What Do You Say?

What a weekend we had.

I'll tell you there were more scraps dropped on the floor after that weekend.

You could live off of that.

You could probably gather up 12 baskets of scraps and feed a lot of people with everything that you dropped on the floor and didn't eat yourself.

There's plenty to go back and pick up more.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word.

I thank you, holy Spirit, for dwelling on the inside of us.

Thank you for revelation and knowledge.

Thank you for making your word alive on the inside of us.

Lord, we commit to feed on your word and that revelation knowledge to put it to work in our lives.

We're putting action to it, we're putting an action verb to your word in our life and I thank you that you are the performer of it and we're bearing much fruit for your kingdom in Jesus'.

Name, amen.

Well, I know we've got kids in here tonight, so I'm going to try to keep it PG.

I almost always do Family Wednesday and so the kids are curious to fill in a blank on their sheet tonight.

So I'm going to go ahead and give you the title right up front, if anyone's paying attention.

The title tonight's message is what Do you Say?

What do you say?

Do we have that slide ready to put up?

Go ahead and put that up there.

I got a few words to put up on the screen and I want you all to look at these words, see if I can pronounce them Shemua Shaphat, egal Palti Gadayel Gatti Amayel Sethur Nabi Gayuel.

I don't know how I did, I took my best stab at it.

Does anybody recognize any of those words or their names?

Does anybody recognize ever having heard any of those names?

I don't see anybody.

Well, that's because they're not very common names and nobody names their kids that anymore, and I'm grateful for that.

These come out of Numbers, chapter 13.

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

And you don't recognize these names because these are the names of the ten cowardly spies who reported a bad report.

They came back with the evil report.

They came back and reported that we are like grasshoppers in their sight and in ours.

They did not believe what God said, and God had already declared something.

He said I want you to go out and spy out the land that I have given you, that I am giving to you.

And so they did one part, they spied out the land, but they immediately forgot the part where he gave it to them.

Let's throw out another name.

It's not up on the screen.

Those can go away.

We're done with that.

How about Michael Phelps?

Anybody remember Michael Phelps?

That's much more familiar.

He's an all-time Olympic record.

He has the all-time Olympic record for the most gold medals 23.

Now let me ask you another question.

Do y'all remember any of the names of the swimmers that he beat?

No, because nobody remembers losers.

We remember winners.

We remember champions.

We remember the brave and the fearless.

So then, back to our first story.

You would remember Joshua and Caleb, because they came back with the good report.

They were the ones that were brave and fearless and had faith in God.

They're the ones that said let us go up at once and take possession.

We're well-able.

Joshua said the land is awesome.

You got to see this place.

It's flowing with milk and honey.

It's everything God said it was, and more.

We are ready to go, take this.

Those people are bred for our eating.

They're ripe for the taking.

Let's go If God is with us.

We got this, and so that was the report that Joshua and Caleb had, but the others had the evil report, and God heard their complaints and all the people that believed the evil report, god said that they would die in the wilderness.

Those people complained and said that our kids are going to be victims if we go in there.

And so God ensured that those kids were not victims.

He said those kids that you call victims are going to be victors and they will inherit the land.

They're going to go in and take possession of the land, but you're going to die in the wilderness because you did not believe me.

And so I go back to the word that God gave us as a church.

He told us to grow.

It was somewhat of a command.

I mean, he said what's out there, what we can do, what we can have?

But a prophecy is not automatic.

Just because someone prophesies it, just because pastor prophesies something, doesn't mean it is going to happen that way.

When it pertains to your personal life, we have a doing, a corresponding doing that goes with that.

And so God told us to grow.

He told us to stretch out our cords, to lengthen our cords.

He told us to expand our tent, expand, increase and enlarge our footprint.

And so we had better obey, because if we don't obey that word, there's another generation ready to rise up after us and obey that word.

And this will keep going on and on and on until there's a generation that is faithful to God to obey his word and possess the land that he said we could have.

And so we had better do that.

God said that we could look back on this year and say, wow, this is the greatest year yet.

Look what the Lord has done.

This is the greatest year yet.

But between there and where we are right now, you can see all kinds of obstacles.

I don't know what your greatest year looks like for you.

For each one of us, it could be a different thing.

It could be healing in your body, it could be healing in relationships.

It could be a financial miracle and increase in your lives.

It could be where you live.

It could be all kinds of things.

And so you've got to look and decide for yourself.

What does that look like for you?

What do you believe in God for?

What has God said that you can have and take possession of and aim your faith at that?

But if there are obstacles in the way, anyone can look at those obstacles and say they're too big and it can look impossible.

Well, quite simply, that is unbelief and doubt, and we know that Mark Hankin said just this weekend.

If you don't like what you have in your life, check out what you've been saying.

There are so many nuggets, so many things that I heard this weekend and I've gone back and listened to parts of these messages because I just kept rewinding and listening to it again and replaying it again and hearing it again, so I didn't even get through all of this again.

I know it was a lot, but it's worth going back and listening to.

What do you say, what's in your mouth, instead of what's in your wallet, what's in your, what's in your mouth?

I'm going to go ahead and call it Mark Hankin's 11, 23 through 25, because he says it so much.

But whoever says to this mountain, be removed and cast into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believe those things which he says, it'll be done, whatever he says will be done.

So we know we heard it this weekend for that mountain to be cast into the sea.

The sea is capable of receiving that mountain and completely dissolving that mountain, so that that mountain is no more and there's no more evidence of that mountain in your life.

And so it's not a literal mountain made out of rock, but it is whatever is in your way, between you and your promise.

And no matter how big it is, your words can cause that mountain to get up and go into the sea and dissolve and be no more.

But we've got to believe and we've got to speak what's in your mouth?

Jesus said in John 16, 33, these things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace In the world.

You'll have tribulation or trouble.

And then he said be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world.

In this world you'll have trouble, but be of good cheer.

That word there also means to have courage, so you could read it that way To have courage, I have overcome the world.

That reminded me what was in Joshua, where God told him every place that the soul of your foot will tread I have given you, only be strong and very courageous, only be of good cheer.

It's the same connotations, it's the same phrasing there.

Have courage that you may be observed, to do all that I have given you.

Be a doer of my word.

There's trouble out there.

Don't worry about the trouble.

I have beaten the trouble.

Only be a doer of my word.

There it is paraphrased for you.

He said these things I have spoken to you that in me you may have shalom, which is so much more than peace.

It's peace, it's wholeness, it's complete wellness, it's tranquility, it's all those things, because Jesus has overcome the world and that's a past tense and according to John 15, 7, and 8, if we abide in him and his words abide in us, we can ask or we can put a covenant demand on whatever we desire, and it'll be done for us.

And by this, he said, my father is glorified.

It's not us that does the impossible, it's God that does the impossible.

But our words we learned this weekend open the door to the supernatural.

When we believe and speak, we open the door when we realize that we do not have to perform God's part.

We can have the impossible because we're not doing it, we believe, we speak, the door opens, god comes in and the impossible is done.

And so we're not doing the impossible, but with God all things are possible.

It's easy to believe and speak.

The world has already been overcome.

We're here to occupy, not overcome it again.

We're occupiers, we're here to be doers of God's word and he is the performer of it.

So you see that the obstacles that are in front of you, whatever you see, if you talk about them, they'll keep you out of God's promise.

When you talk about those mountains, those obstacles, that'll keep you out.

But when you speak God's word, that'll open the door and that will let you in.

And so what are you saying?

What are you saying?

Religion and false humility can also keep you out of God's blessing.

So we've got the doubt and unbelief side and saying the wrong thing because of doubt and unbelief, that's too hard, that's too big and when you think about that, that's really quite an insult to God.

Think about the children of Israel and what they witnessed in the wilderness.

Water came out of a rock and watered the entire Israeli population.

God fed them with manna, he fed them with quail, he fed them in the wilderness.

He provided warmth and comfort for them at night with the fire and cloud and protection.

By day, he provided their every needs.

When they were trapped between the sea and their enemy, god opened up the sea and let them through and drowned the enemy.

And yet, when they come up on this promised land, they'd been looking forward to this promised land.

When are we going to get their dad?

Are we there yet?

Finally, we're here.

And he said let's come on into the promised land and they said, no, those giants there are too big.

God is bigger than any mountain you have in your life.

And so that's the doubt and the unbelief.

Don't give that a voice.

But also, we've got religion and false humility that can keep you out of the blessing.

How many know that God wants what is best for His kids?

You want what's best for your kids.

How much more does God want better for His kids?

I mean, we can imagine what's really good for our kids and we've got a good imagination.

God's even better than that.

God is even better than that.

So religion and false humility, you know, before we said the mountain was too big.

But now we can look at the blessing and we can say, oh, that's too nice, oh, that's too much, I don't deserve that.

What are people going to think if I get that and they see how big and how nice that is?

I can't have that.

If I consume too much, there's not going to be enough in God's kingdom for other people.

That's kind of ridiculous, isn't it?

Yet there are people out there that live by that.

If we just we got to live simply so that others may live We've heard that quote before.

That's religion and that's a false humility and that will keep you out of your blessing.

So I'll give you some personal examples out of my life.

I do have a tendency, a past tendency, a history of not fully recognizing and occupying the position that I was assigned to.

One example out of that when I was working on a carpentry crew, we had a foreman and the foreman came to me and said I'm going to be gone a couple of weeks.

All I want you to do is just keep the time sheets and keep the crew working.

I said, yes, sir.

So he was gone a couple of weeks and a couple of weeks turned into a month.

And I'm keeping the time sheets and I'm keeping the crew working.

And when we needed more supplies, I made sure to get more supplies.

When they needed special tools, I made sure to request the special tools and I kept the job going.

And finally I went back to the office.

I said when's Ed coming back?

And they said, oh, he's not coming back.

I said, well, who's the foreman you are?

Oh well, nobody told me I was the foreman and I didn't know it.

I'm doing the job of the foreman and I was too stupid to recognize I'm the foreman.

Now I didn't get a paycheck that said I was the foreman.

I got a paycheck that says I was a carpenter.

That's a different thing.

When you recognize who you are, then you can put a demand on what is due.

I didn't do that and I should have done that Later.

In that, working for that company, I got promoted to a project manager and now I'm handling tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, half a million million dollar, 10 million dollar projects and I'm the project manager and I've got a superintendent, maybe two, working for me and under them they've got different crews working underneath them and I've got millions of dollars of equipment coming and going and millions of dollars of materials coming into the job and we're building stuff.

Big things are happening.

And you know, on my side I didn't really like the office side of things.

I liked to get out of the office and so I would find ways to get out there and do things.

And so if there was an empty piece of equipment somewhere and nobody was using it and I saw that there was a job to be done with that, I hopped in the equipment.

I was the operator and I was doing stuff with the equipment.

And when there was something to be constructed, maybe it was carpentry-type stuff.

And you know, I had a tool belt in my truck and I strapped that on.

I got out there and I started working with my hand tools and working right alongside the labor sometimes, and the superintendent pulled me aside and he said, hey, what are you doing?

I said I'm just helping to get the job done.

He said you're the project manager, you're not a laborer, you need to act like a project manager.

I said, oh, you're right, I had to act like a project manager, but it wasn't a natural thing for me.

I like to work, I like to do things, and so I was at a point where I was relating sometimes I was relating more to the laborers than I was the project manager.

I didn't lord my position over them, I didn't crack the whip hard on them.

I was not a cruel boss, but I related to them more than I did my position.

And I had to grow into my position.

I had to recognize who I was and what my role was, and when I did that, it worked better.

Another time, when I was sailing on that tall ship, I tell stories about the ship that I was on.

I was the, I was.

I came on board as the deckhand and when the engineer wouldn't bathe on a regular basis, they fired him and they hired me into that position, and because I was handy and mechanical, and so now I was the engineer of the ship and so I had to take care and make sure that our generators worked, our electrical system was functional, and part of my job got real dirty.

I was down in the bilge.

I was cleaning stuff out of the bilge.

I'd come up out of there smelling like burnt engine oil and diesel and filth and I had to ensure that we had clean water on board.

We had a water maker.

I had to make sure that that was producing enough clean water on board the ship.

We had a holding tank for all of the wastewater on board.

I remember one time there was a plumbing leak below deck.

There was a sewage plumbing leak below deck, and so I had to go down below deck and identify where that leak was, and it was raw sewage.

And so you know, we've got toilets above my head on the deck right above, and there's plumbing that comes down to one point and drains into this tank.

Well, there was a leak in that plumbing.

It had backed up because somebody had put a dumped a rag down one of those toilets and you wouldn't think a rag would cause that backup, but it caused the backup.

When the tank filled up we couldn't discharge the stuff overboard.

Can I get my water?

We could not discharge the the sewage overboard because the rag had stopped at the pump Time out.

So I had to open up that macerator pump by hand and clean out that rag out of that system.

Yes, and I put on these little blue gloves like surgical gloves because I didn't want to touch anything.

And I very carefully cracked all the bolts open on that pump and took the lid off the top of that pump and then I had to reach down in there and grab that rag out of there and it didn't want to come out.

And so I had to work on that and before I knew it my gloves were full because those little blue gloves are not sufficient to keep that stuff out.

The rag went out.

I got rid of the rag.

We fixed the leak.

I bathed.

How many know it's better to be above only and not beneath.

That's the short moral to that story.

Let's be above only and not beneath.

So here I am, the engineer and I'm doing jobs like what I just described.

And we were in Spain, san Sebastian, spain, and we got invited.

I say we, the captain and the first, second and third mate were invited to go to a dinner.

It was called a captain's club and ship captains would come in there and you had Spanish sea captains in there and their wives were making the dinner and the men are in there smoking cigars and drinking wine and got this big table set up, and so they invited our officers to come to dinner that night.

And so our officers, our ship's officers, are getting ready.

And here I am, coming up out of the engine room and the third mate looks at me.

He said how come you're not ready?

I said ready for what?

I'm ready to take a shower.

But he said you got to get ready.

You're going to this dinner.

I said what do you mean?

It's for ship's officers.

He said you're the chief engineer.

I said yeah.

He said that's an officer.

I said oh, I'm an officer.

How about that?

I'm an officer, I'm the chief engineer.

I guess that means I've got other engineers underneath me and I'm the best one or the top one or something.

I didn't have anybody beneath me, but I was the chief engineer.

I didn't know it.

That was my ignorance right there that was keeping me out of the position that I was meant to occupy.

I was assigned to the position but I was not occupying my position the way it needed to be occupied.

I didn't recognize who I was.

You know we got a whole seminar on who you are in Christ with Raphael Cruz here a couple of Sundays ago.

There's some more to chew on right there.

So religion and false humility comes from not understanding the scripture or misusing the scripture.

Second Timothy 2.15 says study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needed not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth.

So if it can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided and it's important to get this right.

It's imperative for our lives to get this right.

So I'll give you an example at a scripture.

I've taught on this before, but I think it's really good and so I'd like to bring it up again.

In Psalm 3711 it said but the meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of shalom.

Matthew, chapter five.

You've got the Beatitudes, beatitudes meaning the state of supreme happiness.

So Jesus is talking about the state of supreme happiness.

He sees the multitudes and he begins to preach.

He said blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

And you look through some of those groups of people who are blessed and the religious mind will read it this way Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Well, thank goodness God gave those poor people something, because they're just poor and everybody's given them a hard time and they can't get a leg up in life for nothing.

Blessed are those who mourn Well, I'm glad God is blessing them.

The people who are sad, you know they're sad, but they're blessed.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Well, those meek, they're always getting the raw into the deal.

People are always cheating them and walking all over them, treating them like a doormat.

God's blessing them, but that's not really the context of these scriptures.

Blessed are the poor in spirit Well, that really means humble.

It's not a negative thing to be humble.

In fact, we should be humble.

We need to humble ourselves before God.

And then it says theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

If we're humble, we can have the kingdom of heaven.

Now, humble is not denying who you are in Christ or thinking of yourself in a lower way than what God thinks of you, but occupying the position that God gave you and occupying who you are in Christ.

You can be humble and still be who you are in Christ, and when you do that, you can have the kingdom of heaven.

Here are the keys.

Take it for a spin.

Blessed are those who mourn Well, that's kind of a repentance mourning right there, for they should be comforted.

A bruised reed he will not break.

God doesn't beat up people who have a contrite heart, who are repentant and turning around.

No, he makes room for them.

In fact, he gives them the comforter on the inside to pick them back up.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Well, here I go.

The meek, those people that people are always walking on taking advantage of.

That is not the definition of meek in these scriptures.

The modern definition of meek is quiet, gentle, easily imposed on and submissive.

The adjective meek describes a person who is willing to go along with whatever other people want to do.

They don't speak up, they're timid and often times treated unfairly.

But that word there is pros in the Greek, and it was Jesus used, a word that they would have been familiar with.

They would have been familiar with this word because it's defined as a horse that's trained for battle.

So blessed are those who are like a horse, trained for battle, for they shall inherit the earth.

So to understand where that comes from, they would find wild stallions.

Bring them down from the mountains, they would break them, they would train them.

Some were good for work horses, some were good for pulling plows and wagons, some were good for racing and some were good for war.

The top-tier ones, the ones that had the fierce spirit, the courage inside those animals.

They were the ones that could be trained at such a high level in battle.

They were not intimidated by arrows and spears and the havoc of war.

They did not respond to any of that.

What they responded to was the gentle nudge of the rider or the rider's words.

In fact, one of these horses that had been meeked for battle could run at about 30 miles an hour and come to a sliding halt.

At the word of the rider, they would respond immediately.

Jesus is saying blessed are those who are like horses that have been meeked or trained for battle, for they shall inherit the earth.

We've been learning about what inherit means.

The pastor has been talking an awful lot about it.

To inherit is not somebody who has to die before I can receive it, but to inherit something is to possess by dispossessing whoever is there.

When you're trained like that, where you can quickly obey and respond to God's word and respond to the Holy Spirit quickly, if you can follow instructions, mark Hankins would say, then you can dispossess your enemy and march right into your promised land and inherit what God said you can have In the Old Testament.

It means perfectly obedient, submitting their own will to the will of God.

In the Greek it means power under perfect control.

There's another word that's similar in use today and that's prowess Distinguished bravery, especially military valor and skill and extraordinary ability.

Those are the kinds of people that we remember, joshua and Caleb.

We don't remember those names that were up on that screen because they were the losers.

They were the ones that were cowardly.

They were the ones that did not believe God and did not go into the promised land.

But Joshua and Caleb had prowess and they brought the people in, and so we've got to believe and speak God's word, be sensitive to the witness and the tug, the nudge from the Holy Spirit on your reins.

We've got to be spirit led, believing and speaking.

Believing and speaking.

What do you say?

We've got to believe and speak and open that supernatural door.

We do our part and the door opens and God comes through and does his part.

So that's the end of what I've got.

All of that came back around on the inside of me because I was meditating on what I heard this weekend and I encourage each and every one of you, just like Jay said, these messages this weekend.

Every one of those services is on YouTube.

You go to YouTube and look it up.

Look up the Glorious White Church channel on YouTube.

You'll find these messages there.

They're not going away.

They're there for you.

They're free, there's no cost to it.

But I encourage you to go back and listen to it again, take notes on it again, meditate on it again.

What we heard this weekend is pivotal for what was prophesied in September.

If we're going to have the greatest year yet, we've got to be doers of that word.

We've got to be able to follow instructions.

We've got to be able to believe God and not think that the mountains are too big for God.

We can't have a false humility and say, well, I just you know, brother, I'm not going to take that role, I'm going to stay humble and just keep yourself.

No, no, you occupy the position that God puts you in and you do right by that position.

And we're not trying to do this ourselves.

But we believe and speak.

That's the word of faith.

We believe and therefore we speak, the simple word of faith.

And that is how the kingdom of heaven operates.

And so let's be quick to obey, like a horse meeked for battle.

Don't let the devil put thoughts of doubt in your mind, or he's going to try to do that but don't take hold of those things and give them a voice.

And you see the blessing in front of you and God says welcome to the promised land, welcome to your promise.

And you start to take a step forward.

And then, all of a sudden, you realize this is too much, this is more than I can do, and you start pulling back a little bit because it's too much, it's more than you can do.

You're right, it's more than you can do.

But he said you could have it.

And all we have to do is believe and speak and put action to it and walk in.

If God put it in front of you and said you can have it, then God will provide the means for you to have that.

He does not put a carrot out in front of you and the moment you reach out for it, pull that carrot a little further away.

It's always out of reach.

That is not our God.

And so go back and listen to these messages again, listen to what happened this weekend.

This is pivotal.

It was critical and pivotal for us to meditate on, to get in us and then to do this so that we can truly inherit the promises that he said we can have.

This is the greatest year yet.

It's pretty big.

It's pretty nice.

Let's not short ourselves on this.

God said we can have it and we're well able to do it.

The land is awesome.

It's flowing with milk and honey.

Have you seen the size of the fruit in that place?

It's huge and abundant.

I know there's some walled cities, there's some giants in that land, but they are ripe for the taking.

They're bred for us.

You're made for this moment to walk into this land.

The reason you get to walk into this land is because others before you wouldn't do it.

Let's go up and let's take it at once.

It's ready, and so I want you to make room for the increase.

I want you to expand your thinking on the increase.

Whatever you're thinking of, go bigger, make room for it.

You think of something nice.

You ought to see what God's thinking about.

What he's thinking about is nicer than what you're thinking about, and it's okay to have it.

And so let's go up at once.

Let's take it.

It's ripe for the taking.

It's yours.

If you'll believe it and speak it.

It is Hallelujah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

And so we're ready to go.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

I didn't know if you were going to call somebody else to close the service.

Hallelujah, lord, we receive everybody.

Say Lord, we receive all that you have for us.

We will not look back.

We will not look back the place God has for us, hallelujah.

So see, we said something tonight, we did the word.

We didn't just hear the word, we did the word.

We put something in our mouth and then God's gonna show us how to walk it.

How many of y'all are glad that James washed his hands?

Amen, amen, me too.

We'll close out.

You know, when James and I first met, my friend was the one who introduced us and she got this idea while James wasn't around.

He was in Corpus and she was living here in Houston and we were out at a restaurant.

She said you need to meet, you need to meet James.

She looked at her husband Wouldn't they be?

You really need to meet him.

And she said well, how do I describe him?

And she got all puzzled.

She said James, he's so, he's so clean, so I'm glad he washes his hands.

All right, laura, we just thank you.

Today.

We think we do receive the word.

We thank you that it lives on the inside of us and that we live to do your word.

We live to occupy your place for us.

We are living, breathing, participants in your plan and so, lord, I just thank you that we are well able, we are graced and skilled uniquely and we are highly favored.

As we go out this week, lord, we are blessed, we're healed, we're covered, we're safe, we are provided for and, lord, this is our.

We are having our greatest year yet.

In Jesus' name, amen.