Threshold - Faith

burnout, that you keep them strong.

So we bless them now as they go to New York in Jesus' name. Amen.

Cool guys. Okay. Let's go with,

this is part two of last week's message.

Last week's message was about threshold,

and this one's titled Threshold Faith.

So we said last week that threshold is a space,

threshold is a space between one door closing,

between one door closing and another door opening.

And another opening.

That's what we said last week,

that threshold is a space

between one door closing and another opening.

And we said that it's that moment when you step off the map,

and by faith, you go into a land you don't know,

and you go without a plan.

So you step off the map, and like Abraham did in Hebrews 11.8,

you don't have a plan, and you don't know the land.

That's what we said threshold was last time.

And if you, to understand part two,

it might be a good idea to listen to part one

if you haven't listened to part one.

So we're talking about how,

and then we said that usually this applies

to discovering God or new things about God.

We said it applies to phases in our lives.

We said it applied to movements of God

where God is moving you from one place in him to another.

We said that it applies to the permission he gives us here

on earth to do things.

It applies to the authority that he's bringing us into,

and it applies to new assignments that he's giving us.

So I'd suggest to you, for instance, that the guys

from Ohio are on a threshold.

They've come here, they've taken the risk,

and now they're standing at the threshold or something,

and one door is closing behind them, another is opening.

They're stepping off the map, but they don't have a plan,

and they don't know the land.

And so this is the perfect Sunday to be here.

And in the process, these are the things

that thresholds apply to.

One, discovering God, finding out something new about God

that you didn't know thus far, because he is so deeply multifaceted

that we keep discovering him our entire lives here on earth

and then in heaven, taking us to different phases,

movements that he's beginning on earth,

permission to do things, authority, and assignment.

And this is what we said last time.

And we said that thresholds are triggered

when one is dissatisfied.

There is a degree of dissatisfaction that is required

for thresholds to be triggered.

If you're not dissatisfied with life, you can continue in it

because you reach this place called a level of competency,

and you can stay there.

Most Christians and most people in the world stay there.

You come to a place, either denominationally, individually,

corporately, personally, in your marriage,

in every area of your life, you reach a place of competency

and you stay there because there's no dissatisfaction.

It is when you're dissatisfied that you begin

to look for something else.

Every time you're dissatisfied with a restaurant, what do you do?

You find another restaurant.

Because, yeah.

So dissatisfaction is one of the things that's required

to trigger a crossing of thresholds to a readiness

to have the familiar stripped off,

a readiness to have the familiar stripped off,

a readiness to have the familiar stripped away.

If you stripped away, and if you don't have that,

you may have dissatisfaction, but you won't be able

to do anything with dissatisfaction.

The moment I feel dissatisfied, now I have to be ready to strip

off that which is familiar because whatever I'm stepping into,

hey, I was just going to text you.

Really, I was just telling me I'm going to text Sam.

Where are you, Sam?

And there you appear.

I should have text, thought of it earlier.

Hi, Dan. Yeah.

So a readiness to have the familiar stripped away,

that's important too because otherwise I can be dissatisfied

and I can write songs about dissatisfaction.

I don't need no satisfaction.

I don't think the boy likes Rolling Stones.

Okay. Pardon?

Hey, it's a song from your time that I got the words.

Oh, thank you.

Okay. Just that one line.

It seemed to fit.

Okay. So after dissatisfaction, there must be a readiness

to strip away that which is familiar.

The third one is there must be an obsession with change.

There must be an obsession with change, with God change,

with God changes.

There must be an obsession with it.

Hey, this is so important, because if you don't have an

obsession with God provoked changes,

there's no need to be dissatisfied.

You won't even look to see if there's something new

on the horizon.

You'll still be using your iPhone 3.

Really. Because there's no need.

You don't even know that things have changed

because you're not obsessed with change.

A people that are not obsessed

with God changes will not see the changes God is trying

to bring.

And like I said last time, if you have not made any major

changes in your life over the last three or four years,

if you're stuck in the same place doing the same things,

doing them well but doing the same things,

then something you should question the pace

of your Christianity.

Any questions?

This is just recapping what we said last time.

The other thing was, if you want to cross thresholds,

one of the triggers is the hazard of moving.

The hazard of moving.

As in, be ready that things will change in life.

This God is so not theoretical.

He doesn't just teach, teach, teach, and then say,

now that you've learned everything, move on.

No. He now says, now that you've learned everything,

let me test you on it.

That's the problem with this God.

Anything he teaches you, he tests you on.

Yeah. So he'll test you on it.

So if he says that, listen, change is coming.

If he says, I'm taking you from one place to the other,

then having known that, now get ready for an actual movement,

physically, spiritually, locationally,

sometimes geographically, both the same words,

emotionally, expect change to happen.

So it's not necessarily geographical?

No, not necessarily geographical.

But one of the things I've noticed

is whenever there's a spiritual change,

there's usually some physical relocation that happens.

Almost always.

Guys, when it came to Israel and God,

land was so connected to change.

And so every time they changed in an adverse way,

they lost land.

Every time they changed in a positive way, they gained land.

What if you questioned your pace and found it wanting?

Get in touch with someone who has a pace to their lives with God

so that they can help you walk that route faster.

Guys, I was asking some people this question yesterday.

You're building a house, and you find out

that there are certain parts of the house

that you're building that you don't know how to build.

What do you do? Pray? No.

You pray yes.

But then after that, you go and ask someone

who's a contractor in that particular area,

can you help me with this?

I don't even know how to unlock my iPad.

I had to ask Brandon.

No, I knew how to unlock it, like to make it stay unlocked.

So I asked Brandon.

I asked someone who knows.

He's not a tech guy.

He's like a...

He's not a tech guy.

And so...

And yet, even for...

Yeah, he knows stuff.

So even for little things, I would go and ask somebody.

We need to begin to ask people who have expertise

in the areas of life that we don't so that we benefit.

And this church has enough experts.

So, in different areas.

Anything you want to know about the Rolling Stones?

You know who to ask.

No.

Pardon?

I'm gonna be out.

Who do you want to call?

Ch-ch-ch.

I don't know.

I'm full of these old songs today, man.

This is not good.

No, it's not at all.

Stay on track.

Stay on track, yeah.

Okay.

I've already made a mistake.

I'm gonna ask you to stay on track.

I'm gonna ask you to stay on track.

I've already made a mistake today.

I don't know whether to re-announce it on...

I made an announcement about Bahrain

that nobody in Bahrain knows.

But now they know.

And one of the leaders texted me saying,

you should have waited.

Nobody knows.

Cats out of the bag.

Okay.

And the last point I want to make

with regard to the recap is,

divine thresholds of battle fields.

Divine thresholds of battle fields

where God breaks through for you

and moves you into a new place.

Divine thresholds of battle fields

where God breaks through for you

and moves you into a new place.

As in every time you cross a threshold,

God does two things.

One, he helps beat a Goliath in your life.

Two, he brings you into a new territory.

Always. Always.

So the more we hesitate to cross thresholds,

the longer it takes for God

to then change a certain area in your life.

Be...

Go and listen to last week's

and you'll see that

he invites us to cross thresholds every so often.

And the more you become aware of it,

the greater the frequency of thresholds

that you will cross.

Because his invitations are constant, eh?

God is constantly moving and he's saying,

hey Jacob, want to come? Want to come? Want to come?

Invitations galore.

Just continuously.

Any questions?

Okay.

So one of the things we really need

for thresholds is faith.

That's why we're calling this

teaching threshold faith.

So crossing... Prashanth suggested that

I talk about this because he said

I talk about thresholds but it requires faith.

So can you revisit faith?

So if this goes well,

I did a good job.

If it doesn't go well, it's his fault.

So crossing thresholds is scary

because we are submerged in reasoning.

Crossing thresholds is scary

because we are submerged in reasoning.

We speculate what's going to happen.

We have subjective experiences

from the past that prevents us

from daring to take a new step.

God seemed to have failed us last time

so how is he going to do this time?

Sometimes there's a sensory overload

because we are so used to,

depending on our five senses,

that it just frightens you

from crossing a threshold

or crossing into a place

where you don't have a plan

and you don't know the land.

There's a pressure where people

give you great advice telling you

what happened to them when they made

this foolish move like you were going to do.

There are misplaced loyalties

where you feel that if you do this

then you're going to break someone's heart

or break someone's trust.

And then there are conditioned responses

where you always react to certain things

a certain way and you're scared

not to cross thresholds.

These are some of the reasons why

it's so difficult to step into new ground

where there is no plan.

Therefore we stay with the old

and keep doing the old really well.

People benefit, it's not that people don't benefit

but God is moving on.

Always be where God is going to go

not where God was.

Because one of the things

with being where God was is

you only hear the word he spoke before you

your ears get dull

to the proceeding word

and your heart is only aware of the preceding word.

Your ears get dull

to the proceeding word.

As in you heard God

hear

and your ears are so

tuned to that that as he invites you

you don't want to go for all these really valid reasons.

But what happens in the

process is

anything that God says here now

your ears are dull to it. You will not even hear it.

Come on man

we've got to break out of it.

The word becomes something that doesn't go in

because it might change me

and so I'm scared that it will change me

and I deliberately begin to shut down.

In every area of life

what is your

area of struggle?

Is it faith? Is it giving?

Is it kindness? Is it

vulnerability?

What is it in that area

because I have decided that I will live

by what my father or grandfather

or pastor taught me two years ago.

Now what happens is whenever God

speaks here I'm unable to hear it

because I've gotten dull.

There's nothing like

becoming dull to the word of God.

And what's it called? A traditional mindset.

What do you mean by a traditional mindset?

Jesus said to the guys

hey your traditions will void the word.

The word

in flesh is saying

to people made by the spoken word

that my words

will be made void by your

traditions.

This is why

keep this

thing of yours

super fluid and open to learning

your grey matter.

Keep at it as you get older.

Any questions guys?

So what we need then is a Christ like faith.

One of the things Christ like faith does

and what I mean by Christ like faith

is the faith that Christ

says we should have and that he talks about

in the Bible. Christ like faith gives you

a single eye. A single eye.

You're able to see the narrow

passageways that he cuts through rock

and all these

things that we talked about suddenly

become less important. I don't

submerge myself in reasoning.

I stop speculating on what ifs.

I don't go by

my past experiences

which sometimes can scare me.

I don't depend on my five senses though they are

very real and I don't have sensory overload.

I refuse to bow to

peer pressure. I have

loyalties but they will not rule

over the one allegiance that

must trump every other loyalty.

And finally the conditioned responses

that I have are pleaded with the Holy Spirit

to change those responses so

I'm not like one of Pavlov's dogs.

And that is

how you begin to work towards this place

where now you have single sight

and it's possible.

So what if you take eight months to overcome it?

Two years to overcome it. Start today.

I'm not looking for a miracle

I'm looking for a change.

Those words are important what I just said.

I'm not looking for a miracle. I'm looking

for a change.

A miracle is great. God provides

it but a change is something where God and I

work together and it is forever.

When I change I don't need miracles.

When I don't change I need miracles.

I've got no problems with miracles.

I prefer everything miraculously.

But that's not the way God works.

His favorite word

and the one thing he is not

is change.

The unchanging one loves the word change.

So to redefine faith from

ages ago, faith is entering

into what God is doing

with you.

Or God wants to do with you. Faith is

entering into what God wants to do with you.

Faith is entering

into what God wants to do with you.

What God wants to do for you.

It's embracing

it's embracing

his action.

It's saying, ah, so you want to do

this with me. Alright?

So I'm going to

enter into what you are

doing. I know that you want to do

it with me, you want to do it for me

and that others will benefit. Great

Father. I'm going to step into this.

Faith is no great

exploit on my part.

It is, ah shuck, so this is what you want to do Father.

You want to do it with me,

I want to partner with you.

That's how this works.

It becomes much easier then.

He's the one who's carrying the Lord

and I don't have to

hold on for dear faith.

No. I'm just embracing

his risky action.

He just happens to want to do it with me.

That's what faith looks like.

So,

renting a space in New York?

It's just stupid.

It is super

expensive.

But, if that is

what he wants to do, then

embrace his risky action

and then ask Diana to pay for it.

No.

So,

you take it and then

have to pay for it.

You take it and then after

you take it, you expect God to

do what he wants to do.

Because you're embracing what he wants

to do. You enter into what he wants to do.

Faith is not a means to an end.

It is the end. Faith is not

a means to an end. It is the end.

And what do you mean it is the end?

The end is, can you be

a God recognizer? As in, can you

recognize God and what

he wants to do with you?

Can you partner with God? Can you be a God

partner?

And then can you be a God pleaser?

I love this.

This is when faith

becomes so much more than, I gotta hang on,

I gotta hang on, I hope he gets me through.

The intent is, can I recognize what God

is up to?

This then makes faith like a

childlike adventure. Can I

find out what God is up to?

Can I recognize God and what he's doing?

Gotcha! And now it is, okay,

now that I know what you're doing, can I

partner with you, God? Because you're inviting me

into this. You're saying, I want to do

this with you. Can I partner with you? I'm scared.

But I'll hold your hand.

I remember when I was

flying from

Luton to Zurich

once, and my

niece was sitting with me.

And she insisted that she'd be the one

who would sit with me.

And then, I didn't

know that she was scared of planes

taking off.

And suddenly, as the plane

begins to taxi and take off, she

grabs my hand.

And once she grabbed my hand, she

knew everything would be okay. I didn't know

why she was doing it. I was feeling like,

why are you grabbing my hand, kind of a thing.

Because I'm not used to girls grabbing my hand, even though

she was only five years old. But she

grabbed my hand and is holding on

to it tightly. And I thought to myself, that's all

it takes, eh? Here was someone

who wanted to share an adventure

with her favorite uncle.

She only has one.

And then at that moment, she

begins to grab my hand and hold on to it.

And that makes everything okay for her.

This is the idea of how we embrace

God in this and become partners with Him.

You're scared, but you're partnering with Him.

And then finally, the third part is so cool,

because without faith, it is impossible to

please Him. And so I end up being a God pleaser.

A God recognizer, a God partner, a God

pleaser. If you think of faith in these

components, it will be much easier to walk with Him.

Any questions?

Any questions, guys?

Okay. I said this

long ago, but maybe it's worth saying again.

There are faith

degraders at work. Whenever we want to cross

a threshold, there are faith

degraders, as in things

that hollow out faith.

And I just want you to be aware of it.

So,

these prevent us from crossing thresholds.

So there's doubt.

Doubt is the opposite of

faith.

And the only way you can go from doubt

to faith is through the word, eh? There's no other way

around it. Don't try to make

doubt as a feeling go away. Feelings

will come back. The only way you move from

doubt to faith is through the word.

The only way you move from feelings to faith

is through the truth.

The only way you move from doubt

to faith, when you have doubts about

doing what you think God is saying,

go back to the word you wrote down, where

He spoke to you, or go back to the word of God,

where it's very clear, it's the

only way to go from doubt to faith. If you

have feelings that are scared, the only way

to go from feelings to faith

is through voicing

the truth. Voicing the truth.

Then there is

self-reliance.

Self-reliance,

which is the substitute of

faith. This is a big one, eh,

for all of us. Self-reliance,

which is the substitute of faith.

As in, whenever we

realize that faith is going to be difficult,

where we'll have to trust and wait on God

to do things, we go into self-reliance mode

because we can handle it better and we can do it at the

right time. With God, his timing

is really bad.

He has

hundreds of opportunities to do it earlier,

but he will not.

And he'll wait till

all other means are exhausted, and then

he steps in. So it's much easier to go into

self-reliance because you can get things done.

Third,

low

expectancy.

Low expectancy. This is

one of Christians' favorite ones, too.

Low expectancy

is the detractor of faith.

Detractor of faith.

As in,

if I can lower my expectations,

it's okay. If God doesn't come through, I won't be

disappointed. And if I lower my expectations,

I don't need to exert my faith. So why not

just go low? Like, don't expect

really God to turn up and do something

God-ish. Just go low.

And that way, you're not disappointed.

Everything will be fine. If it doesn't

work out, kayser-as-sirah.

So just be careful of that.

Low expectancy is the detractor

of faith. Always

we'll talk about it later, how to

have really high expectations of God.

And to go with the

expectations that he sets for you.

God really wants to put on

the writs for us. He wants to roll

up his sleeves and show his mighty right arm.

But sometimes, he says, there's no point

rolling up my sleeve because you're asking for my wrist.

And so, the lower the expectations,

always have high expectations, guys.

Ask for the moon.

When he asks you to ask for the moon.

Next one.

Ignorance is the failure of faith.

Ignorance is the failure of faith.

It's not bliss.

Ignorance is the

failure of faith. As in, if I'm

ignorant of his word,

I'm ignorant of his promise,

I'm ignorant of his will,

then we think God will

do whatever he wants and we just have

to roll the dice, divine dice,

and see what numbers come up.

That is

such a...

That's

a bunch of...

So, it's really bad.

So, ignorance is the failure of faith.

Fear is the tormentor of faith.

Fear is the tormentor of faith.

Fear is the

tormentor of faith.

When it comes to torment,

saying,

remember what happened last time? It's going to happen again.

Remember what happened to your mom? It's going to happen again.

Remember what happened to... It's just

so tormenting. It's a spirit.

When fear attacks,

remember it's a spirit. Don't go

just with your feelings and your thoughts.

A spirit. Rebuke the spirit

and do not inhabit those thoughts.

Rebuke the spirit, refuse

to inhabit those thoughts. Those thoughts

can come and go, but refuse to inhabit

them because, like I always say,

you always inhabit what you

think. You always inhabit what

you think.

Fear is something that I must nip

in the bud because the longer I let it

stay, the more I begin to inhabit

it.

And the last one is compromise.

Compromise

is the hybrid

or the mutation of faith.

Hybrid or mutation of faith.

Where, when I

mix a little bit of faith with a little

bit of my own

works, I

mutate faith. The results are not

fully God. They have a

slight smell

of Yahweh, but they also smell

of your sweat.

The aroma is not pure

Yahweh. It's this mixture

of

your sweat and God, and it doesn't

smell good.

Hybrid or mutation.

Which one, Jeremy?

Okay.

Pardon?

You got it. Any questions, guys?

Q. Do you talk more about the

ignorance? I don't understand how that

was fairer.

Every time I'm ignorant of the word

or ignorant of a promise or ignorant of

what God's will is,

faith fails

because it has to be

based on what I hear God saying.

Results in failure of faith.

Results in failure of faith.

So guys, to cross thresholds

and gain initial momentum,

because that's one of the things God does.

Whenever you cross a threshold, God also

wants to give you momentum so that

it doesn't matter whether it's uphill or

downhill, you have so much momentum.

And it is critical that I have momentum and I

start things. I don't need to have a

momentum. We think plans give us momentum.

No, plans give us a fixed direction.

We think knowledge of the land

gives us momentum. Knowledge of the land

tells us where not to step.

But momentum comes from God, whereas it's

the wind of the Spirit that carries you initially

and it has such a thrust to it.

And the intent of God's momentum is not to

make you great, but to completely annihilate

the enemy.

That is what momentum does.

Spirit provoked momentum

destroys

obstacles to divine plans.

That is why you need to have it.

And it is not around you, it is in you.

The momentum has to build in you.

Where you know that you have crossed the threshold

now, and in you, it doesn't matter

what people say, you know

that Jericho will fall.

You are convinced about it.

Seven days have gone by,

the rest of them are scared that nothing's going to

happen, but you are so blooming sure

because there's momentum inside you

that says, this will happen.

That's the kind of momentum I'm talking about.

It's not external.

And God always packs it this way.

When he says, hey, Emily, cross the threshold,

he gives her the momentum

so that as she crosses the threshold,

even though there's nothing that is reassuring,

she's absolutely confident that

it'll happen.

Any questions?

So,

we talked about thresholds last time.

I said, find out the thresholds that you're going to cross.

And now that you've written it down,

I'm assuming you wrote it down last time

for those that were here,

now gauge the direction God is heading.

Gauge the direction God is heading.

Gauge the direction God is heading.

Gauge the direction God is heading.

Oy!

Gauge the direction God is heading.

You know, one of the words that

Paul used to say,

you know, one of the words that

Paul used to use often, and I love the way he used to say it,

he would say, I perceive.

He wouldn't know for sure.

In Acts 27, 10,

he's saying to the captain and the ship,

I perceive that this ship

will end in a shipwreck.

I perceive.

He's got no visible evidence

to provide them, but somehow

inside him, he knows. I perceive.

It's this idea

of gauging

the direction God is heading.

And you can't give anybody any kind of

evidence for it, but

you know what is going to happen.

And so with the thresholds that you wrote down

last week, or you will write down today,

begin to gauge, okay, so where are you heading, oh God?

Do you really want space in New York?

Do you realize how expensive it's going to be?

And then you gauge it.

And then you begin to walk.

This allows you to adjust.

Because otherwise you hear a word that was given to you

four years ago about New York, and you think to yourself,

well, four years ago this is what you said.

But then you realize there's more, there's more, there's more.

God always unfolds.

One of the things he loves is immediate obedience.

We love outcomes. He loves

obedience.

Immediate obedience

is so difficult without assured

outcomes.

Give me an outcome,

guarantee the outcome, I'll obey.

Nah! Give me obedience

and we'll see what happens.

And it could well be, Jacob,

that you obey, and nothing happens on this side

of the earth, and you find out after you get to heaven,

forty years after you get to heaven, you find that what I told

you has come to pass. Through

some other guy who doesn't even

give you credit for it.

I love

that he demands that. I love this God

partly because he demands such

ridiculous things from you.

And he has the right to do it, because

he was demanded, he, he,

God demanded it off him, and he

did it. And now he says, you want to be my

disciple? Be like me.

Nothing he asks of me is

something he hasn't done already.

And now he says, okay, give me, give me obedience.

This is the kind of stuff we are talking about, guys.

This kind of stuff changes the world.

This kind of stuff changes the world through ordinary people like you.

Nick is very ordinary.

You are, right?

Okay, just checking.

Gauge the direction

God is heading, man.

And you gauge it through the nature

of his dealings, you gauge it through the

nature of his dealings.

You kind of begin to figure out, ah,

I kind of know where you are going with this father.

Like, the Syrophoenician woman knew it.

She was a

Syrophoenician woman knew it.

She was not a Jew. She was, she was

almost a Canaanite. And she knows

that Jesus has begun to minister

to outsiders and Gentiles.

So, perhaps if I go and ask him

to heal my daughter, even though he's a

Jew, he will oblige. How does

she know it, man? Peter didn't know it

after Jesus rose from the dead.

He's still waiting for a white sheet full of

creepy crawlies to convince him that he should go to the

Gentiles.

And this woman, who is a

Syrophoenician Gentile woman,

knows that Jesus has already

begun to go out of the

narrow Jewish paths.

And she dares to have

this dialogue with him. That is so

amazing. When it's retort for

retort. She almost sounded like Mae.

And so,

sorry Mae.

And she gets what she wants.

This is what I mean by

through the nature of his dealings.

Be so aware of him.

Guys, be aware of him and let

him speak to you as man

speaks to man.

Like he did with Moses.

If you go down this, and he can do it through different

ways. He can do it through the word,

he can do it through a Rhema word,

he can do it through signs,

he can do it through spiritual

sight, he can do it through

conversations you're having with him. There are different

ways. I'm not even going to go down that route.

Rhema, spelled wrong.

That's a Latin spelling of

a Greek word.

And guys, if we go this way,

you'll find that you are very focused

with regard to crossing a threshold.

You find that

you're very foolish and therefore it allows you

to cross a threshold.

You find that you're very sure footed.

And so

it doesn't matter how difficult the threshold is,

you are sure footed. And you find that you're

very conclusive with what God wants to do.

As in you conclude whatever he wants you to do.

These are four important things about

crossing a threshold. If I know that

this is a threshold that Father, you're inviting me to

cross, I must become so focused.

And what I mean by focus is just this.

Even though the fig tree does not blossom,

sight is nothing.

As in what I see

doesn't matter.

Sight is

nothing. There's that ad, right? Thirst

is nothing.

What's it for?

Oh, I thought it was

something a little better.

Thirst is nothing.

It's just,

sorry, not thirst is nothing. Sight is nothing.

Focus means

that I'm so focused on what you have said,

oh God, that what I see

does not

any longer have any bearing

on what I do, what I think,

how I walk, and where I go.

No bearing. Sight is nothing.

And I'm saying to you

that this is our biggest problem because when we

see stuff, we want to control it.

Once you don't

consider what you see, you will

find yourself

loosening your control over things.

Control is a result of seeing things that are

not aligning and desperately

wanting to make them align.

Oh boy, are we controlling.

Sight is nothing.

So that's the first one, focus. Second,

foolish. You will go without

armor with five stones

against a guy who's fully armored,

has an armor bearer, and is about

six feet taller than you.

You'll go up against him. You're very foolish.

Everybody around you will advise you otherwise.

Saul will give you his armor, you

won't wear it. You're completely

foolish. Your pastor will begin to panic.

Because he initially

asked you to do it, and now that you're doing it, he's

scared that you'll lose your life.

Happened with you, Xavier,

this week. I told Xavier

to do something. He went and did it, and then

things weren't working, and I panicked and said,

I did it all that I said. And thank God he did,

because it worked out.

But being foolish

is just going into situations without

any plan B.

That's one of the definitions of foolishness.

No plan B.

What a god, eh?

That's why it's so

hard to follow him and so fun to follow him.

Third,

he gives you the sure-footedness

of a mountain

goat, where you

thrill at steep mountain passes.

You have the hind feet of a mountain goat.

Talks about it in Psalm

Psalms 18:33

18 verse 33. I think there it's a deer.

But when you drive to Banff,

you see these mountain goats on these

mountains.

Half of them

are standing on air.

And then the rest of them are standing

on a rock that's supposed to

hold them up. I don't know how.

The sure-footedness,

where even though the path

is very narrow, God seems to

just tell you where to place your foot.

And you walk

quite unafraid.

I'd rather be unafraid

than use faith

to overcome fear.

I'd love to be in a place where I'm unafraid.

I hated that I'm

afraid.

I hated that I'm afraid.

And that I had to use faith to overcome

the fear. What if I was unafraid?

Daniel was unafraid.

I want to be unafraid.

The smell of fear is so

lousy, eh? I hate the smell

of fear.

I'm afraid I can smell it.

You've got to panic and then you've got to cry out

for help. And then your

prayers are so panicky.

You're hoping God will intervene. You've got no

connection with God while there is fear. Cause

faith only grows in

the soil of peace and

it takes forever to get to that place.

And then conclusive, as in

you're God's closer.

You're not closer to God, you're God's closer.

He sends you to close things out.

I love what Paul says about Titus.

Hey Titus, I want you to go and

set things in order. I want you to conclude

what I've started.

God loves guys who he can send to close

things off.

He has a lot of starters, eh? God has

tons of starters, very few finishes.

God will love a closer.

Thresholds,

if we have these four things, it's

very,

thresholds become easy to cross

and the new territory becomes easy

to sustain. And for me, this is

very important right now and

for the guys from Dayton and for the rest of us,

this is important. If we can get this right,

I can walk well.

Unafraid.

Any questions guys?

One of the ways Satan tries to draw you

away from thresholds is to

busy you

with other things.

So he'll busy you with

How do I make this square disappear? Oh, there's no square

there. What just happened to

my page?

Brandon?

Okay.

Okay.

It ain't working.

Brandon, can you fix it please?

Yeah, the enemy

seeks to draw me away from thresholds by

using busyness, circumstances,

work, ministry, worry,

fear, fretting. So

remember, every time you're going to cross a threshold,

you'll be inundated with work,

with striving, with ministry,

with busyness,

with other less important

things, less important things because

when you're at the brink of a

threshold, there is nothing else that is more important

than the threshold, especially

if it is a God-presented threshold.

Heidi is

at a threshold.

That's a

word that she needs to hear.

Heidi is at a threshold.

At this threshold,

she must make the

threshold the most important thing in her life.

So one of the things the enemy does

is when I'm at a threshold, he'll try to

confuse me with a whole lot of other things

so that I'll delay

crossing because there are so many other

things to attend and so many other

things to do and so many other

things to take care of and

so in the process, you don't cross the threshold.

It delays you from crossing the threshold.

Remember guys,

all warfare is relational.

All warfare

is relational.

It is

when I stand

in Christ that I defeat the enemy.

Therefore,

warfare that is not

fought from a place

of intimacy with God

is a lot of struggle,

unnecessary wounds,

prolonged battle,

but if warfare is relational,

then it is standing

in Christ that allows me to beat

the enemy quickly.

Warfare is always relational.

Hey.

Thanks Brandon.

Hey, how are you?

Thanks Brandon.

You resist Satan

by standing in the presence of God.

You resist Satan

by standing in the presence of God.

And therefore,

it is much easier to win

battles standing in the presence of God

and therefore, it is relational.

When I try

fighting Sheldon

without standing next to Mike,

Sheldon may beat me.

Once I'm standing next to Mike,

now Sheldon is scared of Mike and therefore,

he's already afraid.

Okay.

Let's begin to conclude.

Guys, if you want to live by faith,

then you must live with the daily

question.

Thanks man.

Let me try.

If, great,

if you want to live by faith,

you must.

I pray God that nobody

in this church right now

will back off from this.

If you want to live by faith, you

must.

You must do what?

You must live

with the daily question.

You must live with

the daily question.

Daily question.

You must live

with the daily question.

What do you, O God, want me to do for you today?

Every day.

You must

live with this question.

Every day.

What, O God, do you want me

to do for you today?

Don't back off.

If you don't hear him today,

ask the same question again. Yours is

to live by faith.

One who chooses to live by

faith must live by this daily

question. What do you, O God,

want me to do for you today?

And at some point when he realizes

that you're being persistent, or

that you're being sincere, that you really

want in, that you want to engage

and participate with what he's doing here

on earth, then he begins to say

things to you. And you begin to

now action it. And as you begin to

action it, every day becomes

an adventure. I'm

scared of people who say

that, ah, we must get to

used to routine

life in God. Hey,

when there is routine, don't get used to it, but

get used to a supernatural God.

I just don't understand this routine

God. There's nothing routine about him.

Nothing routine about him.

Yes, so I'll wash my dishes.

Yes, I'll clean

my house. But that's not a routine

God. While I'm washing dishes and cleaning

my house is when God begins to tell

you what life is about.

So even the washing dishes,

which I hate, becomes something that

becomes slightly interesting.

Where now you begin to have this

question daily, and it must be a daily

question. Guys, I'm telling you something.

This is something I do every day.

Until you

do it every day, you will not get a chance

to experiment with it. Until you experiment

with it, you will never find out who

he is. Until you find out who he is, you will

never know the adventure of God.

But if this became your daily

habit, then you'll find that you're stepping

into adventures and the largeness of your God

is growing. And the largeness of your God, whenever

it grows, affects a whole lot of people around you.

And you begin to experience him.

And you begin to show him off.

Yeah. Yeah.

When God tells you something,

you have to begin experimenting

with it, as in, is this really you

or God? Do you want

to tell me a little more about it? Okay, I'm

going to take a step and wet my toes.

Ooh, that was cold, Father. You still think

this is a good idea.

And so you begin experimenting with it.

And as you do,

God just

helps you with the process, man.

So that's different than testing.

That's different than testing.

You know what he said is true.

You're just feeling it out.

I just found out that my car

goes so high that I can't

get into it now.

Like, the car has a button

where the car just rises up.

And I never, I didn't know it

rises up that much. And then

today when I tried climbing into my car, I thought

I'd need a ladder. Because it was like

this.

So you experiment, and as you experiment, you

find that in the adventure God has given

you, there are so many components that you haven't

discovered yet.

So if you see me going

down Broadway with

my car going like this in loud rap,

you know it's me. Yeah? Yeah.

So please ask this question.

It's a way into it.

Thresholds are dead

when I have a spiritual grasp

of God's expectations. Thresholds

are only dead. Thresholds

are dead

when I have

a grasp

of God's expectations.

So I'm going to

go down.

And the strange thing about

these expectations is

they'll be unclear,

but they'll be unshakable.

These two words never go together,

except when God uses them.

So thresholds are dead when I have

a grasp of God's expectations. And his expectations

are so huge, and they're so unclear,

but they're so unshakable

that you begin to take the first step. And as you begin to take the first step,

things begin to clear.

But

please don't expect him to tell you

everything. It never works. You don't need faith

then. But this

is the way it works.

I hope this is encouraging you.

Because at present, you don't look terribly

encouraged. But I'm sure your

heart is, and it takes a while before

it shows on your face, but I'm used to that.

Yeah, you do.

But go ahead.

No, when I take one step, I now

have greater confidence that the one step I took

is great, so I can take a second step.

It is my confidence that increases.

It doesn't matter anymore.

That is the beauty of it.

Guys, when it comes to faith,

it's not the clarity that matters. It is the

confidence that you build up. You begin to trust

God blind.

They say faith is not blind. It's partly true.

You have to hear what he's saying before you can step into it.

But you don't care

much for clarity now.

You don't want a clear picture

because you have a very unshakable

God. Which child wants a clear

picture? You're saying to the

child, I'm taking you to this

in Florida. Really? I'd like to know about Florida

and how many PCR tests you might have to do.

And what we have. Child doesn't ask

nothing, man. The child knows you're going to Florida.

Child grabs your arm, and that's it.

He does not or she does not want a clear picture.

They just want an unshakable dad.

Clarity is highly overrated.

Perish the thought.

You want to see how your

house judge is going to work in Dayton?

Ain't going to happen.

David starts to think,

David started like this.

David was a doolm.

And there are people gathering around him and they ask him,

so what is your plan? And he says,

I have no plan.

And then he's so

unsure of things

that he takes his parents and drops them off

at the palace of a pagan

king and says, I don't know what I'm doing.

Can you keep them till I figure it out and then

I'll come back. And 400

fraff gather around him and say,

okay, we'll join you.

And that is how David begins.

Let's conclude.

See,

so guys,

to grasp God's expectation,

begin to hear what God says he will do.

Then name the journey.

Recognize the impossibility of it

and dare to trust it.

I'll just write that down. See what he's saying.

Name the journey.

Recognize its impossibility.

And then dare to trust.

So, give us a practical example, Jacob.

See that he's saying go to NY.

Name it.

Call it the beginning of

what God is going to do in the USA through us.

Recognize its impossibility.

Small church.

High rent.

No money.

Sheldon for company.

Nothing is working out right now.

Recognize its impossibility

and then dare to trust.

Anything. I'm just pulling out an example because it's fresh.

And I'm kind of,

yeah, I'm kind of excited about it.

What do you mean see?

Guys,

if we tune our heart to God,

and I believe that anybody in this room

can do that and you know what it is

to tune your heart with God,

if you tune your heart with God,

you will see in the stars

that you are going to see

the light of God.

You will see in the stars

the birth of a nation.

Like Abraham did.

You will see

in the jawbone of a

donkey a weapon

that can destroy the Philistines.

You will see

in

two loaves of bread

and fish

what can feed a multitude.

You will begin to see things

through these little signs

that God gives you. You will see

an entire nation being saved

by just standing out and looking at it.

It's odd how God does this. He takes you out

and asks you to look at the stars.

Shows you the stars and says, hey,

what do you see? See tons of stars.

Want you to know that your descendants will be more than that.

Seeing is

catching these glimpses

that God gives you of what he's up to.

And he litters thousands of them.

That's why dad and mom used to do this for Christmas.

We would never get a Christmas gift

till we solved clues.

And they'd leave these clues all over the place.

And we'd have to go, Reba and I would go

hunt these clues and there'd be about six clues.

At the end of the sixth clue, we would know

where the Christmas gift is hidden.

And it's like this. God drops so many

clues all around the place.

He is a father who really

loves doing this with his children.

There's nothing

academic or clinical about him.

Everything is relational. Everything is suited to your personality.

One of the things we need to understand

is the personality of God. And the strange thing

is the personality of God will always

match the personality he's made you.

Think of that for a second.

Every personality,

every part of your personality, every part of every personality

on earth that is brilliant and

flawless came from him.

Because he made us in his image.

And now he says,

Jacob, I know you know my character, I know you know my nature.

But can you begin to discover my personality

towards you too? Aren't there

things, Jacob, that you and I do that I don't

do with anybody else because I've made you a certain

way. And when I do it, you immediately know

it's me.

I mean, Phoebe

does this to me and I'll do anything for her.

She calls me KK.

Nobody calls me KK.

The point being, guys,

there's this part of God's personality

that is so connected

to you that when you begin to

figure that out, you will find

clues that he leaves almost

like an

indulgent father trying to get

your attention to say, hey,

I left that there. Did you see that?

Hey, I left that there. Did you see that?

Why? Because he's saying,

let me play this game with you. I can do it without you,

but I want you there.

Man, this becomes so much fun

then. It takes the

fear out of it and it becomes a game.

This doesn't apply to just thresholds. It applies

to everything, guys. Everything.

Any questions? If I'm not making myself clear,

let me know.

We don't think of God

like this, but he's a father.

We don't think of God like this, but he's a father

at the end of the day.

And fathers' personalities with three different

children are very different.

Even the way he scolds them is different.

The way he disciplines

them is different. The way he

reacts after

disciplining them is different. Everything

is different. And we are talking about really

bad fathers that we had

as in compared to God. So what

about good fathers?

What about the good, good father?

Very different, man.

Sela. Yep.

Are thresholds always

spiritual things or can they be

just like

different things? Yeah.

I don't think we should divide anything

in our lives into spiritual and non-spiritual.

Everything is continuous.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Guys, remember,

it's important to hear the word for faith.

Reading the word ain't enough.

Really, Jacob,

you're being unscriptural. Nope.

Faith comes by.

Hearing the word.

Hearing the word.

Ah, so you mean play the

Bible on audio.

Nope. It is

this.

Hearing the word.

This.

If I

choose not to hear

the word, I

will not be able to

walk in faith.

We've arrived

at a conclusion that we need to read

the word and faith will increase.

Not

the complete picture. It is hearing

the word. And hearing

the word requires that you

hear when it is

being spoken, taught.

And one that avoids

the spoken word or the

taught word will not increase

in faith.

You'll be

surprised at how carefully

I hear what I'm teaching.

Because my faith has

to grow too. And then you will be

surprised at how carefully I hear someone else who's

teaching.

Why does

hearing increase faith?

Because it is through the

word that the Spirit of God reveals Christ.

How Christ is revealed.

You're able to know His

magnificence, His amazing ways, and you begin to

trust Him more. And therefore your faith

increases. But it's surprising

how it's not reading the word, it's hearing the word.

Last two sentences and we're done.

The Holy Spirit

is your advantage

in this whole process.

You know, sometimes in homes

you see children coming

to the dad

and asking him for something.

And the dad, the mom

doesn't want to give it, but she's kind

of okay with it. So the mom says,

no I won't give it to you. And the dad

takes out a cookie and slips it to the

child. And the mom pretends she's

not looking. It's literally

like that sometimes in heaven with

the father saying, okay you want something?

Come and ask for it. And then he'll

pretend that he's

being very goddish while the

Holy Spirit says, don't worry, I'll get it for you.

And he grabs this cookie and gives it

to you. And the father knows fully well

what is happening. But we don't realize

how the Holy Spirit is

our advantage in heaven.

And that's how he conspires with us

to bring to pass what God

actually wants.

You end up eating

chocolate covered broccoli in the end.

Yeah, I know.

But that's how you get healthy food in.

And so

all I'm trying to say

is this guys, because this example

just doesn't cut it as much.

But what I'm trying to say is

there's a scripture in the Bible which says

it is the glory of God to conceal a matter.

It is the glory of Kings to

search it out.

You are supposed to search it out and God is

supposed to conceal it. But we have someone on the inside

and he's the Holy Spirit.

So when God conceals

the matter and you go searching for it,

the Holy Spirit says, don't worry, I'll play on

your team for this one. And he begins

to show you what God actually wants to

give you but God wants you to persist and push.

And as you do, the Holy Spirit begins to show

you what he wants to do.

And he begins to conspire

with you.

Very often I'll have these conversations with the Holy Spirit

saying, so Spirit of God,

what do you think I should do? This is what the Father has said.

Tell me, tell me.

Last sentence.

Thresholds when crossed give you a panoramic

glimpse of majesty.

Thresholds when crossed

give you a panoramic

glimpse of majesty.

You cannot imagine what Moses felt

when he stood on the other side,

stretched out his staff

and the waters came back.

And for the first time

in 400 years, Pharaoh

and his horses were no longer

pursuing Egyptians. There were no whips.

He's standing on this little mound.

Unfortunately, every time I talk about this

I think of Charlton Heston. And so

he stretches out his staff,

the waters come crashing down,

and Egypt

is completely undone.

And Moses

realizes now that there is

a majesty that I've never witnessed

before. That then fuels him to go

up Mount Sinai. On Mount Sinai,

he finishes seeing

God's glory for 40 days.

There is something about

crossing thresholds

that gives you such a

glimpse of majesty, a panoramic

glimpse of majesty, that will change you

forever and dare you to step

further and further and further and further.

You cannot do

this unless you see it.

Glory

is a great motivator. And by glory

all I mean is the splendor, the magnificence,

the weight, the power, the laughter,

the goodness of God.

Every time you see it, you think to yourself

I can do greater. Guys,

know this.

This is so critical.

There are so many times in

life where we will not take the

next step because we think it's more

expensive, a little too

reckless,

a little too extravagant,

a little too this, a little too that. We don't

take it and you don't realize that God is

going to say, hey Jacob, you're a 99 cent

burger guy. I'm trying to get you

to a KFC

Tooney Tuesday level

so that you can go to a

McDonald's $5 level,

so that you can go to a White Spot

$19 level, so that you can go to

a Jet Set Burger at Fairmont at a

$40 level. And Father, can we please stop there?

But the point is

so often we

will not scale

in the physical and we think

we can scale spiritually, but I'm saying

this to you. First the physical,

then the spiritual.

This is so important.

First the physical, then the spiritual.

1 Corinthians 15.

God first says, hey, you think you can

handle spiritual things Jacob? Let's see if you can handle

simple

physical, mammon

oriented things. And if you can't do that,

how are you going to deal with spiritual things?

One of the reasons

Acts 39 is where it is

financially is because

of Heidi's lack of fear

when it comes to mammon.

Unfortunately, as a pastor when she makes

decisions, I have to pretend that I have faith.

But thank God

we kept scaling up, kept scaling up.

To have a bean counter

as your treasurer is the

most dangerous thing in a church. There are two people

you have to be really scared of in a church.

The church secretary and the church treasurer.

You get right people

there, you'll be happy. The church

will grow.

That's on the side.

Please understand

this last principle I made. It is critical because

we have a problem in this church when it

comes to that.

Physically we do not scale.

I'm not talking about this way.

I'm talking about other forms of physical

scaling. Physically we do not scale

and we think that spiritually we can't scale

and I'm saying to you it's not possible.

Challenge me on it. Ask me questions.

I'm done.

When you say scale

you don't mean scaling the wall.

You mean scaling,

amping up the giving

or amping up the foot ramp.

No, amping up

your life.

Not giving, nothing spiritual

in this. This is down

to earth, nitty gritty

world living.

Amping up physical life.

Father, this is where I've lived

all my life and you're inviting

me to live life this way

but I won't because this is

where I am. And then when he tries

to do it spiritually it's as useless

because spiritual things are invisible.

At least physical is visible.

And if you can't do it physically you will not

do it spiritually.

But when Jesus

sent you to New York

he sent you with nothing.

How is that amping up your life?

So he can still send you with nothing.

You can be sent to New York

tomorrow with nothing. But you know

this God and the extent of what he can do

because you've seen it in the physical.

We think that when God gives us

something humongously spiritual to do

that we will be able to do it. But you haven't

if you haven't experienced it in your own

personal life at a physical level

you will not be able to scale

to where he wants you to go.

Where do you see that spiritual?

From Joseph starting in Jacob's house

going to Potiphar's palace

going to the prison, going to Pharaoh

from Moses starting in

the house of the Pharaoh

then going down to the back side

of Sinai, then coming back

and then going up Mount Sinai which was the ultimate

place. Pharaoh's place was nothing compared to Mount Sinai.

Jesus who left his glory

in heaven, knew how to walk here on

earth as a poor man

as a carpenter and

yet had the ability to stand on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Peter who

began to realize ways

as he walked with Jesus that there is

more to me than being a fisherman.

Paul who was an ultimate scholar

a benjaminite who

knew what it was to be completely

impoverished and completely content.

Jacob who knew what it was

to be absolutely

debt ridden, broken

and how God can deliver and God can bring to pass

impossible things, financially

physically, spiritually.

We don't realize how

important it is to physically get

used to God doing things

but we think we can scale spiritually

and I'm saying it's not possible.

Yeah, yeah.

That was the right word. We have a poverty

mindset guys.

We have a poverty mindset.

That's what

I'll teach next week. We have a poverty

mindset.

A poverty mindset

will not give up what is in my

hand till May gives me something better.

A poverty

mindset is completely transactional.

A poverty mindset is an orphan

mindset.

I'm going to

no, I don't need

to say that.

Yeah, go ahead.

No, I didn't say improving my life.

I'm going to argue with you on this one.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I'm comfortable.

It's a really good job.

So something that's been really bothering

me is my job. It's a good job.

It's pretty comfortable. I like the

people. I like what I'm doing.

I've

been feeling God tugging at me it's time to move

on. So I keep asking him

what's next? I look for things like

should I go back to school for that? It's no, no, no.

And last week I heard

that you need to quit first.

I'm very sorry.

I put you in this.

I'm not ready for that.

It's not tied to my well-being.

It's not about money. It's not about security

or anything. But I think it's a symbolism

of, it's more spiritual.

It's about trusting him what's next for

my life where he's taking me

as in sending me and everything. So it's

more tied to that than my

physical well-being. That is a physical step.

I'm not talking about getting richer, guys.

I'm not talking about

I don't think so.

It may have sounded that way to you. But

that is not what it sounded like to everybody.

So it would have to be specific to you.

But I have to argue on this because that is not

what I'm trying to convey. It's not

getting a

red card that goes up and down.

But

if that happens, so be it. But the point

is that at the end of the day

an impoverished

mindset prevents me from scaling

physically. And an impoverished

mindset will shut down doors for me

spiritually because I will not be able to step there.

We'll talk about it next week. But it's

so critical to our existence, guys.

Unfortunately,

the world has gotten this part better.

Joan's dad

was not like this.

When I met him, I had an impoverished

mindset. Her dad was not like this.

He was old, eh?

Like, what I meant is

when I met him, he was old.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Older, older, yeah. Sorry.

Sorry.

But I met some people

that don't have an impoverished mindset.

And man, when you meet them,

you wish you could be like them, but you've never

practiced it, so you never step into it.

This is a completely separate topic.

But so what?

Alrighty.

What time is it? I don't want to look at my watch

because I'm scared.

Okay. We're doing okay.

12.55.

Oh, that is so important. In the next five minutes,

we have to accomplish a lot.

So, if the guys from Dayton

want to come up, we just want to pray for you.

Okay.

The two that are dressed properly

and the guy with the shorts, if you would just want to come up.

And if you want to put em in the chat.