Amen, hallelujah. Yep, we are back from Uganda here today. So
yeah, we got in last night at seven thirty in the evening, so
we're a little bit bleary, and that's a couple hours past when we had
expected to be in. So we were going to give you a big update
today, but we're going to postpone that to next Sunday. But while I'm
chatting with you really quick, there's gonna be some pictures flying by, some
fresh pictures from our time. Yep. So that is whoop. That one
went fast, But that is we broke up and went two different ways,
and this is the team that went down to Matukola. I have some very
fun stories to tell you. I don't want to give away the whole shebang
because we need to come back next week and hear all the stories, but
I will tell you that one of Yeah, isn't that little boy cute?
Yeah? So fun. One story will involve airport security. Someone on the
team pushed a button they weren't supposed to push, and so we had airport
securities surrounding them and we weren't sure if we're going to be able to keep
moving on. So it might include that and then it might include some more
stories about border security down between Uganda and Tanzania. We met, We met
all the important people, and it wasn't the most welcoming reception that we had,
so we had stories to tell. But even beyond all the excitement and
the crazy stuff, there was mighty times in the Lord, great awesome times.
I'm just telling you it's so worth it. So next time y'all have
to come with us. So it'll be next week. You're gonna get some
fun stories. But at this moment, we're gonna have Pastor Roman. I'm
gonna call you a pastor. How's that? Come on up, you're gonna
be a pastor this morning. I no, we just promoted him. Come
on up, Father, and Jesus name God, I ask you right now
to be with us, Lord God, I thank you that you're going to
just take the word and I'll bring it into us, mold us into Christ
with the with the word Lorca. I thank you so much for that.
In Jesus name. Amen. Amen, she just messed up. I don't
know what pastor of Rome, and that's hilarious. No, she's still talking,
look at her. Well, I'm glad you're here. Welcome home.
I love our pastures sometimes, Yeah, they're great. A few weeks ago,
I try to wrestle past your Dwayne, I find out. I found
out he's much stronger than me. But you have such a good heart.
He called me afterwards because he came out on top twice, and he called
me after that. He's like, I just want to make sure you're okay,
like internally, like like like I was hurt, and I appreciate that
too. I was was totally fine. Not on mind. I didn't mind
losing. There was like sharp edges. It was at the Davis's pool party
house party, and it's like a lot of sharp edges, and I wanted
to pull him into the water. Didn't work out for me, but it
felt good. Was that new shorts. You were wearing new pants? You
don't remember. I know I was wearing something new. It all got green
with grass. But I love our pastures. They're great. So I'm glad
you guys show it up after last week. Last week was kind of heavy,
but it was good. It was good for our soul. I kind
of want to continue the train of thought that I had and kind of refresh
what we talked about a little bit, and if you remember, we talked
about Peter and how Jesus said, get behind me or get away from me,
Satan, for you are seeing things purely from a man's perspective and not
from God. So Jesus made that separation, and he revealed to us that
your proximity or your revelation of Jesus does not exempt you from the attack of
Satan. With the fluence of Satan in your life. You know, we
talked a little bit about that, so if you have questions, I'd refer
you to last week's message. And then we also talked about conscience and how
important and vital it is for us as believers to have a clear and pure
conscience. And the only way to obtain a pure and clear conscience is through
the sprinkling and the cleansing of the blood of Jesus. It's why we do
communion, it's why we're a part of this. And we also talked about
the shepherd's voice and if the costs or the price you pay for not following
the shepherd's voice, the good voice is following one of the strangers. And
so if you want to hear more about that, I would refer you again
to last week's message, but today I want to talk not about that,
but based on that. So that would be the foundation of kind of where
we're headed. And so I'm really believing that God's going to do some good,
good things this morning. So the first thing I want to start out
with saying is what you behold is what you become. Well, let you
think about that for a second. What you behold, what you're fixated on,
is what ends up what you end up becoming. We've heard, and
I think it's Proverbs it says that bad company corrupts good character. That it's
it's touching up on the same principles. What you're beholding is what you're becoming.
And you know, we've hear we hear the phrase of like show me
five of your friends and I'll tell you who you are. That's there's there's
truths to these things. And so therefore, what we behold as believers,
what we're fixated on, what our gaze is on, that is what we
end up becoming. And so as I'm speaking this morning, I really believe
that the Holy Spirit is arresting over us, and there's different things the Lord
is going to begin to deposit into our spirits that are different than you're maybe
what's happening in your neighbor, or what's happen in the person in front of
you, or maybe your spouse. It'll be specific to you. But the
Lord and his grace and his mercy will begin to illuminate our hearts and our
spirits. And I believe there's going to be transformation that's happening. Even as
we're talking. I'm excited about this. He guys ready, So what you
behold is what you become. Ten years ago, I was heading I was
I did a ministry school in Pennsylvania, Randy Clark's Global School Supernatural Ministries,
And in the summertime, we're heading back and there was some crazy delays and
they rerouted us through Vegas. I've never been in Vegas, so I was
excited and I knew it was like people and people told me this is Sin
City, you know all that stuff. So my mind, I'm like,
oh, this is Sin City. I'm gonna go tell somebody about Jesus in
Sin City. I was super excited and so get routed. We arrive about
twelve that night, which was perfect because that's when everybody wakes up in Vegas.
So we end up heading down the strip and I'm thinking sin City,
since city it was my friend and his name is Vitalli. Great guy.
Anyway, So we're walking down the street and we're both like us is since
city the throne of the devil and all this stuff, and we're about to
come and do this Jesus thing. And as we're walking, the spirit of
God comes and descends on us, and I heard the voice of the Lord
in my heart, and God said, who told you it was since City?
Did I say that? And immediately I stopped walking. I grabbed him
and and as I was listening to the Lord, he said, this says,
not since City. This is my city and these are my people.
And so I connected with my listening. We gotta we gotta change our perspective
because we're coming in this way wrong. We're coming to do the right thing
the wrong way. Therefore we'll do it wrong. You can do the right
thing the wrong way, therefore you are wrong. And so we stop in
our tracks. We readjust our perspective and we say, God, this is
your city. As we start walking down the street, praying and tongues you
should do Angela's class by the way, praying and tongues, believing, getting
edified inside, believing the truth about Vegas. This is your city, these
are your people. And so what God did and this is what I believe
He will be doing here this morning. He descended on us, highlighted an
incorrect perspective, and brought us up into Kingdom perspective. Remember it last week
we talked about how when Jesus said to Peter, get behind me, Satan,
what he did is he combined Satan with world perspective. But in doing
that, he lifted Peter out and said, Peter, you're not of this
perspective. You belong to God. He married Peter in God's perspective and married
Satan's perspective with worldly perspective. So therefore I believe that the Lord wants to
lift us out of perspectives we've been taught since we've been born, and listen,
lift us up into Kingdom perspectives. So listen, listen for that this
morning, as we're continuing on. You might be online, listen for that
in your home or wherever you're watching from. And so as he did that,
our perspective shifted and we began to think about Vegas a way different way.
Guys, girls, ladies, chance, I promise you from that till
then and after then. I don't know how to phrase that properly. Before
and after then. I've personally never been as successful with the Gospel of Jesus
Christ as I was in Vegas that day. Four hours. I think I
saw probably like forty people either get saved, delivered, healed, or somehow
touched and eighty or excuse me, I couldn't do the calculation problem, but
I remember like eighty five to ninety five percent of anybody we decided to make
contact with or prayed for either got healed or saved. I've just this is
what happens. This is what God is calling us to. It's a perspective
shift. It's a kingdom perspective. What would happen if you walk out of
the doors and your perspective is Kingdom on your family, on your situations,
on your business, on your money, on everything you're a part of.
What would happen if if the Lord would breathe on us this morning and say,
this is what I see. Will you come up and see what I
see and live this way? So I'm going to share it. Quick testimony
from Vegas since I brought you guys into this loop. Okay, this is
so exciting. I just I thought about this yesterday and I was like,
I just have to share it. This is good. So we were walking
down the street. We were headed to one of the hotel and casino pleases
combined. I don't know what it's going anyway, So we're headed to this
casino and we're walking that way and we're passing this group of people and as
we're passing them, I get a word of knowledge for this guy. I'm
like, hey, can I stop you for a second. The guys like,
yeah, sure, what's up. I'm hate does your knee hurt by
any chance? He's like, yeah, what you sell? And I was
like, well, I'm not selling anything, but man, I really believe
that the Lord told me that your knee hurts, and I'd love to pray
for you. And he was kind of like shocked, and his friends were
kind of weird it out, so they just kept kind of walking and he
was like all right, kind of cool. And so I get down praying
with him, and I pray for his knee like thirty seconds. I'm like,
man, how does it feel? He does one of these and his
face goes shocked. He's like, no, for real, for real,
this is for real, and he encountered a one hundred percent healing in just
a few seconds. Pray he's got. This is what began to happen.
His healing went to the depths of who he is and he began to weep.
He's like, he don't understand. I'm a backsliding pastor. And he's
in Vegas, just woke up for the nighttime. And as he began to
share that, his friends being a call out come on his name is Anthony's
like, come on, Anthony, waiting for you because they went. They
did not stay for that and they went and they're calling him, and he's
like, hold up, guys, hold up, wait because he's experiencing something.
God invaded. God presented Anthony with an opportunity for salvation. And so
Anthony's sitting there or standing there, and he's like, sitting there like them
him, why what should I do? Should I stay here? Should I
go? And he takes a moment, he pauses. He says, you
know, well, guys, I'm done. Yeah. He's like, I'm
done, you guys, go, I'm done. I'm finished, and he's
just wrecked. He's bawling, and my friends leading him to the Lord and
I just continue on, just looking for my next target. And so my
friend catches up to me. Right before we get into the casino. There's
these three ladies that come on out and I don't know how to explain this
to you, but God gives you insight, and I could see the spirit
of seduction on them and I just said, hey, I just wanted you
to know that Jesus loves you. And one of the ladies came up and
like close, like really close, and like, hey, Jesus, lazy
do. Like that was pretty bad, and so I grabbed her hand because
she was on me, grabbed her hand, I looked into her heart and
I said, no, Jesus actually really loves you. And she'd being a
manifest She's like she's like not manifesting the Holy Spirit. That was something else.
And the Lord being to deliver her just by telling her God loves her,
and she's about a scream and her friends are freaking out, what are
you doing to our friend? What do you get off of her? I'm
like I'm not doing anything. God is touching her, and my friends praying
for her. We're like, get out in Jesus name. This is the
territory of Jesus. She belongs to the Lord. God's so in love with
her, and she's just like getting delivered in front of her eyes and in
front of her friend's eyes. And guess what. Guess who walks by in
the midst of this chaos, Anthony. Anthony's walking by, and Anthony's like,
guys, girls, girls, it's okay, it's okay. You could
trust these guys. They're for real, They're for real. And he's trying
to make the situation better at this is just chaos in front of a casito.
It's the most precious thing. And these girls end up pulling her friend
away, and as it are pulling her away, she comes back and she's
say thank you, and they pull her out. And I don't know what
I ended up happening in to her, except that she got delivered. Priest
the Lord, why are we talking about perspective? There's a weight to this.
Your perspective determines how you live. Last week we mentioned I believe it
was Matthew chapter six, Jesus said, if your eye is clean, your
whole body is filled with light. But if your eye is dirty, your
whole body is filled with darkness. And if and if the darkness you have
you think is light, and how deep is that darkness. So the perspective
we walk in, that we walk out of those doors with, that we
even chat amongst each other with, is very, very very vital to the
flow of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I do believe that God is pulling
us into a much higher, much elevated perspective than what we might have been
living. And so, I mean, I'm thinking about myself in Vegas and
how things probably would have been a lot different if I would have came us.
I'm going to tell somebody about Jesus probably have been a lot different.
Maybe somebody would have been touched. I don't know. I just know that
when we come with kingdom perspective, we get kingdom results. This morning,
I want to talk about Saul's transformation. A lot of us know him as
Paul or Apostle Paul, but before he was Paul, he was Saul.
And I'm I'm gonna We're going to go through a story together and I'm gonna
try the best they can to go through it quickly. But man, get
ready because God's about a rock or well, now I'm totally excited about this.
So it starts not with I'm gonna do a little priest story before we
get into scripture. When Jesus came, died, resurrected, he came to
his disciples, reread the Holy Spirit on them and said, wait until,
wait, until the Promised One comes, until the power of the Holy Spirit
comes. So they wait forty fifty days and the power of the Holy Spirit
descends on them, and they start speaking in tongues. Miracles break out,
and the church is born, and there's thousands added to them almost daily.
They're just massive, massive move of the Lord in the early Church. And
so what happens is as they're growing, there becomes dysfunction and disunity and divide.
And it happened amongst the females. I don't know what the Lord was
thinking with females. We should just I don't know. It's a I mean,
look at the Garden of Eden. I know what happened there, And
all the brothers said, I don't say anything. You will you will get
in trouble. You will get I'm messing up bad. I'm gonna get a
talk on the way hold on, no, I'm kidding, Oh Lord,
please help. Females are girls are just amazing. I will say, the
way your brains work is just a mystery that God created in and of itself.
Yeah, I'm digging deeper, Oh Lord, Like okay, no,
I'm not gonna go there. But God is so good and females are amazing.
But so, Saul, what happened? Thank you? Somebody just dug
me out. That was a rope, thank you. So what happens is
there's a there's a division amongst women. It was a cultural issue, the
Hebrew speaking woman and the Greek speaking woman, and they were divided amongst food
distribution. I personally think the Hebrews like, hey, we're first, we
need this first, whatever, And it caused such a big division that the
Apostles had to get involved and they're like, guys, we can't get involved
with this food distribution. We got like souls that need to be saved.
And so they appointed seven men to oversee food distribution. And we would assume
they were just appoint administrative people, you know who, they appointed powerful men
of God. One of them was Stephen. Stephen, the Bible says was
full of wisdom and full of the Holy Spirit in a way that when he
spoke, you couldn't argue with what he's saying. Therefore a lot of people
were touched and converted into the Christian way. And so when Stephen spoke,
a lot of people were touched. So what happened was the Jews from a
synagogue made up a plan where they lied about what Stephen was saying to the
High Council and the Jews in Judaism. And so what happened is they arrested
Stephen and they brought him before the High Council, and they said, they
brought up the accusation, and they say, what do you say about this?
And here we find ourselves in Acts chapter seven. I want to I
want to bring our attention to one thing real quick. It's in Acts chapter
six, verse fifteen, when they when they brought Stephen to the High Council.
Watch what happens At this point, everyone in the High Council stared at
Stephen because his face became as bright as angels. I was thinking, that's
probably why nobody can argue with him, because if you're talking to him his
face so bright, you just amen, yes, you're right. So watch
what happens. He begins to tell these Pharisees and this High Council the whole
story from Abraham all the way down to basically Jesus. He hits the law
pretty hard, and he's sharing all a lot of this past tense and then
in chapter seven, verse fifty one, he brings it down to their level
and he begins, he begins to be very very serious with him, and
he says, you stubborn people, you are heathen at heart and death to
the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That's what your ancestors
did. And so do you name one prophet. Your ancestors did not persecute.
They even killed the ones that predicted the coming of the Righteous One,
the Messiah, who who you betrayed and murder. You deliberately disobeyed God's law,
even though you received it from the hands of angels. Imagine that the
Jewish leaders were infuriated with Stephen's accusation, and they shook their fists in rage.
But Stephen full the Holy Spirit gay steadily, who yeah, gaye steadily
to heaven and saw the glory of God. I want to repeat that.
But Stephen full of the Holy Spirit case steadily into heaven and saw the glory
of God. And he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's
right hand. And he told them, look, behold, look I see
the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor
at God's right hand. I believe Stephen was actually crying out to them,
saying, come higher, look at what I see. Come to my level.
See what I see. Then you'll be what I am. Look and
behold what I'm seeing. Fifty seven. They put their hands over their ears
and begin shouting. They rushed to him, dragging him out of the city
and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them
at the feet of a young man named Saul, and as they stoned him,
Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus received my spirit, and he fell to his
knees, shouting, Lord, Yeah, don't charge them with this sin.
And with that he died. Saul was one of the witnesses, and he
agreed completely to the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that
day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem, and all the believers except the
apostles were scattered through the region of Judea and Samarium. Some develop men came
and buried Stephen with great mourning, but Saul was going everywhere to destroy the
church. He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women
to throw them into prison. Wow, okay, I was thinking last night,
man, I'm so glad to be in America, in the Great USA,
where we have the Second Amendment and we have protection rights and just a
lot of religious freedom. My family actually came here for that reason. I
have a lot of family from the Russian side and a lot of family from
the Ukrainian side. We immigrated from Ukraine and we came here thinking that authority
was to be feared. We didn't know that they're actually public servants, and
we had no clue that the Second Amendment what even that meant. So when
I got to find out what that meant, and the fact that you know,
we have a right to bear arms and just protect ourselves, thinking,
man, we live an amazing country. This is amazing privilege. We have
to be here, So praise the Lord for that. If I was to
take a poll right now and figure out how many of you are ready to
go, if somebody would come in the middle of the night. The numbers
would be scary. Ready, probably like ninety percent of us are ready armed
and dangerous. Saul came knocking on your door in the middle of the night,
trying to drag you out. You'll be like Saul. So you decided
to come through my door this fall. You got two options. It's either
I make you fall, or you give your Lord, give your life to
the Lord, and become the pall you were created to be. I know
that's some of you here. I know that's true because I've been in some
of your homes and I heard the way you talk, especially when it comes
to firearms. I love you guys, by the way. So Saul went
on this persecution spree and started throwing people in a prison and and and started
killing off people. And here's the crazy thing in chapter nine. I'm gonna
actually read this because it's so important that we get exactly what's happening. Chapter
nine, verse one. Basically, as Saul is going on this persecution spree,
how many of us know it. You can't stop the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. You just can't. And if you persecute the gospel, it multiplies,
spreads, and covers the earth. That's that's the blessing of persecution as
you persecute it just it's like wildfires went to the flame. It's amazing.
So as he's persecuting, everybody's going everywhere preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and people are getting saved and touched along the way. Meanwhile, Saul is
uttering threats with every breath and was ea or to kill the Lord's followers.
And he went to the High Priest. He requested letters addressing the synagogues and
Damascus, asking for their cooperation and the arrest of any followers of the way
he found there he went, he wanted to bring them, both men and
women back to Jerusalem in chains. As he was approaching Damascus on this mission
trip. Yeah, a light from heaven suddenly shone downs. Remind you of
anything, Stephen, Maybe it's amazing how Jesus brings Paul back, or Saul
back to his first encounter. His first encounter was when he was sitting and
everybody's coat was laid at his feet, when they were stoning Stephen. When
the light of God shone down on Stephen, and Stephen saw what the kingdom's
all about, and Jesus pulls back, almost like brings Paul back into that
experience. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you? Lord?
Saul asked, and the voice replied, I am Jesus, the one
you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city, where you
will be told what you must do. Then the men, the men with
the men with Saul, stood up speechless, for they heard the sounds of
someone's voice, but saw no one. Saul picked himself up the ground,
and when he was open, when he opened his eyes, he was blind.
So his companions led him to Damascus by hand. He remained there blind
for three days and didn't eat or drink. I was thinking, why with
Jesus blind him? It's again, it's a question of your perspective. He
had to close the eyes of Saul so that everything he saw, everything he
knew to be true, would be cleansed and redeemed. Like even now,
let's practice this. Close your eyes with me for just a second. Immediately,
when you've closed your eyes, you're more aware of your internals. You
can open your eyes now you're more aware of what you feel, what you're
thinking, what you're desiring. Some of us are aware that you're hungry,
just different things. You're just more aware. And so God and his mercy
blind soul for three days, and I believe it was internal cleansing, as
as the Lord was redirecting and shifting his perspective, showing him everything he thought
to be true and where the lies were, and how Jesus connects to the
Old Testament, how he's a fulfillment. I believe that was all going on
in the midst And then what God does is he calls out to a guy
named Annanias Annonius was in Damascus, and Jesus shows up to Annonias in a
vision and he's a Anonis, there's a guy I want you to go and
lay hands on because he's blind and he needs his vision because he needs to
do things and all this stuff. And his name is, by the way,
his name is Saul of Tarsus. And Annonis was like, oh,
Jesus, I think you're wrong about this guy. Like I don't know if
you heard. Let me tell you God, just in case you're not in
the know. This guy is like not a good guy. He's here to
like get people in prison and to kill them. And I think we should
just skip this one. And Jesus once again confirms that no, you need
to do this because Saul has a call on his life. And watch what
happens. In first eleven says, go over to Jesus is speaking to Annoni's
go over to straight street. Well, yep, straight street, to the
house of Judaeus Judas where when you are there, ask for a man from
Tarsus names Soul. He's praying to me right now. I've shown him a
vision of a man, and and I is coming and laying his hands on
him so that he can see again verse thirteen. He rejects, but then
verse fifteen, once again Jesus says, go for Soul's my chosen instrument to
take my message to the gentiles, to the kings, as well as to
other people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer
from my name. Verse seventeen. Here we are so Annonias went found Saul.
He laid his hands on him and said, brother, Saul, the
Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road has sent me so that you
might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy spirit. HM. When
you hold people's sin against them, you are withholding their breakthrough. I'm gonna
say that warmer time. When you hold people's sin against them, you are
in a position to withhold the breakthrough that God's intending for them. Perhaps God
is showing you that sin for you to be the answer and the breakthrough in
their life. Can you imagine if Antonius really rejected and said, sorry,
God, let's let's figure out some other plan, and he helps Saul sin
against him. Can you imagine that Saul would never be Paul? Do you
know that half of this New Testament here? You know who wrote it?
Paul? Who was Saul? And can you imagine if God pulls us out
of the selfish perspective, an offended, an offensive perspective, and calls us
into a selfless and unoffended perspective that we would have on this earth, what
it would look like if we would walk out of those doors and be unoffended
no matter what comes our way, that we would have a kingdom perspective.
Even everybody who might want to offend us actually gets touched with Jesus. Can
you imagine instantly verse eighteen, something like Scales fell off Saul's eyes and he
regained his sight. So much about vision here, it's ridiculous. Then he
got up and was baptized. Afterward, he ate some food and regained his
strength. Joe came up to me and told me that was communion. He
I believe it. Actually, it's because their strength and communion what we do
every Sunday we come here for a lot of us are doing it every day.
Their strength and the broken body and the blood of Jesus our source of
so much outwardly. Outwardly, in the realm of the physical or the natural,
we only have authority over what we've seen inwardly. I'm gonna say that
long more time. On the outside, you can only bear fruit of what
you've experienced, or what you truly come to know, or what you've seen
inwardly. That's why in Vegas we saw a massive fruit, because there was
a there was a moment that got highlighted and there was a shift of transformation,
and he allowed us to see something inwardly, and he allowed us to
see Vegas through a different light, and therefore we bore much fruit. Is
that the right word? Bore much fruit. Therefore, when the Lord comes
and he begins to address things inwardly. That is the best thing that can
happen for us. And a lot of times he's working to kill your flesh.
He's working to kill that me, myself, an eye in you.
The most precious thing that can happen for a believer is when they die to
themselves. I'm want to quickly go to Ephesians, chapter one, verse fifteen.
You see, when God illuminates something inside of you, there's a position
that God gives you to jump ship, to jump from what you thought to
what he's thinking. When he illuminates, when he shines his light, when
he exposes something could be greed, could be selfishness, could be maybe you
mistreated somebody. You had no clue, but maybe you mistreated somebody. Maybe
something happened and he's shined some light and you're like, oh my God,
conviction, whatever, that's his grace or at least in that moment to jump
from one to another and to respond to that call. We hear that Jesus
says, or I don't think Jesus, but in somewhere in the New Testament,
I think Paul writes it. He's saying that you cannot please God without
faith, and then faith without deeds is dead. And so when we hear
scripture like this, what happens internally we hear deeds. We don't hear faith.
We hear deeds. And so what we try to do is we try
to work harder. And what deeds, what deeds does to us is it
becomes a strife thing and we get works mentality where if we have more deeds
or if we've done more, we'll feel better and we'll feel like we have
faith. But that's not totally true because you can do the right things,
but the wrong way. You can have deeds, but it comes out of
the wrong heart. First Corinthians, they're teen talks about love and saying that
you can do all these things, but if you don't have love, it's
nothing. So it's a position of heart and perspective. So when we hear
faith without deeds is dead, and where we're provoked to do more for the
Lord, and it's not coming out of faith, it's coming out of strife,
we're missing the point. You see, when the Lord shines his light
on our life and he reveals something or maybe an area that we're not doing
well enough, and it's not for you to strife. It's for you to
yield to him. It's not for you to work harder, but it's for
you to submit to him better because it's the power of the Holy Spirit working
in you, causing you to do things that pleases him. So the more
you yield to the Holy Spirit, the more he's actually working in you.
And you can't tell how, you don't know what you don't there's no way
to put a finger on it. But when the Holy Spirit's working on you,
the fruit becomes evident. So what he gives us as a task to
do is to believe in Jesus, believe in the sun, and work less
I believe it or not. The importance of perspective shift is so important.
I'll bring you a very practical example since we're on the topic of tides,
so a lot of us view ties in this way. One is we're losing
ten percent of our money, Like we're giving away ten percent to fulfill what
God's requested of us. So we're giving away, so we're losing I mean,
there's still godly principles and even if you have that, even if you
have that perspective, God will bless it and you'll you'll experience amazing things.
But there's a different perspective. It's a kingdom perspective, and it's called investing.
So when you give ten percent when you tied, you're actually still attached
to it. You've invested into something. And so when you invest there's a
return because the perspective which you come to something is what you'll get from it.
So it's the faith attached to what you're doing. So if God lights
up your world and shows you, hey, you've been actually you've been losing
money by tithing. If God shines his light on you, that means he
actually wants to take you to a deeper or more higher place. He wants
to take you, He wants to bless your life. I mean, when
I heard the statistic that like half of the church tides, I mean I
shrunk in my seat. Not because not because I'm like, oh my God,
we're not believers. It's because we are selling, sure from what God's
called us to be. I mean, a lot of us are praying for
opportunity, but we're not giving God the opportunity to bless what we're doing.
We're asking the Lord to do certain things in our life, but we don't
want to give him anything to work with. I mean, my wife and
I tied for two years and and the moment I said, okay, Lord,
I like some more money, he gave me a business idea, I
mean like, and I'm still doing it and it's great. And I had
no clue what I was doing beside the Lord told me what to do.
And so the difference between how we were and how we're gonna be as your
response to what the Lord is doing in your own life. Ephesians, chapter
one, verse fifteen. Ever since I heard of your strong faith in the
Lord and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thinking God
for you. I pray for you, constantly asking God, the glorious Father
of Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight kingdom perspective,
so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your
hearts would be flooded with light yep, so that you can understand the confident
hope that He's given to those he has called his Holy people, who are
His rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible
greatness of God's power for us who believe him. This is the same power.
This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated
him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms.
Man, oh Man, oh man. So it's the goal of everything we're
doing here, like all the preaching, all the teaching, and and the
pastors, prophets, evangelists, and everything that you might hear from the Lord
in your car or just even your chat amongst each other. What's the goal
of it? What's the purpose? What's the goal of our all of our
instruction? Chapter four, verse eleven. Now, these are the gifts that
Christ gave to the church. The apostles, the prophets, evangelists, pastors
and teachers. Their responsibility. The goal that they have is to equip God's
people to do His work and build up the Church, the body of Christ.
This will continue until we've all come to such unity and our faith and
our knowledge of God's Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring
up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Oh Lord, just go
home and read that again. Please. We just pastor did an amazing job,
like last month or the month before, like four weeks in a row.
We touched up on that verse, and I mean, the whole idea
is just it's the goal that would become more like Him, that his light
would shine into our life, expose dark hidden things and expose any demonic influences,
and expose any lies that we believe in, and bring us to the
feet in the heart of Jesus. Would you stand with me. We're gonna
sing this song Holy Spare. You're welcome here. I feel like I know
the Lord is onto something. I don't know if the person is here,
but heard that somebody was here first service. His name was Stephen. He
lived in Vegas and he just recently came back to the Lord on Tuesday,
and he was here for the first time first service, and I mean the
message might have been just for him. I don't know, but I know
the Lord is onto something because maybe your heart is responding to it. Maybe
there's some things that the Lord is doing inside your heart, inside your soul.
Maybe you're hearing you've never given your life to the Lord, or maybe
your backslid and like Anthony was in Vegas, and maybe there's different things that
God's doing. I don't know, but you know, because the Holy Spirit
is like an amazing light and he shines. That's his job is to shine,
and our job, or our privilege is to respond to what he's shining
too. So I want to encourage you, if if if I can have
some destiny team up here, if you got to go grab your kids,
go grab them. But if there's something the Lord is shining on, or
maybe there's there's a call that God's calling you to. Maybe God's actually called
you to us certain ministry or to do something and you've been resisting. I
don't know what it is, but there's a moment here the grace will illuminate.
Grace will illuminate your situation. And I believe that God is giving us
the grace to jump, to jump into all that He has for us.
So this morning I want to pray over us, a crazy good prayer,
and I believe the Holy Spirit is going to continue his work. Ready,
Father, I'll thank you this morning for your presence, for your nearness,
Holy Spirit. We ask that you would just come even now and light up
our worlds. Even now, would you come light up our worlds just like
you did for Saul. Light up our worlds, Light up our worlds.
If you feel like you have to come and agree in prayer with somebody,
would you come to the front. If you feel like you just gotta sit
down for a moment, maybe you gotta lay down, maybe you just gotta
get on your knees. Respond to the Holy Spirit the way your heart is
responding. And I believe we're going to experience radical encounters and key Lord, you