Building Your World With Words 2

Pick up your bibles, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Oh, what a service we've had so far, and we're just getting started.

Let's wave them around, hallelujah Say.

Heavenly father, I'm here by divine appointment today.

These are momentous times and I'm so glad to be in the body of Christ, the church of Jesus Christ.

We're rising up together to claim our land, for you to take back what the enemy has stolen and restore righteousness and the truth of the word of God from sea to shining sea.

I'm here to receive from the word this morning and it will change my life.

In Jesus' name, amen.

My junior high students can be dispensed and go out to their classes and let's turn in our bibles, please, to Hebrews, chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

I wanna continue what I was sharing with you last week building your world with words.

Hebrews, chapter 11, verse one.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

It says now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, for.

By it, that is, by faith, the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

And I wanted to read verse three in the Barclay translation.

It is by faith that we understand that the universe was constructed by the word of God, for the scene had to take its origin from the unseen.

The scene had to take its origin from the unseen.

Amen.

Building your world with words.

That's exactly how God created the heavens and the earth.

He did it with words, and I like the amplified in verse three.

It says the worlds were framed, fashioned, put in order and equipped for their intended purpose by the word of God and the Genesis account of creation.

It says that God said and God saw.

Over and over again, god said and God saw.

Everybody say he said and then he saw See, sound comes before sight.

I mean, if you're gonna see it, your voice has gotta be raised and speak it first.

If God used his own word to frame, fashion, put in order and equip this earth for its intended purpose, that's how your life can be framed, fashioned, put in order and equipped for its intended purpose.

Through words, you can literally build your world with your words, or the converse is true too.

You can tear your world down with the wrong words.

Amen, I mean.

We are beings that are made in the image and likeness of God.

There are certain spiritual laws that are in place that if we learn what they are and how to cooperate with them, we can have abundant life.

Jesus died to give it to us.

But it's not just gonna fall on top of our head.

We have to know what belongs to us and then appropriate it by faith and by speaking.

So if you ever wanna see it, you have to say it and mix faith with what you say.

So we talked about that last week Mark 11, 23,.

Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those things which he sayeth shall come to pass.

He shall have whatsoever he saith.

And so whosoever has whatsoever isn't that amazing?

Everybody say, that includes me.

I mean, when you get the import of that, it's an amazing statement.

And Jesus is the one that said it.

And so he pointed out, we pointed out, that it says in that verse, one verse.

It says say, or some version of say three times and believe one time.

Told Brother Hagin, one time you're gonna have to teach people three times, as much what to say as what to believe.

My people are not missing it on what they believe.

They're missing it primarily on what they're saying.

So words are important, words have consequences, or they have blessing attached to it, blessing attached to it either way.

And so we talked about the word.

Say the first, say there is epo, he shall have whatsoever, he saith.

That word is Lego.

And that means having a systematic discourse or continual or consistent saying.

And so it's not about saying something one time and seeing it appear, it's about saying something that you believe over and over, you confess it, you speak it over and over A systematic discourse.

I mean the woman with the issue of blood.

She kept on saying the amplified says if I can just touch the hem of his garment, if I can just touch I shall be whole, I shall be whole.

She kept saying I shall be whole.

She didn't just get the bleeding stopped, that would have been good.

She didn't just settle for bleeding stopped, she was made whole, amen Of years of infirmity.

And so, and we talked about the whole kingdom is based on words.

You know Mark 426.

As if a man the kingdom of God is, if a man should cast seed into the ground, he's sleeping, rise, night and day, and the seed should spring up.

He knoweth not how.

First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, and then, when the harvest has come, he immediately put it in the sickle.

So what is the seed?

The seed is the word.

Every time you speak a word, it's broadcast.

And where does it go?

It goes into your spirit.

The ground there is your spirit.

Are you with me now?

So we talked about all, about preparing our ground and making sure our hearts are right, and so forth, and so on.

Because you know, in that whole process, the Bible talks about four kinds of harvest and three of them are crop failures.

We talked about the stolen word, the scorched word and the strangled word, but then there's the successful word, there's the safeguarded word, and when it's safeguarded it's gonna bring forth fruit, sometimes 30, sometimes 60, sometimes 100 fold.

Amen, praise God, I've got my eye on the 100 fold.

You know, my name is Jimmy.

I'll take all he give me, amen.

So and so the seed is the word, the ground is the heart or the spirit.

And then Barkley says things that are seen take their origin from the unseen.

As soon as you speak a word, you can't see it.

You can't see a word.

You can't see the seed, can you, if you plant a seed out, you know in your garden you can't see the seed.

It's invisible.

Things that are seen take their origin from that which is invisible.

So when you plant the word of God in your heart, nothing's gonna change.

It's gonna look just like it did when you spoke it.

It takes time for the seed to grow and depending on what kind of seed it is, you know there's some kind of seeds that grow overnight.

You know, like little herbs and stuff.

Got a little herb garden in your kitchen window.

You know you can plant a little dill in there, plant something like that.

It'll just bring up pretty quick Chives, different things like that.

But if you're gonna plant an apple seed, you're gonna have to pack a lunch before you get apples off of your apple tree.

When you plant an apple seed, I mean you gotta have what Faith and patience Inherit the promises.

So we're talking about building your world with words and so.

And then I gave you three things, just basics last week.

Be a person of your word, I mean.

You know, be honorable.

When you say something, back it up.

Don't be a liar, don't be insincere.

When you say yes to something, then swear to your own.

Hurt and change, not Just make it happen.

You said you'd do something, you'd do whatever it takes to perform your word.

So being a person of your word affects your faith.

I find that when people have no integrity then they don't think God has integrity.

But when you're a person of your word, then the second thing is be a person of the word, this Bible, amen.

Put it first place.

Consult the Bible whenever situation that you face.

Find out what does the Bible say about your situation, amen.

The Bible has a lot of things to say about your life, about your situation.

And then the third thing be a person of prayer.

And because prayer is what a dialogue, and in prayer God can speak to you or communicate I should say communicate with you things that are not necessarily written in the Bible.

For instance, if all you had was just the Bible and you didn't have a relationship with God in prayer, and it's not going to tell you who to marry in there, it's going to give you some guidelines.

It's not going to tell you what house to buy or when to ask the boss for a raise or all of these specific they say the specific will of God comes from prayer.

So those are the three successful.

If you're going to build your world with words, you've got to be that those three things are kind of your basics.

And so today I wanted to kind of get over into a little bit more specifically about words and I mentioned it last week.

But we need to find out in the Bible what does the Bible say about us and our identity In modern days?

I mean, have you ever had your identity stolen on the internet?

And the cases are going way up since the COVID because people are at home and they're online more than they ever have been before.

They've been shopping online.

They've been.

You know everything is done online, so your information's out there.

These thieves are out there trying to steal your information, trying to steal your identification.

And so I found in 33 years of ministry, 40 years of being saved, the biggest trouble people have is their own identity.

They don't know who they are, especially who they are in Christ.

They might know who they are in the natural.

Well, I'm just my father's daughter.

Well, okay, if your father was a good guy, maybe that's okay, but that's not the highest Finding out who you are in the flesh.

Well, I'm gonna run out here and I'm gonna find out where all my people came from and get my DNA checked.

See, I'm not go ahead.

If that's what you wanna do, knock yourself out.

To me it's irrelevant, because I got saved and I came into a new family.

I'm a new creature.

Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things have become new.

Why would I go back and try to find out the flesh when I've got the spirit?

See that?

Wow, where did you get that idea?

I got that from reading in my Bible.

130 times in the epistles is the statement in Christ, in him, in whom, in the Lord?

All of those statements 130 times?

It must be pretty important For our identification to be rooted properly.

We need to be fully identified with Christ.

That's one of the two legs of our redemption Identification.

Does anybody know what the other one is?

Substitution.

Get the A plus on that.

Praise God, identification and substitution.

So you have to read in your Bible.

Let the Bible tell you who you are in Christ, and it's not ever bragging to say who you are in Christ.

If the Bible tells you who you are, then you should boldly say I am that, say I boldly say I'm a new creature.

Old things are passed away.

Behold, all things have become new, and I mean by old things passed away.

I'm not talking about 40 years ago.

I'm not even talking about 40 days ago.

I'm talking about 40 nanoseconds ago or one nanosecond ago.

I mean, my life is continually being made new.

How the blood, where did you get that?

I got that from reading my Bible, and that's the word I speak about, who I am.

Pastor, I'm so glad you're so bold.

Well, I wouldn't be bold, but the one in me is real bold.

I had to get out of the way and let him talk and cast the care of what people think of me on him.

If people don't like me, that's his problem.

I'm just doing what he told me to do, amen.

So, for instance, 2 Corinthians 5, 17,.

If any man be in Christ is there anybody in Christ in here this morning?

Then it's talking about you, isn't it?

So, since you're in Christ, then it says you are a new creature.

Literally, the word creature means a new species of being that never before existed.

Well, pastor, that can't be.

I still remember my whole life.

I remember high school.

I remember grade school.

I remember when I was in bed.

Yeah, that's your flesh life, but your spirit life, you're a new creature.

You're not anything like that person that passed away when you got saved and I'm always fun of telling Gladys you didn't marry me, you married the guy that used to live in here.

She's so glad that that guy left.

There's a few aromas of the old man from time to time.

Oh, praise God.

How many of this morning, how many of your righteous, anybody righteous in here?

Some of you are not raising your hand.

Well, you need to learn that you are the righteousness of God in Christ.

130 times.

I challenge you today to go through your Bible and underline everywhere it says in Christ.

Through whom?

Through Christ, all of those phrases, 130 of them.

Underline it in your Bible.

Pastor, you mean I'm gonna write in my Bible.

Yeah, if you can't write in your Bible, put it under glass, put it over on the side and buy you a Bible you can write in, underline.

You know I saved all my Bible.

I've got all my Bibles all the way back to when I got saved 40 years ago.

There's somewhere in my house might be in the attic by now, but anyway I've got one in my office that I had early in this church and it's kind of all worn out.

The pages are falling out.

But every now and then I'll consult it because it's here at the office.

I don't have my home Bible here.

It's at home, so I'll open that Bible.

I've got stuff all scribbled on the pages and it reminds me of the battle I was facing at the time.

I wrote, put those notes in there.

It reminds me of what God spoke to me to help me through.

Everybody needs help getting through and being victorious over things in life.

So substitution and identification is what you have to get acquainted with.

You know identities are stolen.

People identify with movie stars, they identify with sports figures, they identify with race.

You know real big on their nationality.

You know my great, big, fat Greek wedding.

You ever watch that movie.

It's a chick movie, believe me, guys don't invest any time in it.

But it's a story about a Greek girl, you know, and she's a little heavy, you know tiny bit, and she comes from a whole.

You know her father's just barely speak real broken English, you know, and it's New York.

We have all those immigrants and a Greek family.

Greeks marry Greeks and you don't, and so, no, she falls in love with a regular.

You know wasp, and here she is Greek Orthodox.

She's never even been to church and it's kind of hilarious watching this because they make such a big deal.

I'd have been in a Greek car, you know, and I know people like Italian and like Latino.

My neighbor just moved in and they've got Latinos for Trump.

Well, I haven't met them yet, but I plan on befriending my new Latino neighbors.

They got the right idea and that's fine.

And, danny, but listen, if you want the ultimate, let's identify with Christ.

Let's find out who.

Where is our identity?

And people have a low self-esteem, low self-image Sometimes people you know.

I was reading this one lady.

She's 80 something years old and she had was writing in for advice.

Somebody you know had contacted her.

They had found on their DNA that they were half siblings and she asked the question do I have to talk to this person?

I really it drags up bad memories.

My father was a good father in many ways, but everybody knew that he had other women and it hurt our family, it hurt my mother, it hurt my siblings and now I'm 81 years old.

Am I supposed to go back?

And it just I don't wanna talk to these people.

I didn't even know they existed until they come crashing into my life and writing me a letter and saying I'm kidding you, I think I'm your.

You know, that kind of thing is going on all over the place.

They say when you're not firmly fixed on your, see, I could tell by her writing she's not safe.

She doesn't know who, or if she is, she doesn't know who she is in Christ.

She wouldn't even be a bit worried about it one way or the other.

I'm not saying she should or shouldn't, I'm just saying that's my wrong reason.

Bad memories.

Thank God, we came out of that family, born into a new family, born into a brand new family.

Praise God, oh, come on, let's lift our hands, father, we thank you.

We thank you, lord, that we have the right identification.

Glory to God.

I mean, do you realize, titus?

Let's, let's quit, let's turn over to Titus.

Have you read Titus lately?

He's a good guy.

He's going to be waiting on us up there.

He's going to ask you did you read my book?

You say no.

Well then, you're, you know you're being bearish Got Thessalonians, you got Titus three, chapter five, not by words of righteous works, of righteousness which we have done.

See, we're not saved by works.

We ought to do them, we ought to do good works, but we're not saved by them, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of, regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Regeneration that's what happened to us when we got saved.

We became regenerated.

You were generated the first time, natural childbirth, when you were conceived in your mom's womb and you grew in there for nine months and you were born into the earth, born into the world.

You know you were generated, but now we've been what regenerated?

Glory to God.

We don't have to even have anything in common with the old man.

Yeah, we still got the same brain, we still got the same DNA as far as our physical DNA, but we have a spiritual DNA that trumps all of that.

That trumps, I like that trumps anyway.

So Praise God, regenerated by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us just a little tiny bit through Jesus Christ.

No, abundantly, abundantly, I mean.

He made a complete new creature.

So why would you want to ID with something that's happened in your life, like mad mothers against drunk driving?

Well, see, why are they mad?

Well, they're mad because they lost a child to a drunk driver.

So they get together and have meetings and so they identify with other mothers that are in grieving over their dead children and they're mad at drunks.

Well, how does that work for you?

Does it help you?

Does it?

Is it see, they're identifying with a wrong thing?

Or how about parents of murdered children?

You know my heart goes out to anybody that's had a child that's been murdered.

I'm not minimizing those things, but when you identify with that, you bind that pain and that grief to your life.

Oh, come on, let's get identified with Jesus, let's get the abundant life going.

That's what he died to give us.

Amen, praise God.

You know my brother, his wife, bob and Sylvia.

How many of you know Bob and Sylvia?

You know Bob's, my best friend.

You know people.

He prays.

He and Sylvia pray over this church all the time.

We talk every week and when we need prayer we'll tell them what all we need praying about.

And they do a lot of praying.

And we used to be in business together many years ago, but he's eight years older.

But they had three girls and their middle daughter was a special needs girl.

She had some learning disabilities and she had tendencies toward epilepsy, although when we got saved they never said epilepsy, they never spoke the word epilepsy, but she would sometimes have grand mal seizures.

They could tell when she's having a mini seizure, they could plead the blood over her and she got to where she was able to do that for herself.

She got saved, filled with the Holy Ghost.

She was a very spiritual young lady but mentally she wasn't up as fast as everybody else.

But and so she was 22, my brother and sister-in-law, they got called into the full-time ministry.

They're gonna move to Laredo, texas, and be part of a ministry, a missionary outreach to Mexico, and so they spent eight years traveling Mexico.

Their base was in Laredo and they would often be riding these buses.

You can imagine these Mexican buses on dark mountain roads with no lights, and a lot of the trucks out there don't have any headlights.

And I mean, unless you've been out into the places outside of where the tourists go, you just don't know how blessed we are in America.

You know we've got modern highways and safety.

I mean they've got.

They've got through the mountains, they've got these sharp turns and there's no guardrails.

I mean you just wind up.

You know, 3,000 foot down below in a canyon, somewhere.

Nobody even knows what happened to you, and so they have their great stories, but anyway.

So they were getting prepared to leave their home and go and move, and so they told Donna, said, donna, now you know, you don't have to go, god's calling your mother.

And I, my brother, was talking to her.

He said you don't have to go, it's okay if you would rather not go.

You know, we'll make arrangements for you to stay in the States.

We'll still see you.

We'll see you back.

You know, she's 22 years old, and and she said no, I want to go.

She was very firm about it.

No, I want to go with you.

Can I go with you?

Oh, of course you can.

We just don't want you to feel like you're half two.

We want you to go because God's calling you.

I want to go, I believe he wants me to go.

And so then they went into town one afternoon, saturday afternoon I think, and they came home and she had been fighting grand mal seizures for a period of time, right before that event and before they were about to move and it was getting worse I mean, they were, she was having more trouble.

And they got home and she was gone.

She was laying on the floor with her Bible right by her outstretched hands and and she was gone, and so they read in her, her.

She had notes in her Bible and she had a little diary she was keeping and she says Jesus wants me to go and be a blessing to the children of Mexico.

And so she said yes, she heard the call of God, and yet she was taken out before she got to go.

See, god gave her all the full benefits of because she was willing to go.

She got all the rewards for it, got all the rewards.

But you know, now you lose one of your children.

See, this is 22 year old and you know, when you've got a child, that's more special needs and needs more attention.

They need more love, they need more attention.

And that's the pattern of that family.

The oldest and the youngest, you know, knew it and realized their middle sister needed a little more help.

And and and you would you would expect that it would be really rough.

And you know what?

My brother and his wife, they were just completely delivered from grief.

They had no grief whatsoever.

They were able to have a funeral, they were able to rejoice.

And when we talk about Donna, they just rejoice.

We have these little stories we tell of Donna even now.

Donna was special to us too, because they'd come over and spend the night with us and Mary.

When Claire was young and Jay was young, they'd come.

They were older cousins so they'd come and spend the night often and all that kind of thing.

What I'm talking about is that words See, when you're identified with Christ, death doesn't doesn't hold that much.

I don't know who this is for, maybe somebody that's lost somebody recently.

You don't have to grieve.

Jesus took our griefs.

Sometimes people grieve because they think it's expected of them.

Well, god doesn't expect it.

He expects you to walk in freedom.

I said he expects you to walk in freedom.

So you have to have identification to fly.

Have you ever tried to get on an airplane with no ID?

You ain't going.

I found that out the hard way.

I forgot my wallet.

I left my wallet at home and I had everything except an ID and they wouldn't let me on.

I had to.

I had to drop everything and go home, get my wallet and take it later.

Flight and you're not going to get on the plane.

Hey Ben, you got to have an ID and listen.

Your voice is your address in the spirit realm.

Your voice is your address in the spirit realm when you speak.

That's why we ought to speak who we are.

I am the righteousness of God in Christ Satan.

All of my sins have been washed away.

I'm more than a conqueror, through him who love me.

Devil, see, most of the time you're speaking that word, that identification, you're speaking it back to the enemy that's trying to rob, kill, steal, destroy.

Amen.

You got to know who you are.

I said you've got to know who you are.

I can preach this, I can teach this, but nothing is going to take the place of you getting in your Bible and underlining those phrases and getting it in your heart.

And you're speaking it and you're talking about it.

And even those of us that have been saved and we've had this a long, long time it's easy to let our confession slip and start talking against the word.

Are you with me Talking about your identification in Christ?

I was by a little place the other day and it said recovery center, and I'm assuming it was a place for drug addicts and alcoholics to me recovery center.

And so I tell people all the time I said the 12 step program is good for people that are lost, but it's no good for a Christian, especially a spirit filled Christian.

You're looking into the mirror and say I'm a drunk, I'll always be a drunk.

You're holding on for dear life.

Well, I've got another eight years of sobriety.

Hold on, I made it another day.

And I'm not making fun of you.

I'm saying you're living so far below what Jesus bought and paid for because you already have been delivered from the power, authority, jurisdiction and control of heroin, of opioids, of alcohol or anything else that tries to come into your life and bind you.

Oh, it's a finished work, it's done already.

See, they're not saying the right thing to ever be free.

They're binding this bondage to them.

Oh, I can know some of your throwing rocks at me.

Already I understand, cause you've got this organization on a high plane.

It's not as high as you're thinking.

It is far below what Jesus bought and paid for.

He's the only deliverer.

He's the only deliverer and he does it permanently.

Does it mean you can drink anytime?

No, no, in fact, it delivers you from the desire for any of that.

That's what has to happen.

And so your voice, see, what are you saying about it?

That's your address in the spirit realm when you're saying, well, I'm a drunk.

Well, that's your address in the spirit realm.

Guess who's gonna be knocking on your door every day?

That demon that got you messed up before.

But when you say, thank God, I wasn't addict, but now I've been delivered, glory to God, I've walked it in freedom.

Hallelujah, praise God, this is helping anybody.

You know the Word of God can speak more to you about who you are, what you have, what you can do than anywhere else.

That's why I recommend the Bible for people.

But let's look at Luke, chapter four, one of my favorites.

Luke, chapter four, verse 14,.

Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit unto Galilee and there went out a fame of him throughout all the regions round about and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read, and there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, and it was written about who.

It was written about himself.

He found the place where the Bible was talking about him.

Well, how do you know that?

Well, listen to what he said.

He starts quoting Isaiah 61, and he's reading it right out of the scroll that they gave him.

And he's a Jewish rabbi.

Now he's 30 years old.

He's expected to teach in the synagogue.

That's what he's doing.

So what does he say?

He says a spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel of the poor.

He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and to cover them in sight to the blind, to set it liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book and he gave it again to the minister and sat down, and the eyes of all of them were in the synagogue, were fashioned on him.

Why?

Because he sat down in the Messiah's chair.

They had a blank chair on the platform that's reserved for when the Messiah comes.

Well, he sat it down in the Messiah's chair.

That did not make them happy and he began to say unto them this day is this scripture fulfilled in your hearing.

In other words, I am the one you've been waiting on.

I am the Messiah.

What did he do?

He said what the Word said about him out loud to a group of people and they started getting mad.

He keeps preaching to them, telling them about how they're not the only ones that can get a miracle, and he talks about the non-Jews that got miracles and so forth.

I mean, he said there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when heaven was shut up, three years and six months, verse 25.

But unto none of them was Elijah sent, except to Sireptus, a town of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow and she was not a Jew.

And then he said there were many lepers.

And then he goes on through Naim and the Syrian and how Naim and his clans, a lot of other Jewish lepers, were not clans.

And when he started talking about the Gentiles getting miracles and that he was the Messiah, they got so mad that they tried to come on in and try to throw him off the brow of the hill in his hometown of Nazareth.

They knew who he was.

They wanted to kill him.

This is kind of what y'all were faced with, all of you at the polls.

You had a demonic power that was opposed to you.

That would have killed you if he could.

They're gnashing with their teeth.

This is what the Democrat Party has yielded itself to.

It's a satanic move and anybody that says they're a Christian invokes that way.

And heaven, heaven help them, Heaven help them.

But anyway, I digress.

So I've been at that place when I went to Israel 2003,.

I'm glad it's not stood at the brow of the hill in Nazareth and it's a long drop.

And looking off to my left was the mount of transfiguration all by itself just a perfect mountain, and it just makes me have chill bumps right now just talking about where Jesus was transfigured on that mount.

And then you've got this vast valley.

It's the valley of Jezreel.

It's where the final battles are gonna take place.

Many battles have taken place in history and the final one is gonna take place right there, where the Antichrist is killed.

And then you look off to your right and down, a great distance down in elevation, and here's a town, a village, an Arab village with a mosque, and they've got their evening prayers playing and I'm thinking, well, that's gonna end one of these days, that's gonna end one of these days.

But that's the setting that they hated him for calling himself the Messiah.

Are you gonna dare to call what God tells you you are?

Does anybody think that Jesus was proud?

Was Jesus prideful in saying that?

See, it's not pride when you speak, what the word says about you Really, it's the ultimate humility, because you're putting yourself in a place of agreement with the purchase price.

The purchase price for you was his blood.

You must have been worth it.

Don't ever depreciate who you are.

Amen, are you with me?

That's why you've gotta get an accurate identification.

Is this helping anybody?

I see he told Abraham.

Hey, abram, you're no longer Abram, your name is Abraham, because a father of many nations have I made thee past tense?

Well, was he one yet?

No, but God spoke in past tense.

He called the thing that be.

Not as though it were.

Sometimes, when we're saying things about ourselves that the Bible says it seems too fantastic, it seems too out, like way too high, too high and mighty.

And we've been religiously brainwashed.

We've been taught to say well, you know, brother, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace.

No, you're not.

You were a sinner, but you're not a sinner now.

You are the righteousness of God in Christ.

Learn who you are, see.

Learn who you are in Christ, amen.

And so I think about this fake ID.

I remember the seven sons of Sceva.

They had tried to operate in the spirit realm on a fake ID Acts 19,.

What did they do?

Well, they saw Peter, they saw Paul, and handkerchiefs or aprons and Acts 19 were taken from Paul's body and laid on sick people and they were healed and demonized people and demons left them Special miracles by the hands of Saul.

So they saw that and so they're vagabond Jews, they're exorcists, they have a job, they're going through Jewish quarters and they're casting lots of demons out of people.

And there were lots of demons there because the Jews were backslidden, much like the church is in America.

Lots of demons right now.

Lots of demons out there.

Why?

Because the church has been asleep.

The church has not been ruling and reigning like it should, but I believe it's changing.

I believe it's changing, believe it's changing.

And so they went around and they found this young man had some demons in him and they said, in the name of Jesus that Paul preacheth, come out.

We've got a fake ID right here.

It says that we're approved, we're gonna use the name of Jesus that Paul preaches.

And the young man in whom the demons were says hold on, let me check your ID.

Jesus check, paul check.

But who are you?

You're a fake, you're a fraud and the young man in who those demons were, it jumped on those seven sons and beat them and stripped them naked and they all rushed out of there.

One young man beat them.

Don't tell me that our blue don't need help out there on the job.

We're seeing demonic powers are taking over these thugs on the street and they have supernatural power and not even tasers work.

Are we gonna persecute our cops and send them up for murder just because they have to kill somebody?

That's completely out of?

I mean, they're taking meth, they're taking PCP, they're taking these horrible drugs and they get possessed with demon powers that have and we acting like that, they just wanna go out there and kill everybody.

No, they're trying to survive their shift.

They just had the funeral of the guy that didn't survive his shift.

He let his guard down just a few minutes standing in front of a you know, went over to that door and I guess he was just standing right in the line of fire and he got pumped full of bullets and died.

It was terrible.

I mean, this is real stuff, folks.

And how much more the church has to rise up in its identification so the Word of God can show you who you are in Him and even things that are maybe not.

That never occurred to you.

So I was in that case.

I'll it was the short testimony in 1994, summer of 94, by July it was just in the June I had a house that hadn't sold and interest was eating me up.

I couldn't pay the interest, had to call the bank.

I can't pay any more interest.

Are you gonna foreclose?

You're gonna take it?

No, we'll give it a few months and I cut the price.

I did everything I could do in the natural to get it sold.

And then I went on a trip with brother Osteen to Paris.

We had a minister's conference to do and I went with him and ministered there a little bit with him and all came back and when I was there I said you know, brother Osteen, I never shared my personal trouble with him ever.

I always handled it myself.

Or if I needed somebody to agree with me, I might do that from time to time, but I tried not to ever clutter him up with anything I was facing.

But I don't know it just my.

It's probably jet lag, it was probably just cause I was in a moment.

You know, I just looked at him one morning and I said you know, pastor Osteen, I'm telling you, but when I get back to Houston I'm gonna find out what's wrong.

I think I've missed God again and I can't figure out why my houses hadn't sold.

And I said I'm gonna find out.

I know it's not the word, the word always works.

So I've got.

I must have missed God somehow.

I'm just believing that God's gonna show me.

And so the next morning he gave me an encouraging word.

He gave me a verse of scripture.

And just how many would like to be sitting in a lay in a hotel room sipping coffee and have John Osteen at the foot of the bed preach you a personal sermon?

That's what I got that morning.

I got a personal sermon from the word of God.

And so, anyway, we went on and I started praying and seeking the Lord.

And then one morning early I had to leave the house.

I went to work for another builder.

My company was hired by his company, cause my company couldn't pay me anymore and so it had to have some cash flow.

So he was paying my company for my time that I could watch over his houses.

He had some houses he was building.

He's a build on your lot builder.

So his houses were scattered all the way from Mont Bellevue to Crosby, to Alvin, to Humboldt, to you know, I mean 300 miles a day.

So I had to get up really early in spring, start my journey, and so I'd have about 20 minutes to pray before I left and then I'd have to finish my praying while I'm driving.

So that morning I got up and I got my coffee and before I was leaving Gladys was still asleep, 5, 30 in the morning.

And just as I sat down and opened my Bible I heard these words in my spirit son, you're a minister of the sanctuary.

Well, I almost dropped my coffee, you know, and I just wasn't expecting the word.

But what is that word?

Well, that word was part of my identity that I had missed.

I had never confessed that I was a minister of the sanctuary.

But that's Hebrews 8-2.

It's talking about Jesus, our high priest, who was a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched to, not man.

And I confess I didn't know exactly where it was.

I knew it was in Hebrews but I had to look it up.

I looked it up real quick.

Read the verse Word sanctuary means holy things, son.

Is him talking to me Son, you are a minister of the holy things.

And so, man, I went running into the bedroom.

I woke Gladys up.

I said, honey, I just heard from God.

He told me that I'm a minister of the holy things.

I think it's time for us to lay down the unholy things.

I don't think God is pleased anymore with us doing two things.

I mean, I'm pastoring over here and doing the work of a pastor at Lakewood.

Weddings, funerals, preach from time to time the EMC of the service.

Sometimes I take the offering.

I even preach for him after that a couple of times, but very rarely that he ever have anybody preach for him.

He's always there, but I'm doing that work.

But it wasn't enough for God.

God saw me not as a home builder, not as a lay minister.

He saw me as a minister of the holy things, and that word and that identification is the reason we have this church.

It started right there, with that word, when I started finding out where have I missed it?

Well, I had missed it by not giving proper gravity and attention to the ministry that God called me to be in, and when I gave my full attention to it, just months later, we started this church and the rest is history.

Praise God, I mean your identity.

God has something about your identity.

If you'll find out what the Bible says about who you are, then God can show you what else is in your future, how he can use you.

In these last days, I've had people come and say well, I need to come here, I need to find out what my purpose is.

I'm talking to you about your purpose.

I'm talking to you about how God can.

Don't try to paint it yourself.

Don't try to have pie in the sky.

Don't try to just no, no, just be faithful over what the word says and God will add to you.

Build your world with your words.

Come on, lift your hands and receive today.

Praise God, hallelujah.

Come on, let's rejoice.

Thank God.

Thank God, I am who God says I am.

Thank God, I can do what God says I can do.

Thank God, I can have what God says I can have.

Hallelujah.

Well, come on, let's shout a little bit.

I feel like shouting Glory to God.