Bring it On: Psalm 24 for 2024 - Bring it On

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Good morning, everyone.

Glad you're here on a cold, cold day.

All of you that are online, we're glad you're online with us.

We're gonna do something a little different today in that we had a dream that we shared, a prophetic dream, Liz did, back at the beginning, the very last day of the end of the year, which was the New Year's Eve worship and prayer time.

And this place was jam-packed, but our church is way bigger than just one pack service.

So we know that some of you didn't hear it.

Um a lot of people asked about it.

So I wanted to open with this prophetic word because when Liz gave it to me, it was like, oh, yeah, okay, here we go.

Because we're now getting used to it.

I think it's been four years in a row, either in the near the end of like in the fall, end of a year, or right at the beginning of a year, we've gotten these prophetic dreams, and all of them have come true.

Um, and they had national implications and local implications.

And we wanted to share it with you.

Now, what's interesting is when she shared it, um, I already knew the dream, obviously, before she gave it, and we came in for the worship and prayer event on New Year's Eve, and I felt strongly, and you'll understand why, that God gave me a passage of scripture to go with the dream that I hadn't thought of before we came in.

So when we came in, I'm just gonna listen to dream just like you guys are, and then during the worship, I go, oh, that's that's for this.

This is this is the right word.

And so we wanted to bring that today.

We wanted to bring both the prophetic word, and then we're gonna teach together, this particular psalm that we have.

So I want Liz to open.

How many have not, let me ask you this, how many have heard the dream of the wave, the black wave dream?

Okay, so maybe half of you.

Great.

Well, I have to say that I felt pulled through this dream.

Like I really didn't want to have it.

I remember thinking, I don't want to be in this dream, and I don't know why.

But now I I kind of know why.

But while it was happening, I was like, this is really a strange feeling.

But the first part of it was I was in this ocean water.

It was beautiful, blue, and just slightly, you know, kind of waving, and I it was about shoulder deep, and I was with a lot of people.

Um, I didn't know the people, but but I was just like bouncing.

I could touch the sand.

I was like kind of haw-haw.

And um, I knew I was sort of in a resort area.

There were in in kind of my this view, there was like hotels here along the sand, and then I happened to look out, I was looking along the shoreline.

I happened to look to the horizon, and I saw this black wave in the distance, like really like far away.

And I remember thinking, this is really strange, it doesn't look natural, it looks man-made, it looks geo-engineered, just something really creepy and weird.

And so I thought, well, I'm gonna get out of this.

Like, this is not a good place to be.

And before I could do anything more, it was over me.

Like it moved so swiftly, and it was like a still shot, and the wave was like curled up, and it looked kind of like tar or something, and I and it was so it was like taller than this ceiling.

And I remember over my head, and I remember thinking, Am I gonna go to heaven or am I gonna live through this?

And then I also remember thinking, why wasn't I on higher ground?

And the dream ended, and then I heard kind of in my spirit, take the higher ground.

And we I shared it with Steve.

It's made an impact on my life because it was so God.

I like I said, I felt pulled through the dream.

I didn't feel like I felt like a receiver of this message.

So we come in to New Year's Eve, and during worship and Brian's leading worship, I hear who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

That that's what comes in my spirit.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?

That's Psalm 24, you guys.

And so I'm like scurrying with my Bible as we're going through the worship.

What is Psalm 24 about?

Now, granted, it's 2024, and it's Psalm 24, but I want you to know I did not even, that did not even come to me until a week later that there was a correspondence of the uh numerical similarities.

It was what's in Psalm 24.

So Psalm 24 is interesting, and I can't say honestly that I've ever spent any amount of time studying Psalm 24.

So until that event, three, what, two weeks ago, I hadn't thought much about Psalm 24.

So I did some background on Psalm 24.

Psalm 24 is really, really interesting because it is believed by Josephus and other uh Jewish historians is that David wrote this commemorating the coming of the Ark of the Covenant up to Jerusalem.

So Obed Edom had had, if you remember the story, Obed-Edom had had the Ark of the Covenant in his home.

And then David had attempted first to bring the Ark in, not following the protocol given in Scripture, and several, a number of people got killed in the exchange.

He went back to the playbook, read the playbook, okay, this is how you do it, and then he brings it up.

Now, he's bringing it up, and that's really important because Mount Zion is considered an elevated place.

Now, we it's almost like a mountain, like you'd see in Georgia, where I'm from, which means it's like 300 feet, okay?

But uh, but it is an elevated place, and if you've ever anybody been to Jerusalem?

Anybody been to Jerusalem?

So in Jerusalem, you've got the Kidron Valley on the eastern side, and it moves up, and all around that area is it is elevated, by which when you get to the Temple Mount area, which have been there a few times, you can see out east-west, north, south.

So it's an elevated location.

So that's where David's bringing the Ark of the Covenant.

He's bringing it up to Mount Zion, and Josephus writes, he has seven choirs.

So probably a thousand people are singing to the Lord, worshiping the Lord, um, as they come in.

Now, here's what's interesting about also about Psalm 24, besides that, and that is that because of the uniqueness of David writing Psalm 24, which is actually a triad, which I told myself I wasn't gonna get into, and I did in the first two time, but I'm gonna do it here because we've got a little more time.

We're not quite on a time crunch.

But Psalm 22 is the great Psalm of Jesus the Savior.

If you recall, it's the only place in scripture we see the emotions of Jesus.

Father, Father, why hast thou forsaken me?

And it talks about his experience on the cross.

Psalm 23 is Jesus as shepherd.

Well, in Psalm 24 is Jesus as sovereign.

So what happened in Jewish tradition is that they looked at Psalm 24 and they began to make that the song of two choirs every Sunday.

So on the eighth day of the week on Sunday, the choirs up down in the Kidron Valley and then up at the Eastern Gate sang together Psalm 24, which we're gonna, in a minute, we're gonna we're gonna say it together.

But they would antiphonally read it or they antiphonally sing it.

Do y'all know what antiphonal reading is?

Antiphonal reading means a responsive reading.

It's where a leader, usually a choir director, reads something and then you respond.

They read something and you respond.

If you come out of some of the mainstream or mainline churches like Episcopal, Presbyterian, even Roman Catholic, you're gonna have antiphonal readings.

We're gonna do that in just a second because that's what they did.

That's where it came from.

So these two choirs, every Sunday would do this.

Well, Palm Sunday comes.

Palm Sunday comes.

So Jesus enters in, okay, Jesus enters in to the Mount of Olives.

So he comes to the Mount of Olives, and um, I'm trying to think of a good way to describe this, but if I'm on the Mount of Olives here, this is the Kidron Valley down below.

Mount Zion would be about right here, and from the vantage point of the road that Jesus took, you can see the eastern gate.

Okay?

So he's there.

There's a choir at the eastern gate singing.

There's a choir in the Kidron Valley on Palm Sunday.

Now, here's what's interesting about Palm Sunday is because of Gabriel's, that the angel Gabriel's prophecy to Daniel, 476 years to the day before.

So in that prophecy, here's what Gabriel said to Daniel.

Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, that's Arta Xerxes going back to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, till the Messiah the prince comes, shall be seven weeks and three score and two weeks, and the streets will be built again and the wall and evil even in troublesome times.

What that is, is that with both Babylon and Hebrew calendars, it was a 360-year span, not 365, but 360 years.

To the day when the command was given to rebuild the walls in Jerusalem, to the day when Jesus comes in on a donkey, Zechariah 9, 9, that the king, the prince will come on a donkey, humble before his people, was 173,880 days.

Predicted to the day by Gabriel to Daniel 476 years before.

So Jesus comes in on the day, 476 years prophesied before by Daniel, they're singing Psalm 24.

And you'll see the significance of it in a minute if you're not familiar with Psalm 24.

And he weeps.

He weeps because they don't even know the day of their visitation of what's about to happen.

And this is what it says in Luke.

It says in Luke, now as he drew near, he saw the city and he wept over it, saying, If you had only known, even you, especially in this day, the things that make for your peace, but now they're hidden from your eyes.

So everyone's saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

King of glory, come in.

Psalm 24.

And Jesus weeps because they don't even understand what's happening.

Now, why is that why is that background important?

It's important because as we begin to read Psalm 24 for 2024, we can miss it too.

We can miss what God's saying.

We can miss it.

We can get so busy in our life and we can get so stressed out about whatever this black thing, this black wave, this manufactured, I'm sure the government would never do this.

I'm sure they would never manufacture anything to create fear.

We're gonna live in that valley, the Kidron Valley of fear, if we don't go to the elevated places.

So Psalm 24, guys, is an invitation to us at the road.

We're not gonna live in fear.

We're not gonna walk in fear.

We're gonna walk with the courageous spirit of one who's going to the high places with the King of Kings.

So let's all stand and we're gonna read Antiphonie, Psalm 24.

So pull out your Bibles, grab your Bibles if you have a Bible with you.

Doesn't matter what version.

Some of you have NIV, some of you have N-A-S.

We use N-K J V, but we're gonna all say it together, so it's gonna be such a roar that you're not gonna tell which version it is.

So open your Bibles to Psalm 24, and well, here's what we're gonna do.

Liz, um, she's gonna read the first two verses, and that's this side.

And you guys are gonna shout it.

I want you to shout it out because I think Jews and Americans are similar in this regard.

We're very competitive.

Okay, so I can imagine two choirs, one on the Kidron in the Kudron Valley, and one up at the uh Eastern Gate, probably seeing who was the loudest, and then reporting it back to you know Herod.

We were louder this week.

But anyway, you guys are gonna do the first two verses, and then we're gonna come back, and we're gonna on my side, this side, you're gonna be louder than them.

And we're gonna do three and four, five and six, seven and eight, nine and ten.

So let's go for it.

So just say it with Liz.

She's gonna just go for it, and you guys read it out of your Bible.

First two verses.

The earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who may stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face.

Lift him up your hands un of you gates, be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is the king of glory?

The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty and bam.

Lift up your hands, um you gates, and lift up your everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory.

You can be seated, amen.

That was awesome.

All right, we're gonna dive into the psalm, and I'm gonna just talk about verse one.

It says, The earth is the Lord's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

This is about creation.

God made the earth and it's full of glory.

And not only that, but the first two chapters of Genesis is about the partnership that God intended us to have with him to have dominion over the resources of the earth.

And we were supposed to do that, we were created to do that.

And we have this problem in Genesis 3.

We were told God gave one little rule, don't eat of this tree of good and evil.

And then a serpent came, and remember, we were supposed to have dominion over the creeping things and all the creeps, right?

And then he comes and he says, Okay, well, I've got a really good idea for you, and you should do that, and you should, you know, you're not gonna die if you have that fruit.

So then we gave up our partnership because we're like, I don't, you know, God's telling us this.

Well, we're going over here and we're gonna do something else, we're gonna do a different thing.

And what happened with that, it says that Adam's and Eve's eyes were opened, and that doesn't mean like, oh, now they understood.

No, it meant in the Hebrew that their five senses became open.

And they were intended to get revelation from the triune God about how to do their life, how to take dominion, how to do the partnership.

And now they have they are relying on their five senses to get information.

And which one would you rather have?

Your five senses or the triune God?

I mean, come on.

This was a dirty deal.

And then after that, Satan said, We wouldn't, you're not gonna die if you take this fruit.

Well, you know, we think of death as, you know, keel over, no breath, right?

Death in this Hebrew language meant separation from the triune God and the spirit world that we were intended to partner with, it meant death, separation from that.

And so the whole of the Bible is how we're gonna get back our partnership.

And I tell you, when we have a partnership with the Holy Spirit, it's exciting, it's joy, it's uh it's uh exhilarating.

And to leave the partnership is so eventually can be depressing, it can be frustrating.

So the partnership is what we're talking about in Psalm 24.

How are we gonna get this partnership back?

And there's clues in this psalm of how that's gonna work.

I love the way verse one starts because he says, the earth is the Lord's in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

Men and women, there's only one superpower, there's only one supreme court, there's only one unshakable kingdom, and that's in God.

And so when things are gonna come and they are gonna come our way, we need to remember we have an unshakable kingdom, even in the midst of our shakable kingdom.

Verse 3, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord and who may stand in his holy place.

So, you know, when we look at, when we look at the reality of our lives, almost anybody can walk on level ground.

And most people don't mind going down when they walk.

But there's something different about the individual who has to ascend something.

There's something different about ascending a mountain, going up to something.

And this is the picture here that David's asking to the nation of Israel when he wrote this is who's who's got the capacity, who's gonna change their life enough to ascend the hill of the Lord?

Who's gonna come up to the elevated places with me?

And we talked about this three weeks ago, and now dozens of you have come up to me, so I know it's so many of you in this room.

You know, we talked about fasting on Mondays and making Monday a day of fasting for our lives.

Liz and I have practiced that for 35 of our 38 years of marriage, of fasting for our family and other things in our life.

And so so many of you are already doing that, but that's an example, I think, of who's gonna ascend the hill of the Lord.

So something's gonna change.

I think God wants us to change our lives to get in spiritual fitness, mental fitness, physical fitness for the new year.

And beginning with maybe fasting on Mondays, PBJ.

If you haven't gotten the PBA journal, go to Amazon.com and put in PBJ or Prayer Bible and Journal 2024, and you'll find it there.

But I think God's calling us to that.

And so then David gives us four things.

He mentions four things here, pretty interesting, four requirements for the higher ground.

And before I read them, write if you're if you're taking us, so many of you are, write down Romans 13, 14.

Romans 13, 14 says, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, make no provision for the flesh to gratify his desires.

In other words, what I think David is saying to us here, you can't do this.

You cannot perfectly follow these four requirements for the higher ground, but Christ can in you.

That through the power of the Holy Spirit you can.

So here's what he says: gives us four things.

The first one is clean hands.

Yeah.

So the the cross is how we get our partnership back.

Like we can't get it back.

But he died on the cross to unify us with that senior partner.

Um clean hands is About a lifestyle of repentance.

Repentance, you know, you can think about it in sackcloth and ashes and stuff.

It's kind of a dramatic word.

I like to think of it as super simple.

Rethink your thinking.

Write that one down.

Rethink your thinking.

You know, like how are we always becoming renewed?

How are we gonna throw out some of the things we were doing in 2023 and get some new thinking?

Clean hands, quick confessions.

When God shows you some things you haven't done in his spirit, but in the flesh, confess right away.

Keep short accounts.

Confess in the original language means to agree with God.

And we're gonna find out the things we need to confess when we read the Bible.

That's a huge part of it, is constantly getting renewed by this word that has so much power.

And it says that it's living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

And Steve and I were talking about the fact that when we ingest that, we become living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

And we need that in this culture.

And so it's super simple stuff that takes us on the higher ground.

And being in God's word and keeping those short accounts is so powerful.

His blood covers all our sin.

So hold up your Bible.

If you're using a phone, it doesn't count.

So I'm talking about a physical Bible.

Hold up a physical Bible.

Okay.

The reason I say it doesn't count is because there's too many temptations on the phone.

What are you holding that with?

Your hands.

I want to challenge you in 2024 that every time you open your Bible, think clean hands.

Because you're using your hands.

And that what's in the Bible is going to cleanse you.

And I want to encourage you in 2024, don't use your phone for your Bible reading.

Heresy.

Heresy.

The reason I say that is because I think there's so many temptations on that little device.

And what I'd rather see you do is have a place where you go in your home somewhere, and you actually have a literal Bible there.

And if you don't have a Bible, some of you don't, grab the ones we have in the back of these seats.

It's yours.

Take it.

Start with that.

Or go to Mardell or go online and put Bible and order one.

But that to me, when I think clean hands, leading to the next part of the verse is what does it say?

Pure heart.

Clean hands, pure heart.

Clean hands, pure heart.

Well, clean hands, holding the Bible, pure heart, when you open it, God begins to purify our hearts.

Well, what is a pure heart?

I think a pure heart is loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

It doesn't mean you have your act together.

It doesn't mean you're perfect.

It doesn't mean that you don't do stuff that really you feel ashamed of.

Everybody does that.

But I guarantee you this that as we learn to have a pure heart by loving God with all of our heart, He's cleansing our hands.

Okay, He's cleansing our outward behavior through the inside out, not the outside in.

So many of us know that religion is outside in cleansing.

Thinking that if we do these things, it's gonna somehow make us better.

Versus true Christianity, being a true Jesus follower, is that you can't do that.

It's not gonna change you one iota.

You'll just become a great poser.

But true Christianity is from the inside out.

So it's it's inviting Jesus into our heart, it's having the Holy Spirit have access to every aspect of our life, and that changes our outward behavior.

Does that make sense?

So it says clean hands, pure heart, and then what's next?

Not giving himself to idols.

So my favorite idol is myself.

I like to have my life nice and the way I like it.

We both do that now.

Yes, we do.

Um, but so the other night um something kind of negative happened to one of my kids, and oh, I went down.

I was like, oh, this is terrible.

And I was feeling I couldn't shake like this kind of funk.

And I think for us moms, our kids can that's a that's kind of an area that we struggle with.

And so um Steve decided to get out chocolate chip cookies.

Come on.

And I ate a ton of them.

Because I was in a funk.

So I will say this.

They had they had um they they were from someone we know.

And uh they had some pecans in them, and that's like my thing, man.

And so I felt really bad that she said.

Now we were I'm not saying every chocolate chip cookie is an eye.

I'm not saying it.

But I will say this.

This husband who, Lord, who you gave to me, gave me chocolate chip cookies.

Like that's from the Garden of Eden, man.

That's like the same old thing.

Anyway.

By the way, chocolate chip cookies with a little pecans in them, man, that's that's decadent.

Yeah.

But you but the thing that was so cool was I was like, okay, I need to get my mind back.

And so a couple hours after I'm having a chocolate chip cookie hangover, I opened my Bible and it's about idols.

And it was Isaiah 44.

And idols never get us anywhere.

And I was renewed by that word.

So when you're down, go to that, go to the word rather than cookies.

It just works better.

And then have a cookie, then have one, right?

With coffee.

Uh fourthly, don't be deceitful.

So this is relational to purity.

And this is really hard.

Um what if we said I think you could, I think we could argue that this could be a whole study, that bring it on is really about honesty.

What if we just decided in 2024 to quit lying so much?

Wouldn't that be great?

If we just said, you know, in 2024, and I and I can't predict the whole year, but just for today, I'm not gonna lie once.

And you know, you'll think of Jim Carrey or something, but don't do that.

Um that's from liar liar, that's what I'm talking about, okay?

But but you actually start telling the truth, not the way he does, but tell the truth, be honest, and watch what God would do through your honesty.

So in the 12-step programs of AA and other recovery groups, they have a phrase that you're only as sick as your secrets.

I think it's a really good phrase.

I've added an addendum to that.

You're only as sick as your secrets, and you're only as healthy as your honesty.

So, what if we try to do that?

I believe that's what David's hitting on.

I think that's the point.

Do not be deceitful.

So let us try in the new year to be honest, at least revealing secrets that need to be revealed to blood-stained allies.

I'm not saying everything needs to be revealed all the time to our spouses or to certain people around us, but I think there needs to be some blood-stained allies in your life that you can be honest with.

And I think it's healthy to do that.

Look at verse 5, even the promise of verses 5 and 6.

He shall receive blessing from the Lord when he does that, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face.

And then the word selah means think about this.

So he's saying, think about what I'm saying.

Think about this, that if you will walk in relational purity, quick confessions with the Lord, outside purity, inside purity within our lives, God's gonna bless you.

He's gonna not only bless you, but you'll get more righteousness from God.

And that's pretty motivational, men and women, that when we tell the truth, we'll get more righteousness from God.

That when we start telling the truth, and and you know, every week I have someone come up, I mean, maybe not every week, but almost every week, someone comes up at all of the services and somebody says something like this You know, I've been coming to the road, and it's the first church I've been to where it's okay to be honest, where it's okay to share the dark places of my heart.

I've never been able to do that, and it's setting me free.

And guys, that's so that's so crucial that we walk in that because the righteousness of God is actually the reward of our honesty.

And now he goes into this part.

Five times he's gonna talk about the King of glory.

So from seven until ten, it's just just like, whoa, this crescendo.

And I'll just let you know that tradition has it that verses one through six was one poem, and seven through ten was another poem, and then they were married together later.

Verse seven, lift up your heads, oh you gates, be lifted up, you everlasting doors.

And the king of glory, underline that, the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.

So write in your margin, right, warrior king.

The warrior king is coming.

That's what 2024, that's that's the theme of 2024, at least at this church.

When I say bring it on, I mean warrior king, go to war.

Warrior king, go to war for me.

Warrior king, go to war against the enemy.

Maybe even say the warrior king inside me.

Say this together: the warrior king inside me is greater than the Satan and demon powers outside of me.

Bring it on.

You have what it takes, church.

Every one of you in this room have what it takes for what God's gonna allow to come our way this year.

You have the strength and you have the power because the warrior king is within you.

Now, if you grew up like I did, you had Sunday school pictures of Jesus.

And he was this sissy-looking guy who had perfect hair and the sand is kind of glowing on one side, and he looks like he's never had a problem in his life, and he's a shepherd.

Okay, that's fine.

Great.

I think Jesus is our shepherd.

That's great.

That's Psalm 23, the one before.

But why do we not juxtapose that to that he's also a warrior?

He's also the warrior king that fights for us.

I'd like to see, and by the way, I went through about a thousand images this week, and I could not find one I liked, but I would like to see a Jesus who's got a few scars.

He was a carpenter, men and women.

And I don't know any carpenter that doesn't have a few scars, who has a sword and is ready to fight for you.

He's a masculine, loving, powerful, caring God.

That's one that Moses in Exodus 15, 3 says, The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name.

This is Isaiah 42, 13.

The Lord will go forth like a warrior, he will arouse his zeal like a man of war.

So then he says in verse 9, lift up your heads, oh you gates, lift up you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is this king of glory?

The Lord of hosts.

That means the Lord of angel armies.

He is the King of Glory.

So, church, that's that's the message as we go into the new year.

Psalm 24 for 2024, the King of Glory.

Let's let the King of Glory come in.

Let me give you three thoughts.

Three thoughts that we have about the King of Glory coming in.

So lift up your head.

See what God is doing, hear what he's doing.

You know, there's a promise that says every time you hear God, he speaks peace to his people.

And I sure know the other night he spoke peace to me.

So we lift up our heads because that's ascension right there, and he's in charge.

You know, uh, I just want to say this real quick because this was a higher ground statement from the Lord.

So the the government gave me a Christmas gift and said I have to go to jury duty at the end of January.

So I put it up because I'm like, oh, that's too long for me to remember.

I better put it up on this little thing that I see uh easily so that I'll remember.

And then I saw it and I was like, I need to pray that God won't have me go.

I'm so busy, I do important things, I can't go.

Please, Lord, help me not go.

And before I could pray it, the Holy Spirit undoubtedly said to me, Are you still praying that way?

Because this is about trusting in me with all your heart and not leaning on your own understanding.

How do you know that there isn't a great adventure partnership with me at the jury duty?

How do you know?

And God was saying, Let me lead you.

Stop praying that way and telling me what you're not willing to do and what you're willing to do.

And even if I had to go, you think I would have had a good attitude if he didn't come and say, It could be exciting.

Why don't we tr why don't you just pray that you would get there if you're supposed to be there?

I was so, I was like, that's the higher ground.

Thank you, Lord.

I love it.

Lifting up your head.

Yeah, lift up your head.

So the word disciple in the Greek means matate, which has to do with math.

It has to do with mathematics, and it's actually means the mental, taking the mental effort to think things through.

Rethink your thinking.

This is very simple, but sit with God.

Blaise Pascal said every problem he believed was caused on this earth because people were afraid to sit in the room alone quietly.

Wow.

So what does that mean?

That means he's gonna speak, and we don't give him room.

Sit in the room quietly, listen to him, talk to him, let him interact with you.

Secondly, lift up praise in your life.

Lift up prayer, lift up praise.

Um, I'm gonna challenge you to come to noonday fire just once a week.

Come to one hour, noon to one, and come into the chapel, worship with us, pray together.

It's powerful.

Welcome the King of Glory.

Yeah, welcome the King of Glory, the glory the King of Glory anointing.

Welcome it, let him lead you, let him guide you, let him be the guide.

Don't take it on yourself.

That's making yourself the leader.

He's the leader in 2024.

After Nazi Germany conquered France in 1940, the defeated nation was allowed to set up a government in the city of Vichy that would do Germany's bidding.

For the rest of the war, France's Jews were deported to concentration camps and lived under fear.

In the south, however, Pastor André Trocme led the people of his small village, La Chambon, in resisting anti-Jewish policy.

The villagers sheltered Jews that came to them and helped over 3,000 Jews escape to nearby Switzerland.

The people conducted their activities as unobtrusively and secretly as possible, but they refused to show loyalty to the regime.

When a high Vichy official paid a visit, school children presented him with a letter that ended defiantly, We have Jews and you're not getting them.

Why did the Nazis not simply deport the entire village?

The best exclamation is that the villages were Huguenots, descended from Protestants who had suffered greatly under Catholic persecution in the 17th century.

They could empathize with their Jewish brothers and sisters.

They were also tough mountain people who knew the local terrain and had a long tradition of standing up to oppressors.

They had learned a long time ago that their convictions for the kingdom of God were more powerful than any human government.

And they were willing to die for what they believed in.

Faced with the prospect of adding a fight against such a people and their growing list of problems, the Nazis backed off.

Now, what's interesting, men and women, if you go to La Chambon today and the village is still there, actually, one of the most beloved places that people go to on their pilgrimages, there is a chapel, 400-year-old Protestant church in the town, and engraved above the doorway are these words.

Which means love one another.

I think there are things coming down over the next year where we're gonna have to stick together as a church.

We've got to love one another, we've got to have deep convictions, and we have to go to that higher ground.

So I want to finish with a little story that some of you may know even the story I'm gonna tell part of it.

So I have these.

Well, for no, let me just say this.

I have two things I want to share with you.

Every time we try to bring this unseen world down to the scene, which is heaven on earth, there's a word that you gotta remember.

It's R-I-S-K.

It's a risk because we can't see stuff.

And yet we have to have a firm conviction that we're doing something in the spiritual realm that needs to be done because we're partnering with our invisible God, right?

So there was this meeting I had, and it was at a restaurant, and I have permission to share this with one of one of the people.

And um, we walked in, it was a business-y meeting, we had a lot to do, and we sat down, and this man and his friend walked right by us, and when I saw the man, I saw this anguish on his face, and this pain and confusion.

And I also heard the Lord say, I'm getting ready to heal that man.

So he comes and he sits beside us in the booth next to us, and I was like, Oh, I have to tell him that, don't I?

And then I'm sitting with these ladies, and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna have lunch and I'm gonna do the meeting and then see what happens.

So then I do that, and we're getting ready to go.

And I was like, I said to the group to make myself accountable, because I was thinking, this is this is like could be embarrassing for everyone, not just me, but all these people that I'm with.

So I said, I just I have this message for this person near us, like right across the booth, the booth near us.

And then this one friend of mine started chanting, do it, do it, do it, do it.

And I'm like, yes, I'm gonna do it.

I needed her to say that.

So I went over to the man and I was like, uh, you know, anyway, I think it's because I was a grandma and my kid, my grandkids tell me knock, knock, kick jokes.

So I go over there, I go, knock, knock, like a fake door is there, because I'm like, I don't even know what to say here.

So then I said, Hey, um, so I'm a Jesus follower, and I think the Lord has a message for you.

And then he was like, What?

Oh, and I said, Do you know the Lord?

He goes, I do.

And then um I said, Is it okay if I share it in front of your friend, or should I what should I do?

Because I I had all these things like this could be really awkward, and um he said, No, go ahead and share it.

This is a really good friend of mine.

So I did, I shared that word, and it was great.

He said, You know, two other people the last week told me that twice.

Like two other people, and it's just a confirmation.

He looked relieved.

He said, this was so helpful.

I'm like, oh, that's so great.

So back to the do-it friend.

She told me yesterday that there was a student in front of a school that didn't have shoes on, looked disheveled.

And this was in 2019.

And she heard the Lord say, go tell that student.

I love him.

And she didn't want to.

She said, I'm not gonna do it.

Because I don't even know the school very well.

It was just the beginning of the year.

I don't know how to do that.

I don't want to do it.

She heard it again.

Tell that young man that I love him.

And she said, I'm not doing it.

And that young man had no shoes on.

His sister found his shoes.

And he jumped off a cliff that day.

And she said, I never want to do that again.

I never want to not do it.

Now we don't know what could have happened.

We don't know.

But she helped me because of what happened to her.

And you know, I have these plaques in my wallet.

It says, Learn from yesterday, live for today.

And it and that means the compost of our lives, the garbage of our past life, of yesterday, can actually make beauty today.

And so by what happened to her, her little chant made me say, I'm gonna do it.

And we all need those bloodstained allies that will say, do it.

Do it because it's a risk, and we have to take the risk, and we have to be inconveniently going to someone or helping someone.

And we hear it in the spirit and we do it.

We do it.

And that just hit a group of us that heard that.

And I just give thanks to God that that friend helped me do it.

And the partnership of God can be very important.

Bring it on.

Don't miss it.

Don't miss it.

Are we gonna miss it?

Yes, but don't miss it.

Bring it on.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholdonline.org.

God bless.