Ephesians pt10 - The Mystery Made Known

You're very welcome to today's Triumph Church podcast.

We pray that you enjoy the message.

If you brought your Bibles, we're going to be going back

into Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

And because today's Palm Sunday, I'm just going to talk a little

bit more about that because Palm Sunday marks the beginning of

the week of God's mysterious plan being unfolded before

humanity. It's being revealed Jesus entry

into Jerusalem like a king caught the attention of the

Roman Empire therein in Jerusalem.

For sure there's things like that that aren't going to escape

the attention of the the Roman government in Jerusalem.

It also caught the attention of of the religious leaders, the

Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem, but it also caught

the attention of the devil. Later in the week, Jesus held

his Last Supper with his disciples, and after that supper

he went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray, to spend

some time because he knew what was about to come.

He knew full well was about to transpire.

He didn't go into this week and even his ministry without

knowing what it was that he was doing.

Jesus knew all along that he was going to be sacrificing his life

for you and I. And while he was praying in the

garden, Jesus was arrested. And then he was stood trial, was

found innocent by Pontus Pilate, right?

But then the religious leaders demanded that he be crucified,

and they stirred up the crowds of the people against Jesus.

And Pilate gave into their demands, didn't he?

And Jesus was whipped and he was beaten till near death,

fulfilling Isaiah 53. I want to read that chapter

here. We won't have it up on the

screen there. So you can either listen to me

or you can follow along. We're going to read the the

whole chapter in Isaiah 53 because this is a prophecy about

what Jesus was going to endure for you and I starting in verse

one. It says he who believed our

message, To whom has the Lord revealed His powerful arm?

My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green

shoot, like a root in dry ground.

There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance,

nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected.

A man of sorrows, acquainted with the deepest grief.

He turned, we turned our backs on Him and looked the other way.

He was despised and we did not care in verse 4.

Yet it was our weakness He carried.

It was our sorrows that weighed Him down, and we thought His

troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for His own

sins. Verse 5 But he was pierced for

our rebellion, crushed for our sins.

He was beaten so that we could be whole.

He was whipped so that we could be healed.

Verse 6. All of us, like sheep, have

strayed away. We have left God's paths to

follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the

sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated

harshly, yet he never said a word.

He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is

silent before the shears, he did not open his mouth.

Unjustly condemned, He was led away.

No one cared that he died without descendants, that his

life was cut short in midstream, but he was struck down for the

rebellion of my people in verse 9.

He had done no wrong, and he had never deceived anyone, but he

was buried like a criminal. He was put in a rich man's

grave, but it was the Lord's good plan to crush him, to cause

him grief. And yet, when his life was made

an offering for sin, he will have many descendants.

He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord's good plan will

prosper in his hands. And when he sees all that is

accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied.

And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make

it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will

bear all, all their sins, verse 12.

And I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier.

Because he exposed himself to death.

He was counted among the rebels, and he bore the sins of many and

interceded for the rebels. Isn't that amazing?

That whole chapter is prophesying about Jesus.

Today I'm going to be talking about a mystery made known that

the apostle Paul talked about in Ephesians chapter 3.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

We're going to read Ephesians 3 and verses 3 through four or

three and four. OK says as I briefly wrote

earlier, God Himself revealed His mysterious plan to me.

As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight

into this plan regarding Christ. What's interesting is all

through Scripture, from the very beginning Genesis all the way to

the end revelation, it's Jesus the in God's redemption plan

like being revealed to mankind in the Old Testament, it was

shrouded by by mystery. We just read Isaiah 53 right?

And in that doesn't mention the name of Jesus at all, does it?

It doesn't doesn't signify and show exactly who it is that that

scripture that chapter is referring to.

Of course, now we know looking back in hindsight, exactly who

it was talking about, right? We know it was talking about

about Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

This mystery has been revealed. We can see it clearly.

But those living in the Old Testament times, everything

about Jesus and God's plan was in shadow and that was by God's

design. And what's interesting is we

have over 300 prophecies about Jesus in Scripture, in the Old

Testament, well over 300 prophecies.

And these were revealed over 1000 year, a span of time by

about 40 different authors at different time periods through

those thousand years, right? So there's no corroboration

between those authors. These are all independent people

who were given these prophecies, and writing these down by the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit and the mathematical of odds of

of any one person fulfilling over 300 scriptures is literally

mathematically impossible. Is there anyone here who's a

mathematician? The odds of someone fulfilling

over 300 prophecies is 1 to 10 with 157 zeros after it.

This is mathematically impossible for one person to

fulfill all of those prophecies, and yet Jesus did.

Isn't that amazing? It's really nothing short of

miraculous, just looking at things in a natural standpoint,

looking going back and looking at the natural recorded history

of Jesus, going back and looking at all the books throughout the

Old Testament and all the prophecies and things.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, you know, scriptures that they copies of

scripture that they found, you know, from a long time ago,

right? It's amazing how God set up all

these different things to show us how amazing not just His word

is, but how amazing Jesus is that He is the only way to the

Father. When Jesus said no one goes to

the Father except through me, well why is that?

It's not because God is being narrow minded, right?

It's because Jesus is the only one who could possibly fulfill

all those prophecies. No one else fit that bill.

It's impossible and even if Jesus were were someone who

looked at scripture and said, OK, I'm going to try to to make

myself fit all of these things like he could not have worked it

out for him to be born in the city that he was born in, the

time frame that he was born in the people that he was born to,

right? There's so many things that

would be impossible, still mathematically impossible for

him to be able to accomplish. The only the only thing

conclusion that you can possibly come to is that Jesus is who is

being prophesied all throughout Scripture.

It's miraculous. Let's continue reading here.

In Ephesians chapter 3, verses 9 through 12, it says, and I was

Ephesians 3:9–12

chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God

the Creator of all things had kept secret from the beginning.

God's purpose in all this was to use the church to display His

wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and

authorities in the heavens in verse 11.

And this was His eternal plan, which He carried out through

Christ Jesus our Lord in verse 12.

Because of Christ and our faith in Him, we can now come boldly

and confident, confidently into God's presence.

I'm going to talk about three things this morning.

The first thing is the mystery that was hidden.

The second thing is the power that's available to you.

And the third thing is how to receive from God.

That's a good one, isn't it? How many of you want to receive

from God? I think all of us want to

receive from God, but sometimes we're, we're not quite sure how

it is that we can or should receive from God.

So let's talk about this first thing, the mystery that was was

hidden. In verse 9, Paul says that he

was chosen to explain something that God had kept secret from

the beginning. What an amazing privilege that

God would use. Someone like if I were the

apostle Paul, I would consider it the highest honor and

privilege that the Lord would reveal some revelation to me and

then I would have the privilege of revealing that to his church.

What an honor. And for thousands of years, God

had a plan that nobody could fully see it, and that was

intentional. Immediately following Adam and

Eve's fall into sin, going way back to Genesis, the very

beginning, God let us know that he already had a plan.

God wasn't taken by surprise right by Adam and Eve falling

into sin. He wasn't like, Oh no, what are

we going to do now? Jesus, Holy Spirit, what are we

going to do? They're up there.

Ah, well, bring out the whiteboard.

Let's come up with a plan. Quick, quick, quick.

You know what do you have Jesus, What do you?

No, Jesus, God wasn't taken by surprise by this.

We just read in in Ephesians there in in three how this was

his eternal plan. He knew exactly what was going

to happen. He wasn't taken off guard.

He wasn't surprised by Adam and Eve falling into sin and

immediately when they fell into to sin, he his plan already was

in motion. In Genesis chapter 3 and verse

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

15, God said this. He said, and I will cause

hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring

and her offspring. He will strike your head and you

will strike his heel. We can see this plan coming to

fruition through Jesus death, burial and resurrection, right?

The devil thought that he had caused Jesus death.

It was really just a prick on his heel.

Just a little, just a little, nib, right?

But Jesus, through that death, burial in resurrection,

completely crushed Satan. All of his plans, all of his

ambitions, everything that he wanted to do, Jesus completely

destroyed it. Through that death burial in

resurrection. The prophets of the Old

Testament times glimpsed it, the angels wondered about it, and

the devil attempted to stop it many times.

But that plan was hidden, wrapped in the promise of shadow

and symbol and waiting for the right moment.

And what is that mystery? What is the mystery that that

God kept hidden, kept in shadow? It's this, that all peoples who

accept Jesus by faith would be brought into God's family.

Isn't that amazing? Not as second class members, not

just as honorary members, but as full heirs, full errors with

Christ receiving the full inheritance.

That's what we read about in Ephesians chapter 1 earlier in

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

the series, right? And this is what God wanted.

This was His plan all the time to make each and every one of us

His children and to give us everything that He has.

In Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 6, it goes on to say, and this

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

is God's plan. Both Gentiles and Jews who

believe the good news share equally in the riches inherited

by God's children. Both are part of the same body,

and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to

Christ. That's you and that's me.

You're not Jewish, you're a Gentile, right?

But we've been brought into, because of what?

Christ. And we've been brought into

what's called the New covenant, right?

You had the old covenant, and the old covenant was exclusive

to Israel, to the, to the Jewish people, right?

But through Jesus, he established a new covenant where

the rest of the world who wasn't Jewish was brought in so that we

could become full heirs of God. Isn't that amazing?

And here's the part that I think is fascinating.

I want to look again at verse 10, Visions, chapter 3 and verse

10. It says that God's purpose in

all this was to use the church to display His wisdom and it's

rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the

heavenly places. God's purpose in all this was

that through the church you and I are part of Jesus Church,

right? All of us together make up

Christ's body. Our church, the church down,

down the street, the church in the other county, we're all part

of Christ's body. But Scripture says that God uses

his church. Part of his plan is to display

what had previously been a mystery.

He's using his church to display that.

I want all of you in my family. Triumph Church is a part of

that. When we come together to to

worship, we're the display that we are Christ's body.

He's using us, this church, each and every one of us to display

this wondrous mystery. That's no longer a mystery, is

it? When we come together at Triumph

Church to to hear the word taught, we're a part of that

display. Isn't that amazing?

How many churches are there around the world?

I don't that would be probably impossible to to even count.

There's a lot of churches in some places that are that are

like underground churches. They're secret churches because

if they come out and worship openly in the in the public

square, right, they'll either be imprisoned or they'll be put to

death, right? It's hard.

It's impossible for us to be able to tell exactly how many

churches, but all of us are a display of this mystery being

revealed that we can all anyone who calls on the name of the

Lord, anyone who repents of their sin and makes Jesus Christ

their Lord. They are part of God's family

and as children in God's family, we have full access.

We talked about this last week, right?

Full access to everything of God.

He's not withholding from us. I don't withhold anything from

my children. Anything they want, anything

they need, they have full access, right?

We were in Switzerland this last week and, and you know, to just

to bless my kids, like I just bought them some things, bought

them some souvenirs, bought them some treats.

You know, I want them to be happy.

Our heavenly Father wants us to be happy.

Doesn't mean he's going to spoil us, right?

And just give us everything because sometimes that's not

good for us, is it? But the Bible says that he will

provide all of our need. Anything and everything that you

have need of you have access to through God, right?

Do you need healing in your body, right?

We just read in Isaiah 53 that by his stripes, by those, him

being whipped before he was crucified, by his stripes, you

are healed, right? That's God's promise to you.

That's part of his inheritance to you.

If you need mental healing, if you need emotional healing, if

you need finances, like whatever it is that you have need of, you

have access to that as a child of God, God wants to bless you.

Amen. The second point here is the

power that is available to you. Now, Paul starts to pray in this

portion of Scripture in verse 14, and he starts to pray in a

way that tells us something profound about what he declares

is available to us. Let's read this in Ephesians

Ephesians 3:14–19

chapter 3 verse 14 through 19. It says, when I think of all

this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator

of everything in heaven and earth, and I pray that from his

glorious unlimited resources, He will empower you with inner

strength through His Spirit. Isn't that amazing?

Let me just pull out a few keywords there for you.

All right, unlimited resources. That's our heavenly Father.

He is unlimited and as His child you have access to those

unlimited resources, right? The apostle Paul prays in verse

16, and I will pray that from his glorious unlimited resources

He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit.

And verse 17, then Christ will make His home in your hearts as

you trust in Him, and your roots will grow down into God's love

and keep you strong. And verse 18 And may you have

the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide,

how long, how high, and how deep His love is.

And verse 19 it says, And may you experience the love of

Christ, though it is too great to understand Foley and then you

will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power

that comes from God. I want you to notice something

here. Paul doesn't pray for the

Ephesians church, who he's writing this letter to, that all

of their problems would go away, does he?

He doesn't pray for better circumstances, although that

would be nice, right? It would be nice for all of our

problems to go away, for all of our circumstances to be nothing

but perfection. We would all love that, right?

But that isn't what the apostle Paul prays here.

He prays for inner strength, doesn't he?

He prays that from God's unlimited resources that we

would be empowered, empowered with inner strength through the

Holy Spirit. Paul is both praying and

revealing that you have access to strength that you need to

overcome every adversity in your life.

Whatever it is that the devil tries to throw your way, you

have been given power not just to endure that.

You've been empowered to overcome that, right?

The Bible says that we've become overcomers.

We've become conquerors more than conquerors.

It says right in 1 John chapter 4 and verse 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

It says that greater is he who is in you than he who is in the

world. You have been empowered.

The problem so many of us have is that we don't realize that

we've been empowered. We don't realize the access that

we have as children of God. And so how do a lot of people

live? They live like they're

impoverished, right? Oh, I'm so thankful for my

salvation, Lord. And then they live the rest of

their life just being beat up and knocked about by the devil,

right? But that's not how God wants us

to live. He wants us living from that

position of access in Him, right?

We don't have to live getting beat up and punched by the devil

every single day. We've been empowered.

Greater is He who is in you than He who is in the world.

Remember Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 4 in the amplified classic

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

version, it says, but God so rich is he in his mercy because

of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense

love with which he loved us. God's love for us is so big.

The apostle Paul is saying, listen, I pray that you

understand the length and the width and the breadth and the

height of God's love because it's so big, it's so vast.

You know what's really amazing here in Klain, you know, if you

go, if you lived in Dublin, you know, you'd have a lot of light

pollution, right? And you'd have a difficult time

on a clear sky. Whenever we have that on a rare

occasion, right, where you could see like all the stars.

But here in Klain, what's amazing is there's not a lot of

light in the evening time. And so when the, when the sky is

clear, when we don't have those clouds, it's like the, the, the

sky is just like beaming. You see all these amazing stars,

right? And it's so big and it's so

vast, and you're looking around and in all directions and you

can see stars like everywhere. And you're like, how big is

this? Is this place that that we live

in? Like we have this earth, but

outside of that earth, everything is so big and so

vast. Well, God's love is so much

bigger than that. It's really difficult for us to

fathom God's love, but his love for us is so big, right?

We have the love of a earthly father.

I'd lay down my life for my children, right?

Well, God's live it. Love is so much bigger and

broader than that. He laid down His life for all of

us. I love my son, but I might have

a difficult time throwing my throwing myself in front of a

bus for you, right? I'd have don't take that

personally, right? I'd have no problem doing it

for, for my son or my wife or, or either one of my daughters,

you know, but for a split second, you know, like I might

just hesitate, you know, if you were there in front of that,

that bus, because I'd be, you know, well, I'm going to be

leaving my, my wife and my children behind to, to save this

person. Am I wanting to do that, right?

I love you. I might just hesitate a second,

right? But God didn't he sent Jesus to

die for each and every one of us.

And it was his plan always before, before the Bible says in

in Ephesians chapter one there it says before all of this

creation, before this world was created, before, you know,

humanity was created, before everything in creation, God

already had a plan. And that's this mystery that's

been revealed through Jesus is that we are able to, if we will

submit our life to Jesus Lordship, that we have unlimited

access to our heavenly Father because we become children of

God. Isn't that amazing?

And then it says this in Ephesians chapter 3 and verse

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

20. Ephesians 3 and verse 20 says

now all glory to God, who was able through His mighty power at

work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we might

ask or think. I want you to understand that

His power within you is able to accomplish infinitely more than

you could possibly even think to ask in your life.

Like we have some great ideas, right?

There's a lot of great thinkers in the world, but the greatest

thinker of all humanity still pales in comparison to God's

thinking. And Paul is trying to reveal to

us here in Ephesians 320 that God is able to work through his

mighty power to accomplish infinitely more than we might

ask or think. That's the power that's living

in inside of you. If you're a born again

Christian, as Jesus said we must be in John chapter 3, then you

John 3 · chapter mention

can tap into that power in your life.

This is the same power in Ephesians chapter 1 and verses

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

19 and 20 that raised Jesus from the dead.

That's the power living inside of each of you.

You have that power living on the inside of you.

Are you a child of God? Have you made Jesus Christ your,

your Lord and Savior? You've submitted your your life

to him. If you have, then you've become

born again as Jesus said in John chapter 3, and your spirit has

John 3 · chapter mention

been recreated and connected to the heavenly Father.

And as a result of that, the Holy Spirit was given to you as

a guarantee of this inheritance. Read the first chapter of

Ephesians, right? We talked about this a number of

times. I don't even know, this is like

week 10 of our Ephesians series. We're on chapter 3.

Don't worry. We're, we're going to do chapter

4 and then chapter 5 and we've already done chapter 6 and then

we'll be be all done here. But there's still some really

good things that we need to get to in Ephesians, and I don't

want you to miss out on that. But the very same power that

raised Jesus from the dead is at work within you.

You're not a hopeless 'cause sometimes we may feel like that,

right? We have all this mess in our

lives. We have all these these things

happening. Listen, we didn't get in a mess

overnight, right? Sometimes it makes make take

some time for that power to work within us to get us out of those

messes. But there's hope, right?

Because you're a child of God, right?

If you will lean on God and not on your own, your own

understanding God is working within you.

He's working in your life to cause all these things to turn

out for your good. Amen.

My point is this, that you don't have to try to drag God into

your circumstances. Sometimes we feel like, well,

I'm not, I'm not good enough, I don't feel good enough.

You know, we try to make ourselves feel good enough

before we invite God into a circumstance and into a

situation. But the Bible says that Jesus

died for us while we were still yet sinners, right?

It's not about you. It's not about what you can do

to receive from God. It's all on Jesus.

It's all on God, and He's already done everything that

needs to be done. You don't have to drag him into

your circumstance or situation because He's already there.

Greater is He who is in you. He's right there in the middle

of all that with you. You just have to access your

heavenly Father. And that brings me to the last

point. How, how to receive from God?

How do we actually access this power that's been given to us?

How does this go from a, a beautiful prayer that the

apostle Paul is praying in this letter to a lived reality like

in your life? How do we practically access

this power from God because he seems so intangible sometimes,

right? Where is God?

Do you see Him right? Where is He right?

But he's into each of us, and His power is present in each of

our lives. Well, how do we access that in

our lives? And this goes back to the same

pattern that runs all the way through Scripture.

And we've talked about this many times before, but let's look at

Romans chapter 10 and 9:00 and 10:00, because this is the

Romans 10 · chapter mention

pattern all throughout Scripture on how we receive from God in

our life, how we access that unlimited resources.

In Romans 10/9 and 10, it says, if you openly declare that Jesus

is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from

the dead, you will be saved, right?

You're, you're aware of that Scripture, right?

I guess it's the scripture that we use all the time when we're,

when we're inviting someone to become a member of God's family,

to become born again, right? Romans 10/9 and 10 if you openly

declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God

raised him from the dead, you will be saved in verse 10.

For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right

with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you

are saved. So believe in your heart,

declare with your mouth, and receive what God has promised

you. In this case in Romans 10/9 and

10, it's that you will be saved, right?

That's what you're receiving from God.

You're receiving salvation. Well, this pattern for receiving

salvation is the exact same pattern for receiving everything

and anything from God. Everything that you have need

of. This is how you access that.

You believe it, you speak it, and then you receive it.

That's all there is to it. Receiving from God isn't

complicated. A lot of people, they spend

hours and hours and hours toiling in prayer and beating

themselves up and crying and and snotting all over their place,

trying to move God by their emotions.

But that's not how we receive from God.

It's very clear how it is that we receive from God, right?

You believe in your heart. Do you believe His promises in

His Word, right? When you come across the

Scripture like Philippians 419 And my God shall supply all my

need. I like to use this scripture

because our need can be very varied, right?

My God shall supply all my need according to His riches and

glory, those unlimited resources, right?

And He will provide all that I have need of, right?

So do you believe that? Do you believe that God is able

to provide all your need, no matter what it is, no matter how

big it is, no matter how small it is?

Do you believe that God is able to provide that need?

That's the first thing, right? Believe in your heart and then

you declare with your mouth. You have to say out loud what it

is that you're declaring, what it is that you're receiving.

If you have a promise, you know, like not just some random thing,

you know, thank you God that I'm going to win the Lotto.

The odds of you winning the Lotto is as much as you know,

one to 10 to with 157 zeros after, right?

It's silly, but you have scripture that my God shall

supply all your need. Well, maybe your ESB bill was

more than you thought it was going to be.

Well, my bank account is a little short, right?

Well, do you believe that God will supply all your need?

Well, you speak that out. Thank you, Lord, that your word

says in Philippians 419 that you shall, you shall meet all my

need according to your riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

You're declaring that out, right?

And then you're going to receive it.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, thank you, Heavenly Father, that I

receive that provision to my need, that my board, gosh, my,

my ESB bill, whatever it may be that it is paid.

I don't know how that money is going to come, whether it's just

going to appear in my bank account, whether someone's going

to give it to me, whether I'm going to get some kind of

inheritance or some puppy dog is going to walk up to my front

door with a bag full of euro. However it is, I don't care how

it is. You're going to meet my need,

Lord. I have your promise.

I believe it, you believe it, you declare it and you receive

it, right? It's that easy.

Anyone can do it. My daughter who's 8 years old,

Aveleen, can do that. I'm not going to ask who's the

oldest person in the room, but from the youngest to the oldest,

we can all do that. It's that simple.

That's how we receive from God anything and everything that we

have need of. And I know there's probably a

lot of different needs that each of us have.

And the Bible says that you can pray for one another, right?

But what I, what I endeavor to do all the time in our church is

I want to teach you how to receive from God because I'm not

around you all the time. That would be weird, right?

Pastor Bread, why you keep following me?

I'm just there just in case you need me, just in age, just in

case you need me to pray for you.

You know how you feeling? I heard you sniffling a little

bit earlier. You got a cold.

You want me to pray for you so you can receive healing from

God? No, you can do that yourselves.

Isaiah chapter 53. Thank you, Lord.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

I believe that you sent Jesus, that he took those stripes so

that I can be healed. I know that is true, Lord.

I believe your word and so I'm just speaking that out right

now, that by Christ's stripes my body is healed.

That headache that I have, that pain that I have in my body, I

just speak to that pain in Jesus name.

You have to go. You have to line up with God's

word. It's the supernatural, right?

God's word that changes our natural circumstances.

Faith isn't the denial of circumstances.

It's not the denial of of any adversity in our lives, right?

Faith is believing. I'm going to choose instead that

God supernatural can affect my natural.

The world may think that's crazy.

Even other Christians may think that's crazy, but it's God's

word, right? How did we all receive

salvation? Listen, according to a lot of

different Christian denominations in the world, that

is absolute lunacy. How do you believe that you can

have eternal life by simply believing what Christ did and

confessing him, declaring him as your Lord.

It doesn't matter what they believe.

One day when I'm in heaven, I'll say see told you so right.

Hopefully you listen to me and come along with me.

Amen. We're here some practical steps

for you on how to receive from God.

All right, I just gave some some simple demonstrations for you

there. But spend time reading God's

Word daily. You know, it's, it's hard to

believe in something if you don't even know what it is

you're to believe for, or if you don't even know what the

promises of God are. How Can you believe in those?

Sometimes our ignorance is our worst enemy.

So it's really important that we're each spending time in

God's Word every day cover to cover.

There's some great like one year study Bible plans and different

things, but it's important that we're familiar with God's

promises. That's what this Bible is.

It's God's promise to us, his redemption story to you and I.

So spend time in God's word daily and let the let that word

that you're reading the rest your thoughts and dominate your

heart. All right, but don't just stop

there. You also need to pray God's word

over your life. When you come across the

scripture like Philippians 419, pray pray that scripture over

your life. That word is going to change the

circumstances and situations in your life.

It's not a magic bullet that necessarily it's going to happen

like right away. Sometimes it might right, other

times it make may take some time, but stick with it.

You keep speaking God's word over your life and I promise you

that it will change things in your life and you need to

declare that over yourself loudly.

Once you begin to declare it as if it's yours.

And this isn't a self help. This is God's help, right?

You're inviting God into your situation and this is the

biblical way for his supernatural to alter your

natural circumstances. And then the final thing is

expect more, right? Sometimes our, our thinking,

our, our expectations is just so minimal.

You know, sure, this is good enough and this will be just

fine. Like that's our attitude, right?

You know, I can, I can deal with this.

If God can just do this, I'll be OK.

But that's not what God wants to do, right?

In verse 20, we read His promise that God is able to do

infinitely more than you ask or think, right?

So stop limiting your expectation to what you can

figure out on your own. The Bible says cast your care

upon the Lord because He cares for you, right?

You can't figure out a lot of things in your life most of the

time, and even if you are able to figure it out, you're just

figuring it out to a point where it's just met.

But God wants to do infinitely above and beyond what you can

think or even imagine, right? So let God think bigger, let

your expectations be bigger. Believe big and pray big.

Can you do that? So I'm going to close with this.

Don't settle for a small version of the life God has called you

to. Don't settle.

This world will try to get you to settle.

Well, fine. You can have this.

Just be quiet, all right? Sit still.

Just be OK here. Don't rock the boat.

Right? Well, listen, I didn't move to

Ireland. I didn't uproot my family from

America to follow the plan and call of God to Ireland to just

be still. I'm OK rocking the boat, right?

I'm OK pushing the boundaries with God's Word, right?

Because God's culture supersedes any other culture.

We have a lot of different cultures in this in this room.

We represent a lot of different nationalities, right?

And those nationalities are great and those nationalities

are beautiful. And the culture within those are

beautiful. God developed those things, but

where that culture causes a friction between God's culture

and, and the other culture, while we're we need to go with

God's culture every time, right? Because that's where the

heavenly Father is. That's where the where the

blessing is. That's where the windows of

heaven are opened is within God's culture.

God loves all cultures. He's the one that created those

cultures. But there's part of every

culture that the devil have tried to put things in there to

try to impede people from receiving these things from God.

So don't settle for a small version of the life that God has

called you to. You've been rooted in love.

You've been filled with power. Now you need to believe it.

Now you need to speak it, and now you need to walk in it.

Amen. Let's all close our eyes and bow

our heads. Now I want us to pray.

Pray this all together and declare this over our lives.

Dear Heavenly Father, I believe you have a plan for my life.

I believe I am fully included in your family.

I receive your love into my heart right now.

Holy Spirit strengthen me from the inside out and I declare

that Christ is at home in my heart and I believe you are

doing more in my life than I can ask or even imagine.

In Jesus name, Amen. Thank you for listening to the

Triumph Church podcast this week.

If it was a blessing to you, share it with someone you know.

For more information on Triumph Church, you can visit us at

www.triumphchurch.ie.