Lock Out The Doubt 3

If you've got your Bibles by you, why don't you lift them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad, and that's not hard to do.

It's kind of like the Democrats they stay mad.

Let's repeat, I'm gonna repeat my post.

Let's say this together say heavenly father, I'm watching live stream tonight because I'm hungry for the Word of God.

I stay hungry and that way I get filled when the Word of God is preached and I not only hear the Word but I make up my mind to be a doer of the Word in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, we've been giving you a series entitled Lockout the Doubt, and so we wanna continue that series and start reading here in Matthew, chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

And this, of course, is when Jesus had fed the 5,000, he sent the disciples away, put them in the boats.

Let us cross over to the other side.

Let's get over there, I'll meet you on the other side.

They didn't know how he was gonna do that.

And in verse 22, straightway, jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before them under the other side while he sent the multitudes away.

Verse 25, in the fourth watch of the night, jesus went under them, walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea they were troubled, saying it's a spirit, and they cried out for fear.

But straightway Jesus spoke unto them saying be of good cheer, it is, I be not afraid.

And Peter answered him and said Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.

And he said come.

And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

Please take note of that.

Peter walked on the water.

Sometimes we forget that, but he did.

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried saying Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him O thou of little faith, wherefore dits thou doubt.

And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.

So lock out the doubt, don't let doubt rob you of God's best.

And Peter did.

He walked on the water.

He got thrilled watching Jesus be Jesus.

You could say he was thrilled with the Word.

He listened to the Word.

What was the Word come.

He acted on that one Word and he was successful.

But what happened?

What robbed him?

Well, the fear of the circumstances.

He got out there he was doing just fine until suddenly he began to come out.

He began to notice the wind was blowing pretty strong, the waves were hitting.

All five of his senses, I'm sure, were enveloped with this storm.

Now, you know, peter, this isn't his first rodeo.

I mean, he's been out on that lake many times.

He's a fisherman, he's been in many storms.

All the storms he's been up to date were in the ship.

But still, he kind of knows the drill, he kind of knows how big the waves tend to get.

And all that he allowed himself to fear.

And so, you know, doubt comes from fear of circumstances, and he let that fear in.

And faith comes from revelation of God's Word.

And faith begins where the will of God is known.

Well, it must have been God's will, because Jesus told him to come.

So for him to doubt God's will, see, I don't think he did that, I think he just he had that doubt came from.

What were the waves and the wind going to do?

The uncertainty of that?

And so our faith sees and our faith receives.

We have the eyes of faith, must see the Word of God and the promise of God, and with a hand of faith we receive.

And so you know, you have to have that hand-eye coordination, just the same as any athlete would have if you've got a ball player, a football player, a baseball player.

I was thinking about years ago, when Ethan was young.

I used to play catch with him in the front yard and I wouldn't be able to do that.

Now he throws the ball way too hard and I'm out of practice and he'd probably hit me in the face and I'd probably have to go to the hospital.

See, I'm just not, I don't.

I just know it's not God's will for me to get out there and throw the ball around with my grandson anymore, because I'm not.

I don't have a hand-eye coordination that I used to have and I don't think I want to dedicate myself to getting that and also I'd have to toughen up my hand because the ball's coming in pretty hot.

But a hand-eye coordination, well, we need a little practice on walking my faith.

So faith sees the promise and calls the things that be not as though they were.

So we have the language of faith versus the language of doubt.

Think about that a moment.

The language of faith faith has a language, faith has a confession, and the language of doubt say how does doubt.

How do we open the door to doubt?

By speaking wrong.

You know when, when he I'm convinced this if because it was God's will for him to be on the water with Jesus, because Jesus wouldn't have let him come out of the boat, he said come, and so he was coming.

But when he saw the circumstances and he experienced them with his five senses, I mean you know, the spray is hitting him in the face.

I mean, he's got the sense of touch, the sense he's even smelling the water, he's tasting the water, he's hearing the wind and the and the howling and all of that.

But if, instead of saying oh Lord, save me, he, if he had said Jesus, I'm coming to see you, I'm still walking on the water, see, the language of faith would have kept him upright and he would have walked all the way out there and doubt would not have robbed him and the other 11 in the boat of this great miracle.

So faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

Now, this week, I want us to get into a couple of other aspects, and you may notice, if you've been here on a Sunday night, I've been talking in similar fashion on Sunday night and I've been preaching on faith and I want us to adjust our receiver.

That's really another aspect of receiving.

You know we believe we receive and we shall have, so these messages are on faith.

I want to remind you that back in September of 2019, we had that awesome word that said you know, we're going to look back on this year and say this is the greatest year, yet this is the greatest year of my life.

What a magnificent word.

And this word was on that Sunday night and then it continued like on the next Wednesday night.

And so we have a lot of new members and we intend to get you up to speed because we want this to be the greatest year of your life up to date.

I think there's some great years ahead of us, too, on top of that.

But look what the enemy did.

The enemy came against our faith and he he threw us a lot of reasons that we could doubt if we allow it.

For instance, the COVID-19 panic.

This, this, the world calls it a pandemic.

It's a panic dimmick.

You know it's crazy where people are just coming unglued about a virus.

It's not, as it's really not as deadly as the flu and some versions of the flu, and yeah, it's problematic for some people, but for most people it's not that bad.

Some people do have some trouble, that's true.

I've been the same with flu.

We just don't hear about the flu.

The flu is not popular.

The flu is not political.

This is a political situation, and so what I'm saying is it's been thrown against the church.

Look at the hundreds and thousands of churches that are still closed today Closed.

Who would have ever thought?

I mean, I was at the Galleria.

I had bought some slacks recently on sale and they couldn't.

Even the Dillards here, the Willowbrook couldn't alter them.

So I had to take them to the Dillards at at the Galleria to alter them, and they were ready this morning.

So I drove all the way back to get my slacks.

Of course it's free of charge, so it justified the trip.

But I sat there in the parking lot of Dillards at 11 o'clock on a Wednesday morning and there was two other cars there, two other cars at the gallery.

I looked across the Galleria parking lot it's almost empty and this is our city.

This is a city that is bustling and hustling just a few months ago and now it's dead.

Everywhere you look, there's nobody out.

There's nobody doing anything.

Why?

Because they are afraid, they're panic stricken.

Oh, folks, I tell you, listen, we are not immune from this thing except by faith, and so we need to feed your faith.

My job is your pastors, to feed your faith in every direction.

So now let's let's look at a couple more verses tonight, because I'm talking about lock out the doubt.

And the other version, the other Sunday nights, is talking about making adjustments to your receiver.

You know, your receiver is where you receive revelation.

Sometimes we have to get in position, but tonight we're talking about locking out the doubt.

Hebrews, chapter 10, very familiar verses, in verse 35.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

It says cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.

By the way, that word confidence is another word, for it is bold confession, or it could be outspokenness, all outspoken.

This you know.

We Gloria's Way Church was outspoken by opening up for in person services on Palm Sunday to Sunday before Easter.

I mean, there were, there were next to no.

You know a couple of other churches that I know of that were open, and and other than that, most churches in Houston were closed.

That's see, our stand of faith was outspoken.

We didn't cast away our confidence.

It has a great recompense of reward.

Why?

Because it's based on God's word, not just pride.

You know, we were accused of being proud, we were accused of being arrogant, we were accused of all kind of things on Facebook and other places.

Doesn't matter what people think, it matters what God thinks, and I believe that we, that we did the right thing and do it again.

So cast not away your conference.

One version says don't fling your confidence away.

Don't don't fling it away, which have great recompense of reward.

Verse 37, forget a little while, excuse me, verse 36, for you have need of patience that after you've done the will of God, you might receive the promise.

Verse 38, now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

And so, and then over in James, a couple of pages over to the right, james, chapter one.

You know, we're not to draw back, we're to have confidence.

We're had outspell well, to have a bold confession of faith.

We're boldly confess.

I boldly confess every day.

I'm not giving off or taking in viruses.

I might have to put on a mask to go to the store, but I'm not putting the mask on because I'm afraid of a virus.

I'm putting the mask on in order to get in there and shop, because they won't let me in there.

If I try to go in without it, they're gonna call the authorities and I'm not gonna do all of that.

I'm gonna do what I have to do, but I don't like it and as soon as I can stop doing it and as soon as I get out the front door I pull it off.

So if somebody sees me outside and they wanna give me a ticket, well, they can just write it up then, because I'm not gonna wear the thing out there in the heat.

All right, james, chapter one you can do what you want.

James chapter one, verse five if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God which gives all men liberally and a braided knot.

It shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for he that wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with a wind and tossed.

Doesn't it kind of remind you of Peter?

I mean, his faith was driven by the wind and tossed, doesn't it?

And he said a double-minded man is unstable in all his way.

Well, yeah, peter was a pretty unstable.

He started sinking.

I mean, he gives you a picture, exact picture, of this verse.

He was double-minded At first.

He was excited At first.

He wanted to go walk on the water.

At first he said, oh, bring me, come.

Put Jesus in a box.

What's Jesus gonna do?

Say no, I'm not Jesus.

No, he kind of had to say yeah, come.

And then he gets out there and now he doesn't know what he wants to do.

Is he gonna sink or swim and see no wavering.

See the lifestyle, the default lifestyle of the believer is faith.

We walk by faith, not by sight.

Second Corinthians, five seven, not by what it seems like, and I've said much the same on Sunday night messages.

These messages overlap why?

Well, because I want to feed your faith.

I want to overcome every bit of doubt that's been sent by federal authorities sitting up there with their pontificating about masks and pontificating about death rates and cases and testing and vaccine.

Listen, none of that stuff has anything to do with a believer.

We are immune.

We have herd immunity.

We herd the gospel.

We are immune from all viruses and diseases.

But what if I catch it?

Well, see, stop saying what if like that?

That's not faith, amen.

Don't make it an allowance for doubt to enter in.

Get the language of faith going.

Make your goal, bold confession.

Don't be wavering back and forth.

Amen, all right.

And then one more verse Galatians, chapter six.

And we're talking about being bold with our confession, not wavering back and forth like Peter did.

Peter was, he was literally driven by the wind and tossed.

Well, you know, some of us have had some, some difficult circumstances.

I'm not saying the circumstances have been ideal.

Some of you have some difficult circumstances.

Let's hold on to our faith in the midst of the circumstance.

Galatians six, verse nine Let us not be weary and well doing, for in due season we shall reap.

If we faint, not In due season, we shall reap if we faint not.

See, heated waivers is not going to receive anything.

You, james, said, forget about it.

You're going to waver back and forth.

You're not, don't even think you're going to get anything If you faint.

If you faint, you're not going to get it.

If you faint, don't, don't be weary and well, well doing.

See, some people get weary of calling things that be not as though they were.

For instance, you know, peter's out there on the water.

His senses, his five senses, are overloaded.

He's got some.

His pulse rate has lifted up.

Maybe the hair on the back of his head if he could feel it, with all the wetness and everything, he'd probably hair is raised, I mean, he's, he's a little bit, he's physical fear is hitting.

But he still could have said, he could have still called the thing that being not as though it were.

He could have said Jesus, I'm still walking on the water, I'm coming to see you, I'm coming to see you, I'm doing great.

See well, oh, he's lying.

No, he's calling the things that being not as though they were the language of faith.

He didn't employ the language of faith.

Instead, he said oh, jesus saved me.

Ah, so see, there you go.

He sunk, oh, and Jesus said oh, that's okay, better, better luck next time.

Now, number one, we don't believe in luck.

Number two he didn't get a participation trophy.

He said oh, you have little faith.

Why did you doubt?

You had it going your way, why'd you doubt?

And so some people just get weary of calling things that be not as though they were.

Maybe you've got a terrific challenge financially because of all of this going on.

Some of us are working less hours, some of us got cuts in pay, some of us have some tough situations.

Well, don't get tired of calling things that be not as though we're just oh, thank God, I'm blessed, I'm blessed, I'm blessed to the Lord which made heaven and earth.

Praise God, I have all that are bound.

Well, you know.

But no, that's not.

No, we call the thing that be not as though it were.

Keep, don't get weary in well doing.

Well, well doing is calling things that be not as though we're faith, please, it's God.

See, keep walking by faith, keep speaking by faith, the language of faith.

So some people get tired of that.

They get weary, you see, and you'll reap and do season if you faint not, see, they're fainting.

Everybody else say there's no faint in me, there ain't no faint in me, that's a good one.

And then, you know, some people get impatient and they move on a situation before they know what God's will is in a particular situation.

You know, faith begins where the will of God is known.

So when we get ahead of God and let's, for instance, you know I've seen a few people.

You know they thought everything was good, this COVID thing hadn't hit so sometime previous, after this word was.

I don't know specifically anybody, I'm just speaking by revelation.

I know that sometimes we can get the idea that everything's so great we're gonna run out here and we're gonna do something bold and we're gonna buy something.

We're gonna get a new car and go on the hook for a seven year car loan and we're gonna go buy a brand new house and we're stretching to make the payments.

Well, we just barely qualified, but we went ahead and closed and then this hit.

Well, did you wait long enough to find the will of God in these purchases?

If you get ahead of God and wasn't God that you did it?

See, I've been there.

I know exactly about getting ahead of God.

I know what that feels like and it's pretty tough.

And will God help you?

Yeah, he'll help you, but you gotta recognize what happened and repent.

So that's called.

You know, brother, I can't remember his name now, but I heard a great message on faith, foolishness or presumption, and so foolishness is when you get ahead of God and you don't even have a word for it.

You know faith coming by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

You've gotta have a word.

Peter had a word come.

If he hadn't had a word, he would have been foolish to get out there on the water, but he did have a word.

So wait in prayer to get a word from God about your situation what you should do next.

You should never buy or purchase or invest or do anything like that without knowing what God's will is in the matter.

So presumption would be to move ahead.

Also, it's a very similar thing than foolishness.

So don't let doubt rob you.

That's the bottom line.

Faith begins where the will of God is known, and let's keep our bold confession.

Don't let the language of doubt rob you.

See, that's the same thing as doubt.

The language of doubt is doubt.

See, believe in receiving doubt and do without.

I'm thinking.

The other day I've told this testimony many times and I'm sure I'll tell it many more times but we were in our first building.

We were running out of space.

Our landlord offered to you know we were, we were paying our rent every month.

He liked us, he liked what we were doing.

He saw that we were growing and he offered to build us 15 to 20,000 square foot metal building.

The building we were in was 9,000 square feet, so it was going to double our size on five acres of land and keep our payments the same.

And if we would sign a five year lease, which a five year lease is a kind of a long lease.

But gosh, we had room to grow.

We would have had room to grow with a night, with a 1520,000 square foot metal building on five acres, plenty of parking for that number of people.

But the Holy Spirit wouldn't give me a release.

See, I prayed in the Holy Ghost.

I mean, I wanted to do it.

I liked the idea of the Holy Ghost put put a.

You know, I lost my peace about it.

So I went to him and I said Well, we do need to grow.

I'm thinking about buying some property, though instead of having a lease, I'd rather buy some property and build our own building.

Have you got some property around you can sell us?

Oh yeah, I'll make you a good deal on it and I'll finance it.

You know he was wet favor with it.

He was just opening the door wide.

I'll finance the land.

I'll finance 100% of the purchase price and not have you any.

If you need two years before you make any payments, I'll amortize the note on 30 years, or I'll do interest only and do a balloon after five years.

You know he was really.

He was encouraging us.

So I went to look at five acres of land.

I got this tremendous visitation.

I saw the circle with a star.

This was spectacular visitation of God.

I didn't know what I was seeing.

It looked like a capital on a map.

I said God, what are you saying?

He said regional center.

I began to pray about that and I thought Well, that's what Lakewood Church was when I was there.

It was a regional center.

People came from all over to go to that church.

In fact I remember a couple that drove all the way from New Bromples for a year or two 150 miles each way to come to Lakewood Church on Sunday morning, and I'd met them later when they moved to Houston.

But but I thought, well, five acres, maybe you know five acres, maybe that's not enough.

So I went back to him in a month or so after I prayed and I said Look, I said I looked at that five acres.

I said have you got like 10 acres with an adjoining 10 acres where we could buy 10 acres from you and then have a?

We'd have a, an option to purchase the adjoining 10 acres At a later date.

And he blinked at me, looked at me and he went to his file cabinet and he pulled out this big plat.

He said have I shown you my 63 acre tract?

And he laid it on his desk and I almost fell out of the chair.

I said Wait, wait a minute Now.

63 acres, no See.

So I had gone from five acre faith to 10 acre faith.

But now my landlord you know at the time he's our landlord he had more faith in us than we did he said here have I showed you my 63 acre tract.

And I said no, I didn't know anything about it and it was, you know so.

And he showed me all the points of it and everything was actually 92.7 acres the whole thing.

But it had Richie Road went through the middle of it.

So one side of it was 63 acres, the other side was 30 acres.

And he said you could, you could buy this side of Richie Road.

You'd have Richie Road frontage.

I said they're going to build Richie Road there.

Yeah, they're going to build it right through this property and you could be fronting on Richie Road.

I said Huh, that's a Boulevard, that's pretty good.

And so I took another month.

I said when do you need?

Oh, I'm no hurry, just whenever you make up your mind.

And so I had a month went by and I said you know, I'm really, I'm really.

I have to say I'm not ready to buy it today.

But I said what can we do to tie it up?

Can we purchase an option on the 63 acres?

I said I'll be glad to give you a non refundable money for a period of time.

He said Just shake my hand.

Nothing, nothing, no charge.

Just shake my hand and I'll give you first right of refusal.

If I get an offer on this property, I will call you and I will sell it to you for the same money.

I'm going to sell it to anybody else for now.

See, that's God's favor.

Are you with me now?

I'm talking about believe in, receive or doubt and do without.

I'm talking about not letting circumstances rattle you.

I was very cautious.

I was one at a time, one step at a time.

I didn't get ahead of God, amen.

And by the time, about a year later, I went back to him.

We were ready to buy that 63 acres.

We had a very substantial.

We had $600,000 saved up that we could put down on the note which he was going to carry at two points above prime, at whatever way that we wanted amortized.

As it turned out, I had it amortized for 20 years.

I didn't want to pay all interest.

I wanted to pay something down on the principle, even if it was not that much, and so that's what we did.

But when I came to him he said oh John, I meant to call you this week.

I got an offer on the whole thing.

It's 92.7 acres and Richard Road is not coming through the property.

It's going to be on one end of the property.

So if you want to be on Richard Road, you're going to need to buy all 92.7 acres.

And we did.

I had the witness right then.

So my faith went from five acre faith to 10 acre faith, to 63 acre faith, to 92.7 acre faith.

And the rest is history.

Because we bought that property, we put that $600,000 down, and you know what the rest of the story was.

God gave us this property that we're on now, right down the street.

Oh, come on, lift your hand, I'll tell you.

God knows how to grow your faith If you'll be patient, not get ahead of God, not be presumptuous, not be foolish, stay within what God tells you.

And God told me regional center.

That's why I believe that we're doing regional center things.

This whole thing I was talking about earlier about my God votes, that's a regional center kind of project.

So don't let doubt rob you.

Lock out the doubt.

I've got three things here tonight.

I trust you're getting something out of this.

This is the DNA of our church and it's the DNA that's available for every one of our members because we're in each other, we're of each other.

So the first thing about locking out the doubt be hungry.

Number one be hungry and thirsty for God and His best.

Take time to eat of His Word.

See, how could I go from five acre?

See, I couldn't do it all in one day.

I fed on His Word.

I meditated on what he said to me.

Regional center I thought about.

Lakewood church was a regional center where I knew the DNA that was in my DNA, that was in my father's DNA, my spiritual father, and so I took time to eat of the Word and drink of His Spirit.

I prayed much in other times and so did our prayer meetings.

We had prayer meetings on Thursday night.

We prayed a lot about these things.

You know, psalm 374 says Delight yourself in the Lord, your God, and he will give you the desires of your heart, and a lot of people take it to mean that God will just give you what you want, and I believe it means that he will implant in you His desires for you.

I believe he will plant, and I tell you, god wants more for you than you want for yourself.

I mean, I never would have dreamed in a million years, when I went out to look at five acres, that God was thinking about 92.7 acres.

God knew where a tract of land was, right around the corner that he wanted to get me, get us to buy.

And so, really, god wants to implant His plan in you, his dream for you, his desires for you.

So be hungry and thirsty for God and for His best and eat and drink of His Word.

Alright, and then, number two, keep the door open for God.

Don't keep the door shut.

Let God in, let Him in, let Him into your situation, let Him in.

Resist, doubt continually, don't talk sickness, don't talk lack, don't talk defeat, don't talk victimhood.

You know it's easy in church, but when you get out of church, when you're in the middle of everything else, or maybe when you wake up in the middle of the night and these thoughts come into your mind about circumstances that you're facing, listen, that's the time that you've just got to rejoice Faith, be full of joy.

Joy is the bridge between receiving and having.

You believe you receive and you shall have.

What do you do in between?

What do you do in between the amen and the there it is.

You know there's an amen time and that's when you believe you receive, amen, congratulations.

And then there's the there it is.

Well, the there it is comes later.

It's a seed time.

Don't want to faint.

Don't faint before the crop comes in.

And so what do you do?

You rejoice, they stay full of joy.

So keep the door open for God.

Number two, number three quit looking at the clock or the calendar.

You know the Bible says there in Galatians 6, 9, it do season, you shall reap.

If you faint, not, what is do season?

Well, it's seed time.

I mean, if you, if you plan an apple seed, you're not going to have apples for a long time.

I mean it takes a long time for an apple seed to become a tree and for that apple tree to actually have apples.

And the same with pecans.

I think it's 15 years.

Like a pecan takes 15 years to get to bearing side and their little bitty trees are not very big at 15 years.

It takes a long time for a pecan tree.

We had some big ancient pecan trees on our property that we used to have, that we sold, paid off our loan, our mortgage.

So in do season, you shall reap.

I said you shall reap.

See that it's not going to.

Oh, I don't know.

You know you shall reap If you're acting on a word.

You got why you were rejoicing in God and why you were hungry for his word and drinking of his spirit.

And he gives you a word and you act on that word and you start moving forward on that word and you believe you've received that word.

Keep the language of faith going and you shall reap.

Don't faint, don't you dare faint, don't you dare faint.

Smith Wigglesworth said one time his experience with most Christians is they give up before the answer comes.

Isn't that terrible?

I mean, you've got it's on the way, it's almost manifested.

It's right at the doorstep.

Amazon has pulled up to the sidewalk and they're opening the truck.

They're about to bring the package and put it on and give you a picture of it.

You know, when they snap the picture now and they email it to you here, you don't tell us if you didn't get it.

Here is a picture of your front door and there's a package.

It wouldn't be terrible if you said my package has not arrived, I'm never going to get that package.

Smith Wigglesworth said.

You know most Christians give up before the answer comes.

Don't do that.

Don't be that way.

I mean, once you've heard from God, you just keep on going.

I shall reap because I ain't going to faint.

I ain't got no faint in me.

Just lock out the doubt tonight.

Lock out the doubt.

Come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Praise God.