The Prince of Demons

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So In December of 2015, I scoured the Internet to find the largest to lead that's ever been made. Found it. Don't remember where I found it, but I found it. We still need, like, three more. So, you know, that's a good problem to have.

Shabbat shalom to you all. Thank you, Mason. I love Mason. You know why I love Mason is because Mason is in it to win it. Every time I see him, whether it's Sukkot, whether it's whatever.

Like, he heard Cam give him an open door to be a little Pentecostal with a good word sermon, and he just. He set up tents and houses and everything in that entryway. And I love it. I absolutely love it. And so this was a very interesting week for me.

You know, we as a church are getting ready to go into our 11th year, and you would think a church in their 11th year, we might own something more than an iPad or a 2018 MacBook Air, but we don't. We've always rented. And as we have rented, most of the facilities have it look like this. Some of you were with us in the time where we would show up on Saturday mornings, and there was no lights. And I'm not talking about, like, there wasn't these really fancy, expensive lights that are in this facility.

I'm talking about literally there was no lights. And we were running to grab whatever. Construction lights, whatever, like, lampstands, whatever we could. It didn't matter whether it was Jewish or Christian. It didn't matter whether it was an antique lampstand.

We were just trying to put light into a sanctuary in order to do it. And this week, through all of the. Try to catch up from Sukkot and the counseling meetings and all the things that are happening, but also trying to be mindful of the deadline that we have to find another facility, we started to tour some facilities around the Moore Norman area. And Vicki Zinker is a real estate agent, and so she took us and. Super excited.

I can look at the dirtiest, dungiest, nastiest space in the world, and I can turn it in my brain. I can turn it into this, like, Chip and Joanna Gaines thing. Oh, wait, they got canceled. So the lady out of Colorado. Oh, she got canceled.

Okay. Anybody on HGTV who hasn't gotten canceled yet? I can turn it into that type of an atmosphere. It's one of the things I love to do. It's a hobby I have.

But when I started to look at what the cost per month would be for a facility that was literally just big enough for what we have today, just in the room, and we're missing some families. Families are out sick and stuff like that. I was shocked at how many of you I'm going to have to sell.

So it was encouraging on one hand, because you get to see these things and you get to visualize and you get to dream about, and then I get to kind of put reports together and go back to the elders and we get to have conversations. But then it was also discouraging to say, like, oh, I could literally build a church building for $1.5 million for less than I'm going to pay for the mice to join us for. So. But the Lord is faithful. He literally has always been faithful to this church, and I know he will be.

And so today we're going to fix our eyes on Jesus and do the one thing that we actually can do, which is study the word of God and have some fellowship with each other. So before we do that, let's go ahead and bow our heads in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that the Holy Spirit, your spirit, Jesus, which is in this room right now, Lord, that it would permeate every heart and every mind that you would take off the scales of this week. You would take off the things, whether it's from work or in our marriages, in our relationships, or the things we saw on television or the fear we had over Reese's bars or all the other things that might have been there, Lord, that you would remove them and you would fill us with your spirit today, that we would encounter you. We would have your word revealed in us, Lord, and that you would work to do what your word says, your spirit does, which is to draw us closer to.

And so we love you. We thank you in the name of Yeshua. Amen and Amen. This week, we're going to be in Matthew, chapter 10, verses 24 through 31. So if you have your Bible apps, if you actually have a legit Bible, go ahead, start getting there.

I'm going to kind of recap last week where we were at. And we're only a couple more weeks until the Matthew chapter 10 Kingdom in action series is done. And so Cam is actually going to be finishing that off on the 15th. I have one more sermon next week, and then Cam will start into the Kingdom Messiah series, which is about John the Baptist being imprisoned. And it talks about kind of the understanding of the Torah and the prophets and helps us put the lens of how the entire Bible flows together.

Because, you know, I heard a long Time ago. You know, there's that one page in the Bible that's the uninspired page that shouldn't be there. And that's the page that separates the Old and New Testament. And so I'm not necessarily going to call it uninspired myself, but part of our church's goal is to interweave the story of creation to new creation. And there's a lot of stories and a lot of stops and a lot of adjustments along that way.

And so our goal is not to get you caught on the mountain with Noah. It's not to get you caught on the mountain with Moses. And it's not even to leave you sitting at the mountain for the sermon on the mountain with Jesus. Because ultimately we know that Jesus came down. He.

He puts the kingdom sermon in action, and then he gives us the Holy Spirit so that we can do what? One, go into the world and make disciples. Two, go into the world and preach the gospel that Jesus Christ has come and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. That is where we've kind of been the last couple of weeks in chapter 10. The kingdom of God is at hand.

What does that look like? Last week, Jesus had warned his apprentices of the cost of the kingdom mission. That your family may betray you, your religion may reject you. Nobody in his room has ever had their religion reject them. Right.

You know, am I the only one? My family's the only one. Okay, okay. All right. We can talk to each other.

It's okay. You didn't come here to sit down in a class with taking notes from Rabbi Frankie. There is no such person. So let's talk together. The world will oppose you.

Yet his charge was clear. We're to use wisdom, we're to shake off the rejection, and we're to stay on mission. This is one of the hardest things. I don't care where you're at in your journey with Christ. Staying on mission, Everything in life is a distraction.

Everything in life is something to hold you away from the kingdom mission. And we actually do a really good job of Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. You should be in the prayer time before a service. Like, literally. It's like there's a thousand squirrels in a little 8 by 8 room.

We're constantly going left and right. We need to stay on mission, shake off rejection and use wisdom. Because the same God who sends you will sustain you. Now Jesus continues his training, and he removes any illusion of ease. Jesus goes to extensive terminology in the Gospel of Matthew to make sure you understand not only that he's God, but that if you believe he's God, there's a good chance that your life is going to suck at some point in time.

Like, it's not all roses. It's not like we just signed up and we got free too. We got tickets to the OKC Thunder game. Something like. It's the opposite.

It's, if you love this life, you will lose it. If you love me, I will give you life. The juxtaposition or my height. 6, 7. The heavens are constantly and consistently praising God without ceasing.

And as we Continue through Matthew 8:10, there's a glaring irony that continues to manifest in this world. It's a glaring irony. It actually hit me last Sunday night like a wave, like a tidal wave. Carrie Jobe was in town. The Zinkers had asked if I wanted to go to the concert.

And I took Two of my daughters, went with the Zinkers, went with Amy and Daniel and Dr. Deb and all of them. And Kerry Jobe and Cody Carnes are singing the Revelation song. And in the minute of the Revelation song, it hit me like a ton of bricks. There is an irony of what we see in this world. The heavens are consistently and constantly praising Jesus.

And yet what we continuously see in Matthew and we experience around us is that humanity is constantly and consistently doubting Jesus, belittling Jesus and accusing him of horrible things.

Why do we need more than the Torah? Because humanity with the Torah is belittling, doubting, not understanding who Jesus is. We need the heavens, who has no doubt who is on the throne, to come to this earth so that we can stop doing what humanity does and we can join with what eternity does. Praising the only one who is worthy. The only one who is worthy.

The entirety of the Bible is inviting us to choose the power of heaven while humans consistently choose the constraints of hell. And we could say, well, no, we're not in partnership with darkness. When we believe that God can't do something that His Word says he can do, when we believe that God isn't doing something that His Word says He's doing, then we are choosing the constraints of hell, which is what this world is all bound up in, over the power of heaven. And Jesus turns tombs into testimonies. And so today we're going to start in 24 and 25.

Students are not greater than their teachers, and slaves are not greater than their masters. Students are to be like their teacher and slaves are to be like their master. Since I, the master of the household, have been called the Prince of Demons, the members of my household will be called even worse names. Guys, this is more than an org chart. This is not Jesus saying, because you happen to be a student.

That's not what he's doing. He's not saying, well, if you're a student and after three years you can level up to the assistant manager and then you can become the assistant to the regional manager, then you can become the assistant to the assistant of the regional manager and then at some point in time you might become the regional manager in a spin off in England. That's not what he's saying here. This is not about an org chart. It's more than that.

It's about who's the leader and who's not. The Bible says that Jesus was a teacher. It also says that Jesus Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the ruach hakodesh is the teacher. And yet we got a lot of people who love Hebrew things who are running around talking about how we're the teachers, we are instructors who should also be instructed. I've said many times before, show me a man who doesn't have other men over top of him, who doesn't have a head.

And if you find that person, I don't care how holy or righteous they say you should flee from that person because if that person is not a student to another teacher, then he is the only teacher. And the Bible says that Jesus and the spirit of Jesus are the only teachers. Now again, when we like to look at org charts on both sides of what is healthy, some people are like, well, this is why I don't need to be a part of a church. And this is why I don't need to be a part of a community because the Holy Spirit is the only teacher. Well, okay, let's take the Bible in balance here.

God would not have spent 21 books, roughly 21 books in the Gospels in the New Testament talking about the structure of a church and what is a healthy structure of a church so that it could do what? What is a church's goal? By the scripture, the church is commanded to do two things, to make disciples. I'm not here to make you like me to make you disciples of Christ and to go reach the lost.

So there's a function for what? This is what the Holy Spirit is trying to get you to do. The Holy Spirit is trying to get you to one into a place that is safe for discipleship, that's free from the mental, emotional, spiritual manipulation and abuse that happens and runs rampant all over the place. The Holy Spirit is also to get you Closer to God. This is why having prayer time, this is why doing worship, this is why forcing yourself out of things that aren't necessarily easy for you and they're different for every person in this room.

This is why it's important. But you should have the expectation that if they called him the prince of demons and he was the head of the household, then you are going to be called a lot worse.

A lot worse.

You see, here we're faced with, in this terminology here, we're faced with a Bible that's written in Greek. At that time, before Jesus time, the Bible had been translated into Greek in what is known as the Septuagint. Why was this done? Because Judaism and Jews were not isolated in the land of Israel anymore. On top of that, they weren't speaking Hebrew.

Traditionally, there was an element of that, but the language they would speak would be Aramaic. And there was a kind of a distancing and a growth that was happening regionally. And so Jews were already in different areas that spoke Greek. Greek was a huge language. And so we see here, we see something very different.

But it also implies back to the ancient the word for student is Talmudim comes from Talmud. Talmud, not Talmud. Talmid, not Talmud. It's the plural of Talmud. And it's used for the Hebrew concept of discipleship.

This is far more than a student to a teacher. You should have the expectation that this is what we would be very uncomfortable with today.

This is doing life with each other. This is not me just teaching you how to read Hebrew. This is not just me teaching you how to read Greek. This is not me just teaching you how to do this. This is me doing life with you.

People are like, oh, Pastor, I don't want to talk about my finances. I don't want to talk about what I buy at Costco. I don't want to talk about all those things. This is exactly what the Hebrew concept of discipleship would be. This is why I love the term apprenticeship, because it is something that you're doing life with each other.

And it's more than just, hey, buy my book off the website, read it, and go teach others how to do it. That's actually more of a Greek concept of apprenticeship and discipleship. And that comes from, obviously, it's a completely different society at that point in time. The Jews are somewhat scattered, even though there is a hotbed of them in Israel proper. When the nation of Israel was functioning as it should, being apprenticed was a lot easier to do.

If you think back, for those of you who are older in the room. If you think back to the 50s, before the world started getting crazy and all these other things, even though the world's been crazy, you could go and you could send a 16 year old to an automotive shop and they could learn in the afternoons how to be apprenticed on how to do oil changes, how to do trades, how to do these things. And you didn't have to worry about whether they were going to be monsters who harmed them or any of that. Nowadays you can almost do nothing because you're afraid of what somebody might actually do. But this was the form of Hebrew apprenticeship.

You did life with each other, not just a classroom. And so I want us to think about the differences between the Greek concept of more classroom teaching and the Hebrew concept. Because even though this is written in Greek, it is written to individuals who would have absolutely understood the Hebraic lens of life. So Jesus reframes this mission in a single truth that discipleship isn't classroom learning on its own. It's imitation.

Apprentices aren't called to be greater, they're called to be like their teacher. So what does that mean for what Jesus is implying here? If we profess that Jesus is our Lord and that we have come under the kingdom of God with Jesus as our king, then Jesus is our teacher. The spirit of Jesus is our teacher. And our job is to imitate him, his character, his nature, and possibly even his hair length.

This means we're to walk under his authority. And it also means that when you have the authority of the king, you share the adversity of the king. It's to partner in the power and it means to endure in his persecution. You know, a lot of times we'll say like we see the power of God is at hand. We talked about cleanse the leper, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons.

This is how you know the kingdom of heaven is manifested in your presence. But at the same point in time, we're like, well, what are we gonna do with the persecution that comes? What are we gonna do when somebody gets sideways? Somebody doesn't accept Jesus, somebody doesn't accept your testimony, and they come after you. We don't like persecution.

21st century middle America, we are not persecuted people. We don't like it. But we can't have the power without sharing in the persecution of our king. If the son of God, the king of heaven, was called the prince of demons, what makes you think that they will have grandiose testimony about you, his apprentices, if you aren't Having people challenge you. Then I would ask, did you get off the couch?

Did you engage in the mission, or are we just talking about it? Because that is something that is very popular today. I remember the time before there was MySpace and social media and these things where in order to dialogue with somebody, you actually had to do something. You had to pick up the phone and you had to make sure if you spun it the wrong way one time it was done. You had to hang up and start all over again.

That's how old I am. I know you don't believe it. Thank you. Thank you. But that's how old I am.

I remember thinking it was so cool when my dad had a bag phone that was like this big in his Cadillac and he would carry it around like this. And it's like it was the original man person. I thought it was so cool.

You had to do something. Now you don't really have to do anything. We can converse about anything we want by just going online. We can just go online and we can just.

I understand. I'm a hypocrite too. I get it.

Before you had to engage in the mission, you had to get off your butt. You had to go do something. But yet notice Jesus here in 24 and 25 when we talk about this. Students are not greater than their teachers. That's one.

A slave is not greater than its master. That's two. Students are to be like their teacher. Slaves are to be like their master. But I, as the master of the household, that's three.

There's different, three different contexts in this statement. One is educational, one is occupational, and one is familial. All my Hebrew loving individuals in the room, my feast loving people, we spend a lot of time in the educational. Where we came from was a lot of educational. Meanwhile, the occupational and the familial are all absolutely devastated, falling apart.

There's a reason why Jesus Yeshua says these things. It's not because one of them is better than the other. It's because all are necessary to apprentice underneath him. And we should have no expectation that those areas of our life are not going to need to change and be with him in his kingdom.

Learning, doing and being. The religious elite could not deny his miracles. But they refused to surrender to their pride. I want it that way. The Pharisees were the first Backstreet Boys when it came to, how do we keep this commandment?

They were like, I want it that way. And then all of a sudden, John's disciples come in and they're like, tell Me, Why? And they're like, nope, good thing Joy is free of the spirit.

Because they refused their pride. They could not surrender it. They refused to acknowledge what Jesus was doing. These were the people who knew guys.

So what did they do? They slandered what they couldn't control this. When we go through Matthew, we cannot look at this as some sort of historical event and act like this was then, not now. This is absolutely what's happening now.

They slandered what they couldn't control. When heaven's power manifests through a human vessel, they couldn't take it.

The ones that were still chained by the religious leaders of that day. And so what did they do? They called it demonic.

In all the years of doing marriage counseling with my wife and I, we find this same thing in practice in most people's life, and they don't even know it now. Most people aren't calling their spouse demonic. That's not a normal thing. But when we can't figure out how to get on the same page, if we're husbands and wives or we're friends or whatever, what traditionally happens, we give threats or we make statements out of our mouth, ones that hopefully in the future we would regret and we would want to take back. Because a lot of times it's actually mental abuse, it's verbal abuse.

But what happens when we say it? Well, after a while, the spouse or the person no longer. They don't accept that anymore. And so we have to elevate it. And we have to elevate.

And we have to elevate it. Well, the Pharisees started with Jesus and they started questioning what he was doing. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. They were doing this so that they could verify with the word of God that he was the living word of God. I'm going to give them a benefit of the doubt to say that they weren't immediately against Jesus, that they were doing what their job was, which was to verify.

But at some point in time, there is so many miracles, so many signs, so many fulfillments of the Torah and the prophets for this Mashiach in front of them, that they then make the decision that we can't humble up. And so what? They elevate. And now it's not that we're not sure if he is or why do you do this? You're demonic.

Because what's. What's more evil? What's the. They can't say anything more evil than him. He's claiming to be life.

And they're Saying he's death. He's claiming to be righteous by his actions, not by his words. He's not calling himself those, and they're saying he's not. But rather than just saying, well, this is a rabbi we don't believe in, they've elevated and escalated because the questions and the statements before didn't work. And so now they're to a place where they have to just demonize his character.

And again, the irony of that situation is when Jesus is faced with the religious leadership and the religious leadership is calling him a demon, narcissists normally tell you what they're already wrestling with.

When heaven's power manifests through these human vessels, the chains put onto them by humanity have to be removed because Jesus is the one who can break the chains. And when heaven moves through you, hell will always have an opinion. It will always have an opinion. Do you think that the adversary who has limited resources out there is sitting around waiting for you to play Call of Duty? He doesn't care.

But the moment you make a proclamation, you're going to end generational trauma. The moment you make a proclamation that you're going to do something in your life, you're going to create a habit in your household that's going to make Jesus known in this area of your life, you're putting yourself on the map. And in the moment you put yourself on the map, the adversary takes note of that because he doesn't have to take note of the people who are doing nothing.

When you make a decision that it stops with me, and we're going to try something different because Jesus isn't showing up in this space. The adversary gets noticed. And what's he going to do? He's going to try to derail you. Because humanity has a really, really long track record of derailing ourselves, actually pretty easily.

It's over one piece of fruit. My kids can't even eat the chicken we make. So we're in serious trouble. Humanity and food, we're already down the pike.

When hell has an opinion, when heaven's trying to move through you, you should expect it. You don't break from the mission. You don't change your eyes to the adversary. You don't retaliate. You don't prove them right by losing your peace.

Remember, priests, peace is, is a part of the Holy Spirit in you. They're insults or receipts of your resemblance of Christ.

It's the adversary who is talking in your ear, saying you're not worthy. Remember that thing you did when you were 18? God hasn't forgiven you. Remember, this is the garden. And here Jesus is saying, when it talks, remember who I am.

When they talk, remember who I am. Don't lose sight of it. Just like last week when it said, dust off the dirt off your feet and go to the next field. Not because that field is condemned to hell, but because your mission is for another place at this time. Remember, the student is not greater than the Teacher.

We will never be equal to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus. Don't allow them to live rent free in your mind. You have to let your mind be renewed by the Holy Spirit. Because it's not rejection, it's another assignment.

He says in verse 28, don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body, for they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God who can destroy both the soul and the body in hell. Jesus isn't hiding the cost of the mission.

Parents. In this room, we're not talking about learning how to evangelize and go out into the world. We're talking about how do you do bible studies with five kids under 10. It is chaos.

It's like the blanket time at Toddlers never worked. It's a lot. And so even in these areas, there is a cost. There's a cost to trying to get on mission with Jesus. The cost today might have benefit in the future.

What you reap and sow today, you will reap in the future. Do hard things now. He doesn't hide the cost, but he absolutely crushes the fear. Do not fear the blade that can cut your flesh. Fear God, whose commands are eternal.

The rulers of this world are temporary. Their courts, their threats, their persecution. They all have an expiration date. And we spend so much time as humans worried about that. And then putting Jesus in, it's kind of like making dinner and then going to get the salt.

The salt just happens to be Jesus. I made dinner. Now I need a little Jesus in there. Jesus is supposed to be there and there should be just a little bit of like, we're trying to work out the world. It's not the other way around.

The kingdom of heaven is eternal. It's unstoppable and it's unshakeable. And this is what we're called into with Jesus is to bring the kingdom of heaven to the kingdom of earth. Fear is the silent assassin of a kingdom on mission. Fear is rejection, fear of failure, fear of being misunderstood.

Fear paralyzes the modern church more effectively than any worldly whip. And it cooperates with the devil's mission to leave Us, harassed and helpless. You weren't called to be light, you were called to be alike. True love comes with undeniable transformation. And God is inviting his apprentices into the reality of what this is going to look like.

Because otherwise, how many of us would sign up? I would sign up for a free gym membership for an entire year if I knew I didn't ever have to go lift the weight.

There's something in the Kingdom of God that's different. It is going to cost you everything. And he is going to replace all things.

Remember, this all started off, these warnings all started off with, don't bring your bags, don't bring your extra sandals. Don't bring your extra staff, don't bring your extra things. Full commitment, full trust for the kingdom mission. You weren't chosen to be safe. God is inviting you to be sent.

And fear paralyzes more apprentices than persecution ever will.

In my life I have met thousands and thousands of people out of those thousands and thousands of people that my wife and I have done life with. And it's various degrees. Some of it is like from afar, some of it is intimate in relationship.

Very few of those people are still here. Very few of those people are still engaged. If you fear rejection more than you fear the calling of the Lord in the kingdom, then sit on the sidelines because you will be rejected. You will be talked negatively about. They will persecute you, but they cannot harm you.

Sometimes what they say is true and it's an area that needs to be revealed inside each and every one of our own heart to grow more like God. In 29 through 31, he continues, he says, what is the price of two sparrows? One copper coin, man, His Bible didn't grow a little bit. I heard we're doing away with pennies. The price of two sparrows was one copper coin.

Not a single sparrow falls to the ground without your father knowing it. The very hairs on your head, even all of the ones I have, are all numbered. So don't be afraid. You are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Jesus dismantles the world's economical system.

You know what is worth what you know? See, to us, a sparrow is cheap. It's disposable. Not exactly the prettiest of birds. Like, I'm not necessarily a bird watcher, but like, if I'm sitting around, like, I want to see an oriole, I want to see a blue jay.

Even though they're mean, they're pretty. Look at the sparrow. It's like this tall little tiny thing. But to God they're noticed. To God they're known something we might look over top of.

God says he knows all if he pays attention to something that we would overlook. How much more does he care for you?

If he's going to pay attention to the bird that we wouldn't pay attention to, then how much more does he care about you?

Some of us are walking around, coming to church with our party of five with our guilt, shame and condemnation, not wanting to get on a mission because we feel like we're not worthy of something. And we're like, oh God doesn't. God doesn't see me. He doesn't know me. He knows the sparrow.

So I promise he knows you.

Sometimes the problem is not that you don't trust God, it's that you don't fear God. And I'm not talking about like fear the way that you know, my kids did when I threatened to spank them. An awe reverence of Him.

There is nothing in the scripture that carries the awe and the reverence that like God, no temple, no tabernacle, no anything is the same as the awe of God in the flesh. Emmanuel, we are his image bearers. We are invited to be apprentices of him. We are invited to be ambassadors to speak on behalf of his kingdom. If he knows a sparrow, I can promise you he knows you.

The religious system of Jesus day had valued status, pedigree and ritual. Yet Jesus comes and flips this entire system upside down. What men had called insignificant, Jesus is telling them is precious woe to us who got to a place where we would come together on the Sabbath and we would midrash while throwing our children in another room. Maybe we should have let our children be the one who taught us what we see as insignificant God sees as important. If God tracks the flight of a sparrow, he's not going to lose sight of you.

And some of you came in this room today in really really hard places. God knew you before you walked through the door and God still sees you right here. And God has been with you out there and God is still with you right now.

If he numbers your hair, he can absolutely take care of your hardships. So why can't you give it to him?

This is the kingdom drawing near. Cleanse the leper, raise the dead, cast out demon.

And yet you got a hundred dollar shortfall on your finances this month. And you're like, oh God, God's out of the ability to take care of me. I hate to break it to you Cleansing lepers was something they never thought they would see. You finding $100 in your savings account or in a gift card or something like minuscule in the grand scheme of things. So we don't trust him with that.

But we can pray for a child to be healed for chemistry.

This church has seen something that the medical journals said was less than 1% could happen. We saw it not only happen, but it's a beautiful little girl who runs around here every single month.

We saw PET scans that had 17 to 18 cancer tumors inside this body. And when they cut them open, they went to remove and started to do surgery. There wasn't a single one.

But some of you came in today with burdens that are small in manner, but they feel heavy on your shoulders and you're not willing to give them to God. This is the kingdom of God, that he will come manifest in your presence and raise us up to what? Testify that there is only one way paralyzed. Christianity is a partnership with fear.

And the Bible makes it abundantly clear you only fear the Lord. It agrees with the lies of the adversary instead of the promises with the king. There's a lot of people in this room who hear, I'm never going to get over that addiction I had 10 years ago. I'm never going to get out of this place. I'm never going to do this.

I'm never going to do this. Don't listen. Don't listen to the adversary. Because once the adversary starts in an oppression and you decide that I'm going to cooperate with that testimony, you are operating with the wrong spirit. What about listening to the promises of the king?

You're a son. You're a daughter. You've passed from death to life. There was no other way. You passed from death to life.

I loved you so much that I sent my son so that you could pass from death to life even while we were yet sinners. Well, I got to clean it up. I got to get better for God, and then he can meet me there. I got to clean up my life before I can turn back to church. Listen to the promises of the king rather than the lies of the adversary.

Fear says I'm unworthy, and faith says that he makes you worthy. He is the one who is worthy.

Fear says I'll fail. And faith says if he sent me, he'll take care of the rest.

I struggled for a long time early in ministry because I had this unquenchable conversation in my head of am I right? Am I wrong? Am I right? Am I wrong? Because I had so much faith in those moments that if God told me to go do something, that there was no way I could fail.

And some said, oh, well, that's pride and that's ego. And, you know, there may have been some of that in there, but I absolutely believed when I prayed and I sought counsel and God told me, do this, that there was no way I could fail. Kind of like David when David went out and God had told him to do it. There was no way David was coming back without the victory. And it wasn't because David did the right thing or David was smart, or David hit the right pressure point on the temple.

He. It was because God sent him to do something and because he said yes to God. God was not going to fail. Had nothing to do with David, and David's strength had nothing to do with me and my strength. It had to do when I believed God sent me.

There was no way he wasn't going to take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.

What we call insignificant, heaven calls essential to the mission. Paralyzed Christianity is not what Jesus has called us for. He's called us for mobilized Christianity. And he goes even further by offering us the power of his spirit to help with the full mobilization. So the question is, what fear have you come into agreement with that keeps you from living out the calling on your life?

What lies have you believed that tell you that your voice, your obedience, and your mission doesn't matter? The only healthy fear is the fear of the Lord. Worship team, you can come back. The only reverence that restores us in right standing is the reverence to the kingdom of heaven, and that is through the King of Heaven.

Unlike all the corrupt kings of Israel, this king empowered his people. He doesn't rule through manipulation, intimidation, oppression. He rules in the only way God can, in the indwelling.

He gives his spirit to dwell within us so that the mission can continue through us. And he doesn't leave his people harassed and helpless. He will transform even the smallest, most insignificant things into the most unstoppable.

The kingdom mission is not safe.

No safe space here, but it is secure. It's not comfortable, but it's covered. You'll be called names, you'll be misunderstood, and you'll be opposed. But heaven will call you faithful. As apprentices of Jesus, you must choose fight over flight.

When what attacks you today in your life will become your testimony of freedom tomorrow, if you will allow Jesus.

And when fear whispers, you're not good enough, remember the king who numbered the hairs on your head. Already counted you as worthy. The kingdom of heaven is not for the passive. It's for the fearless.

And while many are walking around trying to figure out how to be meek like lambs, Jesus is telling his apprentices, there's going to come a time where you're going to have to be bold as lions.

I've lived 43 years on this earth, so I am a baby.

This month.

The world wants you to focus on the political landscape and the infighting between two parties in our government. But there's going to be 42 million people, regardless of what your political stance is, who are losing a portion of the food money that they have every single month. I don't care what your political stance is on that. I think it's irrelevant for us to argue over the synopsis of whether they should be honored or not be honored or all that. But what is here is there's an opportunity for us to be Jesus to somebody.

This is just one small way. The Dorsey family is going through childhood cancer. The Horner family is going through childhood cancer. Mark Jeffries is having back surgery this week. There's marriages that are struggling.

There's all these other things out there, and we can get so focused on, on all of these spirals and these things that are there. Or we can just remember that if we put one foot in front of the other on the mission of Christ, he will take care of it. Why? Because the church is where he called us to come together so that we could impact households in our community. And not only through discipleship, but through the testimony of Jesus.

What good is it if we come in here on Saturdays and we talk about Jesus and we talk about these lenses and these flavors and all of these things. But if we don't actually practice to be the hands and feet of Jesus, what we see is insignificant, Heaven sees as essential.

And until the government steps up, if they step up, if you're in this church and you lost your SNAP benefits, we want to be Jesus in the smallest little way. You come find me, come find one of the elders, and we're going to step up, and we're going to take care of that.

If you're in this church and you say, chris, my money is fine, but my marriage is struggling, I know a name that can help you overcome that. If you're in this room and you say, hey, Chris, I'm struggling because I don't really understand how Jesus is lord of my life, or I understand he should be lord of my life, but he isn't, then. Then we need to talk. Because I know a name.

It doesn't matter what they say about you or what they say about me, because in the end, they can tarnish my name. But I know a name that cannot be tarnished. I know a name that throughout Genesis to Revelation, did things that all of us wish that we could see on a regular basis. Just a glimpse of that. But that's the kingdom of heaven.

That's near. That's here. I can't heal you. I literally can't heal you. But I know a name.

I can't help you get out of debt. But I know a name because he's the one who stewards everything. He stewards life. He stewards finances. He stewards its health.

I can't heal cancer, but I know a name. I definitely can't put backs back together, But I know a name. I can't. I can't help you heal from verbal abuse in a marriage. But I know a name.

Paralyzed Christianity is not the kingdom of heaven. Near powerless Christianity is not the kingdom of Heaven. Here, the kingdom of heaven breaks off chains.

It restores life in every area where there is death. And it invites you into one of the hardest things you will ever do, which is to choose a kingdom that we don't always see over. The kingdom that we see in front of us, it's the same invitation. Are we choosing the knowledge of good and evil that we can currently see around us? Are we choosing the Tree of Life?

I know a name.

I know a name who gave me children when the doctor said we couldn't have children. I know a name who helped pay my mortgage for years when I served in this church and didn't make a salary at all. I've seen God restore things when religious leaders had taken them from me. I saw him restore them. And not only restore them, he restored them with an upgrade in less than a year.

Things I don't understand. So it's not just cancers. It's not just these big radio things. I've seen God do all kinds of things, and the mission has been hard, and it will continue to be hard. And in the end, I don't care.

Because I know a name who can take it all away. Because it's eternal. So if there's a little bit of trial in here, you know, if I. You know, it's kind of like when you go to the gym, you wake up in the morning, sometimes in your little sore, or sometimes when you get in your 40s, you just sleep the wrong way and you wake up a little sore. Sooner or later that ceases.

And the kingdom of heaven is the only thing that exists in front of us. Can we take a little bit of pain for a whole lot of reward?

This is the invitation that we're reading in. Matthew, get off your butts, get engaged because the king's here. Stand with me and let's respond.