The Power of Fear

Hallo, lou y'all come on, stand up with me. Let's just open

our hearts for the word. Amen, be glad for the Lord. Isn't

amazing. He's here and he wants my pants to be straight. Thank you,

appreciate that so much better for the camera now, which wasn't even focused

on my pants. Please help me, Roman, help me, the side,

the side cuff, the side cuff. Glaurie, Father, we just

love you. We love your word, We love what you're doing. We

love that you're delivering us of all fear. You're delivering us of all fear.

We ask you look deep in our heart's holy spirit, with your enablement,

with the testimony of truth, the testimony of victory. Look deep within

our hearts. Let freedom. Let freedom be expanded into a deeper way inside

every one of us. This morning, we thank you for it in Jesus

name. Everybody said, Amen, you may be seated. Last week I

talked about body putty. Remember then, if you were here, I introduce

some thoughts about body putty Bondo and it's it's uh, a little bit of

self interest, you know, a little bit of self interest. Probably by

the age of twenty one, I had had six or eight ten automobile accidents.

So I needed bondou. So yeah, I blew up, messed up

a lot of fenders, a lot of cars. But I was introducing the

thought to us that there are things that are small that activate things that are

big. There are larger substances, larger bodies of things that with just a

small activator, the whole component of what that larger is than is released to

do what it was set out to do and meant to do and purpose to

do. And body putties like that, And I'm a man's you have a

man's sermon. A little bit of a little bit of activator, a little

bit of hardener catalyst can turn a larger amount of body putty into what it's

supposed to be. And it's that way with epoxy. And you know,

we talked a little bit last week about yeast as well. A little bit

of yeast leavens a large loaf, a large lump of dome. And I

was talking to you about that because I was mentioning that faith is that way

to grace. Grace is the embodiment of God's supernatural power. We tapped into

a bunch of it today and he's here He's activated this morning, and grace

kiss from which we get charisma and charismatic the grace of God, the supernatural

power of God is accessed by a very small thing, and that's our faith.

And really, my emphasis, my emphasis even last week, this week

even further, isn't so much on us activated the grace of God though,

though that's all part of this. But what I wanted to what was really

on my heart with a warning, What was really on my heart was more

of a warning, and I want to get into that more again today,

is that what we don't realize sometimes is that a little bit of fear activates

the curse, a little bit of fear activated that this same principle that works

for us to tap into the things of God also works, though we don't

like it to be true, it also works to tap into the things of

darkness. And some of the fears that we deal with, we didn't earn

them or deserve them. They're just a part of our vulnerability or our package,

and we have to stand up against them. And God's given us his

promise, is leading, his truth, his clarity, his sacrifice. He's

given us literally everything that we need in Jesus. So that we can have

the faith to overcome. And what I wanted to warness is about is that

I think it's so easy to not it's so easy to not see that a

little bit of doubt, a little bit of fear, a little bit of

unbelief, a little bit of distrust is actually opening up the demonic realm in

a way we don't want it opened up. And what provoked some of this

um What what's provoked some of this with me is stories about um uh,

stories about the demonic realm, stories about people being harmed in the demonic realm,

and even just you know, various writings and preaching, teaching books,

whatever, where we're being counseled or schooled to not do certain things, don't

pray this way, don't get too radical, don't get confronted, don't address

demons, don't get too brash, don't get too bold, don't no,

no, you can't. You know you can't do something over principalities. You

have to be real careful about that. And then we will hear also in

our conversations among believers, we'll also hear another thing that gives place to a

little bit of fear. Will hearing people talk about the devil attacked me.

Here, the devil attacked me. There. The devil did this, the

the devil, and we'll have you heard some of that. So I'm not

saying that's not a reality. But what I'm saying is that maybe it's only

a reality because there was a vulnerability. So I think what the Lord wants

to do, he wants to remove all of the vulnerability out of us so

that the circumstantial reality of harm is no longer happening, because the inward fears

and the doubts and the questions have been erased. They've been removed, they've

been confronted, they've been overcome. Are you with me? Luke? I

had an extra verse and we didn't add it in, But it's just it's

where the lords sit out seventy two of his disciples. He sent out seventy

two disciples. They went out two by two. He told them to heal

the sick and to drive out demons. And when they came back, this

is Luke chapter ten. When they came back in verse seventeen and says the

seventy two returned with joy, and they said, Lord, even the demons

submit to us in your name, And by the way, they weren't.

They weren't counseled. Don't address this, don't confront that, don't address the

other thing. There was nothing like that. But they came back rejoicing,

and then the Lord said this to them. He clemmented, he replied,

and he said, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have

given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions. And he didn't mean literal

snakes and scorpions. To trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the

power of the enemy, and nothing will harm you. So that has kind

of you know that scriptures jumped out at me. Nothing will harm you,

And I think that that if Jesus said it, then that's truth. But

the reality of what we experience is far from that declaration of truth. There

are many believers and Christians who end up getting harmed in their Christian experience,

whether they're confronting demons or not. Most of us don't even confront demons and

get harmed, right, I mean most Christians. I'm not talking about New

Horizon Church Christians. Of course, these are superior Christians here, but the

non superior Christians that exist elsewhere those Christians don't even don't even get engaged in

spiritual warfare and get harmed. And so I'm thinking, you know, what

is the disconnect, right, what is the disconnect between what Jesus said that

the enemy cannot arm you, will not harm you, won't harm you,

and overhear the experience of getting harmed. And that's where I want to I

want to just kind of drive this home a little bit. Is that Satan

is a faith god, small g yes, but in terms of spiritual power,

spiritual dominion, spiritual existence, spiritual authority. He exists in a realm,

a spirit realm, and the spirit realm is all governed by faith,

and fear is faith. So wherever we don't have a bulwark of faith,

there will be the presence of fear. And there's all there's there's many fears

that we don't address. There's many fears we don't we don't see them maybe

as fears because they just affect us with doubts or question or a lack of

confidence or a second guessing or um. So you know, there's reasoning of

the mind that's actually fear, but it doesn't appear to be fear in other

words, it's not terrifying you. It's not making you. It's not making

you leap on Halloween night. It's not that kind of fear. But it's

pushing you away from your destiny, or pushing you away from your confidence in

God, or it's pushing you away from knowing who you are, or it's

pushing you away from acting as you are in the New Creation. It's it's

there are things that push us away that are essentially made up of fear.

They're actually fear, though the reasoning and the expression inwardly may sound more like

doubt and distrust or wondering or indecision or second guessing. And I think for

these we need to identify them. And I think for these we need to

have we need to have a bulwark of faith, a faith expression that puts

us over them. And let me let me, let me show you what

I mean by that in March chapter five, and they didn't look I didn't.

I don't have this one for you, but you could look it up

if you want to. March chapter five in the NIV or the I'm at

the Nasme March chapter five and verse twenty four. A large crowd followed and

pressed around Jesus, and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding

for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many

doctors and had spent all of the of the money. She had spent everything

on physicians, and instead of getting better, she grew where So may have

you seen the biblical movie thing that spent out? Now, what's it called

The Chosen? Thank you for helping me. Have you've seen this? Maybe

you've seen this episode. I don't know you've seen it. So they do

a good job with this. And so here's a woman. She's she's been

bleeding for twelve years, she's unclean, she's a cast out and a cast

away, and you can imagine all of the fears that would visit her and

seek to dominate her thought life, like, you're going to have no relationships

the rest of your life. You'll be lucky if you even live to fulfill

your life. You're you're never going to fulfill your purpose. You're gonna have

to hide your entire life. You're never going to be fulfilled relationally, and

just fear after fear. Your whole future is economic peril. I mean,

they are all of these and Essentially, the way the enemy works is he

brings words, reasoning thoughts against you that that are drawing you to buy into

them. Right, And essentially that's the substance of fear. Is reasoning that

contradicts God's word, God's promise, God's fulfillment, God's calling, God's new

creation of you, God's redemption at God's healing, God's salvation, God's restoration.

Any kind of word that brings a contradiction to that is a word that

is the substance of a fear, because now you fear what God has said

or what you desire in God won't come to pass. And so she had

probably you know, a hundred of these things plaguing her mind. But what's

interesting is she presses through the crowd. You remember the story, She presses

through the crowd, and even that she had to overcome fear of you're going

to be caught, you're going to be turned in, you're going to be

pulled aside. She had to overcome every kind of fear to press into Jesus.

Right, and all of this is going on, and it says that

she said to herself, or this translation, she thought to herself, King

James I love it, She's said to herself. And this is what I

mean by you have to have a bulwark of faith. What is your bulwark

of faith that you will rehearse when the enemy comes with something? What is

your bulwark of faith? If you don't have one, you have to create

one, and you can create one on the fly. Because you have the

mind of Christ, you don't have the mind of fear. Paul said that

Timothy, you've not been given a spirit of fear. You've been given a

spirit of love, of power, and of self control. That's what you've

been given. So you can tap in to a holy spirit when a fear

comes, or a reason, an expression, a thought comes. You grab

that thing right second drinth and ten, three through five. You take it

captive, and you examine it under the Christ. Because you've become one with

him. You've become one with the superior one, one with the victorious one,

one with the overcoming one, one with the risen one. You are

one with him. You are hidden, your life is hidden in Christ.

And so you take that thought captive and you bring it under the obedience of

Christ. Does this line up with what he has done? Said, called,

proclaimed, and promised and fulfilled on my behalf. Does this life If

it doesn't line up with that, then it's going to partner with fear.

If it partners with fear, fear is faith. Fear is that little catalyst

that will release something greater of darkness in your life, in your world.

You don't want it, you don't want any fear, and I love it.

That the expression of the Lord toward this little lady. She says to

herself, if I can touch the Him of his garment, if I can

touch as closed, I will be healed. And so she does that.

Immediately her bleeding stops. She felt in her body that she was freed from

her suffering. At once, Jesus realized that power virtue. The King James

says, it's the same thought that we were talking about last week. It's

grace. She tapped into kiss, she tapped into grace. She tapped into

the power of God with her faith. There wasn't a move of the spirit,

there wasn't a song service, there wasn't a worship environment. Ugo was

not on his guitar, we didn't have drew on the keys. Sabrina wasn't

singing to the top of her lungs. We didn't have Dennis calling us forward.

We had none of that whatsoever. This was a very dry environment.

But she was saying something to herself. She had a bulwark of faith,

and she tapped into the power of God in the midst of a noisy crowd.

And he turns around and he says, who touched me? And then

he says, daughter, your faith, Daughter, your faith made you hold

Your faith tapped him to the power. It's your faith expression in a dry

environment where and I'm not saying, I mean get me near a keyboard,

and I mean the juicy or the better right. So Ali shad like to

prophesy when the music, when the when the minstrel was going. So we

know that we know the anointing flows in a juicy environment. But we also

know that your faith is a very powerful bulwark. And against all of those

fears plaguing her mind and against all of the risks she had to take.

This is what she continued to say to herself. She had a bulwark of

that which she spoke over herself. If I can touch him, I will

be healed. If I can touch him, I will be healed. If

I can touch him, I will be healed. And in the midst of

that environment, Jesus declares, your faith, daughter, your faith has made

you whole. Faith was that little catalyst that reached in and laid hold of

something greater. I just want to encourage us. So I want to encourage

us that, having come into the new creation, that we are called to

the faith of Jesus. We're literally called to the faith of Jesus. Holy

Spirit is actually enabling you with the faith of Jesus. Holy Spirit is bearing

witness inwardly to you of the faith of Jesus, not only the faith in

the Son, but in the faith of the Son. Because when you have

faith in the Sun, you've tapped into the faith of the Sun. And

that's what the Holy Spirit is leading us into. He's leading us into a

full mature faith. I believe there's actually a day where I won't be necessary.

Ephesians for Ephesians for read this with me, because this is this is

so cool to think about. Ephesians for says the Christ himself gave the apostles

prophets of angelists, pastors, and teachers to equip his people for works of

service, so that the body of Christ may be built up. Until until

now It doesn't say until the Rapture. It doesn't say until the Second Coming.

It doesn't say that the Until actually takes us to the end. We

don't know that the Until takes us to the end. What we know is

the Until takes us to a glorified body, a glorified church. The Until

takes us to a place where the apostle, pastor, evangelist, teacher,

prophet. These gifts that he gave that now he's given them, and we

have them as offices, and they're the embodiment of the Holy Spirit to the

body of Christ. And so they equip and they provoke, and they awaken,

and they teach and they strengthen us. But it's so that we all

come up into the fullness of the offices. We're coming up into the Christ.

And Christ had the offices. Then Christ gave away the officers. But

we're all coming up into the fullness of the Christ. So there's coming a

day when we come together. The offices won't be on the platform. The

offices will be in you, because the Christ will have matured within us.

And so there will be equal expression of supernatural gifting and power in the congregation

as there is in the offices. All right, are you getting what I'm

saying at all? Are you following me? So? In other words,

I mean like we all gathered Friday night, We all gathered as Jeremy Nelson

came somebody who has an office of an evangelist and profit and he and he

came and he ministered, and it was glorious, it was powerful, it

was wonderful, and we rally around that. Because God is not just showing

off through him. God is calling us all into our true identity. There

comes a day where we're all like Jeremy Nelson, Because do you think Jesus

exceeds Jeremy Nelson? Hello, then there's coming a day where the body of

Christ all comes up into Jesus. Is that crazy? To equip the body

until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of

God. We come into unity and the faith and unity in the knowledge of

the Son of God, and we become mature attaining to the whole measure of

the fullness of Christ, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

That this is, this is the goal, That this is what Holy

Spirit has in mind. He doesn't have in mind that We're just going to

punch the clock until we go to heaven. We're just going to punch the

clock until the glory bell rings. We're just going to punch the clock until

it's time to go home. That's not what he has in mind. What

he has in mind is that you develop in your faith, which means you

must quench every fear. These two are juxtaposed, These two are at war

with one another, these two. And if you let fear all of us.

When we came to the Lord, we got rid of a few fears,

and all of us when we came to Lord, we got delivered of

a bunch of doubt and unbelief. But unfortunately, unfortunately we hang on to

rationalize, tolerate, and allow a bunch of stuff the linger that should never

linger in our lives. And we want to cooperate with what Holy Spirit's doing.

We don't want to contend against what Holy spirits. We want to cooperate

fully. And that means we're identifying fears. We're identifying fears and we're overcoming

them. We're confronting them, we're not tolerating them. I got a list

of them. I don't know some of them might might relate. Fear of

failing, fear of sickness, fear of financial loss or peril, fear of

turmoil, fear of chaos, fear of loss, fear of theft, fear

of abandonment, fear of rejection, fear of premature death, fear of ministry.

Oh boy, there we go. Fear of the cost of ministry,

fear of war, fear of unfulfilled relationships, fear of weather, fear of

climate problems. Of course, the earth is warming, folks. We aren't

in the ice age anymore. It's been warming since the ice age. Did

you realize that we had a flood and then after the flood there was an

ice age? Biblical believers realize the earth has been warming. Okay, I'll

get off that. Fear of our children failing and falling, fear of sharing

our faith, fear of speaking up or speaking out, fear of certain environments,

being around and in certain people or environments, fear of risk, fear

of something new, fear of I mean this, I could probably go on

and on and on, and I don't know if any of those kind of

hits you, or if any of those kind of hit a thought life or

a thought pattern that wants to visit you and harass you and limit you and

sabotage you. But the Lord wants you to know that he liberates from fear,

even as there's three hundred and sixty five fear knots in the word.

But what he wants you to know even more is that fear is so powerful.

It's so powerful fear cannot be contained in the embodiment of its discussion or

its reason or even you know, it's phrase or it's thought. Fear can't

be contained in that because fear is only a catalyst that taps into a larger

body of the curse and of darkness. So when you allow a fear to

have any place in your life, you're giving satan place. And when you

give Satan place, there's going to be trouble. And the trouble is going

to be much greater than the little bitty thing that you were entertaining and tampering

with and allowing to have a little bit of place in your thought life.

Okay, that makes sense. Fear activates to demonochrome, activates the curse.

That's why there's so much in the word about fear, and there's just there's

so much in the word right, And it almost seems like when you know,

many times in the Word, when there's instruction about not fearing, it's

like God doesn't tell us exactly why not too in those instances. Many times

he just tells us how powerful it is if we continue to believe promise of

the Promised Land Deuteronomy six, seven eight. All over the place, right,

they were exhorted probably one hundred times not to fear. But when they

got up to the Promised Land and they sent him the twelve spies, ten

of the twelve came back with what the Bible calls what Moses calls what God

calls and evil report. But actually all they were doing was reporting on what

they actually saw. Do you realize sometimes that actually what you see and what

you report on with regard to what you see, if it contradicts what God

sees, then that's actually fear, and that fear which could be understood in

terms of doubt, unbelief, contradiction. Because what the ten came back,

they came back and said, well, we see giants in the land.

Yeah, the fruit looks good, the grapes are huge, everything's huge,

everything's great. But there's giants in the land. And so we're not able.

We are not able, King James, we be not able. Right.

But they were told not to fear. They were told not to fear.

Fear was the key to the breakthrough that they needed, and fear is

what they allowed when they partnered with seeing the giants as bigger than the giant

slayer. Sometimes it's just what we're looking at, right, are there giants?

Or are we rehearsing the bulwark of faith that our God is a giant

slayer? Numbers fourteen. Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front the

whole Israelite assembly gathered there, and Joshua son of Nune. This is after

they heard the testimony of the Ten. Because they were like overwhelmed with this

terrible testimony. Joshua son of Nun, and Caleb son of Jethna, who

were among those who explored the land, tore their clothes when they heard the

testimony of the Tin, the fearful Ten. They tore their clothes and said

to the entire Israelite assembly, the land we pass through and explored is exceedingly

good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into

that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it

to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord, and do not be

afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their

protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid

of them. A stand this morning. What are you afraid of? You

know the story numbers chapter fourteen. They were forgiven and numbers chapter fourteen.

Going further in the passage, Please don't this is the this is the this

is what God's trying to say. Don't equate forgiveness with empowerment. Faith accesses

the power of God. Fear accesses the realm of the enemy. They were

forgiven, but because they didn't change their hearts, they couldn't go into the

land. If you don't know to kick fear out and to come up against

it, and to rise up against it, then you could. You could

repent on Tuesday and be back in the same place on Friday. And you

could repent and get forgiveness on Friday, and be back in the same place

on the following Wednesday. And you could repent on the following Wednesday and get

forgiveness and repent and be back in the same place by next Wednesday. If

you don't know that, you don't have to tolerate this anymore. You don't

have to listen anymore. You can choose the faith life. You can choose

a mindset of faith. You can choose to embrace the mind of Christ.

And what happens is that if you continue to fall all then the enemy keeps

sabotaging your victory, and time and time again, your victory is sabotaged.

But it doesn't have to be that way. And that's what happened to them.

That's why it took the next generation to go into the Promised Land,

because Moses cried out for them and they were forgiven, but their hearts weren't

changed, and so they couldn't go in. Don't let the enemy trick you

into thinking that forgiveness is the ultimate expression of the maturity of Christ. Living

a forgiven life or being forgiven, is not the highest pinnacle of living the

Christ life. Living the Christ life is becoming like Him, conformed to his

image, yielding to Him, bringing every thought to Him, allowing the Holy

Spirit by Christ to examine every thought, and dismissing any thought that does not

agree with who God has made you. In Jesus. In every situation,

a money situation, a relational situation, economic situation, world situation, a

nation situation, a marriage situation. In every situation, choose a faith thought

and rehearse a bulwark of faith, and your faith will make you hold If

you yield to fear, if you submit to fear, if you come into

agreement with fear, Yes, you have sinned. I have sinned. When

we do that, you in fear is sinning absolutely. But if we confess

and bring it to him, He's faithful and just the cleanse Us of our

sin to wah Us of unrighteousness. We can start over. But we start

over with the understanding that I dominate fear. I am alive in Christ.

Christ is living in me. I live by the faith of the son of

God who gave himself for me. I have a dominant spirit within me,

and the Spirit of God dominates fear. I won't listen to doubt, unbelief.

I won't listen to fear. I won't listen to contradictions to God's word,

his will, his way, his calling, his fulfillment. I won't

listen. Holy Spirit, we received that this morning. Come on, if

you receive that this morning. Just put hands up everywhere across the auditorium.

We welcome the maturity of Christ. This morning, Father, we welcome the

maturity of Christ. This morning. We welcome. We welcome within us the

testimony of victory, the testimony of the new Creation, the testimony of the

resurrected life, the testimony of the dominant One who lives within us. We

welcome within us the truth. We welcome the ministry and the spirit of discernment,

to know every lie, to know every contradiction, to know every trick

and scheme of the enemy. And we welcome and acknowledge that we have the

power, the grace, and the power to overcome every fear, to overcome

every fear. We thank you for it. This morning, we thank you

for it. This morning. I'm going to open the altars this morning.

Some of us have given our lives to the Lord, some of us have

been touched, some of us have come back to the Lord. I'm going

to ask the prayer team to come this morning, and some of us just

need to leave a fear or two at the altar. I wouldn't invite you

if you're newer over this in the last six months or whatever. It's been

to meet us at the newcomer's reception. Come back. We're going to be

going right down the hallway into the fellowship Hall and we'll be ready for you

in about ten minutes. But before we run, before we go, but

just allow Holy Spirit to just put a bow on what he's saying this morning.

If you're watching online, allow the Holy Spirit to put a bow on

what he's saying this morning, that our hearts would fully receive all that he

has. Father, we thank you for your work in our lives in Jesus

name. And everybody said