week, but he goes into that to be the priest that can relate to us, that knows those things. And so in the same way, I feel, it's because if he's calling us to submit everything that we do to God, he's like, that's how I have to do it too.
1:12:58
I think just like you were talking about, there's timing to everything. Even if our intentions are godly, there's timing to our words. So even when we may know what the right answer is per se, sometimes it's not the right time, and so to just wait on Him, like sometimes He gives me something, it's like, Just wait, wait, just wait, just wait. He's working things in the background, and then it's time to speak or to say whatever He's asking you to say. Yeah,
1:13:29
and I think that's a characteristic of being a son of God is waiting, being patient, surrendering to the Father's will, not wanting to do it in our own timing. That's beautiful. You know, sons of God have the mind of Christ, and they desire to speak only the things that the father speaks. They are not their own person, and this is why I think it's so important that the body of Christ we need God fearing sons of God to arise, because we're living in perilous times. I mean, you can look around, and you see wickedness advancing.
1:14:06
And it makes me think of two Timothy three:one-seven. It says, but know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, unforgiving, slanderers without self control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power, and from such people turn away. For of this sort are those who creep into households, that sounds creepy, and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And so you hear this description, I think we are living in these types of times.
1:14:57
Well, we see the phrase ago, the Greek word ago, in this passage as well, and it's in the phrase led away by various lusts. And what it means is leading by the nose to deceive and hoodwink. And that phrase leading by the nose means that we are leading people away, or others are leading us away through deception. They're trying to totally control us through deception, which is why I wrote Generation Hoodwinked. Because we have people who have been led away by lust.
1:15:29
You know, they can't even find the truth. We have people who are lovers of money, especially in, you know, this region. Lovers of money who boast of their traitorous acts. And then we have Christians, people who call themselves Christians, you know, have a form of godliness, but deny its power. And so we are living in desperate times, as in the days of Noah.
1:15:52
And that's why it's so important that the sons of God arise. But this requires removing mixture. And removing mixture from our lives is the sanctification process. And back in, last year, January, my spirit often leads me to pray these dangerous prayers, and I began praying, Lord, remove the mixture. Show me the mixture in my life, and remove it from me.
1:16:19
And it has been an agonizing year and a half of the Lord showing me how often I mean, I'm in thirty two years of ministry now, how often I have led by my soul and not by my spirit. And when you lead by the soul, you are engaging in mixture. You brought up intention. Another scroll the Lord has given me is the road of good intentions. And good intentions actually leads to death.
1:16:52
And we see this from the story of Uriah when he reaches out to touch the cart. He dies on the spot. Well, one of the things the Lord challenged me this past year as it relates to mixture is showing me that when I have operated in good intentions, that's actually the basis of witchcraft. So as well meaning as I can be, if I am doing something with good intentions, but it's not spirit led, I am following my soul. Intentions comes from the mind, the will, our emotions even.
1:17:32
And so, the Lord challenged me by opening my eyes, because when we follow our intentions, we're following our will. We're putting ourselves on the throne of our lives, and that crosses over into the kingdom of darkness. Alistair Crowley, his basic premise for ceremonial magic was, Do what thou will shall be the whole law. So even when we are following our good intentions, you know, blessing people because we think that's what we should do, if it is soul led first and not spirit led, we are actually engaging in witchcraft, and that was brutal for me to recognize. And I'll give you an example.
1:18:17
This is outside of my notes, but I loved what you brought up. So one of my redemptive gifts, Romans 12 gifts, is mercy. And so I have this radar for people that are in pain, or suffering in some way. It just is how God has wired me. I feel other people's pain.
1:18:40
I connect with people. This is why I became a psychologist. Well, the Lord showed me how often I can follow, I can lead with my soul with the gift of mercy. So an example is, I had a gentleman, a guy reach out to me, podcast host, and we did a podcast together, and he's a great guy. He's a believer.
1:19:04
He's a friend of a lot of my friends. And he reached out again and asked me if I would, you know, want to come on his podcast. Well, with every opportunity that I'm given, I ask the Lord. If the Lord says yes, I say yes. It doesn't matter the size of the audience, doesn't matter who the podcast host is.
1:19:25
I have been on some raunchy podcasts, raunchy podcasts, but the Lord told me yes. And so I will go, and I will do what it is the Lord told me to do. So anyways, this man reaches out, and he asks me if I will collaborate with him on something. I asked the Lord, and I didn't get a yes. I didn't get a hard no, but I didn't get a yes.
1:19:47
So I just kind of pushed the pause button and didn't respond. So we go to Bluricon, and I see him there, and he comes up, and he shares with me, between the last time that I had spoke with him and Bluricon, they had an incredible tragedy in their family. And one of their oldest children died in tragic, tragic way. And he's telling me he's got tears in his eyes. I'm crying, and it's just this beautiful exchange that we're having.
1:20:20
And then we, you know, are kind of wrapping up the conversation, and it gets lighter, and he says, Hey, did you ever figure out if you can collaborate with me on that thing? And I was like, Oh, yes, when I get back, I'll send you some dates that I'm available. So I get back, I'm walking with the Lord, and the Lord says, I never told you yes. And I was like, Oh, I did it again. Jesus, forgive me.
1:20:48
And so the Lord did not want me to collaborate with him, and so for various reasons, and so I had to go back to him and recant, and I felt horrible that I had to learn that lesson with him, because my collaboration would have been a blessing for him, and I was trying to bless him. The man went through this tragedy. So I assumed that because I was doing something good with the mercy, the gift that God has given me, I assumed it was what God wanted. But presumption leads to the road of good intentions, and that can lead to death. And so that's one of the ways that I have been rocked my world this past year and a half.
1:21:38
So when it comes to praying dangerous prayers, Lord, show me the mixture in my life, I encourage you to pray that, but be ready. It's not easy. It's going to the threshing floor, and surrendering, and repenting. And what mixture is, like I mentioned, removing mixture is that process of sanctification. Another I'm not saying this about your church at all, but it's not a common sermon topic, sanctification or repentance.
1:22:13
There's a lot of seeker friendly, feel good, rah rah messages, but that's not how we mature in our faith. We have to look at the hard things in our own lives and be willing to ask those dangerous questions. Now, mixture is being shaped more by culture than by the word of God. Mixture is syncretism. Syncretism is the mixing of our Christian beliefs and practices with other world religions, or even with pagan practices.
1:22:49
Mixture is also having idols, worshiping idols. Now, in our Western culture, we don't have statues in our homes that, you know, we light candles and bow down and worship. Idols in our Western culture is anything or anyone that takes priority over our relationship with Jesus. So that means our children, those of you that are moms and dads, our children can be idols in our life. Our marriages, our ministries.
1:23:17
We were talking about this yesterday a lot as we were out doing prayer reconnaissance. We can worship creation and not the creator, or we can worship creation above the creator, and it's become an idol to us. So there's all sorts of things that we can have idolatrous relationships with. Mixture is also worshiping a false Jesus, and this comes from having false doctrine. And I don't have time to go into this story, but I have worshipped both a true Jesus and a false Jesus, because I had a wrong theology of suffering.
1:23:55
And when I fell apart, when Zachariah, our youngest child, went through a crisis for his life, I had a wrong theology of suffering, and that caused me to follow a bless me Jesus. See, I thought it's called triumphalism. I thought that if I were serving God passionately, wholeheartedly, which I was at the time. I was the youth minister, I was an elder, I was leading our spiritual mapping team, and I was a prophetic intercessor. Like, I was all in for Jesus, and I thought that I would live a blessed life.
1:24:26
I mean, yeah, maybe sometimes things would be hard in life, but not really hard. Well, I don't know where I got that false doctrine, but that's not even modeled in scripture anywhere. And so I was following I was divided. My heart was divided. I was following the true Jesus, but I was also following a bless me Jesus, that I thought I would be blessed all the time.
1:24:51
We have to recognize that there's a paradox. Yes, we're blessed, but yes, we're supposed to embrace suffering, considering it joy to face trials of many kinds. And so mixture can be following two different Jesuses. There are a lot of false Jesuses out there. Now, sons of God have progressed into maturity beyond mere children, and removing mixture from our lives is a big deal because mixture is the foundation of the Nephilim agenda.
1:25:26
Remember I said the fallen sons of God, they came and they mixed their seed with human seed, and what that led to was the birth of the Nephilim, the giants. And so giving room to mixture in our lives is the bait that causes many of us to bite the hook. You know, we've become ensnared by mixture, and then that causes us to become hoodwinked. And so we have to remove the mixture if we are going to progress in our faith to become sons of God, and we want to be able to progress in our faith. See, are sons of God have progressed in maturity beyond mere children, and they've been able to attain the inheritance that we have.
1:26:09
Now Paul tells us in Galatians four that if we're mere children, we are no different than slaves, and this is Galatians four verse one and verse seven. He says, what I am saying is that as long as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave. Although he owns the whole estate, he is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and since you are a son, God has made you an heir. Well, as children of God, we are heirs, but we've not ready to attain the inheritance, which means if we remain as children of God, then the inheritance we have in Christ is undervalued and underutilized.
1:26:55
Now, I do have the one picture that I want to put up here because there's three different Greek terms that characterize three different stages of maturity in our faith, and these are napios, paideon, and wios, or infants, children, and sons of God. So we're going to dig into scripture, and the first one, we're going look at napios to begin with. So these are spiritual babes in Christ, I want to make a differentiation, because what Paul is talking about, what I'm about to read, he's not talking about those who have just given their lives to Jesus. Those who have just stepped into the kingdom and have given their lives to Jesus, you know, a short time ago. It is I am so excited being around people that are new Christians, because everything is like an awe and a wonder, and they're falling in love with Jesus, and you're watching their lives change, and it is so exciting.
1:27:53
What Paul is talking about is not those people. While they are infants in Christ because they're just born again, what Paul is addressing and what I'm addressing are those who have been Christians for a long time but have not progressed in their faith. They're stuck in that infancy mode. And so this is one Corinthians three:one-three. He says, Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ.
1:28:26
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, worldly, aren't you not acting like mere humans? So here, Paul is contrasting those who are led by the spirit, that's the sons of God, versus those who are infants in Christ, and who are still worldly. Now, that Greek word for worldly is sarcchios, and it means pertaining to the flesh.
1:28:58
It means carnal. It means pertaining to behavior that is typical human nature with a special focus on more base physical desires. So what does that mean? That means this could describe someone who battles addiction. They give in to the physical desires, and that is contrary to a life led by the spirit.
1:29:21
Also, spiritual babes are inclined to gossip, to slander, to division, to arguments. They tend to be self centered. These are not the people you want fighting alongside you in a spiritual battle. Paul also gives us another characteristic of napios, and this is in Ephesians four fourteen. He says, Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
1:29:53
So what Paul is describing is infants in Christ are easily influenced by false doctrine. These are the people that are, you know, manipulated by the schemes of the Nephilim agenda because they've not exercised their ability to discern good versus evil. And so these are people who are easily hoodwinked. I'm sure you all know Christians who have been easily hoodwinked by the narratives of culture. Then we have paideon.
1:30:21
Paideon are children. They're young children in the Lord who are still under training. So they're growing in their faith. They've progressed beyond infancy, but they haven't they're still considered young in the Lord. And Paul addresses the Corinthian church as children in one Corinthians fourteen twenty.
1:30:41
He says, Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking, be adults. Now the context of this passage is the Corinthian church had elevated speaking in tongues in their corporate worship because of the wow effect. You know, when people walked in and they heard everyone praying in these different languages, it was like, what's going on? Wow, you know.
1:31:09
And it's just like children. Children are captivated, you know, by flashy things. Well, is how the Corinthian church was responding, and Paul was calling them on it. Now, a modern day example of paideans are Christians who are more interested in performance than presence. So these are Christians who go to church to watch a performance rather than consecrate their hearts to host the presence of God.
1:31:38
You know, these are Christians who are more interested in the social aspect of church rather than going to church with an expectation of being transformed by the presence of God. Paideon Christians are also those that have no idea what their spiritual gifts are, or if they do know what their spiritual gifts are, they leave them on the shelf, and they're not using them. Now, weos, weos are the sons of God. These are mature believers who operate in the inheritance that we've received. Now I want to pause here and ask you all, what is the inheritance that we have in Christ?
1:32:16
We sang a little bit about it this morning, but I want to hear from you. Like, what is, I mean, there's so much, but what are some aspects of the inheritance that we have in Christ? Victory. Yes. Victory.
1:32:30
Eternal life. Eternal life.
1:32:34
The Holy Spirit?
1:32:35
Yes. Yes.
1:32:40
Yes.
1:32:48
We have, yes, we have power. We have authority. We have dominion. Yes. I think about Colossians two:nine and 10.
1:32:59
You know, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is head over every power and authority. And so the sons of God, they walk by faith and not by sight. You know, these are the people who know what their spiritual gifts are, and they're actively using them. Sons of God feed on the meat of God's word. They don't just merely read it, they dig in, and they study scripture, and through studying scripture, the Holy Spirit brings more revelation that allows them to walk in the power and authority that Jesus has given us.
1:33:41
Sons of God I talked about this earlier. Sons of God shift the atmosphere wherever they go, because they are the likeness of the Father. Sons of God carry the aroma of Christ, and this has been another one of my prayers. I want to walk into a room or into the grocery store. You know how when you spray perfume on, and you put on so much that it lingers?
1:34:04
That's what I want. I want, as I walk into a grocery store, the aroma of Christ is so thick on me that it literally impacts the people next to me, or the aisle next to me. They have no idea what it is, but it's the aroma of Christ that they're drawn to. That's what sons of God are, is they carry the aroma of Christ. Well, we've talked about how we are living in days of evil, but the body of Christ is arising.
1:34:35
The sons of God are arising, and we're in this critical hour. Like, we can't ride the fence anymore. We have to be either in or out. We don't want to be caught lukewarm. We know what Jesus does with that.
1:34:49
He spits, he vomits the lukewarm out. So we're either in or we're out, and we need to progress to become sons of God because the Nephilim agenda is trying to render us as impotent Christians, you know, trying to hoodwink us with these deceptive narratives, and it distracts us. It distracts us from what's going on in our neighborhoods. I mean, when we went out, I loved doing the reconnaissance prayer. Was that yesterday?
1:35:19
Yeah. Wow.
1:35:22
It was it's my sweet spot. I love doing that. But what was so exciting for me is to see some of you that were able to come. It was like your eyes were open to what was there in the spiritual realm, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, in the land itself, and that's what's important is for us to be able to see that. And the good news is even though evil is maturing, we know that Jesus is our living hope, which is why we can declare that we are victors, not victims.
1:35:56
So check out Colossians two fifteen. It says, this is about Jesus, And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. This is what we were singing this morning. There's no throne, no power, no dominion, no position that is above the name of Jesus. Now that Greek word disarmed is, and it means to wholly strip off for one's own advantage.
1:36:28
It means to despoil. And this speaks of the victory that Jesus has in the seed war. Now the seed war is found in Genesis three fifteen. It says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So Satan bruised the heel of Jesus through the suffering that Jesus went through on the cross, but through his resurrection, Jesus dealt a death blow to the head of Satan.
1:37:00
And our Redeemer conquered through his death because he faced death and he overcame it. And you think about it, there is no other king that gains victory in war by dying, right? So Jesus' crown of thorns was actually a crown of laurels. Laurels is a crown of victory they would give in competition and in war. Now, Paul talks about these powers and authorities.
1:37:29
Well, who is he referring to? What is this? And this is Ephesians. It's the same spiritual entities that he talks about in Ephesians six twelve, which is for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So Colossians two fifteen is telling us that Jesus stripped the power from the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world, and the spiritual forces of evil.
1:38:02
Satan's kingdom has been conquered. Jesus exposed the devil's kingdom to public shame because the spirit of death could not keep him in the grave, and that's why we have a living hope. We are never without hope because our hope is living, right? It never dies. So no matter what situation we're facing in life, we are always with hope.
1:38:32
And so this is why in one Corinthians fifteen fifty five, it says, O death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory? See, the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is why Paul can say in Philippians one twenty one, To live is Christ, and to die is gain, and that's because death does not separate us from Jesus. Listen to Romans eight thirty seven through 39.
1:39:07
It says, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, nor any height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. But why don't we live like this? It's like we walk into the defeated camp of the enemy. We hand ourselves over.
1:39:45
We allow ourselves to be handcuffed and tied up in chains. We are victorious, and we have to remember that. Two Corinthians two fourteen through fifteen, one of my new favorites, says, But thanks be to God who always, always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. It says, For we are to God the aroma of Christ to those who are being saved and those who are perishing. Now this triumphal procession in this what it's referring to culturally back then is when the Roman general would be victorious in war, what he would do is he would lead a procession into Rome with the soldiers, his soldiers behind, but even behind that was the soldiers of the enemy.
1:40:44
They were captive, and all of the Roman citizens, they would come out on the street, and they would cheer, and they would burn spices, and that became known as the sweet smell of victory. And so this is what Jesus has done for us. He has defeated every power and authority. He has completely disarmed them, and Jesus leads us in victory. There is no foe too powerful.
1:41:15
Every foe has already been defeated, and this is why we are victors, not victims. I already quoted Colossians two:nine and 10, but I'll say it again because, For in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is head over every power and authority. So what that means is that given we are complete in Jesus, we are his ambassadors, we should execute the finality of the victory of the seed war. We should no longer hand ourselves over to be held captive again. And I want us to watch a video, and this video speaks about what it means to be victorious rather than a victim, and it captures the character of the sons of God.
1:48:11
War cry. I love that video. So Kazakh is the rock like substance of the spiritually zealous heart. It's the game face of a mighty man. It's the tensing of the muscles.
1:48:25
It's the gritting of the teeth. And amats is this heavenly audacity. It means you're rushing headlong into the most impossible battles without pausing to consider the impossibilities. It means that we have confidence in victory even before we take the field. It's lambs moving with liquid ferocity straight into the lion's den.
1:48:48
That's what it means to be the sons of God. We rush headlong into battle without pausing to think of the impossibilities. And we're living in days where sound doctrine people aren't looking for sound doctrine. Biblical morals have been whittled down to make way for the rise of debauchery and every form of wickedness as in the days of Noah. Yes, evil is maturing, but so is the body of Christ.
1:49:15
The sons of God are arising, and we're going to rush headlong into battle and slay the giants just like David slayed Goliath. Amen? Amen.
1:49:28
So good.
1:49:36
Thank you, Doctor. Laura. At Tribe, oftentimes, we set aside specific time to allow the Holy Spirit to speak directly with us and to take care of some business with the Lord. Or what we say is we wanna take a moment for the word that was preached to make that 18 inch drop from our thinker down to our knower. As long as it stays in our thinker, that's no capacity to transform us.
1:50:10
When it drops down into our knower, that's where change happens. Consider how you measure the speed of maturity in a person. How long does it take to go from a baby to an adult? They progress at a rate of about one year per year. Eighteen years goes by.
1:50:43
Wow. You're an adult. How do you measure the speed of maturity of a Christian? One word, obedience. That's the fruit of the fruit.
1:51:04
Obedience. Obedience. So today, the Holy Spirit would invite you to check your drawers. Are you still wearing a diaper? No offense to anyone actually wearing a diaper here this morning.
1:51:20
Are you still wearing a diaper? Today, you can take a step towards maturity. If there's a little voice in your head that says, oh, I've just been kind of living that first year of Christianity for a lot of years. There's an invitation today from the Holy Spirit to take a step towards maturity. It involves simple obedience through the act of surrender.
1:51:57
Is there anything that the Holy Spirit would touch your heart about in this moment that you would need to surrender to him? Maybe you've been living in fear of a thing. Maybe you have been owning, trying to control a situation that you find yourself bumping up against. Maybe there is a room in your heart that you're like, oh, I keep that door locked because that that's just for me. Maturity happens when you just surrender.
1:52:36
Holy Spirit, will you speak to our hearts this morning about an area of our life where we can take a great leap forward in maturity by just surrendering to you? Listen for his voice to just talk to you for a moment. Come, Lord. Thank you. Thank you.
1:52:58
Thank you, Jesus. We love you. Now I'd like to pray for you, for anyone in here this morning under the sound of my voice that has heard the voice of the Holy Spirit inviting them to an area of surrender of your heart. This is the battle of the will right here. The thunder dome, if you will.
1:55:20
Two men enter, one man leaves. Will you surrender? I'd like to pray for you, but I need to know who I need to pray for. So though everybody else's eyes are closed right now except for three of us. The holy spirit, me, and I'm gonna invite doctor Laura to open her eyes and to look around.
1:55:44
If there is anyone in here this morning or even watching the livestream that would say, oh, the Holy Spirit is whispering to my heart about an area of my life to surrender, but I need help in taking that step of maturity. Pastor Brian, would you pray for me? Would you just slip your hand up, and I wanna pray for you. So you can look around, doctor. Look at look at all these hands, and my hand is up too.
1:56:19
Why don't you take that other hand and just lift it up as an act of surrender? And all of the rest of us will join you with our hands raised. Jesus, we surrender. Wonderful, precious Holy Spirit, we surrender. We lay that thing at your feet, and we invite your healing touch into our lives.
1:56:48
God, I ask that you would honor the sincere surrender of the people here in this room and those that are watching the livestream. Will you be tender towards them? Will you be merciful towards them? And would you help them to grow into maturity? And just like any good dad who is so proud of his children when they take steps of maturity, would you encounter your children with how proud you are of them?
1:57:14
How much you love them. We pray these things in Jesus name and everybody said, amen. Just before we leave, I'm gonna invite Amanda up to share with us one more way that we're gonna worship the Lord this morning, and then we'll get out of here.
1:57:36
Well, just in these last few minutes, we'll stay in an attitude of worship but we consider when we bring our tithe and our offering to the lord, it's not just something to check the Sunday morning church box. We consider it an act of obedience and like we just were speaking of an act of surrender because as a surrender, we acknowledge it's all god's anyway. We just have the honor to steward things, right? Even our children. For us mamas, that's really hard.
1:58:04
We're actually just stewarding our children for a period of time. They belong to the lord and so do our finances. So, when we bring in our our tithe and our offering, it's an act of obedience and we just say, God, we acknowledge that, yes, we have physically toiled and worked hard for money. Right? That's how the world works, but it is yours.
1:58:24
We love you and we trust you. So while we're gathered corporately here as a tribe family, whether you call tribe home or you don't, we're just gonna pray together and ask the Lord to just speak to our hearts. And practically speaking, we don't pass buckets here at tribe. Traditionally. We're meeting at a bar, so there's not a lot of things traditionally that we do.
1:58:45
But if you have cash or check, something physical and you want to drop it, you can put it in the box right to the right of the swinging saloon doors. There's a little wooden box with our tribe logo. You can put cash or check-in there. And then digitally, which is the way to go, we have our website, tribejh.com. There's a giving link you can always give there or just sending a number on your smartphone to 84321.
1:59:09
You can see those instructions right there on the screen. As easy as texting a friend. So, whether you're giving in this moment or another time, let's just close our eyes and pray as we bring our tithe. Heavenly father, we love you so very much, and we acknowledge that you and you alone are worthy of everything we have. All the praise and the glory belongs to you.
1:59:37
And as we do this act of bringing our tithe and our offering, which goes practically to do the work of the ministry, the local church. Lord, we just ask that every single penny be used to bring you glory and to bring people into your family. We say thank you for how you are, how you love who you are, and we say it's all yours anyway. Thank you that we get to steward this well and we get to partner with you and what you're doing in us and through us as the local church to bring people to you. In Jesus name we say, amen.
2:00:12
Amen. So as we leave today, I want you to stop by the booth right outside the doors to the left. You'll see doctor Singer's booth. Let's do what tribe does and just buy everything. How about she goes home with no merch?
2:00:28
So there's t shirts and books, and today what she spoke about is just the teeniest tiniest of a scratch of the surface of what both of those books that she brought today go into in great depth. And so let's just buy her out today. She and they think cash, check, and credit card. Oddly, she does have And change. Physical money.
2:00:49
It's still a part and Venmo, of course. And the last thing is this well, sorry. Two things. Us meeting here today was just for today for a little bit larger. We are meeting at our home starting again next week.
2:01:00
That's the TMC, the Tribe Ministry Center right across from Whole Foods at both nine and eleven. So go back there next week. Alright. Last thing is this, you sat on one of these today. Maybe you took notes on it but this is our tribe connect card.
2:01:15
If you wanna know what's going on here at tribe, I promise we won't inundate you with junk mail. It's just snapshots of what's going on, what's to come. Please fill this out and get on our list And then even more important, on the back is a place for prayer. So if you need prayer for something today, we all do. Let's be on that if all of us do.
2:01:35
But if you want and if you're willing and you want us to join our faith with yours, please write that down. And then every Monday, tribe staff meets and we just pray over these cards and join our faith with yours for whatever you're going through, big or small. It's a it's a big deal to you. It's a big deal to your heavenly father. So write that on here and you can put this in the the same little offering wooden box with our logo there at the end.
2:01:59
Brian, will you come pray us out?
2:02:07
Thank you, Amanda. Alright. One more time for doctor Laura. Would you stand up? Is that alright if I pray for you?
2:02:20
And before I start praying, I wanna let you know if there's anything specific that you need prayer for, I'm going to invite my friends Ron and Michelle to slide over towards that corner. And if there's anything that you need prayer for, they would love to agree with you and pray for you. Ron and Michelle, will you wave your hands? They would love to meet with you, so just find them after service. Lord Jesus, thank you so very much for your living and active word that penetrates our heart and changes our lives.
2:03:02
Help us to grow into maturity as sons and daughters of God, ready to inherit the kingdom that you have for us. In Jesus' name, I command a blessing over each and every person gathered in this room and by the livestream. God, I ask that you would bless them. Give them safe travels as they go back home this week. Give them a great week, Lord.
2:03:29
And God, I ask that you would use their names to make use their lives to make your name famous. We pray these things in Jesus' name, the strong son of God. And everybody said Amen. Amen. I love you.
2:03:44
Thank you for being with us here this morning. Join us next week. And remember, you got this, Charlie.
