The Believer's Secret Weapon - Pastor Jesse Soto

We've actually been talking about it all month.

Sometimes we forget that the book that we carry is our secret weapon.

And we've also been covering aspects of the church.

How the church works, how it functions.

And the Apostle Paul gives us a lot to work with.

But when we think of the church, thank you, Benny.

And the gates of hell cannot prevail against her.

And so we want to bring you a little bit of information about how a church functions today.

But we never want to leave out the revelation of God's word.

That's the rhema word of God.

You can call this the logos of God.

The general sayings of God.

And it gets inside of you.

And it revolutionizes the way you think and the way you see things in life.

But there's a difference between knowledge or information.

That knowledge has got to become revelation knowledge in us.

That's when it makes a difference in our life.

Otherwise, we're just Christians.

But it doesn't change the way we live.

And for it to impact us and not have a difference in our life.

I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago.

Or 10 years ago.

Or five years ago.

Or a year ago.

This word changes and transforms your life.

It begins with the way you think.

You begin to think different.

We shouldn't be praying the same prayers we were praying 20 years ago.

Because the word of God elevates our praying.

A lot of times we pray from our emotions.

And not according to his will.

And we think we really, really prayed because we cried.

It's gonna happen, it's gotta happen.

That's when we receive revelation.

But we said in the in the church there's certain things that are just normal.

Baptism, communion, the flow of the Holy Spirit should be normal.

It should be normal.

There should be the gifts of the Holy Spirit operating in our services.

We see it more often on Wednesday nights in our prayer meetings.

But it can and should happen in every gathering that we have.

Because the Holy Spirit shows up on Sunday like he does on Wednesday.

And we had a great Wednesday night prayer meeting.

The Bible, we ought to base everything we do on the Bible.

That ought to be normal for any church.

And the last one which we haven't covered yet, we will probably next week is prayer.

But you'll always land on your feet.

And say I was here last year.

But I sense growth, I feel like I'm here now.

And you'll know it.

You can just like in the natural natural when our kids are growing up.

I don't know if you did that, but we did that.

Every year we line them up and then put a mark on the garage, on the wall.

And we were able to see that they were growing.

We know just inside.

I know I'm different.

Maybe in six months, you don't get mad as often as you do.

How many people have problem with anger?

Raise your hand.

In six months, you surprised me.

In six months, if you fill up with the word of God, that anger will begin to diminish.

Maybe it's anxiety.

When six months you ought to experience more of the peace of God in your life.

If you fill up with the word of God.

So the women would have a question.

And they'd scream to their husband on the other side.

And it was becoming a problem.

And so Paul said, Women should be silent in the church.

And when they get home, ask their husband the question.

Now, there was another aspect of history there.

At that particular time, the women were not exposed to formal training.

So it was primarily the men that were learning and being taught.

But after Jesus came, and he established the church, he also brought freedom to the women.

So here the women in the early century of the church.

And they're like, we can know as much as the men can know.

Except that they were screaming across the aisles.

And we're going to run into another controversy here, but we'll look at that next week.

He says, But every woman that prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is even all one as if she were completely shaven.

So if he's saying women ought to keep silent.

Because it says here that women were praying and prophesying.

And then he talks about putting something on their head when they pray or prophesy.

So we'll talk about that next week.

And I'll tell you why he said that.

And so that's one controversy.

Another one that we touched on a little bit last week.

He says if everyone is speaking in tongues, an unbeliever is going to come in.

And he's going to think you're mad, you're crazy.

But he was this was not, he wasn't trying to ban speaking in tongues, he was bringing order.

Instead of looking at it as rigid teaching, he was just bringing order.

Women don't yell across the aisle to your husband, wait till you get home.

And when it comes to tongues, this was equivalent to him saying when he says you can all speak in tongues at once.

In other words, there's not time for everyone.

It would be equivalent for us today.

If everyone who could sing wanted to sing.

There's a difference.

That's why Jesus said those who believe will speak with new tongues.

That's for all believers.

It's not a gift of tongues.

That's a gift.

And the reason we know it's a gift is if you look at the book of it's in 1 Corinthians 12 29.

This is the context in which he says.

For everyone.

He didn't know who these guys were.

But he knew they were believers that should have received the Holy Spirit.

So the gift of tongues is a unique gift that Paul is addressing.

And so those are some of the controversies in the church today.

There's a few more, we'll address some next week.

But they don't compare it with other things that were said previously.

That the Bible is an advantage in our life.

But we have to know how to activate this advantage of the Word.

The Word of God, the Bible says it is alive.

And powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.

No, the Bible says every scripture is inspired by God.

In 2 Timothy 3.16, you can see that.

It causes us to grow up spiritually.

When we speak the word, it's like the shield of faith coming up.

And so the word of God.

Because it produces fruit.

And so the word of God like a seed.

It's a spiritual seed.

But it produces the fruit of the spirit.

Galatians 5 22.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.

It's the character of Jesus.

So if you want to grow in your character, in your personality, you have to take the seed of God's word and plant it in your heart.

So in your spirit, you're brand new.

But now the area of your mind and the area of your physical body and your soul.

Before Christ, we built our lives around sin.

Things that were not right, things that were not holy.

And our minds and our bodies had been trained and educated in that area.

But now we have to re-educate.

To this new life.

One of the ways to do that is to download the teaching of righteousness into your soul.

Righteousness is our new nature.

So we take scriptures that talk about who we are.

And we consciously download them into our consciousness.

We plant them.

It's the word of God.

You're planting the word of God until it becomes just a normal reaction and reflection.

Your response will always be the fruit of the spirit.

Now you'll have a choice.

You can lash out.

Your first response will always be love because you have righteousness in you.

But then your mind will get in there.

And try and find another scripture that allows you to hit that person.

But you can get to a place where your first response is love and patience toward the person.

So you download righteousness inside of you, or that you'll always be the same.

If you were a fighter before you came to the Lord, and you never renew your mind to who you are, a new person.

With a nature of love, then your first reaction is going to be to fight.

That's what your body and your mind were accustomed to.

But you begin to say, no, no, no, I am the righteousness of God.

I have the fruit of the Spirit.

And what grows is the fruit of the Spirit.

So you're not walking around saying, I'm not gonna sin, I'm not gonna sin, I'm not gonna sin.

The goodness of God begins to flow.

The fruit of the Spirit begins to automatically take place in your life.

Let me give you some scriptures on righteousness really quick.

But watch this.

This is a prophecy, this is something that God was gonna do in the future.

And it happened in our day when Jesus came.

Look at a new heart also will I give you.

And I will take away the hard, stony or the hard, stony heart out of your flesh.

And I will give you a heart of flesh.

In other words, he removes our hard heart when we come to Jesus.

And he gives us a soft heart.

That wants to do right.

That looks to God first.

See, that was what the prophet was saying, that's coming.

It hasn't happened, but it's coming.

And then we see it in 2 Corinthians 5 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new person.

New creature.

And behold, all things are become new.

What is he talking about?

A new heart, a new spirit.

And he says, When I put my new spirit within you, go to back to Ezekiel and verse 27 at the top there.

And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them.

Why?

Because of a new heart and a new spirit that I'm putting in you.

So our job today is to take those things of the Word of God and put them in our consciences.

Read them, hear them, meditate, leerla, escucharla, meditarla, speak them, because we are new people when we come to Christ.

The reason we struggle in certain areas of our life areas of our accepted Jesus as Savior.

But we never begin to meditate his word.

We read it, but we didn't meditate it.

But the Bible says, When you meditate my word day and night, then you will do the things that are in my word.

Look at Ephesians 4.22.

Another scripture about our identity, who we are in Christ.

He says, Put off concerning the former lifestyle the old man.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

We have a new man on the inside.

So we have to re-educate our mind and our soul.

Paul calls after renewing of our mind.

He says, Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

That's how you put on the new man.

It doesn't come just because you hope for it.

It doesn't come because you pray for it.

You've got to be renewed by the word of God.

I am righteous because of Jesus' blood.

I'm not righteous because I do the right thing.

Watch this.

I do the right things because I am righteous.

When that gets inside of us, it's just fruit.

It's the fruit of holiness.

It's not our hard work.

We didn't work hard to be righteous.

We did not.

We didn't work hard, no.

We just put his word in our souls.

And the fruit of love came out.

The fruit of love it came out.

And they say, What you are so loving, you she is such a loving person.

That's when when it comes to a believer, it's not just the personality of the person.

It's the new nature.

Because God is what?

God is love.

So the first thing that comes out is a fruit is love.

And you begin to walk in his joy and his peace.

No matter what happens, you're at peace.

No matter what happens, you're in joy.

The fruit of the Spirit is not anything you did, it just happened.

Because you put righteousness in your heart.

That's who you are.

I'm righteous.

So you say, Lord, thank you for your righteousness.

I am righteous because of you.

Righteous means I'm good with God.

That's what it means.

You're good with God whether you do right or wrong.

You see, we also have to change and shift in that area of thinking.

So that we're not giving ourselves credit for what we do.

No, it's all because of what he has done for us.

Now he uses us.

At least 98% of the time.

He needs us.

Sometimes I hear people say, Lord, I'm just gonna get out of the way and let you do it.

And the Lord says, No, no, no, stay in the way and I'll help you do it.

That's what Jesus said.

Jesus said, I'm gonna send you the Holy Spirit.

And he's gonna be your helper.

He's not gonna do it for you, he's gonna help you do it.

And the help comes better and stronger.

When we have his word inside of us.

Because he uses that word that is in us.

That word comes up like rehema.

And that's a power word that gets things done.

That word rehma remah is a power word.

The word is also visionary.

What I mean by that is that it changes our vision.

Not only our physical vision, our spiritual vision.

In other words, the way we see things changes.

Look at this passage in Matthew 13, 16.

This is Jesus speaking to the disciples.

And he's telling them, This is what's coming to you.

They were able to partake of what Jesus hadn't done yet.

Because they had him in real life before him.

They had the word of life in front of them, walking with him.

But he told them Blessed are your eyes.

Blessed are your eyes.

Blessed are your ears for they hear.

You see, he was saying the word of God changes your perspective, the way you see and the way you hear.

Like when you come in a dark room.

And you hit the switch.

And all of a sudden you can see.

That's how the word of God works.

When we meditate in his word and get it on the inside of us, the Holy Spirit hits that switch.

And we're able to see things like God sees them.

We begin to see things through faith.

And not just through these physical eyes.

I am sick.

But let that light kick in.

So that the Holy Spirit can switch that light.

Now you go beyond the physical realm.

And you say, Oh, by his stripes I am healed.

The light switch went on.

Some of you have tried that.

Without meditating the word of God.

Just like a little parrot.

Oh, that's what they said to do, so I'm gonna say it.

But you gotta get the word of God inside you for yourself.

So the Holy Spirit can turn your switch.

Your switch.

Not just your brother or sister's switch, your switch has to go on.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather depend on me and the Holy Spirit.

Than to depend on somebody else.

So we're talking about the word that changes our sight, our vision.

That it's just not knowledge from the Bible.

You're like, oh wow, this is interesting.

Oh, what a great story.

Oh, wow, David killed the giant.

No, we gotta go beyond that.

We gotta allow the Holy Spirit to say you can destroy and kill giants in your life.

Lions, too.

Giants, lions, bears, remember David.

You see, that's gotta get on the inside of you.

Otherwise, it's just a good, great story in the Bible that we tell our children.

But the word of God will shoot us up, it'll catapult us.

When we receive spiritual understanding, how does it come through meditating God's word?

It takes us, it takes away all the limitations in our life.

It takes us to another dimension of living.

Can we do that?

Jesus did it.

We see Peter did it.

He went to another dimension.

You don't just walk on water without going to another dimension of faith.

You don't raise the dead without going into another dimension.

He saw that with God nothing was impossible.

That he was the prince of life.

And when that got on the inside of him, then death was nothing.

Life was restoring life was easy.

And so these examples in Scripture, these men and women.

This is how we access the wisdom of God.

But the vehicle is meditation.

Now, the level of spiritual knowledge doesn't come from just a quick glance.

It comes through reading the scripture over and over and over again.

Intentionally meditating the word of God.

Well, there's a difference between revelation and just plain knowledge.

But revelation begins.

Meditation makes it real.

It makes it a conviction.

I think Marty used this scripture this morning.

Was it Joshua 1.8?

1.8, yes.

Where he tells Joshua.

If you'll meditate my word day and night, you'll make your way prosperous.

You'll have good success.

Somebody just takes the last part.

God promised me prosperity and good success.

No.

No.

Excito.

Exito, gracias.

No.

He said if you meditate my word day and night.

So you can say I'm gonna be successful.

But if you don't meditate the word of God, it's not the good success that the Lord gives.

You may have produced success in your life.

But there's a difference between success and good success.

Success wears you out.

You have to work as hard as the world.

You have to work 60, 70, 80 hours to be successful.

But when you meditate the word of God, it's good success.

He makes you successful.

Doors open that shouldn't have opened.

Doors will close that you shouldn't go through.

As we spend quality time in his word.

And all of a sudden we'll begin to see things differently.

We'll do things that we never dared to do before.

But this word of God is our key to walking a supernatural life.

That's why Paul prayed for the churches.

The spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Because when we receive the spirit of wisdom and revelation, verse 18.

The keys are found in meditating his word.

There's keys in the word of God for our health, for wisdom, for prosperity, everything that we need for doors to open, for doors to close.

Remember, Jesus said what you bind will be bound, what you loose will be loose.

So as we meditate this word, our thinking will be elevated.

Our speaking will change.

From all the other nations.

Paul says in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Can you give the Lord praise today?

The word of God is so rich.