Too Good to Be True | Know God | Pastor David Kalamen

We are the church, and so we're gonna stand in faith this morning as a church, and we're gonna pray for our as you're worshiping and as you're raising your hands.

Let's not worry about the fear, let's stand in faith for our people that are sick, that are having struggles in all of the countries around the world.

Let's stand in faith as a church for our community for Kelowna and say we're not gonna just walk away, let this thing rule us.

We're gonna say, God, we put our trust in you.

We are the church and we will be fearless.

And we have the opportunity in all of this to love our people, to love people through all of this.

So let's take this opportunity this morning.

I'm gonna pray, and we're just gonna raise the house, and we're gonna say, God, we know that you're a good God.

We know that you're gonna move us forward.

We know that this is just a virus that's gonna pass, and you are you are the one that's gonna take care of it in Jesus' name.

Let's raise our hands to Him this morning, Lord.

We know you're a good God.

We are gonna be that fearless church, and we're gonna stand and move forward wherever we are, wherever we are right now.

If we're at home, we're raising our hands in worship and saying, God, you are a good God.

We're gonna stand in faith that this virus will be eradicated in Jesus' name in record time by your supernatural power as it moves forward, and people that are sick will be healed in Jesus' name.

Lord, you are bigger than what's happening, Lord.

You are bigger than this, and so we, no matter what happens in the future, we're gonna give you all the glory and give you all the praise.

What do you say, church?

We're ready to worship this morning to say amen.

So we're done with no longer now Jesus is in me, all I will walk to see the time All of this for your glory.

All of this for your glory All of this for your glory All of this for your glory All of this for your glory I love this for your glory.

Come on, on more time.

Oh love this for your glory, no longer Jesus lives in me for the same two three spoiler glory of glory All this boy.

Into your freedom, arches are gone, no effort shall prevail.

Your word is stronger, we overcome Your glory results through the age All saints declaring your great remote Your kingdom forever will stand We won't be shaken We will not be I battle you water stupid father In victory you reign We triumph in your name Jesus the break of man You conquered the forever In victory you reign We triumph in your name Your glory Your glory raise us through the age All saints declaring Your brain Your kingdom forever will stand We won't be stagnant We will not be I got a body water Donna comes to the body Building to Ring you ain't We try not to make us a break donate on the bottom up to R you try not to Yeah You want to do it power Tony Stand alone I spotted and we did No David Power That's not the one No David Standard Lord I strongly man I love you there's no water Above you there's no other Above you there's no water Above you there's no other I've got a mighty wire Yora comes to make fire In victory you reign We triumph in your name Jesus the great commander To conquer Templora In victory you reign I got a money lawyer Dora comes to big fire In victory you rain We triumph in your name Jesus not with a murder You conquer death forever In victory you raise We triumph in your swimming I can see the light in the darkness As the darkness bows to hill I can hear the roar in the heavens As the space between West I can feel the brown spring between us As the prince and water I can I can speak the light In the darkness I took darkness but to go I can feel the road In the heavens I can spread between I can feel the ground believe I can freeze the wall Nothing stands between us Nothing stands between us Oh I can see the lights Oh there is no other name Oh there is no other name but the name that is Jesus He who was that still is and will be through it all Sing that again no other name There is no other name but the name that is Jesus He who was and still is and will be through it all Sing it again no other name There is no other name but the name that is Jesus He who was and still is and will be through it all So come one day So come one day in the space between all the things I see and the scrapping I know I will never be alone I know I know I will never be alone Be another in the eye I'm in that still be another in no one to I ever we've been to me I've got a toy come out Don't be another Don't be another one I have a big buttons I don't think I've done the top in the back of the pie and pie a nine I could speed the night I could speed the night in the top best the darkness I could do I could I could speed the back beat that I could print what it's without it we see you are refuge of strange and deliver the one we look to the one who is more than an hour faithful unchanging Oh my shelter in the storm you are it's who you are who you are the Lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you be gracious to you the Lord turn his face towards you and give you the Lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you the Lord turn his face toward you and give yeast May his favor be upon you and a thousand generations and your family and your children and your children and your children may his favor be upon you and a thousand generations and your family your children and that you're not going to be able to do it.

Oh in the morning, in the evening, and you coming and you go to even rejoice, he is foil, he is foyer, he is fire, he is fire, he is fire, he is fire.

We were just standing in the front, we were talking together, and just the reminder that worship has been used as a form of pushing back the darkness and pushing back fear and moving into a place of faith and victory.

And Father, we just say today that we trust you, that you are our strong tower.

And the scripture says the righteous run into it and they are safe.

And Father, today we move forward knowing that you are with us.

You haven't left us, you haven't rejected us.

You are with us in this moment, and we do trust today that all things work together for good.

To those who love you and are called according to your purpose.

And Lord, today we place our trust again in you and we move forward in this place of faith, in this place of trust.

Amen.

Amen.

Let me just read to you from Psalm 91 today.

It says, Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty, and they will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, and He is my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

And if you say that the Lord is your refuge, and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you.

No disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread on the lion and on the cobra, you will trample the great lion and the serpent because he loves you.

Would you say he loves me?

He loves us, Amen.

Is it great to be loved?

He loves us.

And I will rescue you and I will protect you, for you acknowledge my name, and you will call upon me, and I will answer you, and I will be with you in trouble, and I will be with you and honor you.

With long life I will satisfy you and show you my salvation.

Father, we thank you for the salvation.

Thank you for showing us your salvation.

And Lord, today we just stand on your word.

And Lord, today we exalt your name.

And we look to you for our help.

And we place our trust in you.

And Lord, we thank you for the peace that passes understanding.

We thank you for the joy that's unspeakable and full of glory.

We thank you for a righteousness that allows us to walk boldly like a lion.

Father, we thank you for the boldness today.

Lord, we love you because you first loved us.

We trust you, Lord, because you love us.

You are our Father in heaven.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

Would you just raise a sound of praise to him and just give him a thanks?

Sound of thanksgiving.

Amen.

Amen.

How many of you, your hearts are encouraged today, and your spirit is encouraged today?

Right on.

Will you take a moment, just turn around and just welcome people to church this morning, okay?

And let them know that you're glad to see faces this morning.

Amen.

Surrounded by an enemy.

How many of you know we feel like we're surrounded by a little bit of an enemy here?

In a group of friends, but I mean we've got we've got some dangers out there.

And he said, God, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on you.

And God said, You're not gonna have to fight in this battle.

The battle belongs to me.

And put your worshippers ahead of you and start worshiping.

And those who have set an ambush against you, I will ambush and take care of.

And I think that that's an apropos word for us this morning.

Where we say, God, we're just going to stand in our place and put our hands up in the air and worship you.

And you take out those things that are trying to ambush us and take us out.

Hallelujah.

Worship this morning was prophetically doing that for this church and those who are listening in uh the cloud, uh, both in heaven and on earth.

I just thought of that.

Because the Bible says those who passed on before us are already gone beyond, and they're watching what's going on.

They're watching us run the race.

So very grateful that Henry's watching the race from heaven.

But you know, we need to be aware of that in our own hearts this morning that we're not alone.

And that that group of songs that was sung to us this morning was prophetically directed for the uplifting and the building up of the church.

You go to Costco, and there are more people in one line trying to get food than there are in this church this morning, and they're trying to stock their pantries with food, toilet paper, meat.

I'm glad you're here this morning and online this morning to stock your spiritual pantry.

Because if there's if there's any need that we have, it is a need for the word of the Lord and the bread of life in the midst of a time when there's such such very real challenges.

This morning I I feel to deliver a word to you, and uh of course it's in alignment with where Pastor Brody is going with the church in terms of joying up, strengthening our heart to move forward in joy and not allow anyone to rob and steal our joy from us, even in a very difficult time.

So here we have a portion that I want to read to you from Philippians chapter 3, verse 8, particularly.

Philippians 3:8

He says this.

He says, I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with him.

And in the Amplified, it says, This is a joy unequaled.

I just want to camp on that for a second with you, taking one verse from Philippians chapter 3, which is our focus this morning.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

He said, the greatest joy in his life, a joy unequaled by anything else that he had experienced, was the fact that he was in this revelatory journey in understanding who God was.

And the more he got to know God, the more joy he had in his life.

And so the knowledge of God became a key to opening up even a greater measure of joy in his life.

And I want to focus in on that uh today.

Before I do, I just want to say a few words uh regarding the um the things that both uh uh Pastor Brody and Pastor Brian have shared this morning.

I think it's really important that we understand that we are living in very conflicted and unstable times.

And when I assess our situation, we've got moral conflict.

This is now being felt at the constitutional level of nations where people are morally confused as to what they believe.

This is nations.

We've got political philosophies clashing like we've never seen before.

We have threats to health that are emerging globally in a pandemic, we have economies and businesses that are at the point of failure and are really in confusion as to what to do.

The foundations of the nations and of the peoples of the nations are shaking.

And Luke 26 says, or 21, verse 26 says, Men's hearts are failing them for fear after looking at those things that are coming upon the earth.

We're living in a very prophetic moment, and the message of joying up is a critical message to help us endure the chaos all around us, and to find God's peace like that eye in the midst of a hurricane.

And resetting our foundations and a relationship to the Prince of Peace and standing firm on a rock solid kingdom that cannot be shaken is going to be the way you're gonna weather the storm.

Get to know him better is the key to coming through all of this with your joy intact and also increasing in the midst of the panic.

The second thing I want to say is there is a valid health risk.

And uh, people like me who've battled pulmonary fibrosis are probably at risk.

So you need the counsel.

You need the council of government directives, which we've done in our assembly this morning.

Practice good personal hygiene, maintain the social distancing.

That's really important right now, as much as it may be, there may be it may be some rednecking going on in our in our uh friendship clusters.

Uh, just be conscious of the fact that this is not a political issue, this is this is a health issue, and we've got to be very, very good at maintaining those social distances.

But I'm gonna add another piece of spiritual counsel to you that I felt as I was in prayer this week.

God said to me, He said, Ask and depend upon me to be your early warning system.

You see, the Holy Spirit's intimately involved in our life in every aspect of our life.

And God cares about you, spirit, soul, and body.

And the Holy Spirit will interact with your life and say, Don't, don't go left, right, stop, don't talk, remove back.

He'll obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit who cares for your soul.

He's the paraclete, the one who comes alongside of you and takes care of you.

And I think that there's if there's any other ever any time for us to press into this relationship to the Holy Spirit, it's right now.

That spirit of God can uh dominate the spirit of fear and panic that will try to immobilize you and undermine you or cause you to panic.

Fear may be your greatest enemy, but we know the spirit of the fear of the Lord is greater than the spirit of the fear of man.

In um our series, Brody addressed uh Philippians chapter one, and he shared the joy, the joy was different than happiness.

Happiness was based upon happenstance or circumstances, favorable circumstances, and you get happy because things turned out in your favor.

But joy was found in a purposeful act to choose God when you're facing extreme pressure.

There's always a reason for joy, he said.

God never stops working in our situation, so there's always hope, and we cannot allow the world to pull us down into their defeatism and negativity.

Pastor Brian backed that up last Sunday with his message addressing Philippians 2, and he exhorted us to follow God's voice to drown out the world's voice.

If we listen to God more than we do the world, we're gonna be safe.

How many of you know God has always had an ark for his people?

He's always had a way out, he's always provided a way of escape in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances.

God cares about you and me, and he has a purpose for our life in the midst of this, and what we're encountering in Canada and globally right now did not come as a surprise to God.

God knew about it, and as a matter of fact, we literally have nations of the world coming back to God and prayer.

Heads of nations are being shifted, and spirit believe uh spirit-filled believers are being put into positions of power.

So let's not be afraid in the midst of the prophetic nature of the time that we're living in right now.

In the first ten verses of Philippians 3, Paul declares that his personal confidence and his security as an individual, as a believer, is not based upon who he is.

He looked at it and he said, I've got credentials, guys.

I can give you a long list of stuff that is uh behind my name.

Uh he said, I I I've got I've got schools I've attended, I've got teachers that taught me that were the very best.

He said, Um his national pedigree, where he came from, and his tribal connections and his ability to know and interpret the religious law, it was unparalleled in his time.

When Paul stood up to talk to you, you better have your debate shoes on because you aren't going to win a debate.

Paul knew who he was and he had phenomenal credentials.

But when he writes Philippians chapter 3 from prison, he said, All of that is not helping me here.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

I'm in prison.

I'm pretty messed up in here.

Listen, this is not a prison with hot chocolate and donuts on Saturday night.

This is a hole in the ground that you are lowered into in darkness, kept alive by a little bit of oil, and he's he's stretching himself to be able to get the to get the letters on the page so that people can read them.

So the letters are big.

The only food he gets is what's lowered down into that pit for him by friends.

And if he didn't have friends show up, he starved.

This is where he was writing from.

And he's saying, Listen, all of my pedigree, all of my background, all of this, it means nothing to me in this situation.

The only thing that matters is that I know him.

I know somebody that they may not know.

And of course, he led a lot of them to the Lord, uh, his jailers, but but he says, I know somebody, and the thing that I may Is the determined purpose in my life is that I might know him and the power of his resurrection and share in his sufferings so I can walk through both sides of the equation from the grave to heaven, knowing the grace and the power and the presence of God.

He said, The thing, the credential that is keeping me alive in this prison is that I know God.

How do you know him?

Well, in a lot of circumstances like we're facing right now, and we are all writing our own book of Acts, but we find out in the midst of crisis whether or not you know him or not.

Or whether or not you had a preference, well, I prefer Christianity over Buddhism.

Or whether I have a conviction that's built upon my walk with God.

And I know him.

I don't just know about him, I know him intimately in this situation, and my faith is secure, and therefore no fear is undermining who I am.

I was asked in the uh early part of January by our Mexico churches and our extended KCC family in Mexico whether I was planning on coming and having meetings.

They had heard about another battle with pneumonia that I'd had in December and were waiting for my response.

And I did make it a matter of real prayer before the Lord.

Uh this would be the second year that I would not have been there.

And I miss my extended KCC Mexican family.

That's true.

There's no question.

And after prayer and dialogue with Carline, uh I felt the green light from God to proceed, even though the the battle had just been recently over.

And as some of you are aware, the doctors are uh aware of my lung complications and been testing for pulmonary fibrosis.

And in the early days, I know my wife would jokingly say, You can go, but make sure your insurance is uh paid up.

That's not now.

She really, just really misses me.

But in my dialogue with family, my daughter Carrie, who we'd not had a chance to celebrate her 40th birthday, um, she she said to me, Dad, you shouldn't go alone.

So I invited her to come.

I said, I'll pay the way, you come with dad, it'll be a dad, daughter time period.

And my granddaughter, who is turning 15, heard the conversation on the phone and said, Mom, you shouldn't go alone.

So all of a sudden, now I've got, you know, three generations heading to Mexico, and uh uh the bill has gone up for my family.

So I brought a three-generational impact to the mission field.

Some quick pics of the ministry there.

I just want to talk to you very quickly about that.

You'll see in the upper, uh, I guess it's the left-hand side, you'll see the church in Zicatella.

Isn't that beautiful?

When you're preaching, you feel like you're walking on water.

Place is doing very well, leadership team is up to 35 people taking care of everything.

Uh there they are doing so well.

Teresa, who had gone through a very specific medical illness.

God is straightening out her body.

Uh, she's up there preaching, praying, ministering.

I'm so very, very grateful to see what God's doing.

New families.

On the morning I preached here on the left, uh, top left, uh, there were over uh, I think 12 or 13 who gave their life to Christ.

So there's constant growth.

The buildings are developing, the finances are stable.

Uh you'll see uh on the bottom left is the church in in uh San Pedro, which is one of the poorest regions.

It handles 400, and then the we as long as we put up the cement post, they uh the the city of San Pedro paid for a big roof over it, so now they've got weddings and fiestas and all kinds of stuff there.

The church is growing.

Praise the Lord.

Good, good report.

Um, you're gonna see a young couple here to the um to the bottom right, Martha and her family.

Martha is the daughter of the pastor and his wife uh in uh San Pedro.

And um two years ago, when I was there, they came up to me and and they're they were living in, all I can say is it's a shock, right?

They didn't own land, they didn't own the building, they were just they were living in this situation with their family.

And they said, Pastor, would you pray that God will give us land and a building, uh, a home?

And so, sure, I prayed for that, but at the end of the prayer, I felt a confidence from the Holy Spirit to say, the next time I see you, we will I uh you will be in your new home and on your property.

That's a prophetic thing, but the interesting element to that story is that I didn't go last year.

If I'd gone last year, they didn't have their home and they didn't have their property.

But this year when I came, they were there to meet me, and there they were with a big smile on their face saying, Um, if you came last year, the prophetic word would have been invalidated, it wouldn't have worked.

But this year, we not only have proper uh a home and and a pro uh uh and a land, we have property, we have a rancho, we have we have lots of room.

And I went, whoa, God, did you know about that two years ago that I wouldn't be back next year?

And that stuck in my mind, and it's it there's a reason for sticking in my mind in reference to what I have to share with you, because uh I went up again on the way to Acapulco, about three hours, uh, to a town that Pastor Norm knows very well, uh Pinotempa.

They'd had an earthquake there two years ago.

A lot of the town had been affected.

The church was spared.

We're very, very grateful.

I ministered there, and there were about seven other men that were traveling with me up there.

We had a great time.

Uh all the services were well attended, and uh the presence of God and uh worship was phenomenal, just like we were experiencing this morning.

I was so blessed, so happy uh for the Mexican uh people.

Um but uh it was there that on my way back I stopped in a restaurant and we had something to eat, and I I thought I had I had chosen something really uh good to eat, which was spaghetti.

Where do you go wrong with spaghetti?

Well, apparently um I did go wrong.

Uh came back to uh uh Puerto Escondido.

We left uh that was a Thursday morning, we had left Pinotempa Saturday morning, we headed into Mexico City and into Oaxaca.

I was then uh going in on Saturday night to preach, and then twice on Sunday morning, so it was a three service uh weekend.

And uh I got uh there about an hour before the service Saturday night, and I'd had a headache all day.

I didn't understand uh what was going on, and um preached that night.

We had uh they had a baptismal service, and at the end of it I spoke to them about salvation, and there were another 15 people that came up and gave uh and uh surrendered their lives and got baptized, closed and all, right there.

Uh the the church is probably 600 strong in the city of Oaxaca.

They love us and are praying for us.

2.30 in the morning.

I woke up in a real sweat and a chill, and my temperature was 38.5.

I had a fever.

And uh texted Carlene, let her know.

Uh she had said basically, listen, if it ever reaches 40, promise me you'll go see a doctor.

Uh, you'll get to the hospital.

So uh did that.

My daughter was uh with me and granddaughter in the room, and she covered me with quilts just to stop the shaking that was happening from the fever.

By 7 o'clock it was 40.1.

And so I had to cancel ministering on Sunday morning in the church in Oaxaca.

Called Jeremy, who is a spiritual son, out of our out of our congregation, and I said, Jeremy, you don't do you know a doctor?

How many of you know on Sunday morning, trying to find a doctor, all of that stuff, it's a complicated process.

I've never been in a hospital in a foreign in all my travels, I've never been in a hospital in a foreign nation.

Uh, I didn't know what to do, didn't know speak the language, had to depend upon Jeremy.

He said, Pastor, we know an individual.

Uh he said he you can come right now.

So I showered quick, got uh got there as quickly as I could, but at by that point I could hardly walk.

Uh the pain uh had hit on all levels, muscles, aches, headache, all of that stuff.

And um so I took my my daughter's arm and walked.

Got into the got into the appointment with uh Dr.

Castile, and uh my blood pressure had dropped from 120 over 80, which is normal, down to 88 over 44.

Within another four I was an ICU.

Uh my heartbeat went up to 100 to 110.

Uh everything was going on.

My my my oxygen levels had dropped from 95, which is good and normal, down to 89.

Uh things were collapsing really quickly.

I had dysentery, and I won't tell you the difference between diarrhea and dysentery, but it's pretty significant.

And um I was um basically landed, he said in one hour uh after my interview, immediately, I'm going with you, I'm taking you into a clinic, a hospital.

And he made sure there was another friend of his, and by the way, this man is the top uh what you call pulmonologist who deals with pulmonary fibrosis.

He's the top doctor in the state of Oaxaca.

Everyone comes to him to help them understand what's going on in their lungs.

Do you think maybe there's a little bit of a okay?

So I was in to see him.

They they brought me into the hospital for immediate detention.

It was a beautiful hospital, wonderful people.

Um and while they were there, they narrowed it down to a bacterial infection, not viral, that I got in Pinotempa from the cheese they had put in the spaghetti sauce that I ate before the evening meal.

So this bacterium takes exactly two days to form, so they were able to date it exactly to the place, time, whatever.

It's an amazing adventure to see how they they do business down there.

Pastor Jeremy slept beside me for two and a half days, and on the hour took care of me.

I had, you know, intervenous on this arm, I had stuff all over my chest, I had oxygen masks, I had I had blood pressure being taken here.

There was nowhere to sit but lay in a bed made for Aztecs, five feet two, um, in this bed for that full time.

And I began to think about Martha and her family, and how the Lord knew within two years the prophecy would be completed.

Not one.

I didn't show up last year, but I showed up this year.

And I said, God, you know, I mean, you were two years ahead of me on this one.

I didn't know, and if had come last year, and some of you knew I was in the hospital last year, um, that word wouldn't have been fulfilled.

And I kept on, next time I see you, you'll have land, you'll have a home, and there they are, the Lord has provided.

And uh, I kept on pondering God's ways because uh I had a lot of time.

And uh trying to get to the washroom and back, and all of that was quite the quite the experience.

One day, uh Dr.

Castillo walked into the room, and he's a pastor's son.

His dad was a pastor, his father-in-law was a pastor, very similar to my situation.

He walked in the room and he said, I'm just coming back from the child's hospital, this was on Monday morning, and he he says, You I was talking with God, and I said, God, I don't know this man.

I don't know this man.

Like I just wound up on in his room on a Sunday morning.

And God spoke to him clearly, and he said, But I know this man.

And I sent him to you to take care of him.

Never charged me a cent.

He became a very close friend in a very short period of time.

And he said, When you go back to Canada, send me all your files and I will work with you personally and professionally on your health.

I can honestly say I've come back stronger than I left.

But I began pondering God's ways to get to know him.

And it was in a very short period of time that the Holy Spirit began to say to me, Because I was I was actually having my heart to heart with God.

Why was I here?

I've gone through four bouts, now this is the fifth in one year.

I hate being looked on as a in quote sickly person, compromised in health, possibly a risk in mission.

My heart is so out there and here to bring in the harvest.

And I was pondering a very ugly situation, and I was saying, God, I need to be better by Tuesday at noon, because I'm taking my daughter and granddaughter through Mexico City, and they're going to have to go to a hotel and be ferried around, and I want to be there to protect them.

Well, how many of you know in the situation I was in, it's not going to be an easy ass to be that clean, that ready for travel.

They were not going to let me out of the hospital until my pulse normalized, my blood pressure normalized, my my uh dysentery stopped.

Last time I had dysentery was 1985 coming out of Nigeria.

It took me six weeks at home to overcome the dysentery.

So my prayer was, God, I don't understand this.

And I just I heard the voice of the Lord say to me, I sent you here.

And all of a sudden I remembered Martha two years.

I remembered what Dr.

Castillo said when he walked in the door.

And I realized, God, you set this up.

I'm not happy.

I don't understand your ways and how you function.

Can't you just give me his card and I go see him?

But I sent you here, and I can honestly say I've come back stronger than when I left.

It was clear that he had sent me to the right place, to the right people at the right time to get information that was needed for my life.

And I had to make the choice, not had to, but willingly made the choice to joy up.

Instead of getting into a position of saying, why me?

What again?

Raised my hands in the hospital room with Jeremy, and I just started praising God.

Thank you, Lord, for the condition I'm in.

Thank you.

I'm in the hands that you provided to take care of me.

Well, it wasn't over.

Tuesday morning at two in the morning.

We were supposed to leave uh that afternoon.

I woke up in a sweat.

My sheets were soaked.

I felt a fever had returned.

I wanted to be released that day, as I said, to take care of my daughter and granddaughter.

And I turned over to Jeremy, I said, Are you hot?

He said, Man, I'm sweating.

I'm taking off all my clothes.

I went, it's not a fever.

Thank you, Lord.

At 3 a.m., after they changed the sheets on the bed and I went to the washroom, Kathleen, our intercessor, texted me and said, I've had a vision of you lying in a hospital room, a door to your left, which is exactly where the door to the bathroom was, and you're lying in a blue schmock.

Schmock.

Schmock.

My wife was for helping me practice that one before I preached this morning.

It's not a schmuck, it's a schmock.

By the way, do you know what?

When I left in the in in the in the uh hospital ward, my my oxygen intake went up, jumped five points.

So a merry heart does good like a medicine.

So Kathleen had a vision of me, and I want to tell you, by the exact time nurses had changed my sheets completely, I had a normal bathroom trip, returned to see Jeremy playing with this smock.

I never wore it up to that point in time because I had so many wires on everything to try and get that on me, they just pulled the sheet over top of me, and that's the way it was in the hospital room.

I had not worn it.

He's out there playing with this thing to figure out how I can get it on my body.

And we found a way to get it on my body, and I lay in bed at the exact time, four o'clock here, three o'clock there, I had that blue smock on.

She had seen accurately.

And in the midst of that word, she said, Your strength is now returning.

It was a prophetic word, just as we heard this morning, the worship team speaking the favor of God and the blessing of God over our lives.

It was a prophetic word to me, your strength is returning.

From two of that three o'clock point to seven o'clock in the morning, my blood pressure normalized, my heartbeat normalized, my breathing normalized, my blood pressure normalized, and I was released from the hospital with no complications or vital uh sign problems.

My dysentery left and disappeared forever.

I want to tell you that's a miracle.

I had a meeting with my doctor this week.

He said it just doesn't happen, but he's a Pentecostal uh practicing uh doctor, been with him for many years.

He said, You must have had people praying.

Uh, and I do believe that, and I want to give thanks to those of you who are here and those who are watching online.

Paul writes in Philippians chapter 3 10, get to know him.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Getting to know God is the key to locating joy in your situation.

God, I don't understand.

I don't understand what's happening in the stock market, I don't understand my savings, I don't understand, God, what's happening with the panic and the fear and that's all around us.

Uh I don't understand the philosophical political battles that are going on where nations are rising against nations.

I don't understand all of that.

But I knew know that we're living in a prophetic moment and that there's a we have reached a tipping point in our cultures.

We've reached a tipping point.

And the only way that Canada is going to be healed is if we humble ourselves and pray, repent of our wicked ways, and then God will come and heal the land.

He's getting the attention of an entire society and civilization.

Something's being shaken, and it's the reason why I see many young people coming to Christ.

Wherever I've gone and preached in the last few weeks, young people were coming to Christ because they're seeing the instability of every other system, politically, economically, morally, financially, all on the shake.

And they're looking for somewhere where they can go to be planted strong and firm and unwavering.

They're looking for values, standards, solidity, a refuge in the time of storm.

Paul makes this statement.

He said, Knowing God produces unequaled joy in the midst of a time of great chaos.

It's not based upon how good you are and how great you are with all your pedigrees and background and education, everything.

Nothing will help you in this time except knowing God.

And does God want you to know Him?

I said, God, you knew about a little home there, two years in a dance of me prophesying it.

You knew that I would be brought into contact with one of the top doctors in the field that I need help in two years after I knew it.

You know about the situation that our economies and our nation are going through right now, our city is going through.

You knew about that.

This nothing is by surprise by you.

So, Lord, help me to identify who you are in the midst of it.

And would you reveal yourself to me again and again and again and again and know something about the fact that I'm not alone, that you had some plans going on, and all things work together for to those who.

And are called according to his purpose.

And I say thank you, Lord.

And the only accurate response is to lift our hands.

Because I know some of you, you've had jobs removed, you've got shutdowns happening on all kinds of levels.

Um I want you to know that this is not a surprise to God.

We are family.

We are family.

We take care of one another in the midst of very difficult times.

So, Father, this morning, we surrender ourselves to you and we say, Help us to get to know you more.

Reveal yourself to us in the midst of very, very difficult circumstances, so that we too can experience what Paul talked about, that unequal joy that happens in the darkness and the denseness of a prison ward.

Where he begins to he begins to be happy.

He begins to worship you.

Now, Lord, you can like you did before get him out of prison, knock off all those chains and those stocks and the bonds that have been uh holding him in and containing him.

You can break them out.

You can do a prison break.

You can squeeze into our lives in such a way that the pressure that is on the outside, the pressure on the inside becomes so great that we overcome the pressure on the out.

You can squeeze into our life that way.

Sometimes you want us to identify with your resurrection power and we break out and break through.

Other times you want us to identify with your suffering so that we understand it and understand how to die to some stuff so that we can live to stuff.

Whatever you're doing, we want to know your ways.

We want to know you better so we can identify with and experience this unequal joy.

If you don't know him this morning, you cannot access unequal joy.

Things will bring you down.

God knows what we don't know.

He sees what we cannot see, he goes where we could never go, he never stops working, even when we don't feel anything is going on.

We've got to get to know him in the midst of our situation.

So, Father, I pray for that over this congregation, those here and those watching this morning, may there be a leap in our revelation of who you are in the midst of this.

Because it's not about us now, it's all about you and who you are and what you can do on our behalf, and you want to reveal yourself at a God who loves and takes care of his people.

Thank you, Father.

We just thank you in advance and raise our hands and say thank you, Lord, in advance of your your kindness and care for us in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

What a very excellent word for us this morning.

Joy up.

We're gonna prepare for our tithes and offerings, but that's gonna look a little bit different this morning.

Um as we prepare, uh, we're gonna have one of our ushers is actually gonna be standing in the back.

So just as you exit, I just put it into the baskets.

We don't want to pass that along.

So that's a little bit different.

But as we were as Pastor Dave was encouraging us this morning, I felt like a little check in my own spirit.

Just about this is where the rubber meets the road.

We have an opportunity in a time where the businesses may be struggling or things that are happening in our world are uh maybe moving us a little way from being maybe giving or being a little bit more generous.

But ultimately, um we as the church stand as a light to this community.

And generosity isn't uh sometimes one of the most comfortable things for us to do.

But we as a church want to be able to keep feeding the people in our community.

We want to be able to keep doing the missions things that we're doing.

And so my challenge and my encouragement, even to myself, is that even as we're moving in this time where we're not sure, let's not let generosity take the hit.

Let's see where God's gonna take us through onto the other side of this because we extended our faith and said, God, you're bigger than this, and I'm gonna give even when I am feeling the pinch, when I'm feeling that pressure, when I'm struggling with that joy under pressure, we're gonna give.

And we're gonna see God move into a different way and see this church come out the other side, knowing that, hey, we gave and God was amazing and we did great things.

Do you agree?

And so that really is kind of just the the the echo of our heart here at KCC's.

We want to be able to keep doing those things that God's called us to do as a church.

And so I'm just gonna pray for that, and as you prepare, and then you can take them after we're done the service.

Lord, thank you for the opportunity we have to come to church, to be able to hear this story about God moving and knowing things before.

You know what's going on, you know, and we put our trust in you.

So today, as we prepare our tithes and our offerings and we move into a position of hearing your voice and knowing exactly what you have for us, Lord, that we would give in faith that your supernatural power will do things that maybe we have no expectation, but we're gonna give faithfully because that's what you've called us to do.

Lord, thank you for who you are in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So just a few announcements.

Um, Henry Abling's uh memorial is gonna be tomorrow here at the church at one o'clock.

So um you are invited to that.

Um again, we have prayer every Wednesday morning, and that will be continuing for the future.

Nothing will change with that at all.

Uh, as well as we do have connect groups, and this is an excellent time for you to find a connect group if you don't have anyone, and just have a moment to get around some people that are gonna extend faith and pray and do all those things.

So if you're not part of a connect group, please head to our back table and they have an option, and we have all kinds of things that we would have or places for you to be able to go in a connect group and just connect and be around people that are just gonna challenge you and move us forward.

Uh, next steps, uh, we usually do it every Sunday, three times a month.

Uh, that will be taking a bit of a break just as we kind of figure out what's gonna be happening in the next few weeks.

We will keep you up to date with uh any information.

Um, as we're uh talking with Pastor Dave, we have an opportunity again with our giving to be able to give to the missions uh in Mexico in particular.

And so if you go in and you you're looking to give it is just give to the general and to missions, and that's where it'll go.

And there are multiple ways that we can give for you of those of you that are online and you're watching us this morning.

There is instructions about where to go to the website.

We can give through the app, you can give through uh just coming and dropping it off or whatever you want to do, but there is multiple ways to give.

So uh missions, we got to see some of the missions and uh what Pastor Dave was doing and the faith in that church that's being grown over there.

So that's that's we support a lot of things uh as a church, and we're really blessed to be able to do that.

Um, and an excellent thing is we have baptisms coming up on April 5th.

And so if you know anyone, those of you that are online that are watching me, that are looking from a distance, uh, if you want to get baptized, registrations are online.

You can email us, call us, and just let us know that that's what you want to do.

And uh, we'll be moving forward.

But our registrations are uh are open up until the week before.

So April 5th is when we're doing our baptisms.

And so uh I'm gonna welcome up Pastor Brody as we move uh move the service along, as well as if you want prayer, I will put my elbow on you and I will pray for you.

I'm sure our team will be ready or we'll do the foot thing.

I'll put my foot on your foot, we'll pray.

But if you want prayer, we're not gonna move that at all.

We want to be able the opportunity to pray for you.

Amen.

So welcome, Pastor Brody.

We also have the next uh few weeks as the church is following where the government's leading the community in terms of containment for the coronavirus, uh they're trying to flatten the arc and of uh distribution.

And so we're trying to be as compliant as we can with the uh with the government and the Ministry of Health.

Uh so in the next few weeks we have announcements, but those are subject to change.

So we're encouraging you just to keep connecting online on our social as well as website next week after the second service for those who are available, there is a uh an open meeting just to discuss uh how we go about actually um making board uh the board process of bringing on new board members.

And on the 29th, we will be having a members uh meeting, provided that we can, but on the 29th of that day, actually uh introducing the three new board members that are coming into KCC.

So there are two dates that are on our calendar, but those two dates again may be subject to change based on uh the medical advice that we have.

Would you stand with me and let me just pray for you before you go?

How many of you have liked that song on May the Lord Bless You and Keep You?

It's a blessing, a song of blessing.

And we have to begin to remind ourselves and stir ourselves up that these times we don't shrink back, but we keep trusting the Lord that He does have a plan for your life.

Amen.

He has a purpose and a call for our lives.

So I say, may the Lord bless you, and may He keep you, and may He cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may He lift His countenance up over you, and may the Lord give you a shalom, a beast of God that ministers to your body, to your soul, to your mind.

God bless you, and have a great Sunday.