The Voice in the Voyage Vol. II with Pastor Joshua Clay

For the month of February, we, I have the honor of being able to

do a series and they're dead in the middle of it right now.

It is called the Voice in the Voyage.

We started with it last week. And this is a series on

confession. And the, my heart and my intent

and my goal here is that we would have a deeper

understanding of this subject, but not only just a revelation

on the inside in our spirit, but also have some practical

application tonight, some practical understanding of how

our confession works. So as, as we get into it, I know

that last week we laid quite a foundation about how the word of

God, our words matter. The value of not just the word

of God, but the value of your words as a whole.

I'm not going to spend too much time in review, but it's

important for me to go back and remind you of a couple key

concepts #1 God said, let there be.

So in the beginning of all things, we know God is a creator

and he's also somebody that speaks.

He's a speaking spirit. Then when He made man, that's

you and me, He made us to be in His image and in His likeness.

That means He made us to operate like Him.

So if God is a speaking, a speaking spirit, what does that

make us speaking spirit? The same way that God is the

King of heaven. He established man to be the

ruler of this earth. When He gave man dominion, gave

him the Kingdom. That means we have the right to

say and the dominion we carry on this planet just as He does in

heaven through our voice. So in the garden, whenever Adam

and Eve fell, they ate the fruit.

They they aligned their speaking with another voice.

So last week we said whenever he, the enemy came to attack, he

came to attack the most powerful thing in the universe.

He did not come to attack the woman directly.

He came to attack the word. His first question was, what did

God say? Why?

Because he recognizes the enemy, recognizes, even God recognizes,

and you should too, that the most powerful thing in the

universe is the word of God. There's nothing else in the in

the whole universe that is more potent, more powerful, more

precious of a commodity than the word of the king.

So even when the devil first showed up, what his goal was is

to get you to doubt or to manipulate the King's word.

So this should lay a pretty good foundation for us.

If you haven't heard it, go back and listen to it.

We've got it on podcast. But again, the word of the king

is what God values most, his own word.

He says he exalts his his word above his own name.

And again, if we don't think words matter, why in the world

is there such a, a, a, a battle throughout the entire Old

Testament, through the New Testament and even in your daily

life, a battle of words. We we come into, you know, a

men's discipleship course that we have.

And I can't tell you how many times I've sat down and been

speaking with, you know, men over the years that words their

parents spoke over them when they were children have dictated

how they think about themselves 50 years later.

We want to act like, oh, it's OK for me to flippantly say what I

want. That's why it's dangerous when

somebody's comes to me and they're like, oh, you know, I

just say what comes to my mind? Danger.

Oh, you know, I don't really have a filter.

You know me get one fast, please.

You're going to hurt yourself. You're going to hurt people

around you because again, if the word of God places such a heavy

value on words, why would it not be a a trick of the enemy to get

you to devalue that? So the the voice in the voyage

that we have, we gave an example of in our key text for this,

this whole series is going to come from James chapter 3, James

James 3 · chapter mention James 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, verses four and five. And James gives us insight into

the value of words. James starts out by telling us

he's like, listen, a person who controls their mouth is a

perfect person. A person who controls their

mouth is a perfect person. Whose responsibility is it to

control the mouth? OK, So right away we can tell

when somebody makes the statement, the religious

statements that God's in control.

Well, I can add something to the list that he's not in control of

your mouth. If he wasn't controlling mouth,

you wouldn't be saying the stuff you're saying.

We wouldn't be having half the conversations.

You haven't. He's not in control of your

mouth. So whenever James tells us in

verse four and five, he says, look at the ships also that they

are so great and they are driven by strong winds, but they are

still directed by a very small rudder wherever the inclination

of the pilot desires. So even though we have these

massive ships, and if you've ever studied history, you've

seen some of these things that came out of, you know, Great

Britain in the time of their Royal Navy, these massive, huge

ships that they would get in the current of the water.

The water would be dragging them along.

The wind would come in these massive sails and be moving

them. But what determined their

direction was not the current of the ocean and it was not the

wind that was in the sails. What determined the direction

was the small piece of wood at the back of that ship called a

rudder. So even though the captain, even

though the king could decree that they go out on this voyage

and say here's where I want you to go, the captain could get on

the boat and say everybody turn this many degrees east, but

nothing would happen until the pilot turned that wheel that

controlled that rudder. So I love to do what Jesus did

right when he was here. He gave natural examples and

said this is how the Kingdom operates.

These are things that the Kingdom does.

In the same way, God is the captain.

He's, he has laid out a destiny, a destination, a purpose for

every beating heart in this place.

But whether you reach that or not is not determined on him.

By him. He's giving you the compass,

He's giving you his word, He's giving you waypoints along the

way. He's giving you a final

destination. He hasn't given you the whole

map, but what he can do is as the captain, call out and say

turn E, turn W, turn starboard, turn portside.

He can give you those small directions.

And as he does that, you now have the obligation to make the

adjustments you hear from his voice.

So when we talk about the voice in the voyage, there's two

voices happening in the voyage of your destiny.

One is the voice of the captain telling you where you should go,

and one is your voice that determines where you do go

because your mouth determines your destination.

Remember last week we talked about how if you, if you're

looking at degrees right, and you set out on a straight path

and you just get 1° off in your judgment of where you're

steering, your final destination becomes wildly different.

And if you've ever driven a car, which most of you probably did,

is that if you're, when you're going in a straight line, you're

not sitting there. Just hope, just sitting the

wheel and saying I'm not going to touch it.

The rest of my, no, you're even on a straight line, making small

minor adjustments along the way to make sure you're staying the

right course. In the same way.

That's how it's going to be with your destiny.

If you find yourself shipwrecked on foreign shores.

Who got you there? It was the Lord's will.

No, it wasn't. He told you where to go.

You steered it somewhere else. If you find yourself.

Oh wait, you know I know what God wants me to do.

I know what He's called me to be.

But it just seems like I keep falling short.

Why then it's not His perfect plan.

His perfect plan isn't that you fail and go from failure to

failure to failure to failure. His perfect plan is that you

would follow His direction. You would heed His voice and

then use your voice to direct your destiny.

But this is important because a lot of times when we talk about

confession, I, you know, I went back over.

I love the, the wealth of teaching that we have at Anchor

Vague Church. I'm telling you right now, we,

we get fed well by our apostles, by the pastoral staff.

I mean, if you, if you're here and you're like, man, I don't

really get fed at Anchor Vague Church.

You're a liar. You're an absolute liar.

We, it means you're sitting in service with your mouth shut.

So I've got children. We feed our children good at our

house. We eat organic.

We just got a bunch of venison deer meat that my brother

killed. We brought it in.

You know what? My kids have the choice.

They can sit at the table and go.

I find some believers have done that over the years.

They come in, there is a great meal here.

They said they're going, I don't want that.

It's good for you. You'll grow.

You'll be healthy. Anyway, that's like the pastoral

thing coming out, right? See, nobody's safe in this place

because I've grown up here with you.

All my stories are just y'all, At least half of you had a meal

in my home. It's like I can give an

allegory. Oh, you know, so and so one time

and you're like, wait, he's talking about me.

Probably, I don't know. We're not sure we'll get we'll

cross that bridge when we come to it.

But when we look at the destiny that God has for each and every

one of us, the goal is that we hear his voice and that we

follow that. But also we want to say what

he's saying about our identity. We want to say what he's saying

in our circumstance. Because remember, even though

the winds and the waves can be tough, they can be trying to

push you in a direction still where that rudder points is

where you'll go. The Bible's full of ocean

analogies with people on a ship. Remember we talked about how

Jesus was on this ship, man. And these guys were professional

sailors. They knew how boats operated.

Yet there's this storm happening in such a way that they're like,

we're going to die. And Jesus is sleeping on the

boat. Then when he gets up, he comes

out and says, listen, peace, be still.

And with his voice commands the ocean to obey.

And they were blown away. And he's able to look at him and

say, where's your faith? Well, had he ever told them to

speak to the winds and ways before?

No, apparently as a good teacher, see, Jesus is a good

teacher. Can we agree about that?

You know what a bad teacher is? A bad teacher, somebody that

comes in and just slides a test in front of you with no

instruction on, says take the test and then when you fail,

they go you're a failure. That's a bad teacher.

A good teacher instructs you and prepares you and gives you

examples of how to accomplish passing the test.

So if Jesus came in and said you didn't have faith, that means

through his example, through his constant conversation, through

his words that he gave them, he apparently had equipped them to

pass that test. When he said you didn't have

faith, it wasn't because they didn't know.

Same thing is going to be with you whenever trials come.

We are equipped through the word just like the disciples were to

accomplish victory in that trial.

In that test. Proverbs chapter 18 verse 21.

Proverbs 18:21

Let's look at this Proverbs chapter 18 verse 21.

Proverbs 18:21

It says that death and life are in the power of the what are in

the power of the tongue? Whose tongue?

OK, those who love it will eat its fruit.

Now, it's not saying those who love, you know, just speaking.

OK, those who value the words that come out of their mouth.

Now I'll also say you'll eat the fruit of life, but you can also

eat the fruit of death. And then going over, you know,

listening to some some messages from last year, I came across

one where Apostle Earl had this phenomenal quote.

And I'm going to quote him tonight and he's sitting right

here and I love it. But he said, you know, your life

can manifest in just one syllable.

You may have confessed your way into the mess that you're in.

You may have declared a lot of negativity in your life, but in

one moment you can get a word from the Lord and just with one

word begin to declare life and set yourself in the right

direction. See what I think we do sometimes

with our confession? And I'm going to talk a lot

tonight to not just believers that have been born and raised

in church like me, but there's some people in here you may not

have ever heard this before. And I'm aware of what the Word

of God does, right? Let me just say this real quick.

The Word of God, every time it's ministered, every time we read

it, every time we hear it, it does one of two things.

It either forms a brand new belief in US that sets us on a

course of victory if we would hear it, apply it, believe it,

do what it says. But also the second thing that

it does is it strengthens the foundation of what you already

know. It doesn't matter if we get up

here and read. Life and death are in the power

of a tongue again. I'm telling you, if everybody

already had it, we wouldn't have to get up here.

You're like, oh, I already know that.

I can tell by that sentence. You said you don't got it, but

every time we hear the word, it strengthens something in US.

It builds us a a deeper foundation.

God's wanted to prepare us, especially whenever somebody

gets up here and ministers. We're not in here just to just

to hear our own voice. I truly believe that every time

Pastor Mike and Angie, Apostles, Earl and Marcy, Pastor Chase,

Pastor Bradley, Pastor Danny, me, whoever comes up here, we

have spent time with the King. We have heard.

What do you have for your people?

And that should never go unnoticed by any of us, that

when we're sitting in here, we want to be people that receive.

What is God saying to me? I don't have to go to YouTube

and hear a bunch of other preachers.

They're not responsible for my soul.

There may be good information out there, but I'm telling you,

the number one source of revelation for me is going to be

at my house. I'm going to let my pastors, the

five full minutes against that God called me to submit to and

be with and run with and do life with.

Those are the ones that are going to minister to me the most

in the deepest. But life and death are in the

power of the tongue, which means how you speak, what you say, is

going to dictate where you wind up.

Just like we said, when the ship is in motion, everybody's life

is in motion. Nobody is in stagnant waters.

You're going a direction whether you like it or not.

So whenever we begin to confess or decree something in our life,

it's going to change the direction and the course that

we're going, which then tells us that's how we wind up at our

final checkpoint. But what I think a lot of people

try to do, especially, you know, the religious believers want to

want to, they want to teleport and not actually voyage

somewhere. They, they, they find a

circumstance that hits them and they're like, I'm going to just

say words that'll change my location immediately.

I mean, I've seen it, you know, there's been times where we come

and visit people in the hospital and, and I've, I've seen time

and time again where people will want to be believing God for

their healing, but the way that they're going about their

confession makes them seem wacky.

You understand, you can be a believer and you can be a man or

woman of God and you can be a little weird.

And it's not the goal is to be weird.

The word of God comes in and helps remove your weirdness.

And that's a, that's a miracle in itself.

Don't tell me God ain't moving when he's making the weirdos not

weird. But but what happens sometimes

is I think in our religious mindset, we think that that our

confession is like waving a magic wand.

Then all of a sudden somebody will be in the hospital room and

the doctor will walk in and say, you know what?

We did the biopsy and you, you have cancer.

And they go, I do not have cancer.

I do not have cancer. I do not have it.

And you're like, just because the reality is presently you do

have it doesn't mean that the in the future you got to keep it.

Confession doesn't teleport you from all of a sudden, Oh, oh,

it's not there actually. Oh, everybody psych everybody.

God didn't do that in the garden.

Whenever Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God didn't look and go,

they didn't eat the fruit. They didn't eat the fruit.

The fruit wasn't eaten. He he embraced reality and said,

no, but I'm going to declare something about the future of

this situation. He said, I will send my seed.

See that word was more powerful. So what we're doing with

confession is not denying reality.

What we're doing is we are shifting reality to become what

God says about it. See, I think sometimes we read

the Abraham he says he called things that be not as though

they were and felt like he was just some kind of blind.

You know, I have no idea what's going on.

You can know what's happening in life and then begin to decree

something that along the path it changes the reality.

You know I grew up in a church where you sing this song.

It's like whose report will you believe we will believe the

report of the Lord. But if you apply that to an

immediate present circumstance that the report can be, I got a

sore throat. I'm telling you, I've been a

weird Christian before. I've been through it.

There's been times where I'm like, my throat is not sore in

the name of Jesus. My throat is not sore.

It's not sore when I thought what I'm trying to do with my,

with my voice is trying to immediately change something

when what I'm doing is I'm directing the course of my life.

That's good. I'm telling you, somebody can

come in. There's there was a time I

prayed with somebody that got a negative report about diabetes,

diabetes. They came in and said you've

got, you've got type 1 diabetes. And the person goes, I do not

have it. I'm like, the doctor thinks

we're weird. I'm here representing the doctor

thinks we're weirdo. He's looking at the paper.

The fact is you got it. And the fact is a lot of life

choices LED us to this moment. Somewhere along the way, your

mouth dictated it may not have just been what was coming out.

But just because you have a present report doesn't mean this

is your final report. The goal as believers is not to

say, oh, whatever the doctor tells me, that's what I have to

believe forever. No, God has a reality that he's

trying to get you to. What you have to do is align

your mouth with saying, I'm going to get there.

Because again, this is the issue that I got with Alcoholics

Anonymous. They come in and they want to

assign you an identity in your present circumstance.

I am this when the truth of the matter is you could have just

taken a drink, but the direction you're heading is going to be

determined. Do you identify with this is me?

I'm an alcoholic. That's all I'll ever be.

And then that's all you are. And you wonder why?

But if we can get God's word on the matter and say, what do you

say about me? What are what?

What is the reality? See, there is no victory in

denying reality. There's only victory in

declaring His word. That's it.

So we don't get to just come in and wave a magic wand of oh, I,

I all my debts are paid off in the name of Jesus.

You may as well well say Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

You don't get to just say words and they just happen.

No, we got to find what words are have already been said.

See, faith is a firm persuasion based on the word God has said.

But we got believers walking around disappointed because all

of a sudden they hear the principle of, oh, I could, you

know you, I can have what I say when?

Let's get in the word and really define what that means.

You can't just have whatever you want to say.

What you can have is what were God's promises?

What has God declared? And you say that same thing.

The original Greek word for confession literally means to

say the same thing. So it doesn't mean just declare

whatever you want. I have a Lamborghini Bibbidi

Bobbidi Boo. That's what you're saying.

You're trying to use magic. See, there's there's not

authority in a wish. There's authority only in the

word. So if I attach my mouth to my

wishes, then I'm going to find myself disappointed and wonder

why didn't got working when he was never in that.

What he's in is in the word. So I know if I do get a report

that somebody says, hey, you've got this diagnosis.

I don't have to sit there and go this is the end.

This is how I go out and see, we think that's funny because we

get good teaching, right? We think that's funny because

we, there's a bunch of people in here that have overcome, but

this is the hot tape for the world.

See, what we don't want to do is go in and be like, oh, I'm just

going to say a bunch of words. No, I have to find, Lord, what

do you want me to declare over my situation?

Life and death are in the power of the tongue.

That's why Jesus makes such an emphasis about a false tongue or

a lying tongue, because he wants to make sure that what you're

saying aligns with his example as a good teacher.

He not only told us what to do, he also showed us how to live.

I mean, again, he made the statement.

He said I don't say anything of my own initiatives, but I only

say what the Father tells me to say.

He didn't say that. So we'd all clap our hands and

go, good job, you're a great guy.

He did that so that we could know the pattern of how life and

victory work. You're like, oh, I'll give you a

piece of my mind. I don't want a piece of your

mind. I don't want a piece of my mind.

My mind can take me a bunch of different directions.

Let me get a piece of his mind. Somebody's like, what do you

think about this? You don't want to know what I

think about this. We got to find out what does he

think about this? And let's just say that because

I've seen too often where people will just declare something.

I mean, the, the world has this idea of this manifesting, right?

They want to just go out there and decree something that they

want. And then you know what?

Some people have some things to happen for them.

You're like, there is still a law of sowing and reaping and

your words are seeds. Whether you're a believer or

unbeliever, when you speak those words get planted and then begin

to bear a harvest. That's how we know even with

parenting. We gave an example last week.

It was just bears repeating again that with parenting, what

you declare over your kids will determine the direction of your

home, especially when they're minors growing up in your home,

that they're not just here to rest on their own faith.

So whenever parents come, they're like, oh, you know, you

know how it goes. You know, we're getting ready to

enter into the terrible twos and then your little terrible 2 year

olds running around like a jerk. This is your problem.

This is your fault. It's not because every terror A2

year old has to be terrible. It's not because it's just God's

will. God's testing me.

He's not testing you. You failed the test when you

declared death over your family about to have a kid.

You know, we're not going to have any sleep just because the

rest of the world and every movie and TV show you've ever

watched, everybody's like, oh, we're tired.

We're parents, we're so tired. Doesn't mean your life has to be

miserable. You don't have to declare that

and accept it and receive it in your life and say this is what

I'm going to be. It's OK, we'll keep going.

We'll keep going. Speaking alone doesn't get the

result. You have to attach it from the

word of God. This is again another quote from

our apostle that he said confession is a firm persuasion.

It doesn't just produce of itself in its words, it produces

when it's attached to faith. If you want the direction of

your life to go God's way, find out what He's saying and then

declare that over yourself. I mean, think about how Jesus

was about to leave the planet and the last thing that he

wanted to leave us with. I mean, you would think that's

the most, one of the most important moments.

You know, if I knew I was going to, you know, have to go

somewhere, be taken away. And I and my kids were here and

they were hearing what I was saying.

The last few things I would say to them would really be

important and heavy. And so Jesus, whenever he was

raised from the dead and walked around before he left his

disciples and ascended, he had a heavy emphasis on two things.

One was walking in love with each other, and two was the

ministry of the Holy Spirit. But I find it interesting that

he defines the Holy Spirit as the spirit of what?

The Spirit of truth. He said in his job.

His job description is not to remind you where you left your

keys. I grew up, I was Christian in

the 90s, OK, We prayed for a lot of stuff.

We had a lot of spirits of stuff.

The spirit of neglect. We got to what is that spirit of

lost keys? No, it's not what we have.

He can help you, but his job description from the mouth of

Jesus is He will lead you and guide you into what not so you

can just know truth. And I want you to get this

tonight. The goal is not that you just

know truth. It's that you believe, live and

declare truth. For us to just have the

knowledge of what the word says or just have the knowledge of it

does us no good. If you keep your mouth shut, you

can know God is the healer. You can know God wants you whole

and healthy and you can sit there with your mouth completely

shut and never declare it and wonder why it didn't happen.

We got to be people that apply the truth.

That's why the Holy Ghost Job is way more than just letting you

know something. He's here to tell you how what

to declare. Remember, we're kings.

I mean we always say here at Anchor Faith Church, you know,

he is the king of kings. Who are those kings?

And when a king speaks, his word is.

And This is why I'm preaching tonight, next week, you better

have it down. When a king speaks, his word is

power. Where the word of a king is,

there is power. So whenever you speak, your

words have the power to carry your direction.

Your words have the power to carry your physical body.

Your words have the power to carry your relationships.

Now I need to interject the note.

You're not going to be just confessing over all your friends

and confessing over your family members and expecting that their

free will is going to be overridden like that should be a

disclaimer we give here because I love this point that in the

Bible we get the fruits of the Spirit, right?

These are the fruits of an individual believer.

Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness. I'm missing 1 and gentleness and

self-control, not others control, not just circumstance

control, self-control because you have the ability to control

what you say when a situation happens.

See when we begin to speak about confession, obviously the way we

get into confession and as as Christians as a whole is we have

the negative side right? Which is like confess your sins,

which means declare and and admit to your sins.

Admit there was a problem. But then on the other side, we

get into the benefits of confession, knowing that God

created us to speak out his will and have his will manifest in

the earth. That's what we also would go

through with prayer. Prayer is a form of confession.

I find a lot of people miss it in prayer because they just want

to talk about their problems all the time, and they miss that

your prayer life is also meant to declare God's will in the

planet. If all you're doing in prayer is

just talking to God about what's wrong, then you're missing half

of the equation. You can take your problems to

Him, and you can give your weights to Him, but the other

half of your prayer should be victory that you come out on the

other side. No one.

I'm going to decree the opposite of my situation.

Again, just because someone gives you a negative report

doesn't mean you have to deny that it exists.

That's weird, but what you do need to do is acknowledge it

doesn't end here. I'm going to direct it with what

I say next. There's a few things that that

confession does in our life. When we speak and declare

things, there's three things that I want to go over tonight.

I'm going to get real teachy. I'm going to give you 3 points,

three things that confession will produce in your life.

The first thing is identity. Not only this confession and

what comes out of your mouth reveal your identity, but it

also will shape your identity. This is important to note

because a lot of times whenever we get into a situation, we want

to say, oh, here's just what I am.

Be careful with that statement because if you're saying

something other than what God says, you're actually damaging

your course. Well, you know, I've always been

like this change. Yeah, it's good.

You know, this is my, you know, it seems like I knew a woman.

I knew a woman that every time we got in a conversation, she

always go, I'm so confused. I'm confused.

What do you say? I'm confused.

And you know what? She was confused every time I

talked to her, she was confused. And at some point I was like,

stop saying that, please. It's like every time I walk up

to you. I'm sorry.

Oh my God. I know what she's going to say.

I get up there. Hold on, hold on.

I'm confused. But it was just this knee jerk

reaction of a statement that she just flippantly said on a

regular basis that all of a sudden what she continually,

perpetually confessed, she all began to actually reap a harvest

of. So sometimes we're just letting

things come out of our mouth without recognizing the value of

what it is and it, we inadvertently create a whole

crop of a mess that we we weren't watching diligently what

came out of our mouth. I mean, there was a time when

they, the Pharisees came to Jesus and they had an issue.

They're like, look at your disciples.

Look at they're eating and they, you know, washing their hands

and they're nasty and whatever their complaint was.

And Jesus said, listen, it's not what's going into the man that

defiles him, What's coming out. He wasn't talking about vomit.

He was talking about words. He was talking about, yeah, word

vomit. He was talking about what's

coming out of your mouth is shaping who you are, whether you

like it or not. You know, I've always, I've

always just had, you know, I've always just had this problem.

Stop, stop saying that. It's like in the Kingdom.

And again, all of us in here are like, yeah, obviously this is

what we do. But that's because we have a

culture and a way of talking. It's not just a language that we

have in the Kingdom. We've got speaking in tongues.

We've got the evidence of the Holy Ghost that comes upon us.

That's great. But you understand there's a way

of talking that also goes along with our Kingdom culture that

you get you come to anchor faith for a time.

You get around believers at a time that have that have been

mature, that know how to control their mouths.

And all of a sudden you'll start talking and saying something to

go, hey, hey, don't say that. Has anybody ever heard one of

their brothers and sisters that say that to them?

Hey, don't talk like that. Why?

Because we know truly the value of the Kingdom word.

We know the value of you. Whenever you open your mouth and

you begin to declare something, I want you to speak life over

yourself. I don't want to hear you saying

crazy stuff over yourself. I don't want to see that

manifest in your life. I want to hear you say something

right? And I know we're on the same

page. I mean, the same way with my

children. If I came in and I was like,

listen, hey, we love you. You're valued.

And they're like, I'm not valued.

I'm the worst. That'd make me mad.

Who said that? Did God not do that in the

garden? He's goes in there and he's

like, listen, eat from anything. He gives them this whole great

pitch. He gives them the pregame speech

that we give our kids before we go to somebody's house.

God gave them the whole pregame speech.

I look at my kids, I'm like, listen, we're grown.

You're not grown. You're not going to run your

mouth. You're going to sit there,

you're going to be quiet. You're not going to run around

like a spazz in their house. God did the same thing with

Adam. Adam is born into the planet.

And God goes, listen, eat anything you want over here.

But there's this one tree. You do not touch that tree.

He's a good dad. But then from there, all of a

sudden, Adam and Eve were in the garden.

God didn't say. And also what?

Just know you're naked. He didn't say that.

He told them what they needed to know to accomplish their

assignment. Then all the sudden they show up

and they're hiding and God comes in and he goes, they said, well,

we realized we were naked. And God said, who told you that

you just spoke something out of your mouth that I never said,

that you had to have heard from somewhere.

So let me find the source who said it.

And God went and dealt with the source of words.

He didn't just look at them and say, I'm going to punish.

I'm going to no, he said, no, I need to find the source of words

because words are the most valuable, potent thing in the

universe. I'm going to find who said it,

then I'm going to deal with that.

So in the same way I could go and sit down with you and find

out what the situation you're in.

What have we been saying? What have we been declaring?

Whose voice have we been listening to?

Because what we don't talk about sometimes with confession is

this word gossip. Gossip is a form of confession.

If it's in the same category, then all of a sudden you've got

problems in your relationships you got with your with with the

people that God's assigned you to do life with, and you've got

little bitterness and little frustrations.

And all of a sudden, what does this come out of?

Somebody's been having conversation that you've been

listening to and then regurgitating out of your mouth,

and you wonder why the direction of your life is the way that it

is. The words you hear, whether

they're from the enemy, from God, or from one of their

vessels, because they both have vessels.

Maybe you don't believe me. Everybody's not saying Amen.

Let's look at Matthew 16. Let's look at Matthew 16 because

this is an important source of confession because confession

gives you your identity. It forms who you are if, if you

know who God is. But what another thing that

confession also does is that it also forms allegiance.

The second point would be that confession, it, it forms in you

an allegiance to something what you confess you're committed to.

Why do you think in the United States of America, in our own

government, if you've ever been to a sporting event or if you've

ever been to a government assembly, we start out with the

Pledge of Allegiance. Every time you open your mouth,

you're pledging allegiance to one or the other.

There's a domain of darkness and there's a Kingdom government of

God's beloved Son. And when you open your mouth,

that every time is a Pledge of Allegiance to which Kingdom or

which dominion you want to participate in.

There's not an in between. Again, a lot of believers think

there's three options. There's I could do what the

devil wants. That's bad.

No, I could do what God wants. That's best.

But sometimes it's hard. So I'm just going to do what I

want. There's not three options.

Your flesh and what you want and your selfish desire is part of

the enemy's plan. When you're like, I just need a

little bit of me, you're choosing him.

But if you do what John 330 says, I must decrease, he must

increase, and the end result of the increase and decrease, if we

have scales, is all him, none of me.

But is that what comes out in your conversation?

See, that's why we're here, because there's this

conversation that happens with Jesus and his disciples.

He pulls them all together. These guys should know stuff.

They've been with the Son of God, the living embodiment of

the word of God for three years and they still say dumb stuff.

And you've been Anchor Faith Church for like 3 years and

you're like, why are we still talking about this?

Because you, this is how it goes.

We got to keep growing. We haven't arrived yet.

But he looks at me and says, who do you say that I am?

What he's doing is calling on them words he wants to hear

their declaration He want because he realizes the identity

that you have, the identity you ascribe to things comes out of

your mouth and is revealed to your mouth.

They were like, well, some say you're this and some say this

and he looks at Peter and say, who do you say that I am?

He says, I say that you are the Son of the living God.

You are the Christ. And Jesus says you got it.

Blessed are you Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not

revealed this to you. But my Father who is in heaven

directly gave you revelation that you just declared out of

your mouth. And upon this rock, this

revelation, I will build my church.

And then like seconds later he goes, I'm going to die.

I'm going to be buried, I'm going to rise again.

He literally quotes like the majority of the creeds of the

Christian faith right there, the foundation of what we believe in

Christianity, his death, burial and resurrection.

And Peter goes, no, I won't let it happen.

May that not happen because I love Jesus.

And then Jesus looks at him and says, same guy, exact same

person that Jesus went blessed are you.

What you just declared out of your mouth is divine revelation.

Jesus looks at him and he goes, get behind me, Satan.

And this is Peter. This is one of his closest

disciples. This is the second most

mentioned man in this in the New Testament, Peter, Simon Peter.

And Jesus looks and he goes, get behind me, Satan.

People don't like when their leaders correct them.

You would have hated Jesus's correction.

Like you mean make an adjustment in your life.

Jesus, look, hey, Satan, quit talking.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, this pastor thinks he's the Good Shepherd,

Not so great in this moment. Come on, give Jesus a little

more credit. No, Jesus tells him.

He says, listen, you set your mind on man's interests and not

on God's, and it just came out of your mouth.

You have aligned yourself with the enemy's plan based on what

you just said. Now, the problem is we got a

bunch of people that want to Riddle their whole conversation

with disclaimers. Well, that's not what I meant.

That's not what I meant. Jesus, Hey, hey, nobody cares

what you meant. God, That's how confession

works. That's why it matters.

It doesn't matter what you just meant.

What did you say in that moment, Peter?

It doesn't say he said anything else.

Good job. Because I have found when it

comes to our mouths, listen, we need boldness.

The Holy Spirit can come upon us and do us with power from on

high to give us boldness to what Witness.

Boldness helps you open your mouth.

But I found there's this other thing called maturity that helps

you keep it shut. Second tale, when somebody's

like, oh, you know, I just say what I want.

Amateur, your baby, little baby, Wham, Wham, That's all I'm

hearing. Wham, Wham.

There's a time when you just come in and you say, Lord, what

do you want me to say? And if he doesn't say anything,

you don't either. Don't just say what you said

before. Don't just say what you think.

The old manner was that, oh, last time they'll find out.

What is the King saying about this right now?

That's one thing that I always pray before I get up here.

I said Lord, I want I know what the subject is.

I've heard about confession my whole life, but my prayer is

always Lord, I don't want to just get up and say what I know.

I want divine revelation from your spirit.

I want my tongue to be the pen of a ready writer that speak

forth the unction and oracles of God.

I don't want just old man of something I already studied.

I want to come in here and give fresh word.

Then the goal is that all of us, every time somebody ministers to

us and opens their mouth, that we would receive it.

Not as just the words of a man, not as just the words of a

pastor or an apostle, but we would receive it for what it

truly is. The Word of God that it says is

able to perform its work in US who believe, think about.

We all want miracles, we want signs, we want wonders.

But what do they follow? Preaching of the what?

So even miracle signs and wonders.

Whether it's in a corporate environment or in your personal

life, they're waiting first to follow something.

And it's the word. We got to value what comes out

of our mouth. Just because you get a

impossible diagnosis doesn't mean it ends there.

Tony, if you could see into the spirit, there's, there's times

when people get bad news, they go, oh, well, this is going to

happen to you. Or this is, this is taking place

in your family or this is taking place in.

If you could see into the spirit, the spirit world sets

and waits not for what the diagnosis was or not for what

the report was. The spirit world's waiting to

say, what are you going to say about it?

What are you going to say about it?

Now, this is tough. If you don't want personal

responsibility because I'm just sorry, you know, I've got to

apparently apologize, you got to find a different book.

Because if you want somebody else to do everything for you,

you want God to be in control of everything and you don't have

any responsibility, you won't find it in this Bible.

You won't find it with this Holy Spirit because He's going to

point you back to here's how you can fix your problem.

Here's how you can live victorious.

God's not fighting it for us, but He sure is with us because

He didn't leave us without His Word.

A lot of times we're like, man, if God could just show up.

He does. Every time you speak the Word,

that is God in John 11, in the beginning was the Word.

So in the beginning of all things, it was the Word.

Sometimes we just got to go back to the beginning, the very, very

beginning. What existed before your

problem? What existed before your

mistake? Let's just go back and say what

was in the beginning? In the beginning was the Word.

The word was with God. The Word was God.

If I could just have a touch from God, you can right here,

right here. But we got some people that call

themselves Christians that don't even read their Bible.

They don't even go to the very source of life itself and power

itself. They think just some action of

just declaring something is going to get them victory when

no, you hearing a word and then decreeing that word is what

brings the victory. But the second thing that

confession does obviously is it brings it aligns you and shows

your allegiance. James chapter 3, if we go back

James 3 · chapter mention

to the the the 3rd chapter of James and look at verses 9 and

10, James has a lot to say about your mouth, but he says listen

with James chapter 3 verse nine. With it we bless talking about

James 3 · chapter mention

our mouth. With it we bless our Lord and

Father and then with it we curse people and some from the from

the same mouth come blessings and cursings.

It ought not be this way. James is also the one who tells

us about being a double minded person.

So which tells me that the way you speak reveals the way you

think. And if your thinking is double

and your thinking is scattered, then your mouth is also going to

be the same. That means you're going to hang

out with a certain group of people and you'll talk one way,

then you'll get with a certain other group of people and also

you'll be saying something completely different, confusing

everybody all along the way. And then God says in the very

end, you'll have to give an account for every idol word,

every word you flippantly said, every word that you didn't

actually value knowing that you were creating something with

God's like that's what I'm going to account for.

Notice he doesn't say that every deed you've done.

I mean, that's that's other religions.

If you're acquainting, God's going to weigh all the good and

bad. You did wrong.

Religion. We're not even part of a

religion. What our king does in his

Kingdom is causes you to give an account for what have you said?

What have you said about me? What have you said in my name?

See, a lot of times we talk about, you know, don't take the

Lord's name in vain. And we think that means just

saying a certain little phrase that is cursing.

When in the end, taking the Lord's name in vain would have

more to do with you declaring God said something that never he

never said, or you mocking something that he did say

because you didn't believe what He said would come to pass.

Both are dangerous. Do not do either of them.

See, I've heard a lot of people say in Jesus name that he would

never attach his name to. So don't use the Lord's name

flippantly and don't ascribe it to something he didn't say.

People want to come to you and be like, oh you know, God's

telling me to do this. Hey, he better be saying it.

There better be a word from the king.

But if it doesn't line up with his written word, then I come in

and say call a foul. Flag on the play.

It's the only sports reference you'll get out of me.

Flag on the play. You just said the Lord said

something that he does not say in his word.

See, that's why other religions were able to dupe entire

generations and nations full of people.

They said I heard from God. Trust me by myself I did.

And here's what he said only to me.

Nope. No, God was smarter than that.

When He put the value of words spoken, He put value on it.

He had His Word written and documented like every other

solid real Kingdom government. This isn't about religion.

It's about this government that God has established.

And any functioning true government that actually has

authority on this planet has written down their decrees.

And I'm telling you, God wrote His Word so that you could then

repeat it. It was written to be repeated.

That's why thank you, Lord, for your word.

What, what more could he give you?

I mean, sometimes I'm just like, the Lord's got to remind me,

right? Like I'm, I'm not perfect, you

know, in any way. I've got to be reminded by the

Holy Ghost and some stuff that's really simple sometimes like,

well, what does the word say about this?

Like I said before, I've had a sore throat before and here's

here's the, here's the, here's a shift that had to happen to me

as I grew and matured with just getting symptoms on me.

And I think this will be good for some people because

sometimes you're like, if you get a symptom, you feel bad

because like, oh, I'm a believer.

I shouldn't be sick. Listen, just because the symptom

comes on you doesn't mean this is it.

It's over WebMD. The Bible's not WebMD.

And again, we gave the example last week.

Words matter because listen, if you come in and say, I've got a

sore throat and then somebody anointed in the medical field,

like Miss Cassie or, or, or, you know, Doctor Fatty or something

comes and goes, listen, well, let's pray over it.

And then, you know, just drink some hot tea.

You'll be all right. Those words matter.

You can meditate on that and go, I'm going to be all right.

But all of a sudden, if you go search on the Internet and you

say, I've got a sore throat, Web MD is like definitely cancer.

You're definitely, you got a good six to nine months and

that's all you got. And but and we laugh, but people

will stir on that and meditate on that.

Then they'll go tell their friends I looked up my symptoms

on boy MP. You're declare you're repeating

what the what the what the Internet said.

We live in a crazy time when people repeat repeating the

Internet all the time and it's coming out of their royal mouth.

Watch it. Just because you read it doesn't

mean it's worth repeating. Just because you heard so and so

say it doesn't mean it's a word for you anyway.

But in the in my walk with my illness, I realized there was a

time when I would get a symptom to come on me.

And I would say, you know, I mean, I don't feel great.

Lord, I know you're my healer. I'll feel better in the morning

and then felt like crap all night.

Why? I decreed it.

And when I woke up, I felt better.

But then I had a shift in me. I was like, well, wait, if I'm

decreeing this thing, I'm going to, why would I wait till

tomorrow? So if I seem to come out and

say, Lord, I'm thank you, I'm getting better right now.

I'm, I'm going to progress. I didn't say I feel fine now I'm

fine. God, no, I'm, I'm healed and

that, listen, the reality is I have the symptom.

It may take a few seconds or a few minutes or whatever to get

off. I'm not trying to teleport my,

my circumstance to a different circumstance, but I am guiding

where this thing will go and this thing's going to get off me

quicker than it's going to get off anybody else.

And there's more faith in that than there is in just believing

in a wish. But also you got to have a word

from the Lord. There's been times where I say,

Hey, Danny, come pray for me. Put lay hands on me, says

believers, lay hands on the sick.

There's been times where I'm just like, you know what, I'm

going to speak this thing off of me.

Lord, in the name of Jesus, I declare right now my body's

whole. I'll speak what the just like

Abraham did the things that be not as though they were in the

name of Jesus. My body's whole right now it's

it's beginning to mend in this moment.

And I don't go didn't work. Faith doesn't work.

I'm the worst. I'm have no faith.

That's not what I do. I direct my course with my mouth

and then I expect that my destination will be victory

saves us from disappointment when we understand that.

This is why I'm so thankful for our church.

We don't just expect everybody's all read the Bible figured out

for yourself. There is some explanation that

can come in with the teaching of the Word and what the Bible

calls the foolishness of preaching.

How crazy is it that we have to get up here and convince people

the trust in a God who's never ever failed?

That is wild. Trust in the Lord.

You're like, it's so hard. He's never ever failed.

Not one word he's ever said didn't happen.

But we got to get up here and go.

I promise it'll happen. Why am I having to say that?

He says you can have what you say and then you can.

You're like, maybe, maybe it's here in the Word.

What's written in the Word is finite.

It is final, it is official. It is not changing.

Heaven and earth will pass away. There's only one thing that

remains forever and ever. What is it?

Why would you not attach your life to the word?

Oh, Jesus help us. That's why we have to understand

who Jesus is in our life in the 1st place, who is Jesus?

He's not just a, a guy that came and walked around and said good

things and then died so that you wouldn't have to have a bad

punishment. That's not just, that's not the

summary of who he is. The summary of who he is is

found in the same passage of John.

What it says in the beginning was the word and the word was

with God. The word was God.

Verse 14 tells us the identity of Jesus says the word became

flesh. So whenever you tell somebody

you need Jesus, that's true. But what you don't need is just

have an emotional relationship with a human that's not actually

present on the planet His. He's seated, seated at the

Father's right hand. For you to try to introduce

somebody to just a fleshly friendship relationship, you're

going to fall short. What you need to do is introduce

Him to the relationship of who He is and who He always has

been. The man Jesus that walked this

planet did that for 33 years in the span of time, but He always

was the Word. So if you're to say you need

Jesus, that's right, what you need is the Word.

What did He say? You need the Word in your life

so I can worship Jesus and honor Jesus as the King because He is

the Word. It's just as much Jesus speaking

to your circumstance as it is when you read it in the

Scripture. There's just as much power and

you repeating that Scripture or that promise of God that there

is when Jesus first declared it in the first place.

We said last week, if you could think in your mind, man, if

Jesus spoke the Word of God, how powerful was that coming out of

his mouth? When it's the exact same potency

coming out of your mouth, it's no different.

The only difference is do you, have you heard a word and do you

believe it? Because faith is I'm convinced

that what God said is true. And then when you repeat that

thing that you're convinced of that God said, nothing can stop

you. No report can stop you, no

financial hardship, no no gossip about you, no slander, no

physical threat. The purpose of the Lord will

prevail. We have to know then His purpose

at all times. What have you declared over me?

The third and final thing that the the confession will produce

that we'll cover tonight, is it produces permission.

What you confess you will permit in your life.

Now this word is specific because you are allowing and

permitting what you confess to manifest in your life, in your

home, in your circumstance. The Bible's pretty clear that it

says whatever we bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever we loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

And how does that happen though your mouth?

It's your words that permit what happens in heaven to happen on

earth. See, we can whenever the

disciples looked at Jesus again, if we take this back to the

principle of words, they looked at Jesus and saw all the

miracles and great things that he did, and they went to him and

said, Master, teach us how to do miracles.

It's not what they said and I hate it whenever I do that

because it's such a Christian preacher thing that I you quote

the Scripture the wrong way, but I do it anyway.

It's OK. He didn't say that.

What he said was teach us how to pray, teach us what to declare

out of our mouth. And then Jesus gave them this

pattern. He says, our Father who art in

heaven, holy is your name, your Kingdom come, your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. The way you permit heaven to

interact in earth is through your prayer life.

Your prayer life is a direct connection to your confession.

See, that's why whenever we begin to pray and permit God's

will to happen in this earth, you're like, well, that sounds

arrogant, brother. You're permitting God to do

something. Hey, just go back and read the

Bible, but start at the first book.

Start there. Don't come to me with like, oh,

I've read enough to understand. No, no, no, no, no.

Read the whole thing because from the very beginning, God

established man to have final say of what was happening in the

planet and then allowed mankind to dictate what happened.

He didn't slap the fruit out of his hand.

He allowed her to bring sin into the earth because she had a free

will and He honored free will. So the same way that he did that

is whenever he looked and said, my children, the you know, the

his covenant kids in were captive in Egypt.

God didn't come down and just move everybody away with some

big heavenly Angel legion. No, that's not what he did.

He came and found an obedient person that would do his will in

the earth and use them in a mighty way to deliver the

people. The way God operates in earth is

he finds an obedient man or woman to bring heaven to earth.

So his will is done. So when we say we our prayer

life permits God to work in the earth, that's because that's the

authority structure he gave in Genesis.

I want to permit him in every area of my life.

If I'm struggling financially, I got to find out, God, you got to

get in here. But the only way for me to do

that is find out what does your word say about it?

And let me declare it here. If I've got issues in my

marriage or issues in my parenting, I've got to get with

the Lord and say, hey, I want to permit you into my parenting.

I need your help parenting my kids.

I need your help in my relationship with my spouse.

I need your help in doing my assignment.

And whenever I pray, that is the power of us confessing and

releasing God's will in our life and in our planet.

Amen. So again, the three things that

your confession is producing, it's going to reveal and produce

identity in your life. If the band wants to come, it's

going to reveal who you think you are and who you actually

are. It's also going to reveal the

allegiance that you have. What comes out of your mouth

defines whether you're submitted to the king or you serve a

different master. The third thing that it does is

it is the permission source in your life.

What you confess is what you permit to operate in your

everyday life. So again, tonight I'm not, I'm

not going to give some kind of altar call of like, hey, you

know, let me cast the the negative confession out of your

mouth. I can't do that.

A prophet of God can't show up here.

No 5 fold minutes. You can come up here and lay

hands on you and cast out your your your bad talking.

But what I also want to say is that in this place, these

principles of speaking life only apply to believers.

See with life and death are in the power of the tongue.

An unbeliever or somebody outside the Kingdom can't begin

to decree life outside of this one declaration, which is, I

confess, Jesus is my Lord. That's the beginning of

declaring life and setting your life in the direction that the

rudder is now guiding you towards your destiny in the

Kingdom.