205 ~ SET APART ~ PART 5

Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.

We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will

encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.

We begin our new year with the theme for the year 2024, which

is set apart. We look at how each of us who

follow Jesus can live lives that are consecrated and separated

for Him, both privately and publicly, with His help and

leading. We pray that as you listen, you

would be challenged to live such a life of victory and peace.

Hi Church, what a joy it is to bring God's Word to you today.

As you know, we've been doing over over the past three weeks

the theme of being set apart. We looked at how the Triune

Godfather, Son and Holy Spirit have set each of us apart for

something very big. And today we're going to be

concluding the month's series with this theme, which is we are

set apart to know God as much as the Godhead.

Each of them have set us apart for specific things.

I believe that we have been set apart to know them in their

entirety, to know them in their fullness.

I love this verse from Acts chapter 17, which explains to us

Acts 17 · chapter mention

what God's plan was when he created the world.

This is what it says. The God who made the world and

everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not

live in temples built by human hands.

And he's not served by human hands as if he needed anything.

Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and

everything else from one man. He made all the nations that

they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their

appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out

for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

I was reading this verse this week and I was just reading it

over and over again because and as I was mulling over that, this

verse came to mind. And as I was reading it, I

realized this, that more than anything else, the crux is this.

We were created for relationship.

We were created in order that we would know our Creator.

She already knows us. She knows us inside out.

He knows us like the back of his hand.

But we were created and we were called and chosen so that we

would know him, and that is what we're going to be looking at

today. Whatever you feel you have been

set apart for this whole month and this whole year, I want us

to begin with this focal point that we have been set apart to

know, God, I remember watching this Tamil movie many, many

years back where there was this joke.

Bunch of these guys get caught by the cops at a signal and

they're trying to get out of it. And so one of the guys said, you

know what, I know the IG was one of, you know, the cops.

I know this guy. And he says, oh really?

And then he adds on, the same guy says, but he doesn't know

me. So many of us have this

relationship with God wherein I know about God.

So it's not really a relationship per SE.

It's more like I know about God. I know what he's capable of.

I know people who know him, but that's where it'll stay.

And we have been content with that.

But God is calling us into 2024 with this place of saying, I

want you to really know me. When you look at the word know

in this context, when you look at it in the original, it

actually means to intimately know, to know by experience.

And that is what God is calling us into.

He's setting us apart to know Him because only when we know

Him can we live for Him. Only when we know Him does our

life actually experience transformation.

Until then, it's just head knowledge.

It hasn't translated into our heart.

It hasn't translated into our lives.

And so today, we're going to be focusing on two different

chapters, one in the Old Testament and one in the New,

and we're going to understand a little bit more on how we can

better know this God. I'm going to be reading from

Isaiah chapter 40, three, verse 10, and as I read this I want

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

you to allow the scripture to actually sink in.

Isaiah 43 verse 10 says You are my witnesses, declares the Lord

Isaiah 43:10

and my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and

believe me and understand that I am he before me.

No God was formed, nor will there be one after me.

When you read this entire chapter, you kind of feel bad

for God because he is almost giving them a reason again to

turn back to him. The Israelites had wandered far.

There was apostasy, there was idolatry, There was a running

after other gods. Worship practices had become

defiled. They had become like one of

their neighbors, and God was planning to send them into exile

just so that he would get their attention, just so that they

would he would discipline them. And as they are heading into

exile as the enemy, kings have come all around them, she is

saying this is who I am. I'm the one who created you.

And in this particular verse, he says, you are my witnesses, my

servant, whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe

me, emphasize or know, so that you may know and believe me.

God is not asking us to believe Him without a knowledge of Him.

He's asking us to get to know Him, because the more we know

Him, the more we believe in Him. And interestingly, the only way

you and I can be witnesses for him in the world is if we

actually know Him. Unless I know God to be my

personal savior, to be my healer.

To be my Redeemer. Only when I get to know Him as

my brother, my friend, my king, does my life begin to show the

changes that are so evident. Only then am IA really firm and

strong witness in the world he has placed me.

So it's so important to understand from Isaiah 43, we're

going to go through a couple more verses following this, but

there are three problems which happen 3 Problems that come

around if we don't know God. The first thing that I foresee

is that if we don't, we know God, if we choose not to know

Him by experience, not to grow in our knowledge of Him, The

first thing is that we will not perceive His works.

What do I mean by that? Continuing in Isaiah 43 verses

Isaiah 43:16–19

16 to 19, it says this is what the Lord says.

He who made a way through the sea, a path to the mighty

waters. Who drew out the Chariots, the

horses, the army and the reinforcements together.

And they lay there never to rise again.

Extinguish, snuffed out like a Wick.

Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing now it springs up.

Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the

wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

If I don't know God, I will not perceive his works.

What does that look like? Lot of times in our life, It

will not look like the splitting of a Red Sea moment.

Our victories don't look so public.

Our victories are not so visible to the whole world, but they are

private victories. And if I don't know God, if I'm

not in touch with him, if I'm not growing in my intimacy with

him, I will miss out on what he's doing.

Interestingly, I will also miss out on what he's about to do.

If you look here, he's reminding them of what happened when the

when the exodus happened. And he said the Red Sea split.

You guys walked on, you know, on on on dry ground, there were

horses and Chariots which were left in the ocean.

And now he's saying, guess what? I'm doing a new thing.

We're in the middle of a barren wilderness.

Streams are going to flow. He was talking about the coming

of his son. He was talking about

restoration. He was talking about the spirit

of God, which would be poured out.

And the interesting thing is it doesn't look anything like this

Red Sea moment. And so I want us to look at this

little closely and realize that so many times we are like these

Israelites. We're talking about something

that happened in the past. We have moments where we felt

like God abandoned us. We have moments where we think

God. You didn't answer that prayer.

You didn't come through for me the way I wanted you to.

I didn't see the miracle. But God is saying, wait, I'm

doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?

If I'm not in connection, intimate connection with God, if

I'm not in communion with him, I can miss out on what he is doing

next. It is so essential that we

understand that the many things that are happening in our lives

right now, that's not a result of karma.

That's not a result of a coincidence.

No, it is the movement of a God who is alive and and well in

command when in leading our lives He is aware of everything

and he is moving things for his glory, for His purposes.

So many times we have looked at our life and looked at that one

demotion, or looked at one that rejection and thought the the

heavens fell and that God had washed his hands off.

Maybe if you look at that and then you realize God was moving

even in the midst of that valley, it changes your way of

viewing him. It changes the way you view his

work in your life. If we don't have a relationship

with God, if we don't know God intimately, the first problem is

that we will not perceive his works.

And that's a dangerous place to be in because each of us are

right now. If you look at 2024, I believe

God is transitioning a lot of us into a new season.

He's birthing new things, He's releasing new things, He's

removing old things. And in that season, if we are

not aware of his works, if we are not growing in our

relationship with him, we will miss what he's trying to show

us. We will miss His awesome, mighty

deeds. The second thing that happens

when we don't know God is that we will not discern His will for

us. So often I've heard this a lot.

You know, being in a pastoral capacity.

Many of them say, OK, I don't know what God's will is.

I don't know what God's will is for my marriage.

I don't know what God's will is for my career.

I don't know what God's will is for my child.

Well, that is a decent and a well intended question.

It's not a bad thing to not know God's will.

It's not a terrible thing. But when we were babes in Christ

and just getting to know the Lord, it's allowed.

It's understandable. But as you grow as a Christian,

as you grow in maturity, as you start hearing the Lord more

through His word, through His voice, you need to be able to

discern His will. You can't be what you wear when

you just started out. There has to be growth.

There has to be maturity. Isaiah 43 verses 22 to 24.

Isaiah 43:22–24

This is what it says. Yet you have not called on Me in

prayer and worship or Jacob, but you have grown weary of Me or

Israel. You have not brought me your

sheep or goats for your burnt offerings, nor honored Me with

your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with

offerings, nor wearied you with demands for offerings of

incense. You have not bought me sweet

cane with money, nor have you filled me with the fact of your

sacrifices. But you have burdened me with

your sins. You have buried me with your

wickedness. What is this whole thing talking

about? This is God dialoguing with his

people. And he says, you have not met my

expectations. You have not done what I desired

of you to do. You do what you please.

So often when we're not in a place of knowing God's heart, of

not knowing God's word, we miss out on understanding what His

expectations for our life are. It's so easy to say I don't know

what God wants me to do, so I'll just do whatever I want.

But the more you grow in His Word, the more you're in

communion with Him. You become more aware of what He

expects of you. You will actually feel the nudge

saying do not watch that. That's not needed.

Don't send that text. Stay quiet.

Speak now. You will have those impressions

very strongly the closer you walk with him.

And therefore you know His will. You know how to respond.

You know what to say. You know what not to say.

And this is not carefully crafted, curated public

relations. No, this is because of a deep

inner work that the Holy Spirit is doing in your life.

Here is the problem. Too many of us are not spending

time with God to know what's on God's heart for us.

We want the easy way. We go to our pastor and say,

what do you think? I have this question.

Should I do this or not? If it is given to you by someone

else, it becomes a rule, it becomes a regulation.

But when God explains it to you through his word, through

someone trusted, it could be a someone who's a leader even.

And if it resonates with you of something that God has already

been teaching you, it re emphasizes that, it reinforces

it. And that's when you get, you

know, schooled in how to actually discern his will.

If you don't know God, like the people of Israel, you can get it

completely wrong. You can be doing these things

that seem right, that seem maybe even wholly, but it could be far

from reaching God's heart because you have missed

understanding his will. When you know God, you know his

will for your life. You can't get it wrong.

Then the third thing is that when you know, don't know God.

The first thing is when you don't know God you do not

perceive His works. The second thing is that you

could miss His will, that you won't discern His will.

The third thing is you won't grasp the depths of your

salvation. What does that look like?

When I look at Isaiah 43, verse 25, this is what it says.

Isaiah 43:25

I even eat. I am He who blots out and

cancels your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not

remember your sins. You know, when you make a

mistake in an exam paper on a project, most of us had a

whitener, am I right? My kids use it a lot, as well as

as used as much as a pen in our home.

So what we do is we cover the mistake with that whitener and

then we allow it to dry. And sometimes you can write over

the whitener, sometimes you have to leave it, you know, because

it looks different. The page doesn't look as it was.

Our human methods to blot out mistakes are so inadequate,

whereas the work that Jesus did on that cross and through the

tomb changed the way we looked at forgiveness, changed the way

we looked at blotting, he says. I have forgiven and cancelled

your transmissions for my name's sake, for my sake.

He does it because of who he is. He does it because he's the

Redeemer. He does it because he's the

atonement. He did it all, and therefore

every sin has been washed clean. Imagine that every sin.

It's not like a couple have been kept and reserved to shame us

now and then. No, he says.

I've forgiven you everything. The slate is wiped clean.

And the problem is when we don't know God, when we're not

progressively growing in our knowledge of Him, and we're not

growing closer to Him, not deepening our intimacy with Him,

we progressively begin to forget the depths of our own salvation.

And that's when we start withholding grace from others.

That's when we withhold forgiveness from others.

But when we constantly are in relationship with Him, every

time you open the word, when the word is leading you, it should

leave you with this feeling of going, my goodness, if not for

grace, I'm finished. God, I don't know how you

decided to save me, but I'm so grateful.

When you grow in your knowledge of God, you begin to grasp the

height, depth and width of God's love for you.

And it's hard to not live transformed by that.

Too often we live in this place of forgetting just how forgiven

we are. We forget just how much grace He

has shown us. We forget how much mercy has

been showered upon us. But God is saying, if you know

me more, you won't forget. You'll be in constant view of

just how far reaching my salvation has been.

We have three kids, as you know, and each of them, because

they've been with us for different periods of time, from

the time they were born, they know us to a different degree.

So our oldest knows us the best because he he joined our

marriage soon after we got married within the first year

this guy was born. And so he knows us really well.

So growing up, I would just have to look at him.

If he's done something wrong outside, I just have to look at

him. I will pin him with my gaze and

he'll know exactly what he's done wrong.

And so he would get the hint and he would stop doing whatever it

is. I didn't have to raise my voice,

didn't have to spank him. I would just look at him and he

knew sometimes he would know there's an impending punishment.

He knew us that well. Now the second one came around

our daughter and so I think just by virtue of being the second,

there was a third on the way very soon.

So we didn't have much time to establish culture with her, so

she just learnt on the job. Now what happened,

unfortunately, along the way was our older one told her how to

read our signals. They would say, oh, they look at

you like this, it means this. You know, he kind of schooled

her on these things, gave her these hacks.

The only problem was the hacks were wrong for her.

It worked for him. But she was a different child.

She had different needs. She she, she would pick us off

in very different ways. And so the way what he was

teaching her didn't really sit. The cues she was getting were

wrong. It didn't apply to her.

So for a long time she would misread the cues we gave.

A couple of times in public she would actually ask me in front

of other people, Mom, why are you staring at me like that?

You know, she would put me on the on the defensive then came

along at 3rd. And this guy is so smart.

He learnt off the first two guys mistakes.

So he didn't have to actually be taught culture.

He just observed what they were doing, that stuff that was

getting them into trouble and he just avoided doing it.

She was just learning of them. He was putting it off, but it's

only over the last three years of.

So I thank God for COVID that each child developed this

independent relationship with us.

So it was not a, you know, a relationship that the oldest had

that he kind of just passed on and said, you know, these are

the hacks, be careful. But each one of them understood

our hearts better. They understood the why behind

certain rules. They understood why we say

certain things, why we have certain standards, why we have

certain expectations. And it was built on a

relationship, everyday relationship, conversations.

And if we want to know God and His expectations for us, if we

want to understand why he works a certain way, if we want to

understand His will, it will only be it'll only happen

through a relationship. The cues you get of other

believers and other followers of Jesus won't be enough because

he's got a tailor made relationship with you.

He wants you to seek Him, and he will be found by you, he says.

Pursue me. I'm here.

I'm not running anywhere. He's calling you into a personal

relationship with him. You don't need to get the cues

from fellow believers. The cues help, but they're not

everything. Nothing replaces a personal

one-on-one walk with God. Now we've looked at what it

looks like when we don't know God.

These are the things that happened, these three things.

God. What is the plus point?

Why should I actually pursue God?

Why do I actually have to get to know him?

Is it essential that I need to know my maker?

Is it essential that I need to know this creator God, the one

who saved me and called me? Is it essential?

I believe it is. Paul writes this in the book of

Ephesians. He's writing to this Ephesian

church and they were a church that was hungry for the gospel.

And so the teachers and the God the apostles were teaching them

and strengthening them. And Paul is so happy at their

progress, and this is what he writes to them.

Ephesians 1 verses 15 to 17 he says For this reason, ever since

Ephesians 1:15–17

I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all

God's people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you

remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of

our Lord Jesus Christ, the Glorious Father may give give

you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know

him better. Just that last word.

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the

Glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and

revelation so that you may know him better.

God gave us the Holy Spirit. Jesus ascended post the

resurrection. He ascended back.

He's seated at the right hand of the Father.

But he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit

is the one who enables us to know Him better.

Last week we looked at how the Holy Spirit brands us and sets

us apart for the new life in Christ.

And today we're going to be looking at how the Holy Spirit,

how he works in us to help us know God better and the Passion.

Translation. It says deepening to grow in

deepening intimacy with Him. The Holy Spirit helps us to grow

in deepening intimacy with Him. You and I cannot do the

Christian walk without the Holy Spirit.

If we try, we will fail. This was talked about by the

prophets when they said not by might, not by power, but by my

Spirit. Anything we attempt to do in

this era, our power, our might will fail us.

It's the Holy Spirit who will help us.

So the goal of having the Holy Spirit is to know God better

because he gives us the wisdom and revelation to understand the

scriptures, to understand God's will, to sense His ways.

He's the one. So my question to you is, Are

you ready to get to know God through the Holy Spirit?

We sometimes look at this Holy Spirit as the help or the

paraclete or the one who comes alongside and enables us.

But will you utilize the Holy Spirit for what his primary

purpose is? And that is to probe the depths

of God's heart, to get to know God better.

I've often told you my story where it's one of having illness

growing up, having setbacks, growing older, having setbacks

again in my health. And so, you know, consistently

I've seen God the Healer come through.

But it's in the last 10 years or so that I've seen different

attributes of God, which has broadened my understanding.

And I know I've just scratched the surface.

I see God now as a provider. I see God as a sustainer, the

one who holds us up and keeps us from collapsing, the one who is

a planner who plans every detail of our lives to the greatest, to

the minutest detail. I see God as the one who joins

Dots, who doesn't leave anything.

You know, nothing's up to chance.

I see the God of the future. I see him as the God of my

present, the God who loves me beyond.

I can ever put words to it. That's how much he loves me.

So I have started seeing and like I said, it's only

scratching the surface. I know so little of God, but I

look forward to the next 40 years or so of growing in my

knowledge of him with the Holy Spirit's help.

And so I want to ask you this, Do you want to get to know God

more? Because when you know God more,

there are three benefits just from Ephesians.

One, it's not a, it's not a, you know, a huge list just from

Ephesians. One, when I look at Ephesians

one, there are three things that happen when I start to know God

more. And these three are very, very

important. Why?

Because when I start to understand these things, these

are the tenets, so to speak, of the Christian life.

When I have the Holy Spirit, he's giving me more wisdom, He's

giving me more revelation, to understand things that are way

beyond my pay grade. And when I'm understanding these

things, I begin to live a more wholesome and fulfilled life.

A follower of Jesus cannot afford to do this journey

without the Holy Spirit, because if we try it, we'll be striving

in our own strength and we will fail.

And when we fail, we won't have the energy to even get back up.

But as the Holy Spirit, as we will.

Look at this now, it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to keep

running. To keep running.

So three things from Ephesians chapter one that I want to leave

you with we looked at. When we don't know God, we miss

out on perceiving His His work. We don't discern His will.

We also don't grasp the entirety of salvation.

But when we do know God, When we do know God, we discover the

hope to which we were called Ephesians, chapter one, verse

18, he says. I pray that the eyes of your

heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope

to which he has called you the riches of his glorious

inheritance in his holy people. The word hope here is not, you

know, when we say, oh, I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow.

I hope tomorrow is a holiday. I hope that you know my the

costume turns out well. That's how we use hope in our,

you know, everyday language. Hope is this amazing, amazing

thing which is the fuel for our faith.

I can believe in Jesus. But hope says that believing in

Jesus is worth it because he will stay the same yesterday,

today, and forever. Hope tells me that he will not

change. Like the shifting shadows, hope

tells me that better days are ahead.

Hope tells me that this new season is going to be different.

Hope tells me that in the middle of hardship, there is light at

the end of this tunnel. That's what hope is.

Hope is the fuel. But more than that, hope is

realizing that there is a possibility for heaven here on

earth right now. Our final hope is that there is

eternity. I have, you know, eternity with

Jesus, which is amazing. Streets of gold, mansions,

rewards. Yes, that is my hope.

That is my ultimate hope. But what is the hope for life on

earth? I believe that the hope that we

have is that there's going to be consistently intersection

between heaven and earth right now.

You know when those moments happen, it's when you get healed

from that one ailment you can't talk to anybody about.

That's heaven touching earth. It's when that one relationship,

which was so frail gets restored, that's heaven touching

earth. When that door closes and

another opens, that's heaven touching earth.

When a long standing prayer was answered, heaven intersected

with earth. When God outdid your plans and

give you something way better than you ever imagined, heaven

just invaded into earth. That is hope.

He talks about the riches of his glorious inheritance.

So often we look at inheritance as something we get only after

we die. While that is assured in Jesus,

you are assured A glorious inheritance in heaven.

I believe our inheritance starts right now and that inheritance

is incredible. It's protection.

It's promotion. It's increase.

It's also joy amidst pain. It's also laughter amidst tears.

It's beautiful. The Christian life is so

beautiful because all of it intertwines so effortlessly.

When we know God, we discover the hope that we are called to.

Your hope is very important. What are you hoping in?

Are you just hoping that the bad days will end?

Why not begin to believe that in Jesus there is victory assured?

Stand in that victory. Are you believing for something

big Hope says that he will outdo them all.

God will do more than you must or imagined.

The second thing is that when we know God, we experience the

power that we have access to. I love what it says in the

message version Ephesians chapter one verses 19 to 20 in

the NIV. It says his incomparably great

power for us who believe that power is the same as the mighty

strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and

seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

In the message it says endless energy, boundless strength.

If you live in a city like Chennai, you know what the heat

does to you. You literally feel like, you

know, like we used to have those rasna ads where there's a straw

that the sun puts on people's heads and sucks their juices

out. That's what summer looks like in

Chennai. It's already begun.

And I was reading that, and I was thinking, Lord, I want that

endless energy, boundless strength.

Because to run the Christian race, I can't do it in my own

strength. I can't do it with my own power.

I need God's help. I need to depend on his

strength. I need to tap into his power.

A powerless Christian is an oxymoron because every Christian

has access to the Holy Spirit. It's like having this amazing

generator set up in your building, but it's not plugged

in. Where is the power going to come

from? That is not just your primary

source, it's your backup source and everything else.

You and I cannot afford to live the Christian journey and walk

this life without the power of God.

Too often we have run on our own strength and faded out.

We have literally drained our own batteries.

But God is saying, come to me, the resurrection power dwells in

You tap into that, plug into that.

The source to connect to that is the Holy Spirit.

Invite him and ask him to flood your life with his strength.

Jesus is the source of that power.

The Holy Spirit helps us access that.

So what happens? How does this tangibly translate

into our lives? There have been seasons.

I've watched friends. Marriages have crash landed.

They've ended. When they look like they would

collapse. A supernatural strength came

into them. They were able to get up and go

to work every day. They were able to look after

their children in the middle of the the debris of their lives.

I've watched people pick up the pieces after dream jobs ended,

when businesses closed down, How they woke up the next morning, I

don't know. How they went on with their

lives, I don't know. But I know that the power of God

was evident, that it literally held them up when they couldn't

stand. When you feel like you're ready

to throw in the towel, you will feel a supernatural power coming

and say you can get up. You can do this.

It will literally lift you up. It will hold you up.

When the world is collapsing around you.

That's the evidence of the resurrection power.

It doesn't mean that you're going to become like a superhero

and fly here and then, oh, as humans, we need rest.

God rested. I need to rest.

But on the days that I'm functioning, I'm functioning at

high capacity purely because of the power of God at work in my

life. And so I want to encourage you,

wherever you are, whatever your life looks like right now, will

you ask God for His power? Will you tap into his strength?

Because the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is

now in you and me. What is our excuse?

So when we know God, we experience the power that we

have access to. The third thing, When we know

God, we comprehend the authority that Christ holds.

This is a big one. Ephesians 1 verses 21 to 23 It

Ephesians 1:21–23

says I'm going to continue from the previous word, seated him at

his right hand in the heavenly realms far above all rule and

authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked

not only in the present age, but also the one to come.

And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be

head over everything for the church, which is His body, the

fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

When I was reading this verse, I just had a renewed sense of awe

for our God. Imagine this.

He's seated so far, high in the heavenly realms.

He's above every ruler, every authority, every power, every

dominion, every name that is invoked.

You invoke anyone's name. Jesus Christ is above that.

That is the level of his authority.

It's amazing because that is how powerful he is.

No demon, no deity, no illness, no entity.

Nothing stands a patch near our God.

That's the God whose name is on our lips.

Some of us are so stubborn to use the name of Jesus.

We'd much rather use the name God.

She gave us a name to call on, and that is the name that is

above every other name. That is the name at which every

knee must bow down before. That is the name at which demons

shriek and shadow. Not at our names.

It's not our name that is going to do anything.

It won't trigger anyone. But the name of Jesus is so

powerful that it makes every other name look like nothing.

This is the God we worship. This is the God that I have a

relationship with. When you know God, you

understand the authority that he carries.

For too long we have been shaking in our boots about the

enemy. For too long we've been saying,

well, if I do this one particular thing, the enemy will

hit my family. If I pray too much, he's going

to do this. If I serve him, it always

happens like that. The warfare is too much.

I can't handle it. The time is up.

Like I said, the powerless Christian is an oxymoron.

The Christian without authority is also an oxymoron because we

have the authority that Jesus gave us.

What is holding you and me back? Why are we still looking at the

enemy like he is all powerful? Why are we still shaking in our

boots looking at him? We have the God like David said.

I have the God of Angel armies. The rest of Israel quick looking

at Goliath, but David said who is he?

I serve the living God. What giant have you been facing

and looking at and saying I can't get over this?

I don't have any authority. Maybe your mental illness has

got into a place where you literally feel like it's broken

your will to live. It has pulled you to your knees.

Can I just say something? Our God is more powerful than

anything, than any disease, than any kind of illness, than any

kind of mental set back. He is more powerful.

You serve a God whose name at whose name demons shriek and

leave. We have that authority in Jesus

name. Let's use it.

I love this verse because it says over here God placed all

things under his feet and appointed him to be head over

everything for the church which is his body.

If Christ is the head of the church and we are the body, it

implies that under his feet means it's under our feet as

well. The authority that Jesus had, he

delegated it to us. If you've ever watched the

traffic police in Chennai, it's a life threatening job because

of the fact that nobody follows rules, People do whatever they

like. And sometimes in certain

signals, certain spots in the city, we have volunteers who

help them out. So the traffic police take a

break or they're not at that signal.

And these layman volunteers come and stand there.

Now these guys just wear a jacket, which has, you know, the

reflectors on it, but they don't have any kind of hand signal.

Nothing. They just come, they stand and

they try to order traffic. And when you watch them,

sometimes it's really sad because no one respects their

authority. They're just ordinary laymen who

come and stand there to help out.

But you should watch sometimes when they are relieved and a

police officer comes and stands in his stead.

This is what happens the minute the cop comes there with his

uniform, with his badge, with his, you know, he's got his, the

credit card machine to find anybody.

The minute he comes and stands in the middle, you should watch

the way people's behaviour changes.

Why? Because he's carrying authority.

He's got the delegated authority that the government has given

him when he stands there. People better listen to what he

says. The poor layman volunteer

doesn't carry that authority, you and I, I cannot keep

behaving like that. Lame and volunteer.

Today in Jesus we have that authority.

You can call on his name anytime, night or day, and she

sends armies of angels to protect you.

She himself when he walked on her.

Jesus gave us the authority to drive out sickness and demons

and shield people, he said. I give you all authority.

Why are we walking around with our head bowed down, with our

knees trembling, when we need to be walking strong and tall with

the authority that was given to us at the name of Jesus?

Every knee must bow, every tongue must confess that he is

Lord. So as I close, I want to leave

this with you. This week we we lost someone who

is a giant in the faith. I call her Auntie Mariamma.

Mariamma Auntie is Pastor Bijou's mom and she was a giant

in the faith in the sense that she and her husband together

planted hundreds of churches across the country.

I had the profound joy of spending a week with her when we

moved to Mumbai and I had her, it was just like 5 days.

I got a crash course in in just being around her and seeing the

spirit of God active in her life.

She was just recovering from cancer at the time and I

remember just spending time with her in the afternoons.

We would shift. We were shifting our home.

I would take the kids there. I'll spend time with her and she

would tell me story after story of God's work in her life and

her obedience to God. And you know, she had single

handedly, with the Lord's help, delivered so many men and women

of the demonic. And not just that she loved

people. Her home was always open.

She entertained people. She housed the homeless.

She looked after the broken. She helped the helpless.

She raised four children along with her husband together.

She was his right hand. She helped uncle in the ministry

throughout. But what really touched me was

that she knew God intimately. She was soaked in his word.

I would walk in every afternoon and she had a word for me.

She had a scripture that she would give me.

She had a lyric of a song in either Tamil or Malayalam or

Hindi. She always had smiles on her

face. She was walking through a

painful season. But the season didn't define

her. How God did that relationship

with her. God did.

She would undergo chemo and she would lead nurses to Jesus.

She would come and be in recovery and be encouraging

somebody or the other who walked into her son's house.

And when I watched her, I was so young.

At the time. I was just 30.

It was 10 years back, I remember thinking.

Wow, what a testimony. And I believe that's what Isaiah

was talking about, that you are my witnesses, that you would

know God intimately. Auntie was an effortless

testimony for Jesus just because the power of God was active in

her life. Just because she walked in the

authority that she knew she had because of Jesus, just because

she knew the hope of her calling.

And she didn't want anyone to miss out on that hope.

Anybody she met, she would say, Do you know Jesus?

You need him. And I want to ask you today,

will you make this a year of getting to know God more?

Whatever your resolutions have been, maybe you've already

broken your resolutions for the year.

That doesn't matter. Would you keep this one

resolution that you will grow in your knowledge of God, that you

will ask the Holy Spirit every day?

Lord, I want to know a little bit more about God today.

I want to know a little bit more about you.

Help me. Because if we did, the way we

live will be so different. We will see and experience

heaven, touching earth on the daily.

We will walk in. The power that is available to

us no longer will be plugged. Will we be plugging into all the

wrong sources, friends, social media, people?

Relationships will be so directly plugging in to the King

of Kings, the Lord of Lords, for he is the source of all power.

And then we will walk in that authority.

No sickness can hold dominion over us.

Will you walk through sickness? You could.

Will you experience grief? You could, but that will not be

the final word in your life. Jesus will have the final word

because He is the One who's seated in the heavenly realms,

far above all principalities and past far above every name that

has ever been invoked. So whatever your sickness is

today, he's far above it. Whoever it is that has tormented

you, trampled you, put you into the ground, His name is far

above. He has the authority.

He has the final say. The way you live will be

different when you know God intimately.

I would urge that this will be a year, 2024, as we've begun this

month. It'll be a year of knowing God

deeper. Can I pray for you, Father in

heaven? I just pray that each one of us

here today, that Lord, we won't be content with what we know of

you. But this will be a year of going

intentionally deeper with you, of getting to know you more and

more. Lord, deepen our intimacy with

you, Holy Spirit. Help us, Father, If we have been

distant from you, if we have turned the other way because we

didn't see you come through, we are sorry we come back to you.

This this year. We ask that we will pursue you.

We thank you that Lord, you have called us to seek you so that we

will be found. You've said, Call unto me, and I

will tell you great and unsearchable things.

For those of us who've been seeking answers, We pray in the

name of Jesus that you would give us the answers we are

seeking. For those who have turned to

other sources today, today, I encourage you to turn back to

Jesus, for He is the answer. He has the answers you need.

He is what you are looking for. Father, I thank you that in your

name we have the authority, We thank you that in your name

there is so much power. Help us Lord to call on you, to

call on you on the day of trouble, to call on you every

day to seek your face and to do your will.

Help us and be with us. In Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.

Even as you get into this week, can I just urge you that this

will be your primary goal through the year, whatever your

resolutions are. Primary resolution to know God

more. God bless you.

Have an amazing, amazing week. Thanks for listening to this

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