NEVER A VICTIM

How we doing church some of you, some of you know that DNA leads

our Destiny team, and our heart, our passion is that every new Horizon

member is able to prophesy. We've got some books out. This is a

Prophetic Sunday. So we've got some featured books out in the four year today

today and today only one of them, like some already sold out after for

service. So we've got this one here, Prophetic Evangelism. But there's some

other titles out there as well. But then I wanted to bring your attention

to these two. If you haven't grown up in an atmosphere where the prophetic

was a part of ministry and you're just you're not even sure about the prophetic

realm or being a part of church expression, then I've got a couple of

other titles out there for you, one by Tony Cook, Miracles and the

Supernatural, and then one that is it's edited by Robert Graves, but it's

got each chapter is a new author, so it's it's stuff you know,

Bill Johnson and Randy Clark and just a bunch of other authors. So anyway,

that stuffs out in the four year, and if you want to know

more about the prophetic team. If you want prophetic training, if you want

any insight on this, chase her down afterwards, right and ask her a

question. Find out more about how you can get involved or how you can

learn more and grow more. Her favorite book this morning is sold out.

That one's sold out already, so ask her about her favorite book. It

was today's favorite. Let's stand and prayer for the word. Father. We

thank you today that you raise us up, that you that you have called

us into the nu creation that we are. We are breathing in the hope

and the life that you see over the earth and over people. We bless

you for it today. Let the atmosphere just be flooded right now with hope

and life and faith and courage, all that is you and of you,

out of your atmosphere into ours. We thank you for it in Jesus name.

And everybody said, amen, Amen, Amen. We're on this.

We're on this theme entitled last week's message, give it back, and it's

an expression out of Isaiah forty two twenty two. And then let's just go

ahead and read it. Why don't we read it? It will jump over

there real quick. I want to say somewhat consistent with that theme today.

But I want to deal with excuses that keep us or excuses is maybe a

bad word, but reasoning, maybe reasoning that keeps us from having a restoration

mindset. So, but let's dive into this real quick Isaiah forty two,

twenty two. But this is the people plundered and pillaged. All of them

are trapped in caves or hidden away in prisons. They have become plunder with

no one to save them and spoils, with no one to say give them

back. Everybody shout give them back. That was a pretty good shout.

Let's do it again, give them back. That was better. You know,

you can't you know, you can't actually say that without kind of an

attitude, right, I mean, you can't say it appropriately and properly.

You can say it in a highest church, but if you're really going to

say it, you can't say it with a little bit of grit, a

little bit of attitude, right. And this is this is the word become

flesh. This is the expression of Jesus. This is essentially the shout of

Yeshiva over the planet, the shout of God over the planet. And we

see it in the context here as it pertains to the nearest context Israel,

and God's observing Israel's been taken captive. God's observing that they're spoiled. God's

observing that they're hidden in caves. That's the observation. But the heart of

Father is broken over their situation, and Yeshiva comes as his expression, his

word of declaration to give them back. You know. Isaiah fifty five eleven

and twelve says that that God's ways are higher than ours, his thoughts are

higher than ours. It also talks about though his word, that his word

is powerful, that his word flows out of his ways and his thoughts,

and that his word, it doesn't leave his mouth but without accomplishing what it

was sent forth to do. God's word. Jesus was God's word. Jesus

was the fullness, the embodiment of God's word. And if we could just

picture that Jesus was the shout of God over not only Israel, but over

the gentile nations, over the planet, to give them back. Let's say

it again, say it with attitude. Imagine now this is this is just

part of this is part of the restoration theme. Part of the restoration theme

is that in Christ, who is the second Adam, the last atom in

Christ, God is reconciling the world to himself, and God has a restored

people in mind and a restored globe in mind. That God really wants the

whole planet back, and God could only get the whole planet back through a

man, because it's through a man that it was lost. So when the

planet was lost by Adam in the garden and turned over to who then became

the Prince of the power of the air, which we might conclude that Adam

was. Prince means first, first one, So we might conclude that if

Satan became the Prince of the power of the Air, that Adam was actually

ordained to be the prince and the power of the air, because Adam was

the first and that's what prince means, first one, the one in charge,

the one in dominion, that's the prince. And Adam was given the

earth, put in charge, given dominion over the earth, and so the

Earth couldn't be reclaimed or brought back or bought back or restored until another man

came. Another man came and essentially won a victory over Satan. A victory

had to be won over Satan by a human in his humanity. Jesus didn't

win the victory that he won in his divinity. He won the victory over

Satan in his humanity. He's fully God and he's fully man. But Philippians

too shows us very clearly that he set his god like divinity. He said

his divinity, his godness a sigh, and took on humanity that he might

win the earth back on our behalf. And what he has in mind,

he has restoration in mind. This is you know, the end goal is

restoration. It's restoration of humanity, it's restoration of the earth. First humanity

is restored, then the earth is restored and its progressive right. So it

begins with the first advent. So when he comes in the very beginning,

he comes with the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, why would he come with

the Kingdom of heaven? Because Eden was a replica of Heaven. Eden was

Heaven on earth. Everything about Eden was a picture of heaven. So he

comes to bring again the Kingdom of Heaven that he might plant into the earth

the Kingdom of Heaven, so that from that moment until his second the Kingdom

of Heaven is growing and advancing, and the Kingdom of Darkness the kingdom of

Satan, the one that he came to dispose of and to demolish. That

kingdom is confronted, overthrown, it's being reduced to stubble. So we were

using First Corinthian's fifteen as our text for that, and I want to go

there and read it again to you, and I want you to see it

again First Corinthians twenty four and twenty five. Then comes the end when he

delivers the kingdom to God the Father. He's delivering this is the Kingdom of

Heaven. This is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is growing

during this time, and we find ourselves in the middle of this time.

And Paul says, the end is not coming until he delivers the kingdom to

God the Father, when he puts an into all rule and authority in power,

for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. If you read the whole

chapter, and I invite you to that, that whole chapter, it shows

you that the last enemy, which is death, is being defeated on the

last day. And the last day is signified signified by the last trump.

So many of you are familiar with that text. So this shows you,

though that from the beginning of his coming until his coming again, that there

is a growing kingdom. And I think I want you to see two things

are happening. One thing that's happening is we're in the most massive macro deliverance

of all time. That's One thing that's happening is that he is destroying he

says. He says he must reign until he puts an end to all rule,

all authority, in all power, and he's speaking of the demonic realm.

This is consistent with Hebrews Chapter one, is consistent with Psalm one ten,

is consistent with those other there's three passages where Father said to him,

set here at my right hand until I put all of your enemies under your

feet and make them as a footstool for your feet. By the way,

we know the footstool. Understanding, this is very powerfully metaphoric in that we

are the body of Christ. The feet are a part of the body.

He's the head to the body right, and so essentially those passengers are saying,

sit here at my right hand until I put all of your enemies under

your body. If it's progressive. Guess what it is progressive by the way

it's progressive according to our faith and the working of the Holy Spirit in the

body. If it's progressive, then that actually means that tomorrow could be better

than today. That actually means that we have tremendous hope for the future.

That actually means the next ten years could render more breakthroughs for the kingdom than

the last ten years. And actually, even as only three of you clapped

for that, this is part of what the Holy Spirit's trying to do.

Is the Holy Spirit's trying to gets you to see what he's up to so

you can come into agreement with it instead of yawn, because when we yawn

inward, really we're saying I don't know, I'll believe it when I see

it. But he wants you to see it and believe it so that you

see it because you believed it. This is what he's trying to do with

the Body. He tries he's trying to quicken us to come into agreement with

him. And one thing that we've been learning, you know, time and

time again, is that we are the ones who activate what he's up to

right now, We're the ones who we're the ones who activate what he's up

to. If Zach or Roman or Angela or anyone needed deliverance in any way

whatsoever, let's say, and oppressing of thought or a fear or any kind

of an issue, you know, you wouldn't grab them by the hands and

say, okay, well I'm going to believe with you right now and you're

going to be set free, and you know, say nothing, or maybe

you could break into you know, him like a BENI hidden him or something.

You know you follow in them. Why why is it that when you

grab them by the hands, you activate the presence of Jesus in the ministry

of Jesus by the expression of what you believe with the speech of your mouth.

Because the Holy Spirit is active and powerful and alive to make known through

us what he's up to as we use our words. And so what you

would say is fear. Roman doesn't want you, Angela doesn't want you,

Zach doesn't want you. Leave them alone. Right, you would use your

voice to dismiss the fear. Right, This is how we pray for one

another. This is how Jesus prayed as the instrument of God to destroy the

works of Satan and now as the kingdom is progressively growing and we're dismissing darkness

off of the planet. We activate that, we participate in that, we're

partners in all of that by activating our faith with our speech. This is

why Romans chapter ten, if we could go there, Michael, but Romans

chapter ten, eight through ten, if you type that in Romans ten eight

through ten, Michael, Michael, Michael, faster than known, not that

one. Romans, Romans ten, I don't have it, Type ten.

You'd have to type it in Romans ten eight through ten. He's fast,

he can get it. This is why when we think about the power of

your words, like this passage. We use this passage that I'm abou already

to talk about, we use it for salvation. But the power of your

words extend beyond the realm of salvation. The power of your words make you

a kingdom enforcer and a kingdom participant. So when we think about this passage,

which He's going to find for us in just a moment, it says

that if you believe in your heart, that when you believe under your heart

with regard to the superiority of Jesus his lordship, you believe unto righteousness,

you believe unto righteousness. All right, good, good, good good.

There's verse eight. Now what is the next verse? Are we verse nine?

What is verse nine? If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the days, you

shall be saved. To go on verse ten. For with the heart a

person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting

in salvation. So here's what I want you to see. I want you

to say that the word the word saved, is the word so zo.

Right. And we've heard this before. It means to be delivered out of

darkness or delivered out from under the influence of darkness. But it has an

equal picture of to be delivered into salvation or light or into promise. We

come out of darkness and we come into promise. Right, And so he

says, the way we activate this is we believe in our heart that Jesus

is Lord, Lord of what well, Lord is the superior term given to

him. Right, So like lord of everything, the lord of he's Lord

over sickness, he's Lord over disease, he's the Lord over decay, he's

Lord over trials. He's Lord over tribulation, he's Lord over losses, he's

Lord over Jesus as Lord, not just the Lord to get me to heaven,

but the Lord, the redemptive one. And the topic is the topic

is sozo. That's the word in the Greek. We see it as saved

or salvation, but the topic in the Greek what it is is soso.

That's the Greek word. So we believe upon the Lord, and we believe

in his lordship over whatever we're going through, right, and so we believe

that in our hearts. That's aligning ourselves with a right perspective of what God

has done in Jesus, not just Jesus the Savior, but Jesus the last

Adam, the restoring one, who's come to restore the earth, first the

people and then the earth too, what God intended and to what was lost?

Are you following me at all? Jesus is not like just the Lord

of you know, who solves things for us when we sin, and so

we can Okay, you're the Lord again, whom my word, I'm just

such a mess. Okay, your Lord, Your Lord, Jesus, your

Lord. You know, it's just a lot of times our thinking is woven

around kind of the sin consciousness message. And what God has done in Jesus

is to make him the lord of the Earth, that he might bring back

to you and to the earth the restoration that Father has in mind. And

this is the biggest picture. The big picture in the macro is not just

dismissing the enemy off the planet, but it's restoring you, restoring humanity,

and restore ring the earth. And we partner as we believe that way about

the last atom. We believe that way in our heart, and then we

come into agreement with our speech. That's why even we take on this shout

of give it back. That's why we take on this shout of give them

back, give them back those who are lost, give it back the earth

that is lost, give it back stuff that I've lost. And essentially,

in the Christ, in the Beloved, and I mean, I'm really going

to go out there now is going to stretch you, and you might you

might think I've gone nuts, but I believe that in the Christ, essentially

God was setting us up to never ever be a victim of anything. The

believer in Jesus, though life is tough and the life is crazy, and

the things come like you got to deal with decay, and you got to

deal with rott and you gotta deal with rotten people, and you got to

deal with circumstances you can't control. And you've got to deal with this,

that and the other thing. And there are all sorts of things that will

throw trouble at you. And you've got people stealing from you, and you've

got this and that and the other thing going on, and you've got corruption,

and you've got the curse, and you've got demons. You've got all

this stuff throwing stuff at you all of the time. We are never a

victim to any of it because the superior One who has called us to live

not out of our circumstances, but to live out of Heaven, has already

empowered us with the faith to believe that that is the source of our life.

The source of your life is heaven, and you live out of that

reality, and you bring that reality here because what he's about in the New

Creation person is restoring the human and then the earth to the model. The

model is heaven. Fact is, you know, you might even realize just

for a moment that anything, anything that falls short of Heaven, the kingdom

of heaven, the life of heaven, the understanding of heaven. Anything that

falls short of that. He actually set us up by making heaven the template

of life. He set us up to contend against that. That's why when

you get sick, you don't get happy. You're like, oh, I

should figure out a way to get rid of this. When you get sick,

you're not like, oh, what a blessing. Oh well, this

is good. I'm in a pot all day. This is so good.

I love this. I wanted to stay in the bathroom all the time.

Anyway, this is a joy, what a joy? Oh my goodness.

No, there's something in you that's like, no, this is not right.

The testimony of a better kingdom, the testimony of a superior life,

the testimony of what God's ordained for you, is actually speaking within you at

that very moment, pushing you to contend against the curse. We are wired

to yearn for heaven and to push against the curse. That's the way we're

wired. I'm gonna pause for a moment and drink, and then we'll promise

to wind up soon. Our father, who art in heaven, how it

would be your name, your kingdom? Come your will be done on earth

as it is in heaven. What was Jesus doing right there? He was

making the template of life heaven. He was confirming to all who would follow

him that the template for life is heaven. This is why you want people

to be healed. This is why you want people living well. This is

why you want people blest. This is why you want your children blest.

This is why you want your friends overcoming. Because the template for life is

heaven. This is why you when you can't explain what they're going through and

when you can't figure out why it lingers, you still know that the template

for life is heaven. You still know that you're going to keep believing for

better, that you're going to keep pressing into answers, into God, into

friendship with him in the revelation and understanding. This is why you're not going

to abandon your faith when things don't seem to be going the way you thought

they should. Because the template woven within you is Heaven. That's the template.

That's the template, and it's not a wrong templates an it's not an

error that it's within you. It's it's not a problem with you that you're

desiring this and you just need to be at peace with all this crud.

However, I want to I want to entertain a few things with you quickly

as we close, we're gonna attempt to close. And I know the piano

player has gone to the to the bench. Yes, the benediction music has

begune, But quickly I want to deal with just I'll read these and we

won't linger along on them. Okay, she'll okay, I want to read

these. I won't linger along on them. But um, I feel like

what happens is is that we get twisted a little bit with some reasoning and

some lies and some influence, out of religion, out of friendship, out

of what we've seen and what we've witnessed, and out of others, and

so we don't we don't contend for the restoration that the Lord. We stopped

contending. That makes sense. Here's one of the here's one of the reasons

we can blame God thinking that he's punishing you. Now, I totally believe,

for Christians and those of you setting in the church today, that this

is a trick of the enemy. If the enemy can get you to believe

that God is punishing you, then you'll allow hurt, an injury, and

loss and darkness to prosper against you, and you won't fight it because you've

come to accept that this is God punishing you. But Isaiah fifty three four

says that he put all of the punishment that we deserve on Jesus. Now,

he didn't put all of the punishment that we deserved on Jesus up until

the day that we were born again, and then after that it's on you.

Oh, good job, good job. Okay, eighteen years old,

you came to the Lord good. All that punishment you deserve. Before that,

that's on Jesus. After that it's on you. So that the way

it works, the punishment continues to be on Jesus. And though we're imperfect,

we continue to bring ourselves back to Father, and Father continues to acknowledge

that all the punishment we ever deserved has been placed on Jesus. So don't

accept that line number two. Number two. We can accredit God. We

can accredit God not so much that he's punishing us, but just that he's

leading us, and he's directing us through the circumstances of loss and theft and

hardship, and we that's Okay, we do go through loss and theft and

hardship. But a lot of times we a lot of times we think,

well, I think that's just God's will. I think God is just teaching

me some things. God's just can lead me through this. I just trust

him. God's in charge of everything. You know, God's boss. You

know God's He's probably got reason for this. Hello, somebody, he's got

a reason for this. No, God didn't do this. It causes hopelessness,

and again it disables our contention in fight in the shout of restoration,

because we attach God's will to something that's happened to us. You can blame

yourself. This is the third area, thinking that you brought this on yourself

due to your sin or not sin, maybe failure or folly or foolishness or

shortsightedness. But again, most of the time, this is just another open

door to the enemy. If you feel like something has come your way,

or it is staying on you, or it's harassing you because of what you've

done, again you won't fight for restoration, and again you'll open the or

to the enemy to harass you and put more on you than he was putting

on you. Ever before, Because now you've come to think that it's your

foolishness or folly or stupidity or lack of knowledge or lack of training, or

your lack of discernment or some stupid thing you did that He is allowing that's

to happen. As long as you allow that thought to have even this much

space, you will not fight for your restoration. Number four almost one.

You can blame others and be angry with them. This is an open door

to the enemy because it makes you a victim of their injury or their failure

or their poor performance because they were on your team and that's why it's happened.

So I mean, who am I to believe for restoration for this?

I mean I'm the one that messed up, or they messed up, or

another person messed up. So I can't believe for a restoration over that.

And God wants you to believe for a restoration over everything. That's what I'm

trying to say, is it? Actually he doesn't want you to consider yourself

a victim to anything, not even a victim to my mistakes. No.

No. Romans A twenty eight says he knows how to bring good out of

the bad, even your bad. That God knows how to bring good out

of the bad, even out of your bad, which is crazy. That

means God doesn't need you to be good to bring you good. He just

needs you to love him, trust him. And if you love him,

trust him in partner with him with a restoration heart and mindset and confession,

then he can bring good out of your bad. He doesn't need your perfection.

Sometimes when we're angry with another person and you know we're alienated from them,

and you know what we say, as well, we learned a good

lesson, will never let that happen again. Well, I guess it's the

school of hard knocks. It's expensive, but I'm wiser. But we don't

again, We're just we're not standing for restoration. So we live with an

alienated relationship. We live a victim of their injury, and we don't believe

God to be restored. And it's restoration is not getting back what you lost.

It's getting you back to Eden. It's probably getting you back to a

place you've never been. But you allow a little thing like that to circumvent

your restoration, you'll never get back to Eden. If you keep letting people

be the focus of the lack in your life. Lastly, you can blame

the curse on the earth because bad things happen, and things break, and

things fall apart, relationships have misunderstanding, would rots, people get sick.

It's just the way life is. You can blame accidental causes along with the

curse. Things happen in a fallen world. You know, surely I can't

get a restoration on those things. I guess you can stand with me this

morning. What the Word is trying to show you all the way through?

Like Romans five seventeen, those who receive the abundance of grace will reign in

life with Christ Jesus. What the Word is trying to show you all the

way through like Romans eight twenty eight, All things work together for the good

for those who loved Him, and a called according to his purposes. What

the Word is trying to show you all the way through is that you never

have to consider yourself a victim of anything. That God actually wants you to

believe that everything can be restored, That he's the God of restoration, He's

working restoration in your life, That you are his object of restoration. That

before he restores the Earth. He wants to restore you. Humanity's first in

line. The earth is second. He's trying to restore you. He's trying

to restore you. He's trying to restore you, and it's not getting back

a couple of little things that you lost. He wants to get you all

the way back to Eden. He wants you get all the way back to

the template, the heavenly template. The heavenly template is heaven on Earth.

He wants you to be living in, dwelling in, and an example of

Heaven on Earth ends up everywhere. Holy Spirit, we receive your word this

morning. We receive the supercharging power of your grace. This morning. We

receive your word over us and the inspiration of the spirit to contend, to

fight, to rise up, to partner with you, to be restored ones

and to see everything as that which can be restored, all that not only

the enemy does, but life does, crud does, decaye does, entropy

does everything that's happening. Holy Spirit, You've ordained to release a grace on

us that overpowers, that overshadows, that makes up for every loss, And

we thank you for it today. Thank you that you take even the bad

and turn it to the good. We give you the praise for it in

Jesus name, and everybody said, Amen. I'm going to close and ask

the prayer team to come forward if by any chance this just bears witness with

you and there's something you're believing for, or something you need restored, or

there's things you've just set aside and you just there's all sorts of things that

you've not made room for the restoration of God in your life. Come and

be prayed for as we go this morning. We're gonna worship as we leave.

But God bless you for being in the house today.