Hidden cost of obedience

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

All right, let's get into the word.

Verse 26 of Luke, chapter one. Verse 26, Luke chapter one.

We have been on a short series. We're talking about the three

wise women of Christmas. You know, most people talk about

the wise men and there's really no reason to believe there's

only three wise men. We just that's tradition.

We say that, but we, we've been looking at the wise women And

then last week we began to look at the power couples because

those women had some men connected to them behind every

great woman's a great man. Oh, that's not, that's not how

it goes anyway. But anyways, there's, there's

power couples. So we looked at the first week,

we looked at Zachariah and Elizabeth, how God was doing

something in that couple. And these are the players in the

Christmas story. Then we looked at Anna and

Simeon. And Anna and Simeon, you might,

if you know your word, you would say, wait a minute, you know,

they weren't, they're not a couple.

Well, they're tied together in their destiny and scripture and

they were a prophetic couple that validated what Mary was

caring, what Mary and Joseph had given birth to.

And then so this morning we want to look at Mary and Joseph and

specifically Mary. There's, there's God there.

There's things about Mary that is a template for how God

operates. And so that's what we want to

look at. So Father, Lord, we ask that you

would speak to us this morning, Lord, that you'd stir our

hearts. Lord, I ask for your anointing

to be upon me. And Lord, that your word would

be like an arrow that strikes the target.

And Lord, I ask that you'd provoke each one of us so that

we would be all you've called us to be in Jesus name.

Amen. All right, verse 26, this is

what it says. In the sixth month, the Angel

Gabriel sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a

virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of

David. And the virgin's name was Mary.

And so when it says in the six month, it's tying this story to

Zachariah and Elizabeth. Elizabeth six months earlier had

been visited by the same Angel and had been informed that she

was indeed going to be pregnant supernaturally.

Not the same scenario, but a supernatural pregnancy.

And so six months into her nine months of pregnancy, this same

Angel goes and visits her young cousin, a young virgin by the

name of Mary. And if you read this passage,

it's almost as if the angels coming through the layers of the

cosmos, it says it was sent from God.

Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.

So there's a region Galilee, the city of Nazareth, and then to

the House of a man named Joseph, of the House of David.

And so there was this God was operating based on promises that

were generations ago. And so you had David, a man

after God's own heart. God had made some promises to

David centuries earlier and now God was going to make good on

that. Here's the here's the lesson for

you and I you can have you can have a relationship with God now

that God will visit your great, great, great, great grandkids on

not ought to motivate us live for the long term.

Amen. All right, so and it says in the

virgin's name was Mary. Now listen to what it says.

And he came to her, saying, Greetings, O favored one, the

Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at

the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might

be. And the Angel said to her, Do

not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and

you shall call his name Jesus, and he will be called great.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father

David. And he will reign over the House

of Jacob Forever and ever. And his Kingdom, of his Kingdom

there should be no. And verse 34 and Mary said to

the Angel, how will this be since I am a virgin?

And so there's a whole lot more to this story that most of us, I

believe, are aware of. We don't have time to get into

it, but I want to focus on on what's said here to Mary.

I want to focus on just a few phrases here.

Look at verse 28. And he came to her.

This Angel Gabriel comes to Mary, this young virgin girl,

she's in an obscure town called Nazareth.

Nazareth was not on the map for great notoriety.

Matter of fact, it said of Nazareth.

Can anything good come from there?

It this was an obscure place, an obscure girl, but God had his

eye on her. And so the Angel shows up and he

says to her, greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with

you. Verse 29, it says, but she was

greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what kind

of what sort of greeting this might be.

So the word of the Lord came to her and the word of the Lord

troubled her. And I'm here to tell you that's

that that is not an uncommon thing, that often the word of

the Lord will come to you and it will trouble you.

That word trouble is Diateraso. It means the avenue through

which agitation arrives. You ever been agitated by the

word of the Lord? She was told, it was announced

to her. I mean, this is a this is a

heavy thing. There's tradition tells us she

was in the backyard washing dishes.

Scholars believe she was about 14 years old, which was about

the common age for a girl to be engaged in that that era.

And she's standing there washing dishes, doing normal things, a

normal girl in an obscure place. And all of a sudden the Angel of

the Lord appears and he greets her with this.

Oh, greetings, Oh favored one. The Lord is with you, and she

was troubled. Matter of fact, the text says,

but she was troubled. We're short on time, so I'm

going to read you a couple things, some of my notes so that

I have time to get through everything.

The term but infers a contrast to the preceding statement.

Mary received a word of validation from the angelic

messenger, but rather than encouraging her, it troubled

her. The conjunction but highlights

the incongruity between the angelic greeting and her

perception of herself, between the word of the Lord and her

response. The word we translate great,

greatly troubled is diateraso, means to cause confusion, to

stir trouble, perplexity, and to be the avenue through which that

arrives. This is actually one of the

primary roles of the divine, of divine and prophetic revelation.

When God speaks to you, this is one of the the initial things

that God is after. It is intended to expose those

areas where our unbelief, especially our self perception,

is out of alignment with God's assessment of us.

The Word of the Lord comes to expose where we are out of sync

with God's view of us, with His plans and ideas concerning us.

This causes us to be troubled, and that trouble is an

absolutely essential part of the process if we are to be useful

to God. There was.

This was completely out of left field for Mary, and she had no

grid work, no warning. She didn't see herself the way

the Angel did. And that's precisely why the

Angel opened with the greeting, you know, a greeting, a greeting

in Scripture. You see this in the New

Testament. Paul would have his greetings in

the beginning of his letters and the other writers of the New

Testament as well. But Paul is, is really well

known for this. He'll say greetings and he'll

he'll introduce himself the the apostle Paul sent from God or,

and then he'll say to the Saints which are at Ephesus, to the

Saints which which are at Galatia.

He defines who they are. And if you look at Pauls

writings, the first half of his book is always really heavy

theologically and the last half of his book is really abundantly

practical. Real simple matter of fact,

Ephesians is a great example, 3 chapters really theological, the

second three chapters very practical.

The practical part begins in chapter 4 verse one.

It said, now walk worthy in light of everything I just told

you, walk worthy of the calling you have received.

And then he begins to say things like husbands love your wives,

wives submit to your husbands, children obey your parents.

Real simple stuff to understand. When I first got saved, I spent

the lion's share of my time in the second-half of these books.

And the reason I did that is because that was really easy for

me to understand. I could understand Obey Your

Parents. I'd had a hard time with it, but

that's that's why I needed to read that.

But here's the problem. If we read the marching orders

of the second-half of the book without understanding the

theology of the first half of the book, we're not equipped to

walk it out. What Paul would do, and

Ephesians is a great example of this, because in the 1st chapter

of Ephesians, Paul actually tells us to pray for a spirit of

wisdom and revelation. He prays for us that we would

have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of

Him so that we would know what we already have.

And in fact, a lot of times as believers we are asking God for

things He's already given us. The problem is not God's

unwillingness to have given it to us.

He already did. He gave us all blessings in

Christ. The problem is our perception

that He's given it to us. And so the first half of the

book begins to unpack the inheritance that he's given to

us so that in the second-half of the book, when he starts saying

husbands love your wives, that you understand he's already

giving you the grace to do so. Now, I know in this room, it

doesn't take a lot of grace to to love the women in this room

because our wives are easy to love.

Amen. Gentlemen, I'm giving you.

Yeah. That was an opportunity for you

to wave a hanky and say, oh, Amen.

Pastor, I would have given you. Cut it.

I was setting you up for brownie points.

OK, but the fact is God has already equipped us in the first

half of the book. That's part of the greeting.

What he's saying is, And so the same thing is happening here.

The Angel shows up, and what does he say to Mary?

Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.

Here's the problem. The reason there's a butt in

there is that she needed her butt.

Kick the butt didn't what showed that she didn't understand that

God what that she was favored and that God was with her.

You know, it's let me say something that's going to

initially sound like heresy. I kind of like to do that kind

of shake you a little bit. The love of God for you does

very little for you until you agree with it.

God was with her and she didn't know it.

God can be with you, but it will not change you until you know

it. We need a revelation of what

He's already given us. So what happened is the Angel of

the Lord arrived to define who she was and what happened is all

this unbelief kicked up? And she was like, wait, wait a

minute, I don't see myself as favored.

And what do you mean God is with me?

She needed to be introduced to the reality she was already

walking in the favor of God on. You will not affect you until

you come into agreement with it. And So what happens is when the

Lord begins to deal with you. Let me put it this way, anytime

God wants to launch something fresh, and in this situation it

was really fresh. The Messiah, the Savior of the

world, was about ready to be embedded in the womb of a virgin

girl and give birth to Christianity.

All of history would hinge on what was going to happen inside

of her. But before God could do that,

before God could Jesus, the living Word.

John chapter 1 says the word dwelt with God.

John 1 · chapter mention

He was God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

It's saying Jesus is the word of God.

What does that mean? A word is a sound wrapped around

a thought in God's Word. God had a thought.

God had ideas about us. So what did he do?

He wrapped it in a person so he could speak through his life.

He Hebrews chapter one, it says that in times past God spoke

through prophets and, and, and you know, through his his

people. But now he speaks by his son.

It didn't say he spoke through his son.

Hebrews chapter one. It says he spoke by his son.

Everything Jesus did was God speaking.

He was a message from God. That's why we need to study his

life, the way he interacted with people that his, his heart, his,

his, his actions, not just what he said, but what he did is a

word from the Lord to you and I. But here's the thing, before God

could bring the word of God, the thought of God, what God meant

towards humanity, before he could bring the Word of God and

bring it through Mary, he had to plant it in her head before he

planted it in her womb. You can't carry what you don't

agree with. And so the Lord came to her and

told her she's highly favored. I'm already with you.

And she was like, what gives her?

She was questioning the word of the Lord.

And in fact, this is a common pattern in the Word of God.

And if you look back at your life, it's a common pattern in

your life as well. We see Sarah when she was Sarah.

I, she was. She overhears the Lord and two

angels speaking to Abraham, her husband, about the baby they're

going to have. And you know what her her

expression of great faith was? She laughed.

That's hilarious. She's slapping her knee over

behind the tent, laughing, and the Lord calls her on, Hey, you

didn't believe me. Oh, yeah, I did.

No, I heard you laughing. It's not an expression of faith.

Gideon argued with the Angel. When the Angel, the Lord showed

up for him. And here we have Mary.

She's like, well, this, you know, she's questioning because

the, the, the initial wave when God begins to call you into

something fresh, when God wants to bring you into new territory,

yes, you need a fresh revelation of him, But perhaps even more,

you need a fresh revelation of yourself from his perspective,

because to the extent that you agree with him is to the extent

that you can walk in his purposes, your identity, your

perception of yourself is the lid on your usefulness.

Here's a girl. She was, God was with her.

She was highly favored. The, the, the, the Greek word

that we translate favor is a derivative of the Greek word for

grace, The grace, the favor. This God was attracted to this

young woman. He put something on her.

He was with her and she was walking in grace.

And he didn't say the Lord will be with you.

He said the Lord is with you. But she didn't know it.

So what had to happen is the Angel had to come in to announce

to her what she already was walking in but was unaware of.

And there was it troubled her, it irritated, it agitated her.

And sometimes the Lord has to send a word to you to agitate

you. Sometimes that's my job, to be

up here and just agitate. If in fact, if you're never

agitated, if you read the Word and you never look at that and

say you don't laugh or you don't argue or you're not wondering

like Mary, if that never happens, I propose to you,

you're not really reading the word, You're just going through

the motions. You're not engaging it in your

mind because there are some crazy stuff written in that book

about you, and you are not yet believing all of it and neither

am I. So the rest of our life, we read

the word, we're inacting, interacting with the word.

People give us a word and the purpose of it is to agitate us,

to provoke us to begin to wonder about what why the Lord would

say this about us. Because the the initial purpose

of the word of the Lord, whether from the Bible or a prophetic

word or however the Lord speaks you, the initial purpose is to

kick those internal disqualifications that you

believe about yourself to the surface so you can confront them

and remove them so you can walk in God's purposes.

And when we don't when we do not believe the word of the Lord,

when we excuse ourself when we think I'm the exception to the

rule we we put a lid in gut. We are not useful to the Lord

every new season and you see this Angel shows up in Mary's

life often in the word of God. Angels would show up when it's a

new season in someone's life, they're going to be launched

into something new. And so the messenger, that's

what the word Angel means, a messenger from God would bring a

new message and, and when his arrival showed, hey, there's

something new God's bringing you into you see it.

Remember Joshua, who is being mentored by Moses.

He would go up on the mountain with Moses.

He would go in the tent of meeting and the the Moses would

go into the tent of meeting to worship and to pray and a fiery

pillar would come before the door.

That's trip. I'll tell you that gives you

some credibility as a pastor. If you see every time I walk in

my office and I say I'm going to go pray and I'll send a pillar

of fire in front of my window, you might put a little more

weight on what I say to you. And that's what would go on with

Moses. And Joshua would go with him.

He's being mentored. And there's this beautiful

passage that says Moses would leave the tent of meeting, but

Joshua refused to leave because he picked up a virus.

He was, he was addicted to the presence of God.

There's no high like the most high.

And he, he got addicted to the presence of God.

And he wanted to stay in the presence of God.

He'd live there. And that's why Joshua had favor

on him. So that when Moses passed, it

was time for someone to lead. It was Joshua.

But you know what happened when they moved into the promised

land? I'm here to tell you this

morning. Listen, when God brings you into

new territory, what he does is he gives you a revelation of him

and a revelation of you because your future will require a new

you that the the past didn't require.

What the past season required of you is not going to be enough

for the the future season. You're going to need a greater

revelation of who He is, and you're going to need a greater

revelation of who you are. That's how God brings us on.

He takes us from glory to glory. He doesn't drop all of it on us

at once, either our theology, our view of him, or our

identity, our view of herself. Because if he did, we'd just

kind of, we'd kind of just evaporate into a puddle and we'd

be all over. So he gives it to us

incrementally and he grows us into these things.

So Joshua is getting ready to go into the promised land.

What happens all of a sudden he's he's right by Jericho and

on the plane all of a sudden the Angel of the Lord stands before

Joshua. It's not an an Angel, it's the

Angel. And we know it's a theophany, a

even a Christophany, a pre Incarnate expression of Jesus

himself because Joshua falls down and worships him and the

Angel doesn't correct him like there is in some other passages

and Joshua says. Are you for us or for the enemy?

And the Lord said, I'm for God. It's a good answer.

It's a good question. If you're looking at an answer,

you want to know which side you're on.

I want to choose the side you're on, buddy.

But see, he needed a fresh revelation of God that he hadn't

had before, before he goes in and takes the promised land.

So when God calls you to do something new, it's always going

to feel like it's so far beyond what you can do on your own.

He'll give you a fresh revelation of yourself.

You'll step into that thing and it feels like, whoa, this is too

much. This is too big.

And in fact, if you think that you can handle the call of God

on your own, what what did Mary say?

She said, how can this be? The answer from heaven is always

the same. The Spirit of the Most High

shall over shadow you. The power of God shall come upon

you. That's always God's answer.

And in fact, if what you feel called to you can accomplish

without the overshadowing power of God, there's one of two

things going on it either you're deceived, you have not heard

from God, that's not your calling, or you have way

underestimated what it's going to take to pull it off.

Because God will always call you to something beyond your ability

to pull off always so that he gets the glory.

And then what does he do? He, he, he gives us a fresh

revelation of him, a fresh revelation of us.

We have to own what he says about us.

I'm highly favored. God is with me.

And then he steps you into the promised land.

There's acres and acres of promised land and you're right

on the threshold. And you've got to grow into that

and begin to take dominion of your promised land.

You grow into your future. You begin to steward that.

Every fresh assignment feels overwhelming.

And what it does is it'll force you to seek God all over again.

And about the time you think, hey, I can do this, I got the

rhythm. I know how to do this.

You know, what God does? Sends another messenger to you.

Oh, by the way, I've got another assignment.

He's always going to stretch you beyond your depths.

You know, Mary, something was placed in her that stretched

her. There is such a thing as

spiritual stretch marks. God wants to stretch us into our

future. He challenges us.

And what it's always going to take is God's going to confront

the misconceptions you have about yourself.

Some of you are living with diseased thoughts about

yourself. You believe God can do anything.

You just don't believe He can do it through you because you've

been told things. You've picked up lies along the

way. It might been that you had

abusive parents. It might have been that you had

great parents that weren't perfect like the rest of the

parents alive. It might have been something you

were traumatized. I don't, you know.

The thing is, the enemy is studying your life to sabotage

you and get you to buy into lies about yourself so that you will

hammer yourself in and you won't grow into what God has called

you to. And so the way of heaven is God

will come and confront you and and show you something about

yourself that tweaks you. It will trouble you.

It will agitate you. Often we think of, you know, the

word of Lord coming and comforting us.

And it is a comfort in a sense, but there's also a requirement

to that word that is very uncomfortable.

It's like me, Lord, you know, did you get the wrong person?

Was, you know, did you mean to talk to someone else and you got

the wrong chair? God is stretching us.

There is so much more in us that God is after, you know,

Ephesians chapter one, we keep going back to Ephesians this

morning. Ephesians chapter 1 talks about

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Jesus having an inheritance in US.

It's not just that we have an inheritance in Christ.

Jesus has an inheritance in you, and He is zealously, jealously

pursuing that thing. He is after it, and He will send

agitating words to trouble you, to shake you out of your

lethargy and stretch you into a new place where you begin to

believe God for bigger things. And it's uncomfortable.

The word of the Lord often is, but God is stretching us because

what God was doing with Mary and this is a template for how he

works. This isn't an this is not an

anomaly. It's not a one off.

It's a template of how God operates.

He comes to us, he tells us how he views us.

It troubles us. We begin to ask questions and

then he shows us how he's going to do it.

And what's amazing about Mary is that Mary so quickly got with

the program. I believe that's one of the

reasons that God put his favor and his presence on her because

there was a responsiveness in Mary's heart to God.

It really is amazing how quickly she just said, how are you going

to do this? He explained it.

The presence of the Lord will over shadow you and what would

be in you will be from God and your child.

You're going to give birth to a son who's going to be known as

the Son of the Most High. And she said, OK, let it be unto

me as thou hast said, she owned that thing right away and at

great personal expense. You know, we have no record of

her mom and dad understanding what was going on.

Tradition tells us there's there's strong reason to believe

in in ancient documents that Mary's mother and father, they

were living in. I forget the name of the city,

but it's it was it. And that's where Joseph would

have most likely worked because of his skills.

It was where the Sanhedrin had their headquarters and that's

where all the most valuable scrolls would have been kept.

And tradition tells us Mary's dad was one of the guys that

were caring for the scrolls, very godly man.

He would have been entrusted. He had access to the word.

They were raising their daughter in the things of God.

But yet one day an Angel comes and says to her, you're going to

be found to be pregnant with the son of the Most High.

And she says, how's this going to be?

I've always been. So I think I mentioned this last

week, but it just so intrigues me.

What was it about Mary that she she didn't assume how it was

going to be accomplished like most of us do?

I'd have heard that if I was Mary, I'd have thought, whoa,

Joe and I are going to have a baby.

Let's get this wedding on, you know, But something.

And there's there's nothing in what the Angel said that would

lead her to believe initially that this wasn't just going to

be a special child that Joe and her would have.

She's already engaged. But Mary says, how can this be?

I am yet a virgin Now, let me just say there there are people

out there, there's scholars, liberal scholars that don't

believe in the miraculous and they try to water this down.

I saw one the other day this this woman was saying, well, you

know, it does. It's not important to believe in

the virgin birth. You know, it's really about the

way Jesus lived his life. We just like to emulate his good

life. And she said the word virgin in

the Greek just means it can mean someone who just makes their own

decisions and doesn't trust a man to make them for her.

That's what it means. I'm thinking then why did she

say how can this be since I am a virgin?

How can this be since I'm a person who makes my own

decision? Doesn't make sense.

Virgin meant virgin. She knew not a man and she

understood. Lord you're saying something

here. I don't have a grid work for

this has never happened before and the Lord told her this.

The Spirit of the Most High will over shadow you and what is it

conceived in You will be of the Holy Spirit.

And I I can't stress this enough I know I know this is in danger

of sounding a little new age ish when I say the the the seed had

to 1st be planted in her mind before it could be planted in

her womb. But it's true if she did not

agree with the word of the Lord she could disqualify herself.

So God had to 1st change her mind before he could plant that

word in her womb. And the same is true for you and

I. Before you can accomplish the

purposes of God for your life, you first have to buy off on it

mentally, intellectually, by faith.

You say God, I don't understand this, this is so far beyond me,

but so be it unto me. As you have said, I believe you,

and what God is after is for you to come into agreement to align

your belief system. And the whole purpose of that

initial word of God is to push to the surface those diseased

thoughts, those internal disqualifications, those beliefs

that you're the exception to the rule.

Because like I said, most of us, the vast majority of people in

this room believe God can do anything.

They just don't believe He can do it through them.

And that's what God is after. And he has to bring you into

alignment and he has to bring us along slowly because our mind

can't make those jumps. So I want to be like Mary.

I want to agree with the word of the Lord.

She said, so be it unto me. Set a great expense.

Because people would talk about Mary when Jesus in his ministry,

there were times they would say, Oh yeah, that's the guy

conceived out of wedlock. That's the illegitimate son of

Mary. That narrative followed him and

Mary had to embrace this thing that nobody is going to

understand. It's it, you know, there's

there's whispering when a church girl gets pregnant out of

marriage, but it's nothing like the Jewish culture of that day.

And then you add to it that she has this line that, well, it was

the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine?

They're saying either she's crazy or she's immoral and she

embraced that and said, Lord, so be it unto me.

As you have said, I'll pay the price.

We have no indication that her parents understood what was

going on. I'm sure that they were ringing

to have what's happened to our daughter.

They're looking at Joe coming that Joe knew we shouldn't have

trusted him and Joseph was ready to break up with her and he is

confronted by an Angel in the dream and said this is God

merrier. This whole thing called sin

entered the world when Eve was deceived.

First Timothy says very clearly that Adam wasn't deceived.

Eve was. But sin came into the world

through Adam, through the sin of one man.

Scripture says why Eve was deceived, but Adam chose to

disobey God out of his desire for Eve.

He made her an idol and he was willing to side against God with

her. And sin came into the world when

God is going to undo this mess that that original couple made.

You know, they say it's not the apple in the tree, but the pear

on the ground that caused all the problems.

Anyway, it when Adam and Eve made this mess, God's going to

undo it. What does he do?

He he didn't, you know, God could have said, you know, Mary,

one day could have felt some kicking.

You know, I'm gaining a little weight.

I'm trying to keep, you know, kind of keep my weight down.

Oh, something's kicking. The Lord could say, oh, by the

way, Mary got to explain to you what's going on here.

But he didn't do that. He announced it on the front end

and he looked for her surrender. And as soon as she said, so be

it unto me, as you have said. The Angel laugh because his job

was done. God had secured A vessel who

came into agreement with what God said about her, and God was

able to use her in the Kingdom. God always comes and asks you a

decision from your will. He doesn't force you.

He's going to ask you, will you do this?

And the way in which that begins, as he begins to talk to

you in ways, talk to you about you in ways that you have not

yet come into agreement with, that is the beginning when the

messenger shows up and God begins to deal with you and

people sometimes. Liz was in the first service.

We're praying over Josh and Liz made a comment about Josh.

She said, Josh, I remember when you were just a kid up here.

She said, I remember praying over you and she said this is

the answer to those prayers. We all need Elizabeth's in our

life that are pregnant with something you know there.

It's not a coincidence that when Mary got pregnant, what'd she

do? She she took off running and she

went over to Elizabeth's. Well, she wasn't that big yet,

but she, she, she went to Elizabeth's house because she

needed the support of someone who's carrying that.

There were those around her who didn't understand.

And I, I would propose to you that that's God's intention.

God will at times veil some eyes to what you're doing because the

external opposition to the inward leading creates

resistance and, and, and stamina in you that I'm going to follow

God regardless of whether people understand.

Now you got to be careful with that.

It's got to line up with the word of God.

You've got to find it in the word.

And there God's also going to give you a Liz, an Elizabeth

that's going to believe in you before you believed in yourself.

Mary had to get around someone who's a little farther down the

road in this thing. They've already been carrying

something. And when she walked in the room,

her baby jumped. There's a fellowship among those

spiritually pregnant women that there is a validation of what

they carry. So we need those people in our

life. But often God will blind some

around you to what's going on because He's trying to build

something in you. If you only agree with the word

of the Lord when others around you agree with it, you're not in

agreement with the word of the Lord.

You're in agreement with those around you.

When you can agree with the word of the Lord, regardless of what

other people think, then you know it's becoming internalized.

I've bought into this thing, this thing, I'm owning this

thing. And something within you is

beginning to grow that God's going to use to change the

world. Amen.

Let's go ahead and stand. During greeting time, Kate

McGovern had given me a word that she'd heard during the

first service, and I want to share this because I believe it

goes right along with what we're talking about.

This is what you heard the Lord say.

I am here to take your anguish. I will distinguish the truth and

the lie and take your overwhelming burdens and cares.

Give your burdens to me and let me carry you and receive my

assurance and peace. Then you will be able to go on

to a maturity. See, we many of us are shaped by

our experiences. We've allowed life to supersede

the word of the Lord. We believe the Bible for others.

We're just convinced we're the, the, the exception to the rule

and the Lord wants to go after those things, some of those

diseased thoughts about yourself that cause you to disqualify

yourself when God begins to move upon you.

I know I've talked about this many times and I'll be short

here. I know I had you stand.

First time Dean Briggs was here. He talked about that friend of

his that that had that prophetic dream.

This Angel ushered this man into a huge library.

It was the archive room of heaven.

And the Angel told him there's two volumes for every living

soul. There were millions and millions

of volumes, a pastor's dream. And then the Angel took, took

him over and he said, why 2 volumes?

And he recognized, oh, there's a set of 2A thick one and a thin

one. And the Angel tapped the thick

one and said, this is what God invites us into.

And then he pulled the thin one off and he said, and this is

what most believe for. And the fact is the difference

between the thin volume and the thick volume will determine your

reward when you stand before him.

God has called every one of us into so much more.

And it's not the it's not the thick volume.

It's what are you doing the thin volume that you're writing with

your obedience? Are you entering into God's

purposes? Are you willing to agree with

him? Some of you things have happened

in your life that have caused you to edit your definition of

yourself in a in a negative way. And I'm telling you your past

failure is not indicative of your future usefulness that

that's under the blood. God is reinstituting what he

originally said. The beautiful thing is God

conforms and doesn't just perform His perfect will.

Ephesians chapter 1 again, it says God conforms all things to

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

the purpose of His will. He takes our mess and folds it

into our purposes. So I want you to just bow your

head for a moment here. Father, I thank you for every

one of these this morning. I feel very strong that there's

some of you who have agreed with the accuser of the brother.

The enemy accuses you and you've come into agreement with it, and

the enemy's going to use that to try to hold you back.

But you've got to make a decision.

I'm going to side with what God says about me.

You might not even be fully sure of what He's saying about you

right now, but you've got to make a decision.

Lord. I'm going to tune into what

you're saying, and I will side against the lie.

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

If you'd like to help more people hear this message, you

can get the word out by subscribing and sharing it on

social media. If you'd like to support the

ministries of Heartland Church, you can do so at Heartland

Church online.com/give.