The Prayer of Kings

Pastor Mike Connell

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Copyright 2012 Mike Connell Ministries

http://mikeconnellministries.com

The Prayer of Kings (2 sermons)

The Prayer of Kings (1 of 2) No matter what I've gone through, no matter how hard it is, I know this; my life is in God's hands. I know that God is about His business of bringing me into my destiny, and I know whatever He dished up, whatever came my way, whatever troubles I had, whatever pain I had, whatever setbacks I had, he said it is working for me. It is helping me to grow into the fullness of what God wants me to be. It's bringing about in my life an increasing knowledge of Christ, an increasing awareness of His power, and His anointing in my life. That's a fantastic attitude to have isn't it aye? That's a faith attitude! That's the attitude of a king. It's a positive attitude based on the word of God.

The Prayer of Kings (2 of 2) How many know you're royalty, you're born into a royal family? When you and I give our lives to Jesus Christ, God puts His own spirit and DNA into us. We become changed on the inside through experiencing Christ. We become royalty, part of a kingly family, and of course we need to keep remembering who we are. That's why he keeps saying here you are, you are chosen, you're a generation chosen by God. You're not a nobody, a nothing. No matter what happened last year, no matter what struggles you had, what pressures, what difficulties, what challenges, today is a new day for God's chosen people. Today and this year is a year for great things for you. I can tell you for certain as you start this year, God has great things ahead for you. He has great things ahead for us. Whether they come about, of course, relies on us making good decisions, and connecting with Him.

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The Prayer of Kings (1 of 2)

Sun 26 Dec 2010  « Back to Top

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No matter what I've gone through, no matter how hard it is, I know this; my life is in God's hands. I know that God is about His business of bringing me into my destiny, and I know whatever He dished up, whatever came my way, whatever troubles I had, whatever pain I had, whatever setbacks I had, he said it is working for me. It is helping me to grow into the fullness of what God wants me to be. It's bringing about in my life an increasing knowledge of Christ, an increasing awareness of His power, and His anointing in my life. That's a fantastic attitude to have isn't it aye? That's a faith attitude! That's the attitude of a king. It's a positive attitude based on the word of God.

I want to share something called The Prayer of Kings. It's a prayer I want to put in your heart, that as you exit this year it'll be something that you'll begin to pray, and I'd love you just during the holidays to begin to get this prayer in your heart, a very simple prayer but it's a prayer concerning your coming year and concerning your future.

How many have found this last year a bit of a challenge aye? How many had some personal challenges? Yeah, they weren't very welcome were they, however the Bible says to welcome them as friends. I want to read you a scripture before we get started, then we'll read. In 2 Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verses 16 through to 18. It says: therefore we do not lose heart. How about that? See, we don't lose heart - in spite of any kind of difficulties. Now Paul is writing after having one of the most difficult ministry seasons in his life. He was under tremendous pressure. He felt resistance from everywhere, people had abandoned him, and he stood alone in Asia against all kinds of demonic powers, and all kinds of opposition and resistance. Yet having talked about how bad it is, then he ends up incredibly positively, and he doesn't deny that there were difficulties.

He said: I was so pressed down, I thought I was going to die. Now that's the apostle Paul saying he's had a bad time. He said he was so pressed down he was - this is what he says now. He says: but we don't lose heart! Even though the outward man is perishing, the inward man is renewed day by day. In other words he's saying: I might have gone through some difficulties. I had a couple of boats I took, and they sank unexpectedly. I spent two or three days in the water, treading water, holding onto driftwood. He said even though it was a bit hard, and my outer man got a bit of a bashing, he said nevertheless, I am stronger as a result of those things, than I was before. How about that? That's not a wimpy kind of response to life is it?

I hear so many people, and they go through troubles, and they get full of self pity. You can either be full of self pity, or full of faith. Here's where you get your faith. Look at this, look what it says here. It says: this light affliction which works is just for a moment, so he said: what I've gone through is only temporary. He says: it's working a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Now what he's saying is: no matter what I've gone through, no matter how hard it is, I know this; my life is in God's hands. I know that God is about His business of bringing me into my destiny, and I know whatever He dished up, whatever came my way, whatever troubles I had, whatever pain I had, whatever setbacks I had, he said it is working for me. It is helping me to grow into the fullness of what God wants me to be. It's bringing about in my life an increasing knowledge of Christ, an increasing awareness of His power, and His anointing in my life. That's a fantastic attitude to have isn't it aye? That's a faith attitude! That's the attitude of a king. It's a positive attitude based on the word of God.

But you notice it's got a condition attached? He says it depends all on where you're looking. He says while we look not at the things which are seen, for the things which are seen are temporary. But while we look at the things which are not seen, for the things which are not seen are eternal. He says the key to growing in times of difficulty and adversity is not to fix your eyes on the problems, not to fix your eyes on the things you can see, feel, taste, touch, experience. If you set your eyes on those things, then you will be overwhelmed with trouble and pressure and difficulty. He said: we set our eyes not on the things which are visible, but on things which are invisible. In other words, there are some things you see, but they're temporary. There are some things which cannot be seen, they're invisible to the naked eye, but they're real, they're there, they are eternal. It's the word of God, the promises of God, the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God. While I fix my eyes on those things he said, then whatever's happening for me is working for my good.

You can have a lot of bad experiences in life and become angry, hurt, grieved, bitter, fall out of church, fall out of relationships, fall out of God, all kinds of things can happen in your life. But I'll tell you what, it's all because of where you looked, when you were in the trouble. You look to the Lord, you look to His faithfulness, and you say: God, I don't care what I'm going through. No matter what it is, You will use it to grow me, develop me, bring me to another level. When I come through this, I'm going to be verified, I'm going to be like a diamond. See, it's all about where you fix your eyes, and he said: it's important we fix our eyes on things which are not seen. That's a crazy statement isn't it? Should be looking at things which are not seen? No, no, no, no - he's talking the eyes of your heart, and where your focus is, where your attention is, set it on God and His promises and His word.

I want you to look with me over into 1 Chronicles, Chapter 4. I've called this The Prayer of a King, Prayer of Kings. I'd love us to get it in our spirit and it's about - you know this, you'll have heard it called something different, called Jabez Prayer. I want to put it in the context of what we've been looking at, on being kings, being kings. Interesting when Jesus was born, you know the religious world loves to look at it and see a child in a manger, but the announcement came: where is He, that was born king? Kings may be infants, but they're still a king. He was born a king. You were born into the kingdom of God, you're born a king, and a priest under God - got to learn how to grow up into it. Now Verse 9, 1 Chronicles 4; Jabez was more honourable than his brother, and his mother called his name Jabez. Jabez means sorrow, grief, pain. Imagine having a name like that. What's your name? Pain. [Laughter] Come again? Pain. Really? Pain. Why are you called Pain? I was a real pain to my mum when I was born you know, she was having a really hard and miserable time, and so all she could do was think to put that name on me.

Well people are called lots of things, but what people call you is not as important as what God calls you, and what He says you are. He says this man was more honourable, and his mother called his name Jabez, because I bore him in pain. So it doesn't tells us whether it's physical pain, or whether she was going through a tragedy, through a difficult season, could have been a time in the nation, where the nation was going through trauma, trouble, invasion by its enemies. Whatever it was, we know her personal experience was one of pain. It doesn't say anything about the father. It was normally the practice of the father to name the child, so the chances are, the father had died or was killed, or there'd been a break up in the marriage. But whatever happens, the mother who spoke over his life, spoke the word sorrow, sorrow and pain, and so that's not a great way to start life is it, with sorrows and pains, because often what happens is that when a mother carries a child, the emotions of the mother affect the child. What the mother carries in her spirit can be imparted to the child.

We know from the teachings on generational curses, how things which are around a mother, in carrying a child in the womb, the child will pick up. Interesting when Mary spoke, the child within Elizabeth's womb leapt. It responded to the prophetic voice, so children in a womb can respond to the prophetic voice. They can respond to the voice of adversity and circumstances and demonic spirits. They are sensitive and can respond, even though the mind isn't developed.

So this boy was birthed or came into the world surrounded by sorrow, but I want you to see the Holy Ghost identifies him and says some things about him. It says he was 'more honourable'. That word is the same word where we use the word glory; God, show us Your glory! Kebab, weight, goodness, glory, virtue, who you are. So when the Bible is referring to the glory of God, it's referring to the name, the nature of God. The Holy Ghost calls on this, and points this man's got a whole genealogy of all these names, and then right in the middle of it the Holy Ghost said stop! Wait, wait, wait. This man here called Sorrow was much more honourable, had much more glory. There was something about him, that makes this man stand out and be distinctive.

Then it explains exactly what it was, and it was his prayer, The Prayer of a King. He never let his circumstances determine what his future would be, but rather something in him rose up, and he got hold of the promises of God, and he rose up and he prayed a prayer, it's a fantastic prayer. It's The Prayer of a King. Here is the prayer. Jabez called on the God of Israel, so he was aware or had learnt, probably from his mother who'd taught him the word of God, that he had a legacy, an inheritance. He belonged to a nation singled out by God, to influence the world, influence the nations. He realised that as a descendant of Abraham, he was entitled to blessings from Abraham, and so faith rose in his heart, and this is his prayer. I call it The Prayer of a King, because notice what it is. He says: Oh God, bless me truly. Bless me in great abundance. Secondly, he said: enlarge my territory - that's kingly talk. Oh, let Your hand be with me, the power and the might and the hand of God on me, and keep me from evil that I would not cause pain. Now notice that statement, that I would not cause pain.

What he's saying is: at the beginning of my life there was difficulty, there was pain, there was adversity. I've even been named that, but he's saying God, I believe that You can take someone who's come out of pain, adversity, difficulty, trouble, hardship and You can raise them up, and their life does not reflect where they came from. Their life does not multiply the pains and sorrows. I've found so often what happens when people have grown up with broken families, and abuse and all kinds of things, they get infected with it in their heart and spirit, bitterness and anger and hurt and grief come in. What happens is, they then begin to multiply the sorrow. They do exactly what he prayed wouldn't happen. They cause other people to be in pain. In my own life, as I've become aware of areas of brokenness and lack and areas where I have not processed things in my own life, I realised to my grief, the pain it has caused those around me I love - great revelation that is. It's still a revelation.

So often we don't have relationships close enough where people can talk you honestly, and tell you the things you need to hear about your life. It costs you something to have that kind of relationship, where people know you well enough, and love you well enough, and you're open to them, and can trust them, and they can talk into your life, and share with you the things in your life that need to be adjusted, areas of immaturity, areas of brokenness, areas of lack, areas that are blind spots. Every one of us has blind spots. You have areas of your life you can't see - but believe me, everyone around you can see it. Anyone who gets married, realise you have lots of blind spots, and they all come out, and they're now visible spots when you get married. I think when you're about to get married, you're just completely blind altogether. [Laughter] I don't think you see too much at all, you're bedazzled by the beauty, and the hope of something together. Then afterwards you have to work it all out. When you work it all out, suddenly you see things you weren't aware of, and you see things in yourself because your wife tells you. [Laughter]

You see things in her, and you try to tell her. [Laughter] And so it goes on. You wonder what his prayer was, keep me that I might not cause pain, so he was aware that there was every possibility that his life would overflow, and hurt the people around him. It's very easy for that to happen. I think it'd be a great thing if we determined the coming year to cultivate relationships, where you invited someone to speak into you, and tell you things you need to hear. Wouldn't that be good? Well that's a very quiet response isn't it aye? [Laughter] Well carry on causing pain then. [Laughs] You know, it's much better actually to have a relationship, where people can tell you the truth. I tell you, you really distressed by it - someone says well look, we need to talk. Lyn good at that, we need to talk. [Laughter] Have you ever had Lyn beckon you, and say we need to talk? [Laughter] Well there'll be a bit of pain will follow that, that's for sure. [Laughter] There'll be some tears, and then you'll come right, and then you'll be very glad you had the talk - but anyway this was his prayer.

I don't want to cause pain. I don't want my life to multiply grief and sorrow. I want my life to be a blessing he said, so God, I want You to pour Your spirit on me. I want the blessing that came on Abraham to rest on me. You know the Bible says: we're redeemed from the curse, that's the curse of sorrow and sickness and failure and pain and grief. Galatians 3:14, that the blessing of Abraham would come on us, that we might receive that great and wonderful Holy Ghost, that would bring us to not only be blessed in our life, but become a blessing to others. God wants you this year to be a blessing to your family, a blessing to your community, a blessing to your workplace, not a pain. [Laughter] You know, quite good to get a report from people back on, well, what are they like to work with? Oh, he's a pain. [Laughter] Well you need feedback on that one don't you? [Laughs] Get someone to tell you why you're such a pain, what can you do to deal with it?

Here's his prayer, this is the bit I love, and this is the bit I want to just focus on for a few minutes. He said: that you would enlarge my territory. Now that is the prayer that kings pray. That is the prayer I'd love you to pray, to begin to start to get it into your prayer life day by day; Oh God, today bless me abundantly and enlarge my territory. That word enlarge is the same word that God spoke over Adam, when He said: go forth and multiply. It's not just hey, give me a bit more territory. He said: I want to be multiplied - so what is this territory? Well for him probably it was a piece of land, but for us your territory is your life, and the influence it brings on others. Your territory is your life, and the influence it brings on others, so your prayer then, oh God, pour out your spirit in abundance, bless me in every aspect of my life, and let my life grow greatly, and be an incredibly positive and great influence on those around me.

This coming year, as result of Bay City's generosity and giving, our influence in the world is about to multiply. I'm talking multiply here. In past years we've been able reach out to thousands upon thousands of people. Now through the media of television going through to the 10/40 Window [middle east and asia, where most of the worlds population live], we will multiply what has been done. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, having real influence. See? But that also applies at a personal level as well. Your territory is invisible and visible. Your territory is - part of it's invisible, you can't see it; part of it's visible, you can see, and what you can see is the reflection of what is in the heart, what you can't see. The invisible part of your territory is your inward life, so the prayer to enlarge my territory means God, I want my inward life enlarged. What does that mean? It means I need change in my heart beliefs. I need to resolve wrong beliefs in my heart, and begin to let my heart be renewed to believe the word of God about me, and who I am, and what God's called me to do.

Some people struggle, and I've struggled over many years, in early life particularly over a sense of judgement in myself as being inferior and lacking. That judgement in the heart was a negative belief that limited what I could accomplish in life, so change in the exterior, or change in the outer life, required a change in a heart belief, and a repenting of the bitter roots in my heart. So to enlarge your territory means two things; one, it means dealing with the issues in your heart, the giants in your life that block your growth, and then looking how you can extend your influence in every area of your external life. So the invisible parts are your heart beliefs, your attitudes. If you have a victim - we've been on victim mentality recently. Kings don't have a victim mentality. They think positively, and they're proactive, so if you have victim mentality or thinking, you'll have to get rid of it, if you're going to expand your territory.

Your emotional area - some people are locked in their emotions. Well if you're going to expand your territory, break free, find out what locks up your emotions, what's got hold of your heart, what are the strongholds and giants, and face them. Get help. We'll run retreats next year, you would want to book in. Don't say oh, I had something on, I had a football match on that weekend. I'll say well too bad, I trust that you really grew and changed through your football match. [Laughter] But you know, in fact it won't help you. It's great entertainment, but entertainment can be a distraction from destiny. Never miss your destiny moments, by being distracted by entertainment. There are certain moments when God will meet with you, and those times you just need to be present. You've got to present yourself, and be ready for change. We kind of think you can just turn it on and off, but there are times when the spirit of God will move, for example, in a church He'll move in seasons on a particular area, and in that particular season, it's real easy to get to change, then He's moving on something else. You've got to remember that.

Okay, so there's one thing. So then the exterior area, well there's other things then you could do which are external, so what about your marriage? What could be built - how could your marriage grow this year? How could your family - how could you change or influence your family? How could you grow your finances, and develop your finances? Now to develop your finances requires inward change of thinking, followed by outward doing something different, so there's an internal part, there's an external part. What about being involved in serving? If you want your world to enlarge, why don't you choose to get involved in something you've never done before? Get involved and stretch out, to serve in a way you've never served before. That would enlarge your territory. You know when a stranger sits down beside you, you can stay in your own world, or you can say God, enlarge my territory to include him, and then reach out, show hospitality, friendship and see that person influenced.

So God can do this far more exceedingly abundantly than you think or ask, so here is your prayer: God, bless me! Oh, multiply Your blessings on me today. Let them come from heaven, and be in the earth. I'm blessed in my body. I'm blessed in my mind. I'm blessed in my marriage. I'm blessed in my family. Begin to start to get into your mouth the promises and words of God, and begin to shape your world in the invisible realm, and see things change in the practical realm. Begin to start to shift: what you say, what you believe, then what you do. There's some practical things you could do; one, pray consistently over that issue of enlarging. Write it down, underline it, God, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory. Enlarge my territory. Now the next thing you need to do is, clarify what it means for you to enlarge the territory. Is it a problem you need to overcome? Is it a bondage that holds you back? Is it an issue in your finance? Is it something that's been around your life for years, and you've never broken free of it? Is it something to do with the area of serving? Is it something in business? What is it that you - that's what I want to grow in?

Identify it, and then what do you need to do, for that to grow this year? What will you need to do, because you've got to boil it down to something you're going to do. If it doesn't come down to something you're going to do, you walk out the door, feel good, you'll be no different. Feeling good doesn't mean I've changed. Doing something different means I'm on the path to change, and we need to be careful we don't just enjoy messages, but just don't let it get into the heart, to change what we say and what we do. So make it specific, think what you need to do, set some new priorities. Now for example, you may find you're just spending hours and hours and hours on the television, or hours and hours on the internet, whatever. Well change the priority. Just cut it out, and do something different; invest in learning a new skill, invest in learning some new things that you've never learnt before, invest in yourself. Then you'll have more value to give, and your influence and territory will grow.

Finally, face your giants. All of us have got giants to face. Here's what I love. I just love - it's funny how people respond - I love this one, where Caleb says: the giants are bred for us! Isn't that good? I spoke that to someone a couple of weeks ago, and they said: bred as a giant for me? Really? Can I go on a fast? [Laughter] No, you've just got to deal with the internal things, so every one of us has got a giant. I wonder what has intimidated you, and kept you contained. If you were to just put a name on it, and begin to ponder and ask the Holy Spirit to show you how long that giant has been in that territory in your life, how long has it been ruling there? How long has it been walking up and down, defying you year after year after year, keeping you contained? And God is saying: take that giant, it's bred for you. Why don't you name that giant, and begin to think through the strategy to deal with it. Maybe you need prayer, maybe you need some counsel, maybe you need some help, maybe you need to fast, maybe you need to just shift the way you think. Maybe there's an issue to resolve, but face the giant, they're bred to enlarge you, to go somewhere else, and become increased in your influence.

I love the challenge that Caleb had right at the very end, when he got to 85, and you think flip, he's ready to lie down and retire, or go to a home and just watch movies and go on outings. This is what he said: You know the word I had in my heart 40 years ago when I went into the land, and you know the word I brought back. And you know the promise of God, and I've held that promise for 40 years, been a long 40 years, watching people die all around me in unbelief. He said: I got that promise in my heart, he said: now give me the mountain that has got the giants in it, that everyone else said 'you can't do it'. Give me that mountain - and God gave him what he requested. God gave Jabez what he requested, so what Jabez requested, obviously was in the heart of God, and that same thing is in the heart of God for you, and for me. I don't care what sorrows you've been through, what difficulties or tragedies you've had, and you may have a life that's marked by sorrow, and you may be a pain in the butt to lots of people, but it doesn't end there.

You can make a decision, God, bless me abundantly and enlarge my territory. My life's changing. My life is going to get better. My life is on the increase and improved. My influence is going to increase this year. Can you say that? Can you say that today? Come on, let's give the Lord a clap and thank Him today. [Applause] Father, we just thank You for all the challenges we've had last year, but they were all working a better way to glory for our lives, and in this year Lord, this is our prayer. My God, pour out blessing and abundance; my God, pour out grace and abundance; my God, enlarge our territory, enlarge our influence. Oh God, keep us from the evil one, keep us from the destructive strategies of the devil, surround us with Your angels, and my God, that You would keep us from all harm. In this coming year, enlarge our territory, enlarge our territory, enlarge our territory. This is The Prayer of Kings oh God, enlarge our territory, our influence, our capacity this year. Lord, we give You all the honour.

Come on, can we stand together shall we? Why don't we just as we're finishing this year, why don't we honour God in our singing and reach out today and pray that prayer, not only today but each day. My God, pour out blessing and abundance, enlarge my territory. Get your pen out before the end of the year and write down what will that mean in 2011, what is it you've got to face, what is it to change, what is it you've got to do, what is it you're going to commit to?

Summary Notes

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1. Introduction

2 Cor. 4:16-18

“We do not look at things which are seen but at things which are not seen…”

Many people in 2010 experienced pressure, pain, challenges, and unexpected difficulties.

Each of us chooses how we respond – this prepares us for the next season.

Pressure and pain can lead to great personal enlargement.

Those things are “working for us” – to fashion, shape, and make one prepared.

What do you focus upon? Pain or Possibilities?

2. Prayer of Kings

1 Chron. 4:9-10

“Oh that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory …..”

(a) Jabez Prayer

· Jabez = 3258 = Sorrow, Grief – named because of the sorrows around his birth.

· Honourable = 3513 = Kabad, glory, to be weighty, substantial.

· Jabez stood out from circumstances and people because of heart attitude.

· Lord enlarge my territory; Lord expand my influence and dominion.

· The prayer of a King – cry for God’s favour in abundance!

· Enlarge = 7235 = to multiply (Gen 1:22) to increase in abundance.

· Kings long to expand their territory and influence – extend their Kingdom.

(b) Your Territory = your Life and Influence

· Your territory is invisible (your heart and inner life) and visible (your influence).

· Your territory includes {It belongs to you; your authority is recognisable; you have freedom to operate.

· Invisible - Heart Visible - Skills

Attitudes Family

Emotions Relationships

Hesitant Finance

Service

· Eph 3:20 “He is able to do more exceedingly abundantly than we ask or think”

· What areas of your life will you determine to possess and enlarge territory?

(c) Simple Keys

i) Pray consistently for enlarging territory – Mk 11:24

ii) Clarify the areas of your life you desire to enlarge

iii) What must you do to make these changes?

iv) Set new priorities – develop new skills

v) Accept new opportunities to serve e.g. Caleb – Josh 14:12

vi) Fall your giants – “Bread for us” Num. 14:9 Caleb

vii) Recognise and respond to Holy Spirit promptings

e.g. Moses – Exd. 3:3 “I will turn aside and see …”

e.g. Philip - Acts 8:29 “Then the Spirit said to Philip .. so Philip ran ..”

The Prayer of Kings (2 of 2)

Sun 2nd Jan 2011 AM  « Back to Top

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How many know you're royalty, you're born into a royal family? When you and I give our lives to Jesus Christ, God puts His own spirit and DNA into us. We become changed on the inside through experiencing Christ. We become royalty, part of a kingly family, and of course we need to keep remembering who we are. That's why he keeps saying here you are, you are chosen, you're a generation chosen by God. You're not a nobody, a nothing. No matter what happened last year, no matter what struggles you had, what pressures, what difficulties, what challenges, today is a new day for God's chosen people. Today and this year is a year for great things for you. I can tell you for certain as you start this year, God has great things ahead for you. He has great things ahead for us. Whether they come about, of course, relies on us making good decisions, and connecting with Him.

I want you to open up your Bible with me in 1 Peter 2, Verse 9. I want to just start here, then we'll go back to where we were last week. I want to talk about - here it is - The Prayer of Kings. I want to do The Prayer of Kings, I want to look at particular prayer in the Old Testament, but let's just have a look at see our identity first of all in 1 Peter 2, Verse 9: But you, you are royal priesthood, chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvellous light. And now you were once not a people, but now you are the people of God. We are the people of God. We are the people of God. Notice the key thing I want to bring in here you are the people of God, a royal priesthood.

How many know you're royalty, you're born into a royal family? When you and I give our lives to Jesus Christ, God puts His own spirit and DNA into us. We become changed on the inside through experiencing Christ. We become royalty, part of a kingly family, and of course we need to keep remembering who we are. That's why he keeps saying here you are, you are chosen, you're a generation chosen by God. You're not a nobody, a nothing. No matter what happened last year, no matter what struggles you had, what pressures, what difficulties, what challenges, today is a new day for God's chosen people. Today and this year is a year for great things for you. I can tell you for certain as you start this year, God has great things ahead for you. He has great things ahead for us. Whether they come about, of course, relies on us making good decisions, and connecting with Him.

So you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. So this year God has things for you to do. He has relationships for you to build. He has things for you to accomplish. He has giants for you to bring down. This year it's all out there - God has got many opportunities planned for you for this year and I love that. I love coming into a New Year, and we need to be continually reminded as we come into a New Year, who you are in Christ. You are a chosen generation, you are royalty who has access to God - here it is - you are a king, on assignment from heaven, in the earth. I want us during this year to have our minds set on who we are. You are kings, on assignment from heaven, in the earth. You are a king on assignment, a role to serve and advance the kingdom of God this year.

So the question is: what will advance this year, because of your efforts, and because of mine? I want you to turn with me in 1 Chronicles, Chapter 4. Our assignment is to make Jesus Christ known, make Jesus Christ known. You may think your assignment is to make a lot of money, but the purpose of making a lot of money is to make Christ known, to make Him known. Let's look in 1 Chronicles, and I want to pick up just two verses we're going to look at, and I want to share with you just five simple things out of those two verses. Here it is, it's a list of genealogy and it's going through a whole list of names. You could look through it and think it's boring, and turn over and say I'm bored, but then in the middle of Verse 9, suddenly the Holy Spirit stops, and draws attention to one particular person. In other words, not only was everyone significant, but one stood out from among everyone else. Now Jabez was more honourable. He was more weighty, there was something about him that was distinctive.

He was distinctive, and he stood out above all his brothers. His mother called his name Jabez, meaning pain or sorrow, saying because I bore him in pain - so her pregnancy no doubt was filled with some kind of sorrows and pains. There's no mention of the father; presumably the father died, was murdered or had an accident or something happened, but the mother carried this child, there was tremendous pain, and so she never got over it. She never handled her pain, so she put it on him. She labelled him pain or sorrow. Now it's not a very good way to start life is it, you're called a bit of a pain? You're an inconvenience. You arrive, you upset everything. We had our financial plan, and then suddenly my wife got pregnant and the plan was over, what a pain, you know? We weren't married and she had a baby and what a pain. I mean there's many, many ways you could put this out, but at the end of the day there was something of great grief and sorrow in the family at that time.

The thing that makes him stand out was, he was unwilling to stay in a place of pain. He was unwilling to stay in a place of sorrow. He was unwilling to stay in a place of negativity and defeat. The Bible says he was more honourable than all those around him, because he rose up and he dared to believe that God could take the adversity of his past, the failures and the pain and the grief, and do something in his life that would make him stand out and be distinctive. Now do you believe - that's what made him distinctive of course, was not only that he believed in his heart and rose up in faith, but he actually got what he asked for. It says God gave him what he asked for, so God must have liked his prayer.

I pray that this year, this will be the prayer on everyone's heart, and here's the prayer he prayed. He called on the God of Israel, oh, bless me indeed. God bless me abundantly. Every area of my life, I want to see Your manifest presence and blessing. Oh God, that You would enlarge my territory, increase my influence, give me influence that goes well beyond what I've ever had, multiply the extent of my territory. Oh God, that You would keep me from evil, Your hand would be with me, You would keep me from evil.

I want to just go through and pick several things in there, and this is the bit I like, he said: God granted him what he asked. God granted him what he asked, and I pray that this year that you will have things you'll ask God, and that not only will you ask God, that you'll break through in your prayer, and by the end of the year you'll be able to say and testify very boldly: hey, God gave me what I asked for this year! God gave me what I asked for. Jesus said: that's how you glorify God, by answered prayer. God is glorified when you have breakthroughs in prayer, and you see heaven come into the earth. That brings great honour to God. If we're going to bring honour to God, we need to see His supernatural provision come into the earth. See, this man here, he says God gave him something. He got hold of God, and God gave him something that he never had before.

I wonder if at the end of this year you will have things in your life you've never had before, because you dared to believe and rise up in prayer, aye? What a great thing. Have you got some things to pray for? We've got a season of prayer and fasting come up. I encourage you, before you even get into the three weeks of prayer and fasting, that you take time to identify what is it this year I want to believe God to break through in. Let me just give you a few things that he said, because obviously God liked his prayer. I want to share with you five things about this prayer. The first thing is, it's incredibly personal. Notice what he said, look, it seemed selfish didn't it? Oh bless ME, enlarge MY territory, Your hand with ME, keep ME from evil. Notice 'me' turns up four times there. Now you could say what an extremely selfish man, he's just praying for himself. No, in fact actually it's completely the opposite.

I have found an interesting thing, that when people have rejection in their heart, when we don't see ourselves as God sees us, when we don't agree with what God says - you're a son of the living God, you're a child of the living God - then our heart gets filled with unbelief, and we don't rise up. We can pray for the world. It's easy to pray for the world, you don't need faith to do that. You can pray for someone else to get blessed. It's a little bit easier to pray for someone else to get blessed, than to actually dare to believe in your heart, God desires to bless you personally. I believe many people do not pray, because in their heart they're so gripped with rejection and low esteem, they are filled with unbelief, and don't dare to believe God wants to bless you. Let's say it: God wants to bless me. In this year, God wants to bless me - so what are you going to believe for? It's personal see, it's very personal.

He wants to bless me. He wants to bless me. Get it in your heart. This is a personal prayer. It's easy to pray for this one and that one, and pray for someone over there who needs help and whatever, and it's right for us to do that. That's called intercession, praying for others. But there's an area where you need to learn how to pray for ourself, that we could be increased in capacity, in territory, in influence, in favour, and presence of God. I want us at the beginning of this year as a church, to get it in our heart, this year God is going to bless ME. I believe if we've got five, six, seven, 100 people in this church, and God is blessing every one, the whole church has got to be blessed - let alone the community as well. So number one, notice the word 'me'. Without faith, you can't please God. There's got to be a part of our prayer life where we begin to believe and meditate on what God says about me, what God says about you, what God says about your positioning with Him.

You are accepted in the beloved. You have access to the throne of grace. If that gets into your heart, then when you stand and pray, it's not going to be prayers riddled with guilt and shame. It's going to be prayers - oh God, I come boldly into your presence. As a son of the living God, I stand before You, yielded to You. See, your prayer life changes when you believe that God wants to do something for you, so make it personal. So what are the heart issues that you need to break through? What are the beliefs, that hinder you believing God would do something for your life? I tell you what it is most of the time, it's because we prayed and had a disappointment. Then you prayed and had another disappointment, then you had another disappointment, then after a while you got to believe in your heart, well God doesn't really answer my prayers, but I know He answers other people's prayers, I'll pray for them.

No. Determine you'll move past your sorrows and pains and regrets. That's what this guy did. He refused to believe that no matter how bad things were, he refused to believe he couldn't have a great future. Your future is what you choose. It's not dependent on what someone else said or did. It depends on what you and I choose to do with ourselves this year, and the greatest person you can invest in is yourself, invest something in yourself this year. Invest in growth, invest in prayer, invest in your relationship with God. Start to invest in yourself this year, so that you don't stay limited where you are, but begin to grow and increase. So what areas do you want God to manifest some things in your life?

The second thing is: oh, that You would bless me, and not only bless me, indeed bless me in abundance! What he's saying is: God, I want Your presence, I want Your person, I want to know You, I want to experience wherever I am, I want Your blessing on my life. Joseph was a blessed man, and the Bible says: you could see the blessing on him, because everything he did came to life. When God's hand is on you, blessing you, things that you do have life in them. When God is pouring His blessing out over you, and it's manifested in the earth in a tangible way, it shows up at home, it shows up at work, it shows up in the community. It shows up in your relationships. When your life is in bondage, and restricted by fear or unbelief or other kinds of things, what happens is, there's a lack of flow from your life to others, so oh that God would bless me - because this is an Old Testament prayer in Galatians 3, 13 and 14, it tells us: Christ has redeemed us already from cursings, so that we can experience blessing, and get the Holy Ghost, so the blessing God has for you, is to be filled with His spirit, and that Holy Spirit reveals to you what is freely yours.

If you don't ask the Holy Spirit, you won't know what God freely says is yours, this year. 1 Corinthians, Chapter 2, says the Holy Ghost tells us and reveals to us the things freely given to us by God. Think about that. In Ephesians 1, Verse 3, it says now God has blessed us with every blessing in heavenly places, in Jesus Christ. That's a wonderful scripture, and people read it and say: isn't that nice. What he's saying is this; everything you have need of for a blessed life has already been given. You don't have to beg for it. That's the difference between that Old Testament prayer, and a New Testament position of a believer. We now are blessed because everything we have need of is available through relationship with Jesus Christ, and you and I have received the spirit of God. We are connected to Christ. We need to learn how to access the realm of heaven, the realm of faith, to be able to receive things God has for us.

He has already provided for every area of your life. The question is not whether God has blessed you or not. The Bible tells us, He's already made blessing available. The key is whether you can arise inside in faith, and access it through prayer and believing prayer, otherwise you end up - and here's one of the challenges around Jabez prayer. Remember it is from the Old Testament, they didn't have the Holy Spirit in them. They were crying for the blessing of God. You and I live in the day when we are already blessed - that's why you can get up everyday and say: I am blessed! [Sings] I am blessed every day of my life, I am blessed. When I wake up in the morning, when I lay my head to rest, I am blessed, I am blessed! - see, you can do that every day. Otherwise you wake up in the morning, say oh dear God, another day, what a hangover. I was up too late last night. [Laughter]

You choose what day you're going to have. You choose to believe God - I'm blessed. You know, be a great way to start every morning rising up, saying I'm blessed. Sing the song, I'm blessed. We'll sing it at the end if we can pick it up. Sue can hum it, you'll get it by the end of it I'm sure. It's such an easy song isn't it? I am blessed, I am blessed. Every day of my life I am blessed, when I wake up in the morning, when I lay my head to rest, I am blessed. I am blessed! Well now if you're blessed, a blessed person will behave and speak and act and think in certain ways. They'll speak and act like a blessed person, not a poor person see? So how can I get that overflow into my life? Well very simple; I need time in the presence of God, meditating in His provision. You meditate in the Word, you begin to picture it, roll it over in your mind and heart, beginning to embrace it, like you see it. Then you welcome it into your heart, you meditate on it - this is mine. I have this. Thank You Lord - until you begin to make it real in your life.

See, the things of heaven come into the earth when we meditate, and faith rises in our heart. Then it comes a point were suddenly it's a revelation to us, and it's ours. Then it begins to flow into our life, so without a life of prayer, you can't see blessing manifest. Prayer, then we've got to act like blessed people. So another aspect of it is, not just time in the presence and meditating in the word, it's beginning to declare it. Declare it. That's what that song is, it's a declaration song, and often Christians seem to have prayers that are always asking God for stuff. The Bible says: He knows what you need, He's already given it to you. Reach out and dare to believe it's yours. I am blessed! I am blessed! I am blessed! Oh, I am a blessed person. Who are you? You're a blessed person. Who am I? I'm a blessed person, oh I'm blessed. My God is with me. He is blessing me. Everything I put my hand to, God is with me. Even when I goof up, God is helping me - I even learn from the goof up, and become better. Oh, I can't lose! Come on, that's the kind of mentality to be thinking, otherwise you live scared of making a mistake.

God says the steps of a good man are ordered by the law. Though he fall over, the Lord lifts him up again. Aye? How about that? So why worry about falling over, because God's just going to lift you up again - if you dare to believe you're a blessed person. See, Righteous falls seven times, and the Lord lifts him up every time. In other words what he's saying is, no matter how many times you fall over in this coming year, God's just waiting there to pick you up. He wants you to be blessed. Ever seen kids trying to walk? They fall over all the time. They don't sort of sit there and say well this is hopeless, I'm staying down, I'm never getting up again. [Laughter] Here's the thing. All of you overcame that one! [Laughter] Except Ian's needed a bit of help over here [Laughter] but every one of us overcame that. Every one of us overcame it - think about that.

So think about every time you fall this year - and I'm sure there'll be mistakes and fall overs, here's the thing. Just acknowledge you've fallen. The worst thing is to be fallen over, and won't even admit you've fallen over. Everyone else can see it. Everyone else can see what's going on, and you're the last one to admit you've fallen over. You're eating the dust, it's all over you, and you can't see it. Hey listen, we need friends around to say: you fell over. [Laughter] And then say come on, get up. Get up, don't stay down. Whatever you do this year, don't stay down. You may have gotten down and stayed down a little last year, but don't stay down this year. I'm blessed, I'm getting up, I'm going forward in the presence and person of God, so what will you do this year, that'll increase the flow of God's blessing, that's the question. What will you do to walk conscious that God is with me, I'm a blessed person?

Here's the last couple of ones now. Notice he says enlarge my territory. That's about provision. See, the first one was personal, second one there was about presence, and now it's about provision - enlarge my territory. Jesus said the same thing, a similar kind of thing. He said: give me today my daily bread, give me what I need, so what his prayer was - enlarge my influence. Now one of the things about enlarging influence is, there's always a giant in the land. Now when the Bible talks about territory, it was a physical land they had, which God said was theirs. Unfortunately there were giants in it, and God says interesting things. He says in Exodus 23, He says: I'm going to drive the giants out of the land, hooray! He says a few minutes later, now you will drive the giants out of the land. Oh, I don't like that!

Now what He's saying is, little by little will I drive the giants out of the land. In other words, I have promised you territory, I promised you blessing, and there are giants, giants of fear, giants of doubt, giants of unbelief, giants of disappointment, giants of grief, giants of rejection - there are things to overcome if you want to expand your territory, expand your influence in this coming year. But He said - notice this - I've already achieved it for you. You have to arise, believe, and go and contend with it, and they'll fall over. Interesting when you read this story, that God sent in hornets in there. Now I hate wasps and bees of any kind - hornets are dreadful. I've been in a place where they had hornets. They're like a magnified wasp. I remember seeing hornets over in Fiji, with blimmin' great legs hanging down off them. They're just like flying terrors - so the Lord sent hornets in, to drive the giants out of the land.

Listen, whatever faces you, at the cross of Calvary Jesus defeated your giants. He calls you and I to arise up to the cross, see what He's done, bring to the cross those issues, and walk in the victory He's won for us. Oh my, what a great year this year - giants! So He said here's the thing is, God requires you participate. There's nothing passive in Christianity. If you want to see growth and enlargement this year, you can't be passive. You can't be passive. Let's not be passive. Let's make a decision - now here's what you need to do, set some goals. What is it you're going to accomplish? Set out a plan how you're going to do it, start to pray over it, and then look at then persevering until you can break through in that area. Quite simple isn't it aye? See, so I wonder what areas you want enlargement this year - God, that you would enlarge me.

Here's the thing that the Bible says in the New Testament. The Old Testament they wanted land; in the New Testament Jesus said this, He said: go into all the nations, preach the gospel, make disciples of nations for the church, the territory God has for every one of us, are people. People that come into your world, people that come into your area of influence, people in your work, people in your community, every person that comes in your field of influence, say: God, enlarge my territory to include that person. This year God's enlarging our territory to include millions of Muslims in Pakistan, but right here in Hastings He wants to enlarge our territory to include the people in your world, and the one who reaches them is you. Every person that comes in, God, give me access to their life. God, give me entrance to their life! Great or small, God, give me a doorway into their heart, to reach them and let them know they're loved, and I could show the love of Christ in a practical way to them. It might be just as simple as saying to them: how can I help you? What can I do for you? Is there any way I can help you, anyway I could show value on you? Just think about that this year, and increase your territory.

The last couple very simply that your hand, that's the power of God, might be with me; and the last one, that you would protect me, that you'd keep me from evil. Sin causes not only pain for us, but it causes pain for everyone else as well around us, so his prayer was God, I want to be blessed, I want blessing to flow in my life, and I'm positioning myself by my prayer in a place where You will bless me. God, I want to be enlarged. I want my influence to grow and increase. I want to have people this year, that have responded to my influence upon them. God, I want Your hand to be upon my life, I want to see Your power flowing. Listen, the Bible says: the gifts of the spirit are given to every person. If you're not flowing in it, ask yourself why. There's people here trained, and have trained, and continue to train. The big thing is whether you will stretch out and do something. You don't wait until you feel the power of God, you sometimes have just got to go step out and pray for people, see?

Father, we just thank You that this is a great year, a New Year. Father, I cry out our prayer is oh my God, that You would bless us, You would increase the blessing flow in our lives. It would flow like a river through us into our city, into our community, into our neighbourhoods, into the schools, into the hospitals, everywhere we go, everywhere we are! Give us territory. Give us influence on the lives of people, my God that the miracles of God be with us, my God that Your hand be upon us to keep us from demonic oppression, demonic assignments, and sins and temptations. My God, this year increase and enlarge us - and God grants their request. I'm believing it's going to happen this year. Why don't we stand and sing together that song: I am blessed! I am blessed! Oh I am blessed, yes, I am blessed. Every day of my life I am blessed. When I wake up in the morning, when I lay my head to rest, I am blessed, I am blessed.

Make it personal - I am blessed! Yes Lord, I am blessed. Every day of my life I am blessed, yeah! When I wake up in the morning and I lay my head to rest, I am blessed - one more time, declare it over people around you, you are blessed!

Summary Notes

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1. Introduction

1 Pet 2:9

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that you may proclaim the promises of Him ….”

Last year was filled with challenges, pressures, opportunities – that is now over.

God has new possibilities waiting for you in 2011.

Tasks to accomplish, people to meet, relationships to establish – opportunities to serve.

Peter reminds us who we are: Royal Priesthood – Kings with assignment to serve.

You are a King on assignment – Make Christ Known.

2. The Prayer of Kings

1 Chron 4:9-10

“Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil that I might not cause pain.” So God granted him what he requested.

Jabez stood out from his background and his generation.

Prayer has power to open heaven and change your year, your destiny.

Key characteristics of Jabez prayer.

(a) Personal

· Notice how many times the word ‘Me” appears – 4x

· Heb 11:6 “without faith it is impossible to please God ….”

· God has a purpose and destiny for you – he has plans for good for you.

· Jabez arose above his past pain and rejection – trusted the goodness of God.

· Make it personal! Rejection and sorrow are often roots of unbelief.

· Whatever has happened God is good and desires to bless and enlarge you.

· What heart issues, beliefs hinder you arising to believe God and see His promises manifest in your life.

(b) Presence and Person of God

· V10 Oh that you would bless me indeed = bless in abundance.

· Blessing = favour and prosperity in abundance upon life and relationships.

· New Testament –

Gal 3:13-14 “Redeemed … so that blessing of Abraham come …”

Eph 1:3 “He has blessed us with every blessing in heavenly places …”

· You are blessed - Jesus has positioned you to walk in blessing.

· Blessing is the overflow of intimacy with the Holy Spirit – reveals what is freely given.

· How can you walk in and see blessing revealed?

§ Time in the presence of God – Worship

§ Meditation in the Word of God

§ Decree and declare His Word over life, relationships and circumstances

· What will you do in 2011 to increase the flow of blessing?

(c) Provision

· V10 Enlarge my territory …

· Territory = land to be possessed by driving out the giants, dispossessing them.

· There are always giants standing between you and God’s provision.

· Exod 23:30-31 “… I will drive them out … you shall drive them out…”

· God requires that we participate actively and not to be passive.

· God promises to provide – our part is to take faith actions.

- Goals; Planning; Sowing; Persevering; Overcoming.

· What areas do you desire enlargements in 2011?

· What part must you play in co-operating with God?

(d) Power

· V10 … that your hand might be with me ….

· Hand of God = Power of God manifested in tangible way.

· = Person of God intervening and manifesting supernaturally

· God desires to demonstrate His power – supernatural life

· Eph 1:19 … revelation …. of the exceeding greatness of His power to us who believe.

· Biggest hindrance to power of God flowing is unbelief – “not me!”

· All believers are called to experience and manifest supernatural life of God (1 Cor. 12:7)

· Power in the New Testament is connected to evangelism – making Christ known (Acts 1:8)

· What stretch will you take in 2011?

(e) Protection

· V10 … that you would keep me from evil ….

· When participate in sin – others are hurt by our sin e.g. King David.

· Demonic opposition and temptation are reality daily!

· Mt 26:40 “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation”.

· What areas are you vulnerable? – besetting sins?

· What strategy will you form to overcome? – to resist?

· 2011 - Year of arising as Kings in faith, in prayer, in action.

Year of enlarging territory personally, locally, globally!

Let the Kings Arise (4 sermons)

Kings Dream (1 of 4) Kings dream. Kings declare. Kings prepare and then kings are generous. You're called to be a King! Will you live like a servant who's not enough and always complains and has no dream? Or will you live as a king, begin to dream, begin to declare, begin to prepare and begin to generously give? You have to choose.

Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4) Peter says, you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. Many believers tend to think we're sinners, and see ourselves in terms of our past or our failures, but God says you are an offspring, that God has chosen you, put His DNA spiritually into you and now you are the offspring of God in the earth. He says you are a royal priesthood. In other words you have royalty in you. You are the offspring of a king. Notice how kings operate, how kings speak, they carry themselves in a noble way. They act in a way often different to what ordinary people do. Why is that? Because they know who they are and they know how they're to operate in the earth.

Servants or Kings (3 of 4) God does not want you to live in the realm of a servant or slave. He wants you to live in the realm of friend - very important for your destiny and for your future that you migrate in your thinking from servant to friend. A servant is trained to: listen for instructions; follow the instructions. Their own desires or dreams are not involved.

Slave or Son (4 of 4) You may still be in bondage, but God sees you as His son. He sees you according to destiny. He sees you according to His call on your life. You may be struggling and have all kinds of problems, pressures; you may not even be saved, but God sees you through the eyes of His destiny, says My Son and He calls you to move out of slavery and into sonship.

Audio

- Kings Dream (1 of 4) .mp3

- Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4).mp3

- Servants or Kings (3 of 4).mp3

- Slave or Son (4 of 4).mp3

Notes

- Kings Dream (1 of 4)

- Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4)

- Servants or Kings (3 of 4)

- Slave or Son (4 of 4)

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Kings Dream (1 of 4)

Sun 31 Oct 2010 AM  « Back to Top

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Kings dream. Kings declare. Kings prepare and then kings are generous. You're called to be a King! Will you live like a servant who's not enough and always complains and has no dream? Or will you live as a king, begin to dream, begin to declare, begin to prepare and begin to generously give? You have to choose.

I want you to open your Bible with me in Genesis, Chapter 37. I just want to read a few verses and I want to share with you just some thoughts on this theme, Kings Dream. Kings Dream. We're just talking some of the aspects about kings in these coming weeks, but you're called to be a king. How many knew that, you're called to be a king? You're called to be a king.

You are one. It's just a matter of knowing that you are, knowing that you are who God says you are. He says you're a royal priesthood. You can't be royal unless you belong to a royal family, so when you and I were born again into the family of God we became royalty, kingly seed, the seed of our Father, king of kings is within us. When you're born again you're born by the word of God. His spirit comes in. There's a DNA implanted in you and I and we become kingly. Trouble is catching up with who are now we're in Christ.

We tend to live like we used to live, like slaves. I want to talk about that and help us in this series so I thought we'd start with the area of kings dream. What is the dream you have in your heart? So we read in Genesis 37 and there was a man by the name of Joseph. Joseph was 17 years old and was feeding the flock with his brothers. And it says - Verse 3 - now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons. He was the son of his old age, youngest boy and he made him a tunic of many colours. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and couldn't speak peaceably to him. So you can see it's not a very happy environment that Joseph's in. Everyone hates him and they can't speak nicely to him at all.

Now Joseph had a dream. Now Joseph had a dream and there's where it all changes. Joseph was the youngest in the family. He was the hated one, despised one by his brothers but favoured by his father - but Joseph had a dream, dreams and visions are the language of the spirit. God wants to give you dreams and visions. He wants you to be dreamers, visionary. Every one of the body of Christ can be visionary. Why? Because it says in Acts, Chapter 2, that this anointing of the Holy Ghost shall be poured out upon all flesh and it says and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Then it talks they shall see visions, young men shall see visions, old men shall dream dreams.

So God's plan is His body, no matter how old we are, young we are, that we would engage the supernatural realm and have dreams and visions, that we would have experiences that open our insight and understanding beyond what we live with. Everyone needs a dream and a vision. Dreams have to do with possibilities. How many know that movie The Bucket List? It was a great movie wasn't it aye? I was just talking to Andy Lowe and he said I've just ticked something off my bucket list this weekend. I said what's that? He said well I'm going down to be a passenger or a pilot or whatever it is in the Targa Rally. I said have you done that before? He said no, I've never done it before. I said well what do you have to do? He said well someone told me to bring nappies ... [Laughter] ... and a sick bag because it's scary, but he said I've got it on my bucket list. I want to make sure I get it done before I die.

Now that's just a very simple thing. It's about having a dream of something you want to get done in your life so you don't let your life get frittered away and eaten up day by day, one day at a time. Every one of us needs dreams. Every one of us needs visions. Every one of us as believers need to have things in the future we're looking forward to and planning for and preparing for, not just existing, not just living as we are. There needs to be dreams, dreams and desires of the heart. I'll share about some of these things in the weeks to come, how you can access that and some of the mind sets you've got to break to break free into this area.

So God wants us to have that and interesting thing about the thing about kings is that God has called kings to be fruitful. God calls every person not only to be a king but to be a fruitful and productive king, so when you look at the beginning of Joseph in Genesis 30, Verses 22 to 24; When Rachael, his mother, conceived and bore him forth she said I'm going to give him a name. I'm going to call him Joseph. Why? Two reasons; one is God has removed by reproach and two, he will add to me. So the very same thing applies to us. Joseph had a destiny inscribed at his birth in his very name and it was that the reproach was taken away, the reproach of being unproductive and unfruitful was taken away and through this son there will be much added.

This is exactly the same when you got born again. When you were born again as a Christian God put His spirit in. Then the reproach of Adam failing, sinning and falling, of a king living in defeat is broken and now God has a king emerging into the earth in you who is called to be fruitful. Jesus said in John 15, He said you've not chosen me. I chose you to bring forth fruit and fruit that remains. It remains through remaining in Him, so we're called to be fruitful and overflow of a life that comes connected with God.

Most believers do not accomplish or fulfil their potential and one of the reasons is a lack of vision and dream to accomplish something with your life. The other is a lack of connecting to the source, the one who can empower you to fulfil that dream. You know that we focus and talk so often about spirit life, the life of the spirit. Why? Because there is a dimension of God life unless you are connected to Him and stay connected and the life is flowing, you can't produce the fruit of heaven in your life.

You'll hear us in the church talk about restoration retreats and freedom retreats and things like that. It's not just something we do. It's to unlock baggage and the bondage so kings can dream and connect and begin to fulfil their destiny! It's not just something you go to. It's a part of you owning I have a destiny as a king to accomplish something and I need to be free of the baggage! I don't understand why people stay in a Holy Ghost church like this and still don't open up their heart to let their lives be sorted out. It's a total paradox really. It's quite strange - don't understand it at all. However...

Around the world people hunger for it everywhere we go. Lyn goes out; people draw by the crowds to get what she has. Ian goes out; people draw by the crowds to get what he has. I go out; people draw by the crowds to get it. Celebrities come to get it, businessmen come to get it. They see something that can unlock the dream in their life, set them on a course to serve God and be free. So here's the thing - kings dream. Kings have dreams. Do you have dreams? What are your dreams? What have you written down about your future? What are the hopes? What are the aspirations? If you haven't done don't be condemned. There'll be some reasons for it and in these coming weeks we'll hope to unlock it so that you begin to start to reach out and dream.

If all your dreams have been dashed and you've lost any hope of dreaming, we want to see in these coming weeks if you would break out of that and begin to dare to dream again, then begin to start to talk about your dream. But kings dream. Kings dream! God is able to do more exceedingly abundantly than we ask or think or ask or dream. In other words God has got much more for us but we have to position ourself before Him, asking, pursuing and then allowing Him to change how we think. You keep thinking the same thoughts, you'll live the same life!

So it's about our thinking, where your mind goes, what's occupying your attention. If it's filled up with games, if it's filled up with internet, if it's filled up with television, filled up with all these things, it is stealing your life and your potential.

We have to understand you've only got one life to live. A bucket list - it caught on so much it kind of captured people, because what it did was - and I love the film. It's one of the best films I've ever seen. It was a great film and they had such a touching ending - I cried. I cried. I tell you now, it was touching. I thought I wonder why I cried. I realised because there's something, an eternal message in it. You've only got so much time and then it's over. Make good use of the time you've got. It's the one thing you can never replace. You can replace everything else around you except people and time, so we have to value those things - so we need to dream.

The movie caught on because this guy had a list of all of these things and they were not quite fulfilled the way they thought. The guy dreamed of kissing the most beautiful woman in the world. He had something in his mind what that might be and it turned out he was restored in his relationship with his estranged daughter and kissed her - the most beautiful woman in the world.

So sometimes dreams don't quite work out, especially God dreams. God dreams never work out quite like you think. Oh my! And that's what happened for Joseph. Now he had this dream and so kings dream, we need to dream. What did he dream of? You know what kings dream of? Increasing a kingdom. They dream of dominion. They dream of expanding their influence, so what did he dream of? Well he dreamed - this is what he dreamed and it says he told the brothers this dream. He said now listen to the dream, please listen to my dream. This is what I've dreamed. We were binding the sheaves in the field and my sheave rose and stood upright and your sheaves stood up also. But they bowed down to my sheave. ... [Laughter] ... That was a really nice dream. He was very happy about that dream, especially if you're the youngest in the family and they don't speak nicely to you. He comes out and you can almost catch the king inside him you know? Oh, we all had sheaves but yours bowed down to mine - and they hated him, so he had another one.

The brothers said shall you reign over us and have dominion over us and they hated him for the dreams and hated him for the words, but he dreamed another dream, told it to his brother - look, I dreamed another dream. The sun, the moon and the 11 stars all bowed down to me - and he told his father and his father told him off. So dreamers don't necessarily have a very good time when you start to share the dream. God told me I'd do this! Who do you think you are? That's what goes on.

So he had a dream. He dreamed of dominion. That's what kings dream of. They dream of a future different to what is here, a future shaped by the words of God. Now your future is shaped by your own desires perhaps or it's shaped by the opinions of people, or maybe it's shaped by your past. Well I've got no education, I can't get anywhere. Who told you that lie? So there are many things - oh, well we're poor. We've always been poor. My family's always been poor, or I've had this bad background. I've been abused and I have no education. This is all junk and rubbish, but what does God say that would frame your future?

You see God, everything, the world that came into being was framed or constructed by the word of God spoken forth, but before God spoke it forth He dreamed it. So we're creative, we're like God in that sense. We've got creativity, so we need to dream, need to position yourself for dreams and begin to start to thing what is it that God has put in my heart for my future? What is it that stirs my passion? What is it I wouldn't want to die without doing it? What is it that really stirs me? A lot of people just get too busy to stop and ask the question, but you need to because you only have one life and it's going - tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, just like that - and you don't know when it runs out.

So the dream is what begins to cause us to think about the future and gives us hope and inspiration and desire and longing and it keeps us with a forward focus, keeps us looking to God so it gets focus. So kings must speak their vision. Kings declare their vision. Notice he told his brothers - now you've got to be careful who you speak it to. You speak your dream to the wrong person, they'll leap on you and smash and crush the dream into the ground and powder it because your dream threatens them. Who do you think you are? Why should you dream like that? Why should you be like that? What they really mean is well I'm not going to be like that and neither will you be.

It's like crabs in a bucket. No crab will ever get out if you've got crabs in a bucket. They all will pull the one - as soon as one climbs up and gets on top the others all pull him down and unfortunately many people are like crabs in a bucket. I think New Zealand culture's a bit like crabs in a bucket - someone climbs up and starts to look like they're getting out, we've got to find a way to pull them down. It's a ridiculous thing isn't it?

But if that's the culture you've got to find a way then how to guard the dream of your heart, but you still need to speak it and there is a place to speak it. Every morning when you get up there's a need to speak your dream, to speak it over your life, to speak the future, to speak what God says is true about you! That's how men of faith rise. That's how men grow to be strong in the spirit. They don't just wait and say oh God, what's today going to hold? Today is the day the Lord has made! Today is a good day! I command my day to line up with God's plan for my life! I take dominion over everything that the devil has cooked up against me - it shall not succeed! I call God's dream into being in my life.

You've got to get assertive and get up there in the morning you know and shape your world before you go out to meet it. Demonic people have been up probably at midnight calling curses on you and you wake up heavy and grrrmph. Come on! You've got to learn to rise! Begin to speak the word of God! That's how we begin to create and construct something about our future, see?

Bible says in Romans 4:17, it says God causes things to be not as though they are, so everyone whoever said to Abraham said Abraham, father of nations - yeah, that's me, father of nations. Abraham looked up every night and he saw the stars; yes, children, children, many children. Then he looked down and he saw the sand - many children. Just like Brian,he looked at the past and there's seven kids - look, many children! He looked at the seat, there's an empty seat. Empty seat in the van - one more child, one more child, one more child, there it is now, he called it into being, just magically appeared I'm sure! ... [Laughter]

Now you know it didn't magically appear. He had a vital part in it, isn't that right? ... [Laughter] ... Dreams don't just happen you know. You've got to do your part, see, then the dream has got to be cooked up and prepared before it's delivered. This is true of all dreams, this is how it is. There we go.

Okay, here's the last one to finish on. Kings prepare. Kings prepare. Ecclesiastes 5:3 it says a dream comes about through much activity, not through lots of talk. [Laughs] So well there's some people like to talk and if you're prophetic you probably like to talk a lot. [Laughs] You've got to get past the talk and doing something you know - you know, all talk, just a talker. They say oh, he's just a dreamer. Great to have a dream but your dreams got to find action, it's got to find a reality in it and so we find - I'll just look at one part of - just look over into Genesis 39 because I've run out of time and I want to just give you three areas that actually Joseph was prepared in.

The Bible says in Psalm 105, it says until the time His word came the word of the Lord tried him, so although he had a dream there was a timing for the dream to be fulfilled and there was a preparation before that timing came about. You can delay the timing. You can miss your timing, but you have to be doing something before your dream is fulfilled. You want to dream to be a doctor? Well you've got probably five to seven years of study and hard work. Then the dream is fulfilled, so whatever you want to do in life, life teaches us have the dream, get a plan, stick with the plan and become big enough to fill that dream. Most people don't get big enough on the inside to fill the dream that God has.

God's dream is a big dream. God's dream for your life is bigger than you can imagine, greater than you can imagine, so the problem is we're stuck with thinking too small and we're stuck with being too small and God wants to expand us. So when you start to get a dream in your life and begin to start to pray that dream into being and plan towards it, believe me you are going to have to grow into it, become big enough to fill the dream. The problem is not the dream coming about; mostly the problem is you getting big enough to fill it.

So you get a businessman and they want a great big business and there's millions coming in - but are you big enough to run such a one? No. So you have to grow, you have to prepare. So people have the dream. You've got to grow - YOU have to grow into the dream and God always grows people into things. What you're facing right now is God trying to get you grow into your dream or into His dream for you. We don't always see it that way.

So we do know the story of Joseph. He had a great dream, we're excited about the great dream, we identify with him being told off and rebuked and put down for his dream. But often we don't realise is that he actually did something to fulfil the dream. He did something. He held a promise of God and grew through the difficult circumstances God took him through to prepare him. Let me give it to you quickly - in Genesis, Chapter 39, Verse 1. Joseph had gone down to Egypt. He was a slave in Egypt. He was stripped naked, put up on a box, sold in an auction to the highest bidder. That's not very nice. But he had a dream and he never let go his dream and so what happens, it says here the Lord was with Joseph. He was a successful man in the house of his master the Egyptian and the master saw the Lord was with him. The Lord made all he did to prosper in his hands and Joseph found favour in his sight and served him and made him an overseer of the house. In Verse 5, it came from that time that he made him overseer of the house and all that he had. The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake and the blessing of the Lord was on all he had in the house and all he had in the field.

Now we could preach a message just on your role in the workplace off that one verse. The Egyptian representing an unsaved person and the Christian, being a source of blessing to the business, a source of blessing to the community. God blessed the Egyptian because Joseph was there. Think about that. Now that didn't just happen by chance either - oh, well that was Joseph. Notice Joseph did some things, so here's some of the things. See Joseph was there but Joseph was in the palace. A little bit later he's in the prison. Now here's the thing; he's in a palace and he prospers; he's in a prison and he prospers and he is learning how to manage people at kingly level, governmental level and he's learning how to deal with the lowest of society, the scum who were in prison. In both places he prospers. That's no accident, but he is learning. He's having to learn how to manage people at every strata of society, so God gives him a dose at the top and a dose at the bottom and now he's equipped to be able to manage and lead a country of people at every level, socially and financially in society. His prison experience, his Egyptian experience and prison experience was all part of preparing for the dream that God had for him.

Maybe you feel you're in prison right now. Okay, what is it God wants you to learn? Don't stay in prison too long aye? I'll just finish it now. He grew in these things; firstly he grew in capacity. He grew in ability to live at a regal level, at a high society level. Many Christians can't handle it at all. They can't even talk or communicate with people who've got money because of what's in their own heart. Think about that. It makes them uncomfortable when someone's got money, wealth. But God wants you to be able to live in there, serve in there. They would prosper because you're there. You would ask yourself what makes me uncomfortable? That's what God wants you to grow in your capacity in, so you can welcome people.

One of the things I love about by son Dave is Dave can relate to people at every level. I've seen him. He's met with Presidents, he's met with people top financially, he's met with people right down to people out of prison and there isn't one that I don't find he can't connect with and talk with. Very few people can do that. You've got to be free inside of any envy of what they have. You have to have no agenda whatsoever and people sense it. They sense it.

So Joseph's preparation; first he grew in capacity, see? He grew in capacity. Now how did he prosper? The Bible says how you prosper. You meditate in the word of God and you get to perform the word of God, get to do it. That's what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8, he said you meditate in it, hold the word in your mouth, do the word of God, you'll prosper. So he prospered. How did he prosper? Well we look at it and we interpret it, oh he just had a lucky break. God blessed him because God wanted to do it, but He doesn't do that for me. No, this is a principle. You're a king. You're called in a kingly calling and God will prosper if you do what other people do that prosper.

Okay, the second thing he did is he grew in character. He had to grow in character. Character's what you are when no one's looking. Character's what you are when no one sees - had to grow in character. He had some huge issues to face; hatred of his brothers, injustice, betrayal by his brothers, sold as a slave, as an object of meat, just a piece of meat down on a slave market, bitter words spoken to him, betrayal, injustice, thrown into jail on a false rape charge when he'd stood up for what was right, temptation, ingratitude by those he helped, delays. He had to face all of those things. They sound familiar to you? It's called God's training process for kings.

What did he come out with? When he emerged at the end, when his time came, he showed great grace to his brothers. Don't worry, it wasn't you sent me. God sent me beforehand. He showed huge grace. He showed generosity - I'm here to provide for you, provide for the people who are bitter and hated him and put him down and then betrayed him? That's generosity and grace. That's a great, great character quality. I don't find many Christians have that. They find that hard, hard to be kind and gracious to people that have hurt them, to bless people, so too small to be great. Understand what I'm saying? We have to grow.

These things come to grow kings. You're a king in growth. What did he show? He showed strength. You've got to be strong to handle that kind of pressure of being betrayed, of being falsely accused, thrown to the bottom of the jail and you know you did right, treated and chained like a scum at the bottom part of the jail, then still serve and work your way up until you're in charge and everyone trusts you and loves you, believes in you. Tremendous internal strength, strength of character, determined! This prison that I'm in right now - I might be chained up. Everyone says I was guilty of rape. They want to take me and cut me up or cut parts off or take my head off or something - but listen. God said it's different. I've got a better future than this. It does not end here. I'm only in the middle of the story.

It doesn't end there. It ends when God has fulfilled His word in my life and when the time came the word of the Lord was fulfilled, but before that it was always something - this is how the word of God tries you. You see it, but then everything in front of you is different. Then what you've got in there starts to come up. He showed great faith. Finally he grew in faith, he held onto the word of God. Genesis 49 tells us Joseph - now this is the blessing of Joseph. This is what was on his life. Joseph is a fruitful bough, planted by a well. Ha ha! Now we begin to discover how he could do it. He had a well of life that came out of relationship with the spirit of God, whose branches go over the wall. In other words he was always reaching to be bigger, could never be contained. It says the archers shot at him and sorely wounded him but his strength remained. It says his arms remained strong and his bow was strong. In other words he could shoot words too but he didn't shoot bitter words, he shot words of faith, words of blessing. In the midst of adversity his strength remained because God strengthened him.

God helped him when everything around him was bad to hold the vision, to speak it until his words that he spoke, his bow was strong. No matter what anyone did to him his confession was strong, his testimony was strong. He fired words out knowing those words will not return empty. I shall arise! I shall come into dominion! I shall come to the truth! I shall come out in the calling of God! I will ARISE to fulfil the destiny! His bow was strong. That's your bow, your mouth; the words, the arrows. Got to find the strength to praise God and declare God's word instead of filling your mouth with negatives and complaints and difficulties and obstacles and whatever, like they did in the wilderness and fell there.

So the time came and Joseph came out and what a generous man he was. Well brothers, I know you betrayed me, I know you sold me out and I know you're feeling bad he said. Listen, don't feel bad. It wasn't you. I see now the hand of God shaping a king and I'm going to tell you something. God has positioned me to provide for you.

That's what kings do. Kings dream. Kings declare. Kings prepare and then kings are generous. Are you a king? Well you are, but will you live up to who you are or below who you are? Will you live like a servant who's not enough and always complains and has no dream? Or will you live as a king, begin to dream, begin to declare, begin to prepare and begin to generously give? You have to choose.

Father God, we thank you that in this house are many kings in the making. We thank you Lord that that anointing, that royal anointing of the Holy Ghost, that anointing that was on Jesus who is called King of Kings, Lord we thank you that anointing has come upon us calling us to arise and to learn how to walk as royalty in the earth today. God, we declare oh God, kings in the house are arising. Today we thank you that just as Ian and Kay are emerging globally kings hidden in the house over many years, we thank you today that there are hidden in the house other kings, other kings who will emerge and arise in these coming days to take the gospel in the mighty power of God to our community, to our nation, to nations of the earth. We thank you that there are kings in the business field, kings in education, kings in the marketplace, kings arising in the midst Lord. We hear the shout of our king in our midst. Arise and shine for light is calm and the glory of the Lord is rising upon you! Lord, we rise to that sound in Jesus' mighty name and we declare YOU reign, YOU reign oh God.

Come on, let's stand to our feet. Let's begin to sing that song, you reign over all the earth. Make it the declaration because you and I are united with Him and if He reigns we reign with Him.

Summary Notes

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Introduction:

· Gen 37:1-10 Joseph dreamed a dream!

· Dreams and visions are the language of the Holy Spirit

· God reveals His plans and purposes through dreams and visions – pictures of the future and possibilities

· Act 2:17 In the last days will be outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Visions and dreams – all flesh – divine bucket list

Destined to be fruitful:

Gen 30:2-24 God has taken away my reproach

· Joseph = OT3130 = He will add to me

· Prophetic destiny to add to be productive and fruitful

· All believers are called to be productive and fruitful

· John 15:16 Chose you to bear fruit. ‘I chose you to bring forth fruit’. He chose us

· Fruit = overflow of a life draws upon the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. The overflow of abiding in Christ and His life coming forth

3. Kings Dream:

· Eph 3:20 God is able to do abundantly more than we ask or think

· We must explore the realm of possibilities and not accept what is. We are born into a Royal family, Identity

· Kings dream of extending the kingdom

· Gen 37:5 Now Joseph had a dream

· Dream – supernatural influence, inspiration into his life

· God communicates in dreams and visions, trances, inspired thoughts

· Eg Abraham, Jabez, Joseph

· Must position self to dream and to see

· Alone/quiet/focus/meditate

· Dream of: Dominion, Influence, Significant and influential life

· The Word of God came to him and formed a dream of the future, a blueprint

4. Kings Declare their Dreams:

· Gen 37:5,9,10 Joseph told his brothers, father

· He didn’t understand it all but spoke and declared the Word of God

· Power of the tongue – must learn to speak forth dreams

· Your words shape the spiritual atmosphere create room for the invisible to become visible

· Declaring the word of God over your life shapes and frames your future

· It is a daily declaration

· Declaring his dream triggered the events that fulfilled the dream

5. Kings Prepare:

· Ecc 5:3 A dream comes trough much activity

· Dreams don’t come about by just dreaming – speak – order life

· Ps 105:19 Until the time his (dream) came the Word of the Lord

- there is a timing for dreams to manifest

- We must cooperate and play our part in fulfillment

- Faith without works is dead

Joseph Preparation:

i. He grew in capacity:

· Gen 37:2-5 Joseph served in the Palace – and

· Gen 37:20-22 Joseph served in Prison – and prospered

· God makes it clear that if we meditate in the word we will prosper Joshua 1:8

· He developed skill and capacity in different environments

ii. He grew in Character:

· Gen 45:4-8 Do not be grieved – God sent me!

· Gen 50:19-21 I will provide

Obstacles:

Hatred betrayal ingratitude rejection

Injustice delay bitter words temptation

Joseph developed:

Grace wisdom generosity

Strength faith

iii. He grew in Faith – held onto the Word of God:

Gen 49:22-24 Fruitful bough by a well

Archers – bitter words, hate, injustice

Bow = mouth Arrows = words spoken

Arms of hands made strong by God Almighty

Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4)

Sun 7 Nov 2010 AM  « Back to Top

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Peter says, you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. Many believers tend to think we're sinners, and see ourselves in terms of our past or our failures, but God says you are an offspring, that God has chosen you, put His DNA spiritually into you and now you are the offspring of God in the earth. He says you are a royal priesthood. In other words you have royalty in you. You are the offspring of a king. Notice how kings operate, how kings speak, they carry themselves in a noble way. They act in a way often different to what ordinary people do. Why is that? Because they know who they are and they know how they're to operate in the earth.

Please now open your Bible with me and let's have a look in Mark, Chapter 4. I shared a message a week or so ago - can't remember when, it seems a long time - but about kings dream. You are a king. If inside you you understand who you are, then one of the things you realise is your need to have dreams about your future and about your direction. I love the idea of Bill having a bucket list. Isn't that fantastic, a bucket list and it'll be so many trips to China and so many people saved, now preaching and of course casting out demons next year. You realise that? ... [Laughter] ... Put that on your bucket list too, casting out demons and praying for the sick and healing them. You've only got one year to get ready for it. It'll be fantastic.

So I want to speak today, let kings arise. We sang a song earlier on, Rise Up and there was a theme flowing through our songs at the beginning about rising up. In the Book of Peter, Peter describes us like this. He says you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. Many believers don't know who they are. We tend to think we're sinners and we tend to see ourselves in terms of our past or our failures, but God says you are an offspring, that God has chosen you, put His DNA spiritually into you and now you are the offspring of God in the earth. He says you are a royal priesthood. In other words you have royalty in you. You are the offspring of a king and I don't know about you but when you notice how kings operate, how kings speak, they carry themselves in a noble way. They act in a way often different to what ordinary people do. Why is that? Because they know who they are and they know how they're to operate in the earth.

The Bible says that you and I are a priest. That means we have access by faith into the presence of God, to pray and to see, to hear from God, to access His wisdom. But we're also a king and I want to share today a message called let kings arise. I'm going to follow this theme for a little while, but we're going to have a look here in this passage about kings in training. In the Book of Revelation which is a revelation of Jesus Christ there's a number of things the Bible says, but one of the things, they see Him coming and He's clothed in white riding a horse and His name is King of Kings. He's a king and He has many kings under His kingship. You need to see yourself as a king under the kingship of Jesus Christ, called to advance the kingdom. If your Christian life is about just coming to church and hanging on and not doing too many bad things you've missed the point completely. That is not what Jesus came to do.

He came to speak a message about a kingdom that was advanced through miracles and signs and wonders, a kingdom that brings hope to people. He wanted us to be born into that kingdom and then extend that kingdom. I want to share with you something that's actually really incredibly practical. I'm going to take it out of one of the stories of Jesus of something He did. In Verse 35; On the same day about even when even had come Jesus said to them "Let us cross over to the other side." Now when they'd left the multitude they took Him along in their boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And there was a great storm arose and the waves beat into the boat, and it was filling up and looked like it was going to capsize I guess. But He was in the stern and He was asleep on a pillow. Imagine sleeping through a storm, you've got to be really tired or really at peace. They woke Him up and said "Teacher, don't You care we're about to die?" He arose, He rose up. He rebuked the wind and He spoke to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?" Notice that - no faith. No faith. Your lack of faith is revealed in how you respond to the storms of life. And so they feared exceedingly and said "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!"

So I want to open some things on this. I want you to keep as you're thinking about this that Jesus is the King of Kings. He's about to demonstrate His authority in nature and He's got in training a bunch of junior kings. I want you to see some specific lessons that we can draw out of this. It says here even had come. Now in the Bible, in Bible times the day began at the evening, so when we get up in the morning, say it's a new day, but for the Hebrew culture the new day begins in the evenings. Six o'clock at night is the beginning of the next day, so it's evening and daylight make up the day, the evening first, then the daylight. So you notice this, you read that verse there it's very clear He's talking about a new day, a new opportunity, so when evening had come it's the end of one day, the beginning of another. It's the beginning of a new and a fresh day. God is always doing new things, completely new things and fresh things and kings don't live in yesterday's things. They live in the new things that God is doing, so we see that Jesus at this point, it's a new day. I don't know whether you're aware of it but there is a new season in the earth at this time. There is a new day dawning for the church of Jesus Christ, a day when miracles are in the marketplace, a day of the church invading society in a way it's never done before.

When I've been up to Taiwan earlier this year we had 80 pop stars and media people. I've never been in any church anywhere in the world where they have penetrated the culture, the pop culture and had one so many people in the media to Christ, it's a new day. It's a day for new things to happen and every day we arise it's an opportunity for something new, so new day here speaks of a new beginning.

Now God is about to move and do something different. You and I need to be aware that what God did 10 or 15 years ago is not what He's doing now. We're in a new phase, a new season of God's work, of God's work in nations, so the first thing is even had come as the beginning of a new day meaning that every new day you need something fresh from God. One of the dilemmas that many Christians have is living out of the experience of last year or the year before, or even a decade ago or even a childhood experience of God. We need fresh experiences of God for the new seasons that we're in, fresh revelation from Him. Notice what it says, Verse 35; Then He said to them. So the first thing we see is that kings receive prophetic revelation. It's a new day and Jesus' got new things to say. Jesus spoke to them. Notice there He spoke to them; don't live in last year's experience. What is God speaking now?

God is speaking a whole number of things to His church globally right now about kingdom, about world missions or global missions, about Israel, about the supernatural, many things God's saying. Notice Jesus spoke to them. There was something He had to say. You have to position yourself to hear it. If you go back up to Verse 34, when they were alone He said all things with His disciples. In other words the crowd didn't hear what He was up to. It was the disciples who spent time alone. Are you building time alone with God to hear what He is saying for this season you're in in your life?

We've been a ministry for many years, but right now for us I feel that God wants to speak new things and fresh things. We want to spend out next season seeking Him for fresh things that He wants to do - can't live off yesterday's experience. It isn't enough. We need new things for the new day. We're living in a generation which is open to the supernatural in a way unprecedented. We need to be experiencing as individual believers and as a church a new dimension of God. It comes through the prophetic word. It comes by hearing God speak. It comes by you positioning yourself to let God speak to you.

In the story of Mary and Martha, Mary positioned herself and she heard directly first hand from the Lord. How many of us are positioning ourself to hear first hand from the Lord? Kings receive prophetic revelation. If you're going to be a king serving under Jesus Christ, we need to be hearing from Him what does He want me to do? What does He want for this next season of my life? What adjustments do I need to make? What fresh vision does He want to put in my heart so I'm not living day to day; I'm living out of an anticipation, an expectation of new things God is about to do.

As a church we're about to launch into Pakistan. This is a completely new day. We're about to launch into the whole area of media and being able to impact multitudes, millions of people through media. This is a new day. God is saying new things. It's not just the latest thing we dreamed up. This is something God is speaking about, is a door opening up into the Muslim world in a way that has never happened before. Wherever I've gone in the Muslim world Jesus is appearing to people. People are supernaturally encountering Him, but nevertheless the church must arise and let the gospel go into these places. It's a new day! It's a new day! It's a new day!

It's a day of global harvest. It's a day of ordinary believers arising with the supernatural power of God operating in their life. Don't say it's not for me. It is for you, but you've got to position yourself so you're in the flow of revelation, hearing from God, capturing His heart. It's a day I believe when God is raising up fathers and mothers to nurture a generation that's fatherless. This is a great day. It's a great day for us! It's a great day if we can position ourself and be hearing how God wants us to respond.

There's men and women in here, God wants you to catch your heart for the next generation and invest time and energy and finance in working with them and raising them up. So it's a new day. Notice here that while they were alone Jesus spoke to them. You don't get to hear from God usually when you're out with a crowd. You get to hear from God when you're alone. Notice the second thing is - the first thing is kings receive prophetic direction, prophetic insight, prophetic revelation. If you're going to serve God and advance His kingdom you need to be hearing Him, because you need to hear Him for that workplace. You need to hear Him for your family. You need to hear Him for your business, need to hear Him for the school. You need to hear what God has to say because what is doesn't necessarily mean it's got to stay that way. God says it can be different.

Now second thing is kings dream of enlarging their territory. Most kings have got something in mind. They want to govern the territory well, they also want to enlarge it, want it to grow wealthy, want their subjects to grow wealthy. They want the territory to increase. They want to grow and expand it, so Jesus was continually thinking how to take new territory. Jesus was a visionary. His vision at the end of it was go take the gospel into every nation of the earth! I don't hear Him saying sit and look after yourself. I don't hear Him say sit in a cosy place just concerned about yourself and your children. I don't hear Him saying that. I hear Him saying go into all the nations of the earth!

When we first talked about Pakistan they wanted to raise their eyes and say isn't that risky? Yes, but starting the church in Jerusalem was very risky too. Come on, it's a day when God is causing people to arise with a sense of challenge. If you're in business how can you advance the gospel through your business? You're not there just to survive. You're there to prosper and do well and release resources and get a heart for mission, see God moving. So you notice here His words to them. Here's what they got. Let's cross over to the other side. I want to draw two things about that; the first thing is the other side. The other side meant the other side of the lake. There was a realm of territory of the Gadarenes that Jesus wanted to enter. It was governed by demonic powers. The people were shut down. In fact the very first person they met was the most demonised man in the region, real scary, maniac lunatic but the heart of God was we've got to go to new territories. I know we're having revival. I know we're having great meetings. I know people are getting blessed. I know people are getting touched - but there's territories have never heard the gospel and I want to go to those places. Let's cross over to the other side. Let's go to where we haven't been before. Let's not rest and be comfortable. That's the heart of Jesus.

See, so kings are forever thinking how they can enlarge their territory. Jesus is a visionary, wants you to get vision of how your life can have an impact. Get alone with God one day and write down how many years you think you might have left and say what could I accomplish with the kingdom of God in that time? Don't sit around saying I wonder what the church can do for me, or maybe isn't doing for me, end up in a small world and complaining negative world. Start to think like a king. I'm a king! I need to hear what God could do through me and the life I've got yet to live on the earth!

Come on, you've got to get that in your spirit. Go to the other side, new territory, new opportunities. It could be in your personal life the territory, could be a financial area, could be a business area, could be a family area. I mean every one of us has got some territory to advance the kingdom in. You may just be stuck in some form of bondage. Well that's an area, write it down, that's the other side for me. I've got to break out of that thing and get free of it. Maybe something that's got around you, a habit that's got your life; you say the other side, I'm crossing to the other side. I'm not staying here. I've got to break out and see the kingdom of God break through in my life. The other side, so let's cross over means you have to travel through. You've got to move forward. You actually have to move, have to progress.

There's a good word that you can use for it - it's called migrate. A person migrates, they go from one place to another. Our life with God is from faith to faith, it's a journey of migration. It's not of staying where we are. Anyone who stays where they are has stopped. Anyone who stays where they are has stopped. They're dead in the water. A yacht dead in the water don't go anywhere. It's just at the mercy of whatever. It's becalmed. It's a horrible state when you're like that. No, no, we need to be moving forward, making conscious decisions especially with the exit of this year as we come into next year, we are moving to take new territory personally, in our family, in our business, in our finances, in our ministry effect on other people. We're going to enlarge. We're going to break out, we're going to take new territory. See, so you must be willing to make the change.

Now of course as a church we've been through a lot of changes in this last year and they're quite challenging I suppose in many ways. You do feel the stress because we all tend to like to be comfortable, but actually I'm looking and thinking well now I've got people up there in America with the Dream Centre; I've got people up in Auckland now with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids. I have Dave and Kate working with millions up in Pakistan. We'll be having people - we've got people up there in Northern Territories there, working with Aborigines. We've got lots of things are happening. We've got Sue up in Uganda and all kinds of things are happening there.

So we see our territory is enlarging. Now you see unless you identify with that you miss what God is doing, can't see the big picture. Big picture's very, very big, but of course if we're in our little world we can't see a big picture at all. Now God wants us to expand our thinking, expand our believing in every kind of area, expand the thinking. Amen!

So here's the thing: kings dream of enlarging their territory. What assignment has God given you? What is your territory and how can you enlarge it? What has God called you to influence? How can you increase your influence? You may be in a rest home or you may be in some place, well who can you grab from the jaws of hell before they slip out and burn up forever? ... [Applause] ... There's always some territory to take, always in the kingdom of God. Amen! So kings know there is somewhere.

Here's the next think you notice: kings advance to new territory. I want you to see something here in these verses. When they left the multitudes, the multitude just are the multitude. They don't usually go very far. They follow everyone else. If you're going to be a king, if you're going to stand up and fulfil your destiny, you can't follow the crowd. Young people, you want to be great - don't follow the crowd. Crowd are lost, bewildered, bewitched, under all kinds of influences. They don't know where they're going and they don't know what controls them. So they left the multitude. If we live our live to please people and we live our life continually to meet the needs of people, live our life continually to keep people happy, we will never, never move from where we are into larger territory because you know what happens? The moment you try to step out and make a change people try to stop you. We don't want you to make the change. We don't feel comfortable with you being there because it'll show up we're not moving. That's what happens - happens everywhere.

So you're going to move from the crowd, so there's a couple of things that they had to - the first things they had to do was they had to leave the crowd, had to leave the crowd behind. The crowd - it takes vision and courage to go against what other people do. You'll probably realise over the years we've never really followed what all the other churches do and not everyone's very happy about that. Some people come and say well you should be like them down the road. No, because we were never raised up to be like that. We've tried to resist some of the current trends because they violate the DNA I have. Church should be full of God, full of the presence of God, full of what God is doing, full of people who love one another and love God and are happy to be themselves, keen to advance the kingdom of God. See?

So you have to resist the pressure. There's pressures everywhere, pressures in ministry, pressures in finance, pressures in business. No matter where you are there's pressure. The question is if you're a king do you have vision and will you expand your territory and resist the pressure of people? It takes courage to do that, say our marriage is going to be different, our family's going to be different, our business is going to be different, our lives are going to be different. It takes courage to do that, so you've got to leave the crowd because the crowd aren't doing that and the crowd are never right. Never. Think about that.

Why would you follow the crowd if they're never right? Come on, think about it. Just think about it. A couple of years ago the crowd were saying come on, buy up more land, buy up investment, buy up property, buy this, but God was saying to me something different. He was saying no, no, get rid of your mortgage, make sure everything's all paid off. I felt a bit goofy and stupid that I was the only one thinking that way. Turned out to be quite a good move really - so they left the crowd. See? Kings advance to new territory, so to advance to new territory you've got to stop worrying what people thing. You've got to advance in what God is showing YOU to do. Notice they did two things; they left the people and they left the shore. You never go out into the seas of opportunity if you don't leave the shore of security. Sometimes we've got to step out and take risks and take chances and step out and let go of security.

I think for Dave and Kate, early on for them that right now they're planning to let go everything that they've tried to build and to let go all security. Now at that age in life that's a big challenge, knowing that you're going to sow your finance in your life and you have an uncertainty about your future - if you're a responsible father and husband that's a huge challenge. Be the same for Doug and Kalinda. Same for Terry. These are big challenges, to leave security, to leave the shore to pursue that walk that God's called us to. Now your security doesn't mean leaving Hastings or anything. Your security could be just your house. It could be something you've got your life invested in and you could do great things but you're held to that thing. What is it that's holding you? What's stopping you? What's got a grip? What is the crowd saying to you? What is it got hold of you that as a king you can't enlarge because you fear the crowd or fear to leave the shore? Think about it, see?

So here's the thing. They were not alone - Jesus was with them. You may think when you take the journey of faith you're alone and it feels like you're alone. It feels incredibly lonely I can tell you now, but you're not alone. Jesus is with you. Now the other thing if you look in the verse you'll see something I hadn't noticed before. Other little boats were there. There's other people stepping out just like you and sometimes when you step out in faith and do something a bit different it feels like you're the only one and you feel like you're a little bit weird, but you know what? I can tell you now there's always other people doing it too. You just don't know about them yet.

So here's the next thing. Kings have spiritual perspective. In Verse 37 it says a great storm arose, tremendously great storm arose. Here's the thing you'll find. There's always demonic opposition to the dreams of kings. If you intend to advance the kingdom of God there will be demonic opposition. The demonic opposition came in two ways; one in the form of a storm and the second when they landed in the form of a person. In other words, putting it simply, that whenever you try to fulfil your destiny in Christ there's certainly you will find demonic opposition rise up in the form of circumstances and people.

All of it will be to intimidate you, make you lose your dream and look out for yourself and become full of fear and full of unbelief. It's always the same, every kind of situation where we try to step out and do the things of God, inevitably there will be some storms. You have to be ready for them. That word storm there, it means literally a whirlwind, like a column of air that's just swirling around and around like that. You get caught in a whirlwind, boy, you really now it. You get spun around and thrown up in the air and you're extremely unstable for a while. This was no ordinary storm. It was a demonic storm. I've been in one of them. When I was preaching in Fiji I was in a room preaching about religious spirits and this whirlwind started up inside the room. Wind just started to run round the room like that. It was loud enough to hear and strong enough to feel and there was no physical cause for it. As quickly as it started it stopped, went out and then it attacked the church evangelism, tore all the roof off it. It didn't touch any of the other huts. It was a demonic whirlwind, so this is a demonic whirlwind that actually caught up the seas and then raised the seas up so they were in danger of sinking.

There's a number of storms. There's usually three different types of storms come in life. There's storms that come because we goofed up so badly we've created a huge mess and now we've got a storm. Those are not good ones. You've got to repent, it takes you time to put them back together again and if you're honest with God He'll help you. There's another storm that God lets rise up to get your attention or to check your faith out, then there's a demonic storm. Demonic storm's just straight out resistance. You've got to discern what the storm is, so this was a demonic storm because straight after they met a demonic man.

So new assignments have new challenges. Keep your eyes on your assignment, not on the challenge. Jesus said we've got to go to the other side. If He said we've got to go to the other side, He didn't anticipate a boat sinking on the way. And if it did there'd still be driftwood to hold on to to get ashore. Paul had three boats sink under him but he carried on. This is Christianity that Jesus proclaimed was never sissy. The boat sank, he carried on. In this particular case Jesus had no - He knew the end from the beginning. If He has given you an assignment He'll get you there and I don't care what storms come and whether your boat sinks on you; nevertheless He can get you there because if He gave the assignment He didn't change because there was a storm!

If you live out of circumstances, feelings and experiences, when they turn bad you'll sink. You have to build your life on revelation and on the word of God so in the storm you keep your perspective. You keep sound in your mind. Storms come to fill you with fear so your faith goes. Notice what Jesus said; they were so filled with fear, He said you've got no faith. In other words the storm and circumstances when they focussed their attention off it caused them to forget the assignment that they had and what happened then? They got filled with fear, they began to doubt the word of God. Then they began to accuse Jesus; Jesus, you don't care about us. They began to blame Him; you need to help us. They're thinking not like a king, they're thinking like a victim, someone powerless in something they can't control. What it exposed was their thinking. What it exposed was their faith levels. Listen, you can be in the middle of meetings and God's doing stuff and still develop no faith.

Faith is built on hearing and responding to the word of God, of getting God's word into your own heart and life. Otherwise you can be in a great meeting, have a great experience and the next day your boat's sinking. The key thing is what did God say to you and are you pursuing it? And if there's a storm what is coming up in your life in the face of that storm? If you're a king you'll arise and assert your dominion. If you're a victim you'll say oh, help me Jesus, I'm sinking, wah wah. Who's stupid idea was it to put us in the boat?

Come on. Jesus was so unconcerned He was asleep. Why was He so unconcerned? Because He absolutely knew He was going to the other side. He'd heard from the Father. He had revelation. He's a king. That's why He's acting like a king - He's sleeping unconcerned about the circumstances. Not only that; He expected them to act like kings. He expected them to act like He would and He had and stand up and do something. He expected them to do what? He expected them to stand up and speak to the demonic storms and exercise kingly authority. I'll develop this another time, but kings make decrees and assert dominion aye? So what happened? It says Jesus rose up and He spoke directly into the storm and told it to be quiet. The word is He commanded or He legislated or He set a divine decree. What you understand is He used His power of words. He used words filled with faith to shut down the demonic storm and calm the circumstances down. There was a great storm, then there was a great peace. What changed it from a great storm to a great peace was a king standing and speaking into the storm, speaking the word of God into the storm, not doubting in His heart.

He said you have the faith of God or faith like God you'll speak to the mountain, be removed! I can't understand why so many Christians have such quiet voices when there's so many things you need to speak strongly and firmly - be removed! See? There's a reason for this. Kings decree, they don't beg. They don't plead, they don't entreat. Kings stand up and speak the word of God. You were here on this earth as a king. You have to learn how to speak God's word over your circumstances, speak God's word over your marriage, over your personal life, over your finances, over your family.

The Bible says the world we see were framed or constructed by God having a dream and speaking a word. We, when we operate in faith, must learn how to do the same thing. Father, in Jesus' name I declare today everything in my day shall work together for good for me. I declare in Jesus' name things come into divine order. I receive revelation today. You've got to learn how to speak the word of God over your life, calling the things to be not as though they are. That's how kings operate. That's how kings pray. Kings speak over their life, speak over their circumstances. They take dominion over spirits.

I take dominion. I declare no assignment against me shall prosper today. Every weapon that's formed, no weapon formed against me shall prosper; no relational weapon, no financial weapon, no spiritual weapon, no emotional weapon, none shall prosper today! I walk in the blessing of God today. You've got to learn to arise like a king and speak like a king because you ARE a king. See? We are kings waiting to rise up. That's why I share this message, when Jesus heard of the storm He arose. Let the kings arise and begin to exercise their kingship and start to speak in the spirit and shape their world according to the word of God!

There's so many believers undermine their world constantly, living and talking like a victim, speaking negatively, speaking and complaining. The people of Israel in the wilderness complained so much and the Lord said to them what you said, it'll come to pass. But Joshua said we're well able to go up and take these giants - God is with us. He said that's how a king speaks. You'll go in and possess the land and I'll make sure you get there.

You've got to learn to speak like a king, to think like a king, to frame your world like a king would frame his world, hearing the voice of God, desiring to expand your territory, letting go of what people think and letting go of circumstances to step out and to do new things and rising when the voice of God comes and speaking into it like a king. If storms come speak into them. Something happens, rise up and speak. Don't talk to people about your problem - talk to the problem. Don't complain to someone how tough it is. Get near God and get His perspective and decree it over your problem. Make the circumstances of your life yield to the invisible realm of eternity.

The Bible says all these things are a light affliction and they work for us a great weight of glory while we look not at the seen things which are temporal, but at the unseen things which are eternal. What does that look like? Very simple. You keep your eyes fixed on what God is saying. If God said to get there, well that storm's not going to stop me! If the boat sinks it doesn't mean I'm not going to get there. I will get there because God has sent me there! If you're thinking about you have a destiny, a core of things to accomplish in your life, you don't have to be afraid of death. Why? Because God will keep me 'til I fulfil my assignment. It's a perspective about life. It's a whole king's way of thinking about life. I've yet to accomplish many things. I can't die tomorrow or the day after; there's things for me to do. So I need to declare like a king and speak over my life and over the areas God's held me responsible for what God is saying.

Father, we just thank you today. There are many kings waiting to rise up today. There are men and women here today who have your seed in them, who've received your spirit and have a royal seed. There's royalty in waiting oh God. Father, I pray that in today and in the weeks ahead that the voice of Your spirit will stir that kingly seed to stand up and to begin to start to walk like a king and think like a king and speak like a king and act like a king and create a different realm around them, just like a king would.

Perhaps just while we're finishing here in the last few moments, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, don't know Jesus Christ, then a great day for you to come to Jesus today. Jesus said this; whoever received Him and believed on Him, He gave power to be a child of God. Notice that - a child of God, born into a royal family. You may be complaining about your background, where you've come from and what happened, all that kind of stuff. Listen, I've got news for you. When you get born again you come into a new family, get a new start, get a divine DNA put into your spirit and soul. You become different. But you have to make a decision. God says He's chosen you. Will you just say yes, I'm responding?

If you're here today and you want to become a Christian - a Christian's just a follower of Jesus Christ, a king in training, but you've got to make a decision and a choice to personally receive Him. If there's anyone here today right at that point I'd love to give you a chance to receive Jesus, become a Christian, have your sins forgiven, have a fresh start in life. If that's you today and you're right at that place of decision today and you sense man, God's talking to me, I need to respond. You may feel a bit nervous on the inside, but you know something's happened. Your heart's pumping - man, I just need to do something. Why don't you raise your hand and say Pastor, I want to become a Christian today. Anyone here today, right at that place of decision, just raise your hand, just let me know - I want to become a Christian. Anyone here today, anyone here right at that place, just let me know, raise your hand. Raise your hand. Just raise your hand, let me know.

There may be others here today and you've been just strengthened. In fact you felt God speak to you to start to rise up on the inside. If that was you, God spoke to you about that, about making changes in your personal life, beginning to re-think and set some clarity around your direction or where you're going. If you know God's speaking that way, say that's me, God's talking to me that way. God bless, God bless, God bless.

Father, we just pray that in these coming weeks kings will arise, in Jesus' mighty name. Everyone said ... [Amen!] ... Amen. Come on, let's give the Lord a clap. ... [Applause.]

Summary Notes

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1. Introduction:

1 Pet 2:9

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood:

· We must know and agree with what God says we are - our identity

· Chosen generation – selected by God to carry His DNA and be his family

· Royal Priesthood – access into the very throne of God

· Royal or kingly, regal

· Kings don’t beg, don’t think as a victim - powerless, blaming others

· Kings decree, legislate, make commands

· Kings discover and declare the will and purpose of God and advance the Kingdom

· Rev 19:16 “…He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords”

· Jesus is raising a generations of Kings and Lords to advance His Kingdom

Kings receive Prophetic Direction

a) “Even had come” v35

· Even = beginning of a new day. Days began in the evening

· New day = new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences

· God is always dong new things, fresh things

· Kings don’t live in yesterdays experience, they look forward to a new day

· New day = required new direction and revelation

b) “He said to them” v 35

· Don’t live in past experiences, yesterdays revelation experience

· Position yourself to hear God daily

· EG Mary, Jesus rose early and Moses

· V34 While they were alone He explained all things to His disciples

· Jesus raising Kings – took them aside to give revelation and direction

· ‘Alone’ – must build and prioritize time alone with God

3. Kings Dream of Enlarging their Territory

1 Pet 2:35

“Let us cross over to the other side”

a) Crossover” = to travel through, to journey through, go to new places

· Must be willing to move forward, enlarge, advance from current position

· Migrate = journey to a place of new opportunities

· There are challenges and obstacles to be faced

b) “Other side” = the territory beyond the place they were standing

· The country of the Gaderenes v51

· New territory, new areas to invade and advance the kingdom

· New experiences to have

· It could be personal life, finances, marriage, family, ministry

· God calls every generation out of their security to advance the kingdom

· New territories to enter: Media, education, government, finance, arts

· What dream do you have of the future enlargement, advance?

4. Kings advance New Territory

“They eft the multitude and took Him along on the boat’ v36

Left = 863 = to forgive, to send away= choose to let go can advance

i) Left the multitude (people)

· Kings don’t get led by the crowd and multitudes

· Kings have vision and direction and courage

· Crowd lacks vision, they pressure you to conform, to do what they want to do

· Kings hear God and have vision of new territory

· Faith life is in a journey of hearing God and moving forward

· It takes courage to be different

ii) Left the shore (place of security)

· No great adventures unless you cast off from shore

· Boat journeys are filled with uncertainty – cast off – let go

· What is holding you back? What are you clinging to?

· Jesus was in the boat

· Faith journey seems lonely but:

You are not alone; Jesus is with you

You are not alone; others are taking the same journey

Your faith stirs others

5. King have a Spiritual Perspective

A great storm arose and the waves beat in the boat

a) There is always demonic opposition to Kingdom advance

1. Storm 1 Pet 2:37 2. Demonised man 1 Pet 5:1

· Storm = whirlwind, rotating column of air with great turbulence

· The demonic storm whipped through the sea in to a turmoil

· Every assignment of God has demonic opposition

· Demonic opposition – circumstances or people

b) Focus on the Assignment not the circumstances, challenges, feelings – 2 Cor 4:16-18

· Disciples lost spiritual perspective

· Fear of death Accuse and blame Faith quenched and doubt

· Focus on saving self and not the assignment

· Think like a victim not a king

· Missed opportunity for growth

6. Kings make Decrees and Assert Dominion

· “He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea …” v39

· Do you arise in your spirit like a King for battle or do you cringe like a victim?

· “Said” = 2036NT = to command, to legislate, to decree

· Kings make decrees – they assert their authority over the territory

· Whatever your assignment, territory – must learn to address the demonic!

· Mark 11:23 “Have the faith of God … peak to …not doubt with your heart”

· Jesus rebuked the wind and sea and disciples

· God requires us to walk by faith not by experiences alone

· Jesus expected them to interact with the circumstances as a King

Servants or Kings (3 of 4)

Sun 14 Nov 2010 AM  « Back to Top

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God does not want you to live in the realm of a servant or slave. He wants you to live in the realm of friend - very important for your destiny and for your future that you migrate in your thinking from servant to friend. A servant is trained to: listen for instructions; follow the instructions. Their own desires or dreams are not involved.

Wonderful. Well we've been looking at the theme of kings over this last couple of weeks and I know you're going to enjoy what I share with you this morning. So I want you to open your Bible with me in John, Chapter 15 and we'll read Verse 14 and 15. I want to call this message today servants or kings, which are you -a servant or slave, or are you a king? Which are you? Of course the way you think and the way you approach life will reveal it very clearly and I want to give you some biblical perspective. Notice here it says in Verse 14 and 15, this is Jesus' last session with His disciples and so the Bible recounts a lot of it. There's about four chapters; John, Chapter 13, 14, 15, 16 right through to 17 is all Jesus' words to His disciples. That's a lot of words written down and so the things that are shared there are really important.

You notice what He says here; You're my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends for all the things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. So Jesus at this point is raising the status of His followers. He says I'm no longer calling you servants. That meant prior to that time He had addressed them or treated them or called them servants. A servant is someone who listens to commands and does what they're commanded to do, but Jesus wants to elevate their status. He wants to shift them to a different realm of living. It's not a servant or slave, it's the realm of friend, a friend of God.

God does not want you to live in the realm of a servant or slave. He wants you to live in the realm of friend - very important for your destiny and for your future that you migrate in your thinking from servant to friend. Notice what He says here; servants know how to obey - so a servant listens. What a servant is trained to do are these things: number one, to listen for instructions; number two, follow the instructions. That's what a servant does. Their own desires or dreams are not involved. They wait for instructions and follow instructions, so a person who's a servant really has no dreams or desires of their own. They're not given expression to them. They just live to fulfil the will of another. That's the role of a servant.

Jesus is wanting to lift them up. A friend has a personal relationship. A friend connects and communicates heart to heart. When you go through the Bible and you begin to look at the friends of God, you find there's something quite interesting. Yes, they were God's representatives. You find that they fulfil what God wanted them to do, but they engage with God and often disagreed and debated or tried to persuade Him to change His mind. You have a look at Moses and God said to Moses, well I'm going to get out of the way. I'm going to kill all these people and Moses stands up and begins to negotiate with God and God changes the plan. Now that's a true friend.

They're able to come into relationship with God in such a way that God engages them and listens to them. It's not the role of a servant. A servant just does what they're told. Moses clearly had gone beyond the realm of a servant when he's negotiating with God about how He's going to treat Israel for their mistakes. Abraham was similar. He was called a friend of God but you notice when God said that He was going to destroy the city he begins a process of bargaining and he's a real Jew really because he beats Him down from you know, well if I find 50 in there, well what if you only found 10? Then he gets it right down to if I found one, so he does actually a bargaining with God. Can you believe that? ... [Laughter]

What kind of relationship did he have that he's able to walk and talk with God in that way? This is what Jesus is saying; He said I call you friends. Now what you have to see is that there was a progression of things happened in John 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. In John 13 Jesus models what a king behaves like. He said I'm your Lord or I'm the king. But then what He did was He took off His outer garments and He went down and He served the disciples, so He showed them a king actually can engage at the lowest level of class and serve. The kingdom of God, kings in God's kingdom, can serve and minister to the lowest levels of life, the lowest levels of human need. That's what God's kings can do. What a contrast that is to the kings of the world.

In John, Chapter 14, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. Now you've got to understand what He's doing. He's promising - He said I'm about to leave you. I've modelled for you what a king is like. I've done this for you. Now you can do this for one another. Then the second thing is He promises a kingly seed. The Bible says that we receive the Holy Spirit, we are born again. There is an impregnation of our life with divine DNA, so when you get born again and the spirit of God comes into you, the divine nature of God becomes fused with your spirit. We are one spirit with the Lord, so therefore you are of divine origin. You have divine seed or life inside you, divine DNA. It is natural for you to connect with God. It is natural for you to walk with God. It's natural for you to speak and interact with God. It's natural for you to flow in the things of the spirit. Why? Because you're fused. You are now royal seed.

If you want to know where you come from well you have a look at your background, but when you got born again Jesus broke the connections to your old background and fused you and pulled you into a new family. It's a royal family. So one, He modelled what that kingly family would behave like. It's a family that knows how to serve needs. Two, it's also a family that's got royal DNA. You have royal DNA within you. The third thing is Jesus then raises them to a kingly stature. He raises them to friends. He'll always have pre-eminence. That's why He's called the king of kings. Kings talk with one another. You have a look at the leaders of nations. They meet and they build friendships with one another. They respect one another. They understand the domain over which each one rules and they relate in certain ways.

Jesus said I'm lifting you up out of the status of being a servant and into the status of being a king. I've shown you what a king acts like. I've demonstrated kingly power. Now I'm going to put kingly seed in you. I'm raising you up to become of a kingly family. I want you to live, act, think, talk and advance the kingdom of God. Trouble is we get stuck with a slave mentality.

In John 17 Jesus said He would share His kingly glory with us. So He's very clearly, the whole context of those few chapters is God is wanting to understand I am shifting you from where you were, servants of God, slaves to sin, I'm shifting you now to become kings and I'm going to anoint you and launch you into the world and you're going to have a global mission to advance the kingdom right through until every person, every part, every generation hears the gospel of the kingdom of God! Trouble is we get caught up in church. Actually, you're called to a kingdom. Church is here to help prepare you to do your kingly duties. Think about that.

Okay then, so let's have a look in John 13, we'll go back into there and you see Jesus is a servant king. He's not a servant. His identity never was servant. His identity always is He is a king. It says in Chapter 13 and Jesus, it said knowing that His hour had come - Verse 1 - that He would depart from this world to His Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them to the end. The supper being ended and the devil put it into the heart of Judas, Simon's son, to betray Him - now notice this; Jesus, knowing what He had - knowing what the Father had given to Him, knowing where He'd come from, His origin. He came from God - knowing where He was going, He was going to God. Now where have you come from? See? Oh, I come from Dannevirke. I was born there. NO! Come on. You haven't renewed your mind yet. You have been born from above. Your citizenship, the place you belong, is in heaven with God. You are born from above. You are a citizen of Him. Where have you come from? You've come from heaven. Where are you going? Going to heaven. Where are you from? You're from a royal family and you're going back into that royal family and you are royal seed on the earth. Do you look like it? No, not at all, but then David didn't look like a king when he was running around and everyone was chasing him. Joseph didn't look like a king when he was going through some hard times.

Whether you look like a king or feel like a king is not the point. God says you are that by divine birth. You have royal blood inside you, God's blood, God's DNA. So Jesus was a king. He knew who He was. He knew His identity. He was a king and He knew it.

When you read the scriptures you'll find (and it almost was there today in what Amanda read) in Matthew 2:2, the wise men came and they said who's he who's born king? You follow through the scriptures and Pilot says to Him in John 18, are you king? He says too right I am. I am king. When He died on the cross they wrote something up on top of Him. It was called Jesus of Nazareth, king, king of the Jews. The Bible shows in the Book of Revelation He's there, He's the king of kings. He was always king. He never changed His kingly nature, never changed His kingly seed, never changed in His death. When He came into this earth He was born as a king in the earth. He knew who He was. He knew where He came from, knew where He was going and knew His realm of domain, His mission and assignment in this world, and He came to elevate and raise others to become kings like Him. He would be the first among kings, kings like Him that would advance the kingdom of God.

Now the problem is if you have a religious mindset you'll think like a servant. Jesus came to advance the kingdom of God. He demonstrated kingly behaviour and raised their status. Now the kings of this world act and think differently to the kings in the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdoms of this world you'll notice that position is important. Rank is important. Privileges are important, titles are important, power is important - so in the kingdoms of this world it's very concerned with position, titles, power, privileges that go with kingship, all of those kinds of things. The kingdom of heaven is not like that at all. It is not concerned with position. It's not concerned with title, it's not concerned with privileges, it's not concerned with people waiting on them. It's not concerned with any such things.

Jesus said in Matthew 20, the kings of this world exercise dominion and lordship and control people and exercise authority and turn them into servants, doing their will, fulfilling their vision. But He said it shall not be so among you. You shall not think or behave or operate in that paradigm or way, yet so often we find among Christians the biggest things are their positions, their titles - all those kinds of things are very important to some people. You know why they're important? They don't know who they are.

If you know who you are you don't worry about all those things. You don't need a title - I'm a leader! ... [Laughter] ... I just got six inches taller! You don't need that. You don't need it. Well I get to sit in the front! ... [Laughter] ... See, you don't need any of those things if you know who you are. It's all take it or leave it. You don't need them to establish your identity because you know who you are. I am born of kingly seed, I am a king. It's got nothing to do with any role, rank, position or where I might be right now. It's got to do with what Jesus did inside me. That's who I am!

Now once you know that, then you've got to think like a king. The problem is people don't think like a king, they think like a slave. You are a king. In 1 Peter 2:9 it says you are a royal, royal, royal - you are royal, you are royal - tell someone. Say "You're royalty." ... [You're royalty.] ... If you knew you were royalty you'd never carry on like a slave. That's why you've got to - tell them again. They forgot it already. "You are royalty." ... [You're royalty.] ... Look them in the eye, see. People have trouble. Your royal highness [laughs] That's good isn't it aye? That's a world title. Notice the word 'highness' in it. ... [Laughter]

We're just royalty. We're part of an eternal kingdom that's going to go on forever. We get to take it all over! But you've got to be doing something right now, not just waiting for all that to happen. So Jesus lived for a cause. He was a king who knew how to wash feet. Oh, now this is blowing our minds away because in this new kingdom we're a part of the kings wash people's dirty, dusty, grubby, pooey covered feet. I'm not sure whether I want to be a king any more. I kind of had something else in mind being a king. I sort of had in mind being on a throne and people bowing down to me and looking after me and I had privileges and perks and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The world thinking!

He said it shall not be so among you. That's not His kingdom - that's the world's kingdoms which are ranked in order like that. He says God's kingdom's a different kingdom, where the king of kings can come down, wash feet and die on a cross. That is the nature of that kingdom. Jesus came and served people - but He was never their servant. Neither at any time was He a servant. He actually was in deep covenant relationship with His Father. He was a Son. He operated out of sonship, out of relationship.

We're going to show you just a few ways that kings and servants think which are quite different. I want you to change how you think. I want you to think like a king - you must think like a king! In Galatians 4, Verse 1, it says now the heir - that's the kingly seed who's entitled to the inheritance - if he remains a child he's nothing more than a servant. Oh? Think about that. You might be entitled to a big inheritance, but if you remain a child usually you can't get hold of it. Someone administers it for you. You're no different than a servant in the house having to learn. So notice what He said; while we're a child. While we're a child we're no better than a servant, so that means you've got to grow up see? Then He says but we're no longer children and He says what children look like. Now I'm going to read - we need to read this because I want to show you something in this, then we'll just give you some comparisons between a servant and kingly thinking and servant thinking.

So let's just go into Galatians for a moment, then I'll finish up. Galatians, Ephesians, there we go. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Chapter 4, Verse 1; Now I say the heir - that's the one who's entitled to the inheritance - as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but he's under tutors and guardians until the appointed time. Now notice how He applies it. First of all He gives you a natural picture. If you remain a child, even though you are entitled to the inheritance you can't have it. You're just no better than a slave, you just do what you're told. Now notice what it says, I want you to watch this. He says now when we were - what tense is this? Past. We were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world. Now what He's talking about there, we were in bondage living under rules.

How can you tell a person's a child? They live under rules. Do this. Don't do that. Their role: listen and obey. It's great for children to learn to listen and obey, in fact if you don't listen and obey you're going to grow up to be a monstrous teenager. So one of the first primary tasks is for children to learn to listen and obey.

Now notice what He says, that when you live under law, do's and don'ts, you have to do this, you can't do that, you're not allowed to do this, you must do that - when you live under laws. He's saying when you live under religion you remain a slave and you can't access what God has provided for your inheritance, the supernatural, miracles, dreams, visions, abundance, breakthroughs, enlargement, new territory. You can't get it if you live under religion. It's impossible. That's what He's saying. Now the dilemma is of course we just apply that to everyone else.

So when the fullness of time came God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law - notice redeem, to completely purchase us out from being bonded to law-keeping and bring us into instead placement as a son. A son is different to a slave. A slave has got rules and laws and they're told to do this, told to do that and they do it and they get punished if they don't. A son has relationship. A son enters into connection with the heart of his father. A son catches his father's businesses and shares his fathers concern. A son also has dreams of his own. A son also has desires of their own. A son talks with his father about how the dreams and desires can be fulfilled. Think about that.

Now we need to learn from Israel's history because Israel were called to be like that. Israel, my first born son. God wanted them to come into the liberty of an inheritance, so He got them out of Egypt where they were in bondage. They trusted in the blood, they came out of Egypt, they walked through the wilderness. Now there are two things they did which are very, very significant and we won't look them up. I'll give you the reference for them. The first one is in Exodus 19. In Exodus 19 God Himself came down and glory on a mount and He wanted the people to come and connect intimately face to face with Him. In Exodus 20 they said Moses, this is too scary. You go and represent us. So the first thing they did was they drew back from intimacy with God and replaced it with someone going to God and telling them what God had for them. They replaced it with a person.

God wanted them to be a nation of priests. He wanted them to be a royal kingdom where they all had access to Him and when they would not come near to Him He had to change the plan. Every person here is called to personal relationship with God. You are not designed to live off sermons week to week. They can be helpful. They can be constructive. They can build, they can motivate, they can reveal truth, but you're not made to live like that. Man shall not live by bread alone. Every word God is speaking to them, God has designed you to live from a flow of revelation, designed you to live out of a personal walk with Him. No personal walk with Him, you have become a slave immediately. Personal walk with God, intimacy, relationship, listening, hearing, communing with Him, sharing your heart, your dreams, your desires, beginning to draw instructional wisdom from Him - this is how He wanted Israel to be, but they didn't want that. They wanted someone to hear God and tell them what God was saying.

Many Christians are addicted to coming up and getting prophetic words. Why? They want someone else to hear God for them and tell them what to do with their life. It becomes another form of divination, instead of being responsible to listen to God. One of the foundational things in your life is to know who you are and then to connect with the one who has called you to Himself. All ministry, all leadership is to build people to Christ. He is the head. This is the first thing.

The second thing is you'll find if you look up in 1 Samuel, Chapter 8, and then again in 1 Samuel, Chapter 12, you'll find this is what happened. They looked around and they saw that the other nations around them had a king and they said give us too. We want to be like everyone else. Give us someone to rule over us - and God was very upset. He said but I rule over you. This is a kingdom where I'm in charge, you all hear me and I give you direction. I don't want you to have someone over you. They said give us a king anyway. He said well okay, I'll tell you what the king will be like. He will take from you. He'll take taxes. He'll extract from you and then he'll tell you what to do. Oh, we want that. We want that - and God was so displeased, now get this - number one, the first thing that happened was six times, it says he will take from you. It'll be a one way street when you put someone to be what God intended - a role God intended you to take. We're not to become dependent on people. We're to recognise the giftings of one another, but no one should ever be a substitute for the kingship of the Lord in our life, no one. ... [Applause] ... No one. No one, because He said it'll take something from you. Second thing that happened was they lost their harvest. They lost their harvest.

If you let someone take over charge of your life telling you what to do, you will lose your dreams and your destiny and your harvest. You see God's plan is not for us all just to be gathered in a church. We're to be gathered and mobilised into the community to fulfil dreams and desires and to activate the kingdom of God, to advance the kingdom of God. So if you do not value your relationship with God and let someone do your praying for you, someone else do it for you and you don't value the dreams and desires in your heart, then what'll happen is you'll never fulfil what God called you for. This is where so many people are. So many people are trapped in this place.

I'm finding God is bringing a revelation to the church. It's about His kingdom. It's about Him working through you, changing lives around you. Everyone is called to that. Everyone's called, so we've got to break it. Let me just share a few simple things that are just the difference between a servant and a king and we'll just finish up with that.

Servants must break out of slave mentalities. I want to share a couple of meetings with you or teachings with you to help you understand and recognise victim thinking or slave thinking. Slaves think a certain way and not only do they think a certain way, they talk a certain way. Here's a typical example; well, stuff happens. That's a slave mentality. It's not kingdom mentality - comes out of a heart that's resigned that stuff happens and we can't do anything about it. It's not a kingly statement. It tells something about a heart that's still in bondage. I want to share some of these things to help you recognise it. Once you get a few things about how people talk when they're in slave mentality you're going to pick this up everywhere. You're going to start to hear victim, victim, victim, victim, victim. Everywhere you go you'll hear victim talk and the thing is to make sure that you break out of victim talk and begin to start to speak and think and act like a king you are. Amen. Amen!

So let's have a look at the difference between a servant and a king and I'll just quickly go through these. I could develop them more but I'll leave it to you to think through. Now the first thing is for the servant, his identity is a servant. That's who I am. I am a servant. I serve, see? But for a king, well his identity - I'm a king. I am a king and I make decrees and declarations. I begin to build. I have designs and desires. I have a dream and vision. The slave, well the slave is not thinking like that. That's who he is. So you see here's the second thing about a servant; a servant is waiting for instructions. They don't do anything until they hear. They need to hear, so they practise listening and obeying and they're very good. They listen and obey and they're very good at that.

Jesus said if you don't learn to listen and obey you can never graduate to being His friend, because learning to listen and yield to God, revelation and obedience are qualifiers for friendship, see? But that's not where we stop, so a person who thinks like a king takes initiative. It's very difficult for many Christians to take initiative, because they're afraid of getting it wrong, afraid of making a mistake, afraid of missing the will of God. What if I miss the will of God? That's what they do and so they live like a slave. I'm so scared of missing the will of God, actually I won't take responsibility for decision making. I won't take responsibility for my life. I'll wait until God tells me.

Now there is a place and times when we need to listen clearly for directions from God, but if you want to - see I hear people say well God told me to go down and buy this, God told me to go down and buy that. God told me - you know, you hear people talk like that. Well God told me to buy - and they kind of go on and on about what God told them. It appears like it's really spiritual. It's incredibly childish. You could just if anyone talked to you like that say wait a minute. Hang on, back up here. Let me just run this by you. You're telling me that you are so childish and irresponsible that God's got even to remind you to buy toilet paper? What is with you. Grow up. Think it through. It sounds spiritual but it's incredibly religious and it's incredibly childish - but it can intimidate and come through as spiritual. That's what it's meant to do, but actually it's childish.

God gives you a free will and He gave you a mind. A mind. ... [Applause.] ... A mind to think, design, imagine, create and order your life with. He gave you that. He's not going to do it for you. You have to think. Tell someone you have to think. I know it's going to hurt, but think. It's true. Some people become Christians, they stop thinking. They become in slave mentality - I just got to do what I'm told, I got to wait for God to tell me what to do - but God, you're not talking to me. I'm not hearing anything. I'm stuck - passive and stuckness. There's another thing, so for a servant their relationship is authority based so they're big words. The big words that are big in their mind are submit, yield, wait, obey you see?

Well the king has already gone past all of that. They've grown out of the childhood stage and now it's covenant based, so they're concerned about engaging. What they have is God's, what God has is theirs, and they talk then about the sharing of resources, how they can walk together. It's a different deal. It's a whole different level of relationship. He said I'm not calling you servants any more, I call you friends. Friends talk and share dreams and desires with one another.

Here's another thing. The servant buries their own dreams and desires so they can serve, meet needs and please. A servant will bury all their dreams and desires. Now let me ask you this; Think if you were God for a moment and you designed a plan for every person before they came into this world. Think about that. The Bible says we're created for works that He prepared before we were born, in Ephesians 2:10. So now how are we going to get that person you have designed, how do you get them to connect to the plan you have for them? How are we going to do it? Just think about how God's going to do it.

Here's the first thing He does. He puts a desire and a passion in them. It's in their hearts. They have desires. They have dreams, they have passions. When they do what they're called to do, man they fire up and become energetic see? The second way is puts His Holy Spirit in to direct you, primarily if you're going off course. Now if you only wait and listen for the Holy Spirit you'll become a slave. You won't actually arise and take responsibility God has put in your heart dreams, desires, passions, destiny to fulfil. So many believers never connect to their dreams, desires and passions and never get a fulfilled life. They get a servant life doing what I'm told, waiting for God to tell me what to do next, so there's another difference you see. So a servant is relatively passive, waiting for instructions, whereas a king takes initiative and plans how he can advance his territory.

A servant is so worried about getting it wrong and getting punished he won't do anything until he gets an instruction, whereas a king says man, risk and failure are part of the deal. We're going to have a go anyway. Come on, think about it. Think about it. Religion keeps people as slaves. Jesus came to set us free - so here's another thing then. So we saw then that a servant would tend to be passive and powerless and waiting to be hold, whereas the king is proactive. He's thinking now what's some ways, you see? So the servant will be praying for God to tell him what to do. God would say you're creative, got ideas. Why don't you find out what ideas you've got and what resources you've got and try something? It might be a shock. It might work. If it doesn't work I'll help you out and mistakes aren't fatal in the kingdom because there's no condemnation of those in Christ Jesus. Ha ha ha! You can step out and have a go - if you're a king, because a king can step out and have a go! It's the servants can't. They're terrified they'll get it wrong. They live under the bondage of fear, whereas a king says well I'm going to have a go anyway and if it doesn't work out what did we learn? Okay, up and at it, we'll go ahead. Come on man!

A servant has a sense of entitlement - well I've done this for God, so therefore this should happen. I paid my tithe but nothing happened. ... [Laughter] ... I'm not going to tithe any more. I hate God. I'm resentful for Him not coming through like I expected Him to. Grrr! You know someone like that don't you? I know you know someone like that. They end up in resentment and anger because what they feel entitled to they don't get, whereas a king has a sense of responsibility. They have a sense of responsibility. I've got some things here I can do, so a king would look at the church and say man, I've got giftings here. What can I do to help build people? The servant says well what's the church going to do for me? How's it going to help me get out of my hole? Come on, give us a break. Get out of that thinking. It's a victim thinking. It's a victim thinking.

Become part of a royal family with something to contribute, something to give see, so a servant values personal security. So think about this; the servant that was given the one talent just buried it all and didn't do anything. The other ones all traded and got commended and got promoted. It's a mentality. It's a way of thinking see?

So a servant values security but a king values destiny, so a servant will try to do everything to make sure I don't get into trouble and they get to the very end of their life and say I'm still going to church. Aren't you pleased? ... [Laughter] ... But you see a king doesn't think that way. A king says I can never sit in a pew and that's it for my life. I have to be advancing the kingdom. What has God put in my way? What could I do? What could I give? How could I advance the kingdom of God? How can I touch someone's life? How can I grow my resources? So kings of course - see servants always have a poverty mentality, never got enough, but a king's not thinking that way. A king's thinking how can I multiply my resources? Don't want to live off a wage all my life. I really need to get busy here and find some ways, creative ways I can make money! I've got a kingdom to advance and it's going to take some money to do it - so I want to grow in wealth so I have abundance to give to others! That's how kings think. Jesus was never a poor man.

Okay and I'll give you the last one here. You're not going to like this one. I know you're not going to like this one. You're definitely not going to like this one. Here it is: A servant, a person who thinks like a servant, is waiting for revival - one day, soon. I heard that 30 years ago. One day, soon. So this is what you should do. You should pray and wait. ... [Laughter] ... That's the fruit of it. That is the fruit if you go down that route too far. I believe in revival. I believe God revives people, raises them up, puts His spirit in them, anoints them, puts vision and passions in their heart and wants them like a king to be busy with what they have! Be busy with what God has given them! Be busy with their entrustment, growing and expanding their giftings, training, taking initiative to do things instead of waiting - for one day it'll be better. No, one day you'll be old and die. ... [Laughter] ... That's what'll happen and your day will have gone. This IS your day! THIS IS YOUR DAY! No more thinking like a slave! No more thinking like a servant! Transform the thinking to think like a king, to walk like a king in nobility and dignity, to treat people with a heart to see them prosper and advance, to look after the interests of people that God brings into your world, to find ways to serve, create wealth, create resources, multiply, increase! This is how kings think. This is the thinking God is bringing into the nation of the earth right now.

This is one of the worst things that happened was about 150 years ago, come out of teaching the rapture, that you hang on until the end and then whisk! Up you go and the rest all burn! ... [Laughter] ... That is the most horrible, horrible thing I've ever heard. Survive and then escape and those wicked sinners will be all burnt up and that's what they deserve and they're gonna get theirs! So as a result of that you had a church and it's like a boxing ring with a little fella and a big fella and the big fella's beating the other one and pummelling him around the ring, beats him up and pushes him around the ring, beats him until he's black and blue but he hangs on and he won't give up. He hangs on and he won't give up and he hangs on round after round after round. Finally the tenth bell rings and a hook comes down from out of the sky, hooks the little fella and says he's the winner. ... [Laughter] ... Now this is just nonsense. He's not the winner. God's plan is something different. God's plan is an overcoming church. You read the Book of Daniel, read the Book of Daniel, read the Book of Revelation. It's not all about evil things. It's about a rock, not formed with human hands, becoming a mountain that fills the whole earth. It's about God's kingdom advancing right through the whole world. It says all nations shall come to the glory. Nations shall flow into the house of God. Why will they do that? Because it's the primary influence in the world!

Don't get some defeatist mentality. Don't get some victim mentality. Don't shut down and become passive. This is a great day and hour for kings to arise, an hour for you to discover who you are, to discover what God put into your heart to accomplish and begin to do what you need to do to get there. And it's not just about listening for instructions. It's about investing in yourself, about getting someone to help you and coach you. It's about gaining wisdom so you can make decisions. You don't run a business waiting for a miracle every week. What a tragic business that would be and what a pathetic runner you would be. What you do is you run your business on wisdom and under the blessing of God. It goes better that way.

So what a great day. How many know someone who thinks like a slave and a servant? How many of you know someone? I know it's not you but you're thinking of someone right now - but God has called us to rise up and become kingly seed.

Come on, let's just stand to our feet right now. Let's give the king of kings a great clap! Let's give Him a great shout! ... [Applause, verbal praise] ... There is a time coming when Jesus will come again, but He's coming for a glorious church. He's coming for a people full of glory. He's coming for a people who are changed. He's coming for a company of kings! He's coming for a company of people transformed into His image and likeness! He's not coming for something weak and defeated. He is moving by His spirit in this hour, reviving is taking place now! Tomorrow there'll be more. The day after, there'll be more! There is a river taking place now! It's time to lock into that river to grow in that river and see His glory manifest!

Father, we honour you today. We give you the glory! Come on, on the count of three let's give Him a shout - one, two, three ... [Shouting] ... Let's shout to the king of kings! Shout to the Lord of Lords. Shout to Him, the glorious one!

Summary Notes

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Introduction:

· 1 Pet 2:9 “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood …”

· We must know and agree with what God says we are – that is our Identity

· Chosen generation – selected by God to carry His DNA, to be His family

· Royal Priesthood – access into the very throne of God, royal kingly, regal

· Kings don’t beg, don’t think as a victim – powerless, blaming others

· Kings decree, legislate, make commands

· Kings discover and declare the will and purpose of God and advance the Kingdom

· Rev 19:16

“He is king of Kings and Lord of Lords”

· Jesus is raising a generation of King’s and Lords to advance His Kingdom

· Mark 4:35-41 Kings in Training

Kings receive Prophetic Direction:

i) “Even had come” Mark 4:35

· Even = beginning of a new day, Days began in the evening

· New day = new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences

· God is always doing new things, fresh things

· Kings don’t live in yesterday’s experiences, they look forward to a new day

· New day = Require new direction, new revelation

ii) “He said to them” Mark 4:35

· Don’t live in past experiences, yesterday’s revelation

· Position yourself to hear from God daily

· Eg Mary, Jesus who rose early, Moses

· Mark 4:34 While they were alone He explained all things to His disciples

· Jesus was raising Kings – he took them aside to give them revelation and direction

· ‘Alone’ = you must build and prioritize time with God

3. Kings Dream of Enlarging their Territory:

· Mark 4:35 “Let us cross over to the other side”

a) ‘Cross over’ = to travel through, to journey through, to go to a new place

- You must be willing to move forward, enlarge, advance from current position

- Migrate = journey to a place of new opportunity

- There are challenges and obstacles to be faced

b) ‘Other side’ = the territory beyond the place they were standing

- The country of the Gaderenes

- New territory: new areas to invade and advance the kingdom

- New experiences to have

- Could be your personal life, finances, marriage, family, ministry

- God calls every generation out of security to advance the kingdom

- There are new territories to enter: Media, Education, Government, Arts

What dream do you have of future enlargement, advance?

Kings know their assignment

4. Kings Advance to New Territory:

· “They left the multitude and took him along in a boat” Mark 4:36

· “left” = 863 = to forgive, to send away, choose to let go so they can advance

a) Left the Multitude (People)

- Kings don’t get led by the crowd or multitude

- Kings have vision and direction and courage

- Crowd lacks vision, pressure you to conform, do what they ask

- Kings hear God and have vision of their new territory

- Faith life is a journey of hearing God and moving forward

- It takes courage to be different

b) Left the State (Place of Security

- No great adventures unless you cast off from shore

- Boat journeys are filled with uncertainty – cast off, let go

- What is holding you back? What are you changing to?

- Jesus was in the boat

- The faith journey seems lonely but – you are not alone as Jesus is with you, you are not alone as others are taking the same journey, your faith stirs others

5. Kings have a Spiritual perspective:

· Mark 4:37

· A great storm arose and the waves beat in the boat

a) There is always demonic opposition to advancing the Kingdom

- 1) Storm 2) Demonic man Mark 5:2

- Storm = whirlwind, rotating column of air with great turbulence

- The demonic the demonic storm whipped up the sea into a turmoil

- Every assignment of God has demonic opposition

- Demonic opposition = circumstances or people

- New assignments mean new challenges

b) Focus on the Assignment not Circumstances 2 Cor 4:16-18

- Mark 4:38 The disciples lost their spiritual perspective

- Fear of death, accuse and blame

- Faith quenched

- Focused on saving self and not the assignment

- Think like a victim not like a king

- They missed the opportunity for growth

6. Kings make Decrees and Assert Dominion:

Mark 4:39

“He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea ….”

· Do you arise in your spirit like a King for battle? Or cringe like a victim?

· ‘Said’ – 2036NT = to command, to legislate, to decree

· Kings make decrees, they assert their authority over their territory

· Whatever your assignment, territory …you must learn to address the demonic

· Mark 11:23 Have the faith of God … speak to … not doubt in your heart

· Jesus rebuked the wind and sea and the disciples

· God requires us to walk by faith not by experiences alone

· Jesus expected them to interact with the circumstances as Kings

Slave or Son (4 of 4)

Sun 21 Nov 2010 AM  « Back to Top

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You may still be in bondage, but God sees you as His son. He sees you according to destiny. He sees you according to His call on your life. You may be struggling and have all kinds of problems, pressures; you may not even be saved, but God sees you through the eyes of His destiny, says My Son and He calls you to move out of slavery and into sonship.

I want you to open your Bible with me in John 15. I want to pick up where I was last week. How many felt challenged last week? That's good isn't it? Well I'm being challenged too, so mostly I'm preaching to myself. You just get to hear it, that's all. [Laughs] You can be like listening in, but God's speaking to me in a lot of areas at the moment and it's good to be part of it. So let's have a look in John 15 and we want to ask the question today whether you're a slave or a son, a slave or a son - and we're going to pick up from John, Chapter 15, Jesus' words. There they are in Verse 15; "No longer do I call you servants." That word is [doulos 00.00.45] or slave, someone who just does what someone else asks them to do or tells them to do without any understanding at all - He said for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. There's no revelation. It's just do what you're told. It's an issue of obedience - but I call you friends, for all things I've heard from My Father I've made known to you.

So you didn't choose Me but I chose you. Amen, God chose you. That's a good thing to know, you got chosen. You didn't turn up by accident. You thought you got here by accident or you came because your parents made you or something like that, but actually God chose you - and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain, whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. So Jesus is talking to His disciples in this and He is lifting their status. Now through the Bible people had not known God as a Father. People had known God in many ways, in fact continually through the Bible it's a revelation of what God is like and so various people in the Bible, God revealed Himself by His many different names and His names represented what He's like.

God is so big it's hard to put Him in words, so He reveals Himself in a whole number of different ways and when Jesus came into the earth, Jesus brought the ultimate revelation of who God is. God is Father and so Jesus came to represent the Fatherhood of God and He's now speaking to his disciples who'd only known what it is to live like a slave under the laws of the old commandment, under the laws of the old covenant, in a realm of obedience; do this, you're blessed. Don't do that, you're cursed, so they lived under laws. They lived under laws but the laws were to bring them to a time when they'd come to know God in an intimate relationship, so Jesus says I no longer call you servant slaves, people just called to be obedient, but I bring you into a new realm, friendship, relationship and friendship. That's God's heart for you and me is that we move from being a slave to keeping laws; do this, don't do that, must do this, mustn't do that, ought to do this, ought not to do that. God wants us to move from that mentality into the mentality, the freedom, the liberty of being a child of God. It's fantastic to be a child of God.

Every morning I have one of my grand daughters just comes, throws open the bedroom door, big grin and comes and leaps on the bed and wants just to have a hug. Now no one else can do that. She can do that because she's family. Family have privileges. Family have access - so God's desire is that we become a family of kings. In 1 Peter 2:9 we saw that you are a royal priesthood so when you and I give our life to Jesus Christ, Jesus paid the penalty for us on the cross. He took the penalty of every broken law and then when you and I receive Him His spirit enters our heart, DNA of God gets into us, kingly royal DNA gets in us. We become changed on the inside and God wants us to come out of a slave mentality and into a friendship relationship, being a family of kings representing Him on the earth. Jesus is called the King of Kings, so that's the things we saw last week.

Now I want to take it a bit further this week. Let's have a look in Exodus, Chapter 4. In Exodus, Chapter 4, we're looking at the Old Testament. We're looking at God's plan for Israel, so at the beginning God began to work through a man and a woman, then He worked through various people, then finally He begins to reveal He wants to work through a nation, a nation called Israel. Ultimately it'll be through the church, but this is what God spoke to Moses in Verse 22. He said I want you to go to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt and held all the people of God in bondage. They'd been in bondage for 400 years of slavery, so notice He's talking about the end of slavery. This is what God's got in mind; Israel's had 400 years of hard slavery. They've been under a culture of taskmasters, under hard and bitter bondage for 400 years, not a single miracle. Four hundred years, not a single prophetic word; 400 years, not a glimmer of hope; 400 years, building pyramids, serving the Egyptians, their lives made very hard and very bitter. It tells us in Exodus 1, it tells us that they made their lives hard and bitter with the bondage that they put on them.

So for 400 years - now you can imagine, that's generation after generation after generation after generation, your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents, so it went on 400 years. That's a lot of history and so Israel at that point felt abandoned by God. They were living in slavery, living as though God had abandoned them, as though they were orphaned and had no God to watch over them or care for them or provide for them. That's what it looked like. That was their experience for hundreds of years - terrible, terrible experience and notice what God says to them.

He says you'll go to Pharaoh and you'll say Thus says the Lord: "Israel is My son. Israel is My firstborn." So I'm telling you let My son go that he may serve Me. What an amazing revelation. There's a lot just in that one verse. This is what Moses was commanded to go to the Pharaoh and stand before him and he was called to declare something; this people that you treat like slaves, this people who have been in bondage for years, I'm telling you who they really are. They are the Son of God, a corporate son, a body of people that God says this is My Son. Jesus is revealed as the Son of God, the literal Son of God, but God wants to raise up a corporate Son. He said He's My Son, My firstborn.

When the Bible refers to the word firstborn, the firstborn was the one first born but the firstborn was entitled to a number of privileges. So the firstborn - and Israel would understand this - the moment they heard the word Son and firstborn they would understand that meant a double portion of inheritance. It meant priesthood in the family. It meant responsibility to be a blessing for the extended family, so he's bringing a revelation of who they are to the taskmasters. Israel is My Son, it's not your slaves. He's My Son. You may still be in bondage, but God sees you as His son. He sees you according to destiny. He sees you according to His call on your life. You may be struggling and have all kinds of problems, pressures; you may not even be saved, but God sees you through the eyes of His destiny, says My Son and He calls you to move out of slavery and into sonship.

Coming into sonship meant physically they were removed from Egypt and they physically were put into another land which became a land of inheritance, full of gold and silver, buildings, dwellings, prosperity, an inheritance. So God speaks to them but here's the problem. Let's have a look in Exodus, Chapter 1, read the verses there. It says - Verses 13 and 14 - the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve in hard bondage. They made their lives bitter with hard bondage and mortar and brick, all manner of service in the field and everything they made them serve was very hard. They had a hard life. It's a very good picture of what life is like when we're without Christ, it's very hard. It's very bitter. We serve many things, alcohol, work, all kinds of addictions and problems. Very, very hard.

So Israel truly were victims. They were powerless to remove themselves out of that situation. they were powerless to save themselves, just like you and I are powerless to save ourselves from sin. We need a saviour. They could not resist the taskmasters. They were subject to them. When people are without Christ they're subject to demonic powers, to sin, to bondages of all kinds and they'd like to live a better life but they just can't. They're victims. They're held in slavery, so a person who is a slave most times is a victim. They cannot escape out of what they're caught in.

But during that period of 400 years they developed a victim mentality or a slave mentality. Now victim mentality is not the same as being a victim. A victim mentality is when a person has a way of thinking. It's very prevalent in New Zealand and I'll tell you what's at the root of it and I'll tell you how it manifests itself. We're going to look at it particularly in the church how it manifests itself - so a victim mentality is when a person has an outlook or a way of looking at their life. You cannot live as a king and a Son of God and live with a victim mentality. You can't. You have to shift from victim thinking into sonship and kingly thinking. You have to change and we want to talk in another session how to make that change.

So a victim thinking is when the person refuses to take personal responsibility for their life and rather, they blame others for what's happening in their world. I'll say that again. A person has a victim mentality when they will not take responsibility for their life. That's their feelings, their thoughts, their choices, what's happening in their life; but rather they blame someone else. It was my father, my mother, it was the government, it was the preacher, is was the teacher, it was this, it was that, it's the white man, it's the black man, it's the whatever. There's always someone to blame, but prevalent in victim thinking is someone else is to blame or someone else is responsible.

Now if someone else is responsible you have no power to change. You are stuck as you are in victim land and I'll share with you just some ways that people would speak that reveals in their heart they're still a victim. You might be surprised and I'd ask that you'd have a think about some of these things I'll share with you a little later and begin to ask the Holy Spirit to show whether this is what is going on in your heart. If you hear yourself talking like this, you will know that deep in your heart your belief system is I'm a slave, I'm a victim and I have no power to get out.

Of course victims look for someone to help them out. They become very co-dependent and victims look for someone who'll take all the responsibility. Now underneath this victim mentality, it's not my fault, this victim mentality, someone else's fault, someone else is to blame is why my life is going so badly. Under that, this is the root of it. It actually is rooted in what we'd call an orphan spirit, the belief I am abandoned and I'm on my own. You will find - and I cannot think at this point of any exceptions to any person I have met that had a victim mentality, that without exception they believe they were on their own, that they were abandoned and of course we live in a culture where there are no fathers, where there is - sorry, not no fathers. Where there is an abandonment of families by fathers.

We live in a culture where so many young ones at school have no father living in their home, shaping their life and so that orphan spirit or spirit of abandonment rests on them and drives them into victim mentality; I have no one to look out for me. It's not my fault, it's your fault - and so underneath it will always be abandonment and deep bitterness and certain ways of thinking towards life. God is wanting us to become kings. We have to move out of victim mentality wherever we see it. We have to confront victim mentality whenever we engage it, so we don't get sucked into co-dependent relationships and bad relationships that just cannot work.

Many young people get themselves into relationships that will never work because someone inside that relationship is thinking like a victim and depending on the other to come through for them. I need you. I can't live without you. This is typical of the kind of thinking that destroys relationships, creates a burden and a pressure on people. Okay then, so an orphan spirit can't be cast out because it's a whole way of thinking. It's rooted in bitterness, abandonment and a whole way of thinking about life; I'm on my own and I'm bitter about being on my own. It's not my fault and so therefore to get out of that situation we have to deal with the whole belief system. I'll show you how to do as the Lord unveils it to me. [Laughs] I'm only one step ahead on this one. ... [Laughter] ... I've been convicted by my own studies. [Laughs]

I began to find as I started to look through it elements and areas where God wanted to heal me and to change my own thinking. That's good. It's healthy and so let's have a look then about what Jesus promised. I want you to see Jesus' promise in John, Chapter 14. Jesus made an incredible promise. This is the promise He made. Now Jesus has been with the disciples, He's been actually a spiritual Father to them. He said you haven't seen the Father. If you've seen Me you've seen the Father. Jesus fathered them - not physically fathered them, but He actually had a fathering spirit over Him. He revealed what a father is like and so He discipled His sons. They were spiritual sons. They didn't all turn out well, but He was a father to them.

So in John 14, Verses 16 to 18, He's about to go to heaven. He's about to finish His course on this earth, pay the price for sin and He makes a statement to them. He says He's about to go and then He says, Verse 16, I'll pray the Father, He'll give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive, because it doesn't see Him or know Him; you know Him, He dwells with you. He will be in you. Now here it is - "I will not leave you orphans." I will not abandon you. I will not leave you fatherless. I will not leave you without a father to comfort you, love you, embrace you, stand with you, discipline you, speak into your life, speak into your heart. I will not leave you an orphan. The Biblical word there for orphan is fatherless. Father shapes identity. He said I will not leave you fatherless.

He spoke to His disciples. He was fathering them. He was a spiritual father to them for three years. He's about to leave them. He said I won't leave you fatherless. He said I'm going to send you another that's exactly the same as the one you've had, no difference. I'm going to send you another comforter or father. He's called the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth. He has been the one in me. He's been the one that's been with you. It's the spirit of God in Me that has manifested what fatherhood looks like and He says that spirit, that same spirit that's in Me, once I've gone to heaven that Holy Spirit's going to be released into every one of you. He said the comforter, the fathering I've given you, the spirit of God will come into your life and there's some things He's going to do inside you. I will not abandon you and leave you as orphans.

So what does the spirit of God do? In Romans 8, Verses 14 to 17, He said now as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons or mature ones in God. So one of the goals in our Christian life is to learn and to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit and learn how to be led by Him into experiences with God and to be led in life. If we're going to be a king, then we have the seed of a king, the spirit of a king in us. We need to learn to get to know Him, know the Holy Ghost, learn how to express His life through us, so we can be kingly.

What He's saying then is keeping rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, is not going to cut it. What is needed is a life filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the spirit of God, filled with the spirit of the Father, filled with the life of God. That is the life that will represent God. That's the mature life. He said you've not received a spirit of bondage again to fear. That word bondage is slavery. He said you've not got something from Me that's going to bring you back into slavery, do this, don't do that. I'm giving you something completely different. I'm giving you the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Father Himself will come in the person of the Holy Spirit. He's identical to Me. He will come inside you. He's going to lead you into liberty, because wherever the Holy Ghost is LIBERTY!

We mistake churchianity for Christianity. Most of churchianity is bound and miserable. It's under the law and in slavery, but the life that God intended is in incredibly free, so free it becomes offensive to churchianity. It's so free it offends the church people. It really is. It is so free. He will offend you by His freedom. The Holy Ghost is wild. The Holy Ghost is absolutely wild, believe me He's wild and He's so free. When we learn to yield to Him our lives become free. Most of us are far too uptight. Most of us are living in slavery rather than the freedom, kingly freedom that the Holy Ghost wants. ... [Yeah!] ... Kingly freedom! Joy! Life in the Holy Ghost! Joy, peace, patience, long-suffering - all the fruits in the spirit and the life of the Holy Ghost! Whoa! That's what He's calling us into.

So He said I haven't given you a spirit of slavery. When you got born again you didn't get born into keeping lots of laws; cut your hair, don't do this, don't do that, put on a suit, shape up - you didn't get born into that. You got born into another kingdom. It's on the inside. It's full of the Holy Ghost, full of joy unspeakable, full of glory! That's the kingdom! ... [Applause] ... That's what Jesus has for us! Notice He said you've received the spirit of adoption, the spirit that positions you into sonship that helps you grow to maturity, so the work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness in our spirit, you are no longer an orphan. You belong to someone. You belong to God! You belong to Almighty God! You are one with Almighty God! The spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is inside you. You're in vital union with the Holy Ghost! Oh, we need to get that into our heart and spirit! ... [Applause] ... Full of it. Meditate on it 'til it gets free, free inside.

So the Holy Ghost imparts the life of God. The Holy Ghost puts some presence inside us and dwells inside us. He begins to reveal who we are. You're better than that. When you do something goofy He doesn't tell you off and scold you and chastise you, giving you a whipping. He doesn't do it that way. He says you're better than that. You're a king. You're not behaving like a king right now when you're carrying on with such a cranky attitude. That's not how kings behave, come on. You've got more in you than that! Let Me get control of your life a little bit and you'll see you can be a lot different. And of course the Holy Ghost reveals the Father. He reveals the Father.

I want you to have a look with me in Luke, Chapter 15. So we see what a wonderful thing Jesus called us to. How wonderful. See, the trouble is in getting in from our head to our heart. We'll have to talk about how to do that - when they get more insight. [Laughs] Okay, now we're going to have a look in Luke, Chapter 15. I want to show you what happens to many people in church. Church is wonderful. Church is the family of God, but church is God's design, needs to be run God's way. Needs to have freedom for the Spirit of God to move. Church is primarily His family, so therefore we need to walk and address one another as family. Of course if you're from a dysfunctional family well you'll have real problems as soon as you get into church, because you'll find that there's someone next to you from a dysfunctional family too. They don't love you very - they're not nice at all, they're horrible. But they're family so you've got to live with them.

So Jesus brings us into family. Now Jesus, in Luke, Chapter 15, the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him, but the Pharisees and the scribes complained, saying this Man receives sinners and eats with them. So here's the setting for what Jesus is about to tell you; He's in a setting where everyone who is a sinner and everyone who is a failure, everyone whose life was a shambles, a mess, who was from the other side of the tracks, they came to Him. They came to Him and they liked Him. He was nice to them. They didn't sense any judgement at all - no judgemental attitude, nothing. He didn't look at them and mentally look them up and down and decide whether you're in my world or not in my world. That's pride and judgmentalism you see. No, He didn't do that. He just made everyone welcome, so He was able to welcome them, hug them and eat with them and drink with them. So you know what the religious people, the church people's problem was? That Jesus ate with them. How can you be eating with that kind of person? How can you have them in your home? How can you be eating with such people! Don't you know what they're like?

You know they're so sinful some of it could get on to you and defile you. That's the thinking. That is the thinking, that some of the world's sin could stick on you and make you a mess. Well you can't have much in you if that happens. You've got the Spirit of God in you to make you clean. So then Jesus told some stories. You know the stories He told; first one about the lost sheep, second one about the lost talent and third one about the lost son, prodigal son. I don't want to talk about the prodigal son. I want to focus on the elder brother and we're going to look at the elder brother. We'll see if next to you is not an elder brother. If you've been around in church for more than a year probably you're an elder brother already, but you don't know. It's all very easy to tell, see your response to the unsaved. That just gives it up really easy.

Okay then, so you remember the story. Just to sum it up a man had two sons and the youngest son didn't want to live with the father. He wanted out, says dad I'd rather you were dead. Give me the dough. Get me out of here. Give me the money now, I want my inheritance in advance and he took off. Man, did he have a time. He blew all the dough, had a wild life with the women, the drugs, out there buying stuff. Man, life was great. Then he lost all the dough. There was an economic downturn, got into great despair, ended up feeding pigs and finally he came to his right mind and went back to his father with a humble heart.

The father was waiting for him. Wonderful, most wonderful passage in the Bible, the verse in the Bible where it says: and the father saw him while he was a long way off and ran to him and hugged him, welcomed him. That's God. That's God. That's God. He can hug the gay person. He can hug the drug addict, hug the homeless, He can love people, not ashamed of people. Doesn't matter how fallen they are - but there's an older brother. Now let's have a look at the older brother. It's as though they're having a big party. I love it when God - God loves parties. He said every time a sinner gets saved, then they have a party. Isn't that good? So the more we get saved the more partying - I like that. That's really good, parties in heaven. I don't know what you think you're going to do? Sit around there playing a harp or something. No, you're not going to be doing that at all, it's ridiculous. Having a party! Oh, joy unspeakable! Here it is: so anyway, here was the other brother and so - Verse 25 - the older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house he heard the music and the dancing, heard all the dancing, whoa. Wonder if it was salsa dancing ... [Laughter] ... Wonder what kind of dancing it was. There was dancing and music, so they're having a party and having great fun. So he called one of the servants and he asked what these things meant, what's going on? He said your brother's come - your brother, notice - and your father has received him safe and sound and you father's killed the fatted calf, you know the big fat one? He's killed it and your father's invited everyone. We are having a party, the wine is out, the food is out. It's all on. The son has come back.

But he was angry and he would not go in, so his father had to come out. The father had to go out and meet the other son and the father's gone out to meet this one. He pleaded with him, please come in. Please come in, please come in, don't stay out. Please come in - but he said this: 'Lo, these many years I've been serving you; I've never transgressed your commandment at any time. You never gave me a young goat. You never made me a young goat that I may make merry with my friends. You never touched me the way you've touched someone else. You never poured your glory on me like you poured it on someone else. You never did miracles in my life like you did it in others, no. No, you never did any of that. As soon as this son of yours comes back - he's devoured your livelihood with the prostitutes and now you've gone and killed the fatted calf!

He said to him, son, you're always with me, all I have is yours. It was right we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, he was lost and he's found. What an amazing thing - so the older brother was serving in the field. Now here's the thing, you have to understand this. He had no revelation of his sonship. He had no revelation of the father's heart. He just served in the house. He would be a representative in this particular case of the Pharisees and the scribes who had no understanding of the heart of God for the lost. Of course mentally when I say Pharisee and scribe you exclude yourself. Isn't that true? Oh, well who would say I'm a Pharisee? I'm just a Pharisee. No one would say that. I think they might be - anyway that's how it goes.

So here's the thing. He had an orphan spirit. He had no revelation of the father's love so he too was spiritually an orphan and he had a slave mentality. Now when you look at this passage you're going to see exactly what it looks like in a church context. Let's just have a look and you'll see. Now you notice what happens, there's some celebration and the first thing is when he heard about the brother's arrival and the father's celebration this is what he did. His heart, as soon as he heard it, closed up. His spirit closed up. What do you do when life doesn't go well for you, when you have troubles or difficulties or setbacks or things around you don't go right? Do you open up your heart to God to look at that situation, or do you close your spirit and withdraw?

Second thing that he did was he isolated and withdrew from relationship. He would not go in. When people have an orphan spirit and abandonment and bitterness in their heart, when something happens that knocks them emotionally, they withdraw from relationship and connect and isolate. If you withdraw from relationship and isolate, it's most likely that at the core of your heart you have an orphan spirit operating. You don't understand the Father's love and so you're taking it on personally. Then what he did was he struggled with deep feelings of rejection and loneliness and isolation and resentment. Now this is my experience with many people. I have struggled with that over many years of my life. Things would happen that would be a setback and instead of thinking about it right and handling it like a child of God, I'd go into an old pattern, a childhood pattern and become hurt inside, then isolate, withdraw, shut down.

It become such a habit of mine I could hardly stop it happening. What it means is there's something wrong in the heart. There's a lack or devoid of revelation of the love of the Father. That's what causes that. It's a void of revelation of love, so therefore you isolate and then you live in your pain and try and process it. Of course you become lonely and you'll say church is a lonely place. The church isn't here to meet your needs for loneliness. That has to be met by choice of your own, to deal with the inner belief system and find a relationship with God and learn to build friendships. When you build friendships the fruit of that is you're not lonely. If you want friendships you'll always be lonely. Just think about that.

Okay then, so his words revealed the mentality so you notice his behaviours revealed what was in his heart as soon as he heard that someone else had been blessed. Now how many times have you heard someone else get promoted and instead of celebrating immediately you thought why not me? It's not fair. That inability to celebrate with others, rejoice with their successes, is a sure sign of your lack of revelation of the Father's love and provision for you. I've found very often when someone gets blessed others in the house will say why him? They're an elder brother. They haven't got revelation of the Father's love for them, so the moment someone is acknowledged or comes forward, immediately there's negative feelings and a shutting down and withdrawing in pain and it's because of underneath there's a lack of revelation of Father's love for you.

When you're full of the love of the Father for you you're happy for everyone to be promoted, everyone to be celebrated. Someone just got a new car - that is fantastic! Take me out in it, you know, instead of you don't deserve that. ... [Laughter] ... That's an elder brother attitude. See, that's what the elder brother's - he doesn't deserve that! He doesn't deserve being blessed or being generous. Why? Because he needs to earn it and he hasn't earned it. Where did he get that thinking from? That was his own thinking. I've got to earn it. I've got to earn it. If I just am good enough and work hard enough I'll earn blessing from my father. That's what he's thinking. So now his words give him away completely.

Notice what he says; your brother has come - he was angry, wouldn't go in, so he answered. He said 'Lo, these many years I've served you. I've been serving you. I've been serving you. I'm the one entitled to the fatted calf. How come he got the diamond and I didn't? Look, it touches everyone. When there's revival and God pours His spirit out, the elder brothers appear in their numbers. It's true, so the first thing you notice - I'll give you some keys ways, a slave mentality, a victim mentality. Look, people think like victims, they'll think similar. This is what it is. First of all they justify themselves, I'm right. See, I've been a servant. I've been working, look, I'm doing alright. There's nothing wrong with me. Don't look at me. I've done something, I've been working hard you know - so a victim will always think they're right. I'm right. The word is viewed through 'I'm right' see? They justify themselves.

Second thing is you'll notice he blames. This son of yours wasted your money, so victim people blame everyone. You find someone blaming, they've got a victim thinking. The blame - oh well, you know, it's because of this, because of that. Oh well, you know it's not my fault. No, NOT MY FAULT! Very, very strong victim, okay. Here's the next thing. He said I've served you many years. What was he hoping? Why was he serving many years? He was hoping to be able to have a party too. He said I wanted to have that party too, I've served you many years. Notice he's passive? There's no record he ever requested anything. There's no record he ever came boldly to his father and said dad, can I have this? He just was passive, so when people have got the older brother mentality here's what they kind of think like; I'll just work and hope that God notices me and people notice me and they meet my needs. I'll tell you now, it's never going to work, never ever ever, yet people do it. I've done it.

So he's hoping. The next thing you notice is resentment. Resentment and bitterness are in the heart; you never gave me - I've worked so hard. I've been a good Christian. I come to church, I tithe, how come he suddenly got blessed and promoted? I've been tithing all these years. How come I never got - it just hasn't worked for me. There's a bitter resentment against God, bitter resentment against anyone going ahead. This is a sign of victim thinking. It's a sign of a person who has an orphan spirit, that they've got no revelation of love of the Father. So what else does he come up with? He says - here it is - this son of yours - judgemental and fault-finding. So you find when people have got this problem of victim mentality they find fault with everyone else.

You hang out with someone and they're always right and they blame everyone else and they don't tell you really what they're up to, they have no plans and they're just sort of passively waiting hoping that one day I'll get lucky? That kind of stuff isn't going to happen. It doesn't happen. It's typical victim mentality, judgemental, fault-finding thinking. Finally, he refused to take personal responsibility for his dreams.

What he had was a dream and a vision of something with his friends and he took no responsibility for that dream to be fulfilled, so when people have a victim mentality they do not own their dreams and plan how they might accomplish their dreams. They hope somehow it'll come about magically. That's victim mentality. In the church it works like this: there's dreams and desires and they're never vocalised. There's no plans made. They just pray and hope that one day God will do something and it'll all just come together somehow, lucky lucky, blah blah, Amen. It doesn't happen if you've noticed.

It just doesn't happen that way. Nothing happens that way. If you have dreams and desires you've got to bring them out into the open and talk to Father about them. Then get planning and taking responsibility and ownership for them. You make me feel so angry! No, I don't make you feel anything. Actually your feelings are all yours. That's victim thinking. Well you made me late. No, I didn't make you late. You were late all on your own. ... [Laughter] ... You understand? It's in the culture to think that way and under it is a generation without fathering that have an orphan spirit that's been abandoned and need to be shaped in their heart and their thinking to be a king.

This young man flushed the - he just flushed it out, so he failed to understand the grace and goodness of God, how to position himself to receive it. He failed to actually break out of his victim thinking. He was thinking if I just serve a long time it'll all work out good for me somehow. The result was he felt lonely and isolated, bitter, resentful. There was no joy in his serving whatsoever. Now you've probably heard people with victim speak. I want you to think about this because out of the mouth the heart speaks, so here it is.

If you've heard someone saying things like this - here's a few tick offs - if you heard someone thinking like this I can tell you now it's a victim thinking. If you hear them say this kind of thing: It's not fair - victim! You should have a little - you know those gas horns? It'd be quite good to carry one around. They've got that tank of gas that's got a little horn on it and you just push the button and when you push the button it goes WHAAAAAA! Like that you see - so when someone says it's not fair WHAAAAAA! I hear victim speak, you know, or it's not my fault WHAAAAAA! There it is again, victim speak's all coming out. You've probably heard it. It says I can't - WHAAAAAA! There's some victim speak - of course you can, you've never tried! What have you done to prepare yourself? Have you got any advice? There's all kinds of ways through. You don't have to have 'I can't' - you've never tried. How much have you tried? See?

I shouldn't have done that - WHAAAAAA! Victims always speak of what they should have done, could have done, might have done, ought to have done, but people who are kings don't think that way or talk that way. Servants always live under the law. No one listens to me - WHAAAAAA WHAAAAAA WHAAAAA! Heard that one a few times! ... [Laughter] ... Take responsibility for your communications. Learn to make yourself clear. Check out whether people understand you. Don't go saying no one listens to me. It's nonsense. You have an inner belief of a victim that no one will hear you and blow me down, life works out according to your beliefs. Well done! ... [Laughter]

You know, you want to change you've got to break out of that thinking, you've got to break down that internal thinking. I'll give a couple of more. Nothing I do is ever good enough. WHAAAAAA! I hear some victim speak here again. Dear Lord. Here's another one - you'll love this one: I don't have enough time. WHAAAAAA! WHAAAAAA! WHAAAAAA! Listen, that's victim speak. ... [Laughter] ... Do you have a 24 hour day? Then you've got time, it's just what you do with it's different, that's all. Don't have enough time, what nonsense. You ask a busy person they'll get it done because they can make time because they manage their time and they don't have excuses like I haven't got enough time. We've all got 24 hour days, seven day weeks, 365 day years. You just decide what you do with your time. You don't have enough time means you just spent it on the wrong things.

Here's another one, you'll love this one. Young ones, you'll love this one. My life sucks! ... [Laughter] ... WHAAAAAA! Big long blast, victim blast. Come on! That is just so bad, my life sucks. Your life's the sum result of all your choices. Break out of victim thinking. Take responsibility. Some of you are already angry ... [Laughter] ... I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes, the look. Sorry, I'm just saying what the Lord's been saying to me. ... [Laughter] ... If I have a bad day, oh it sucks! WHAAAAAA! Sorry. Better attitude needed here, break out of that stuff. I'll give you the last one. You'll find this one in a church. This is very much in a church: no one around here cares about me. ... [Laughter] ... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Get outta here! ... [Applause/Laughter] ... That is victim speak.

Kings don't talk like that. Nobody cares about me?! Lot of nonsense - just projecting out onto the world your own belief system. If you believe no one cares about you, great, welcome to your world. You'll find no one cares about you is exactly what'll happen. [Laughs] They'll walk past you - ha! - and they don't care, don't seem to care. Actually they do care. It's just there's something that you're radiating out that's defiling everything around you and making your world become just like you believe in your heart. See?

So we could probably come up with some more. You could probably think of a few of your own. How many know someone who's said one or other of those things? ... [Yes!] ... You all know someone. Right, just carry around and horn and if you're a leader you should get one of those gas horns and carry it around. The next time you hear someone, especially if you're in your leadership team and they do that, just one loud long blast. ... [Laughter] ... Aaghh! Snap them! Now what was that about? I heard victim speaking and I don't like victim speak! You're trying to suck me into your negative world and I refuse. Kings don't go into negative victim worlds. Kings challenge them how to break out of their slavery, so it's a matter of thinking different things.

Notice what the father says? He doesn't answer any of the things at all. He doesn't get drawn into all of this. He doesn't get drawn into the moaning, groaning, judging, whining, complaining negatives, not one little bit. He doesn't try and justify what he's done. He doesn't try to explain what he's done. He doesn't do anything because he's not a victim. He doesn't need to justify and he doesn't need to blame, doesn't need to explain, doesn't need to do anything. He just said son, everything I had was yours. You just needed to ask. Son, everything I've got is yours, you just need to ask. Son, everything I have is yours! You just needed to ask! I love you.

The word son there is not older son, mature son. It's a little boy son, it's a child who's no different than a servant because he remains childish in his thinking. You say child, you're thinking like a child. You're part of my family. Everything I have is yours. Rise up and begin to declare your dreams and plan how to fulfil them and ask me for how to resource them and I'll do it. What a great thing. So the son got a revelation of the father's love. He couldn't receive it because he was so caught in his own victim thinking. Now Jesus was applying that to the religious people, the scribes and the Pharisees who couldn't understand the generosity of God, that God will pour His spirit and touch undeserving people, but that is what God is like.

Here's what God is like - He's good. Here's what He's like - He is good. He is good all the time and not only that, He's full of grace. That means He gives people what they don't deserve, but we've got a religious world that divides up if you deserve it you get it, if you don't deserve it you don't get it. That's not how God operates by the way. That's the law. He operates differently. He says I'm good! I'm good all the time! I'm generous all the time! I give all the time! Believe and receive and open your heart to experience my love and be transformed from being a slave into being a son of a great family, part of a royal line destined to rule over all creation.

We need revelation of the Father's love. We need to turn from our victim slavish thinking and come into the inheritance God has for us. One of the greatest lessons in the Bible is that the children of Israel, having received the goodness of God, refused to break out of their negative complaining, whinging, whining, blaming, excusing behaviour and in the end God said well what you've been saying is what's going to happen. You can't enter the land. We can't walk into the new things God has unless we let God reveal His love and open our hearts to think differently. Amen!

Father God, we just thank you today. What a great God you are. Oh, I hear the horns sounding in heaven today, pushing on all the negative thinking, all the negative talking and encouraging us to begin to think differently.

Summary Notes

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Introduction:

· John 15:14-15 “no longer do I call you servants … I have called you friends”

· Jesus raised the status, identity of his disciples to a new level

· Servant = 1401 = doulos = slave, one who gives himself wholly to the will of another

· God desires to raise s from slaves to sons – to be part of a royal family – Kings

· God’s plan is for a family of Kings 1 Peter 2:9 with Jesus the King of Kings

Israel was called from Slavery to Sonship:

· Exodus 4:22 “Israel is my Son, even my First born … let my Son go that he may serve me…”

· Israel was in bondage in Egypt – in slavery to taskmasters

· The taskmasters made their lives bitter with hard bondage Ex 1:11-14

· Israel were slaves, victims – hurt, rejected and abused

· Victim = person who is abused, hurt, oppressed by another ad is unable to resist

· Victim thinking = the person refuses to take personal responsibility for their life and blames others for what is happening in their world

= A way of thinking and interpreting life comes from unresolved offences, pain, and heart beliefs

· Underneath victim thinking is an ‘orphan spirit’ i.e. a person is abused in life and has no one to love, affirm, value, comfort, nurture, protect or discipline

· An ‘orphan spirit’ cannot be cast out – it consists of ungodly beliefs/bitterroots

It is developed over a lifetime – it becomes part of the way a person thinks.

It must be displaced, out to death by experiencing the Father’s Love and revelation of the Spirit of Sonship

3. Jesus’ Promise to His Disciples:

· John 14;16-18

“I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you”

· Jesus was about to die on the Cross – redeem humanity from slave to son

· “Another” = one exactly like the one you have had

· He promised He would not leave them orphans

· Orphan = 3737 = orphanos = to be fatherless, without a father to comfort, love and direct

· Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit

· Romans 8:14-17 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit we are the children of God”

· We did not receive the spirit of bondage = 1397 = slavery, lacking, freedom of spirit

· Adoption = 5206 = to pace into full rights and privileges of Sonship

· Holy Spirit = Imparts the DNA of God, Reveals who we are, Dwells joined to us, Reveals God’s father love

4. Elder Brother Mentality:

· Luke 15:25-32 “The older son was in the field – serving”

· The elder brother was serving his father working in the fields

· He had no revelation of the fathers heart or love for him

· He had a slave or victim mentality – an orphan spirit

a) His behavior revealed his mentality – when he heard the news of his brothers arrival and the fathers celebration

Ø He closed up his spirit – ‘angry’

Ø He isolated and withdraw from the relationship – ‘would not go in’

Ø He struggled with feelings of rejection, anger and heaviness

b) His words revealed his slave mentality

Ø Justified himself - ‘I have served … never transgressed’

Ø Blames - ‘This son of yours … wasted your inheritance’

Ø Waits passively, hoping - ‘I served these many years’

Ø Resentment/bitterness - ‘You never gave me…’

Ø Judgmental, faultfinding - ‘This son of yours’

Ø Refused personal responsibility for own dreams and desires - ‘Make merry with my friends’

· He failed to understand grace, and the unconditional love of the Father

· His attitude was that what was wrong in his life was because of someone else – he felt lonely, isolated, unloved and bitter

c) How Victims Speak:

· Luke 6:45

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”

· Listen to yourself speak: do you speak like a King or a Slave?

‘It’s not fair’ ‘No one listens to me’ ‘Nobody cares’

‘It’s not my fault’ ‘Nothing I do is good enough’ ‘I can’t’

‘My life sucks’ ‘I don’t have enough time’

‘I shouldn’t have done that’

d) The Father’s Response:

· Luke 15:31

“Son, All I have is Yours”

· “Son” = 5043 = teknon = a child, one born to the father with rights and privileges but is still a child

· God wants us to experience His Love and Fatherhood and to receive all He has that is available to us

Breaking Free from Victim Mentality (2 sermons)

A victim mentality is a mentality where the person will not take responsibility.They choose rather to make excuses for why life is like it is, and to find someone or something to blame. When you blame someone, you put responsibility on them, you remove it from yourself, and leave yourself powerless and resentful at how life sucks. This is a way of thinking, it's an internal choice in your heart.

Victim Mentality (1 of 2) Every one of us has a yearning for intimacy, every one of us has a yearning for something close in the area of relationships. victim mentality is a way of viewing yourself, and a way of viewing life, that causes you continually to fail in relationships and life.

You can be a Christian with victim mentality, and no matter how much preaching you get, you never break out or change your patterns. I'm very concerned about the patterns of lifestyle, the patterns of believing and thinking, that we change them, so we can unlock the potential and fulfil the destiny that God has for us.

Victim Mentality (2 of 2) Paul had some difficulties: beatings, stonings, shipwrecks. If God was on His side, you'd think that He could have at least told him to catch the right boat, but three times the boat he was on sank. He's there in the water, holding on to pieces of wood. Not nice - but he never, thought like a victim.

In prison, chained to a Roman soldier, he never, thought like a victim, or as one imprisoned. He said: In all these things we are more than conquerors! Whatever you're facing in your life, believe me, you have got it in you, you are more than a conqueror. Of course if you don't believe that, if you think you're a victim, you're in trouble.

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- Victim Mentality (1 of 2)

Victim Mentality (1 of 2)

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Every one of us has a yearning for intimacy, every one of us has a yearning for something close in the area of relationships. victim mentality is a way of viewing yourself, and a way of viewing life, that causes you continually to fail in relationships and life.

You can be a Christian with victim mentality, and no matter how much preaching you get, you never break out or change your patterns. I'm very concerned about the patterns of lifestyle, the patterns of believing and thinking, that we change them, so we can unlock the potential and fulfil the destiny that God has for us.

I want you to look with me in Romans, Chapter 8. Last time I was up preaching I just shared with you about slave or son [Kings Arise series], and we've touched on the whole area of an orphan spirit; we touched on the area of God's desire for us to be sons, and there's a lot of that found in Romans, Chapter 8. So I want to read first of all from Verse 34, and today I want to just talk about how to break out of victim mentality, how to break out of victim mentality. I've read on the Internet and searched around, found there's a lot of secular material on it, and it's very helpful. Much of it's very helpful in identifying victim mentality.

It's a widespread phenomenon that's absolutely devastating, devastating to relationships. People who have this mentality cannot succeed in forming emotional intimacy in relationships, so many times people suffer in their relationship and have got no idea why. They just put up with something less than what God intended, but every one of us has a yearning for intimacy, every one of us has a yearning for something close in the area of relationships. So notice here - so victim mentality as we'll see in a moment, I'll define it - is a way of viewing yourself, and a way of viewing life, that causes you continually to fail in relationships and life. You can be a Christian with victim mentality, and you would live your life in such a way that no matter how much preaching you get, you never break out or change your patterns. I'm very concerned about the patterns of lifestyle, the patterns of believing and thinking, that we change them, so we can unlock the potential and fulfil the destiny that God has for us.

But notice this in these verses, Verse 34: Who is it that condemns us? Is it Christ who died, and has also risen, and at the right hand of God who's making intercession for us. Obviously not, He doesn't condemn us - so then, who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword? Now that's a lot of difficult, challenging situations. Now you may have had a few of those of course, tribulation, tremendous pressure, financially, relationships and so on, distress, persecution - I doubt it but you might have had some; famine - I doubt it. Everyone looks well fed; nakedness - oh I don't see any of that around; peril - well maybe there's some of that; the sword - well, who knows what goes on, you know? There it is - as it's written: For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are counted as sheep to the slaughter.

Now you notice he's describing a number of extremely painful experiences the church were having. Now - notice what he says - but in all of these things, we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus, who loves us! Now that's not a victim mentality. What he's saying is, the early church suffered persecution, were victimised, hunted down, treated like criminals, were put on display, and fought with animals and destroyed by animals. Nevertheless, he says we are - actually we're not just conquerors. We're 'more than' - see? More than conquerors. That means we gain decisive victories in life. That means we vanquish totally the things that come against us. It means a surpassing victory, whatever situation we are in. Now that's the kind of life that Christ died for us to have - surpassing victories. I can see that's going down really flat. [Laughter] It's not resonating yet, because often our experience - this is what happens, the moment you hear a verse like that, of surpassing victories. Inside your heart measures up my life experience against that scripture, and concludes something is wrong here, between what I experience and what this is saying.

But the life Jesus called us to, is a life of being a victor, of being victorious. Does that mean everything looks good? No, sometimes it looks as though we're terribly defeated and in difficulty, for example the early martyrs, and people right down through history who gave their life for Christ. Were they victors? Yes, they were. Why? Because in the face of opposition, they never quit. They stood up for what they believed in, and that was a victory. Some conquered nations, so the Book of Hebrews is full of people who by faith won victories, victories over lions, victories over enemies, victories of all kinds. The Bible abounds with people who dared to believe God, and broke through - but for most of us the difficulties we face are far more mundane, far more subtle. They creep up on us, and they're difficulties and challenges around family and marriage and finance and relationships, the economic climate and business and so on. But in all of these, God says we can have victory.

Does it mean it'll always work out good? No, it may not work out so good. Sometimes we go through very difficult times, but God uses it all to work about a great good, so we can have a positive and a strong attitude. So victim mentality is a way of seeing yourself, and a way of looking at life. A victim mentality is a mindset, and a heart belief system. If it was just the way you think, it would be easy to deal with. In fact you could go on the Internet and find some keys that are very, very helpful. However it's deeper than that, it goes right into the heart. So a victim mentality has to do with heart beliefs, and ways of thinking that continually sabotage your life and relationships - and we'll give you a few keys so you can recognise it quite soon. The essence - a victim is a person who was abused or hurt or oppressed, and has no power to do anything to change that. They are the victim of it.

A victim mentality is when a person has a mindset, a certain way of thinking, where they refuse to take responsibility for their life and their emotions and what they're going through, and instead they put the blame on someone else. They put it somewhere else, so it's a way of interpreting how people come across, what to make of life, what to make of relationships. So as a man thinks in his heart, so he is, so there are some examples of it of course, and I want to move through this quickly so we get to solutions, but do you remember in Exodus, Chapter 15 - let's have a brief look there in Exodus 15. The people of Israel had been in slavery for 400 years. Now they had been delivered, they are no longer slaves. Although they're physically no longer a slave, although physically they are free, in their mind they still think like a slave, so - Verse 23 - they came to Marah - which means bitter - and they couldn't drink of the waters of Marah because they were bitter, so they called the name Marah, bitter.

And the people - now here's what they did. Notice instead of looking for a solution, instead of reaching out positively to God in expectation of a solution, the bitterness of their victim state rose up, and you notice what they did, one of the first evidences of victim mentality, is they complained. Complaining puts you fair and square in the mentality of a victim. When people complain, they are just pouring out their grievance, injustice, and hurt, and not taking responsibility they could do something about this situation. Sometimes it's easier to complain, than to look what could I do about this? What are my options? So they said what'll we drink? They complained against Moses. Usually when people have a victim mentality, they find a way to blame someone who is over them, a parent, a boss, a teacher, someone in authority anywhere, in their workplace. So when you hear people bitterly complaining, you know they're infected with this kind of mentality. It brings disaster on people. As a result of their complaining, Israel failed to enter their inheritance, a lesson for us, if we don't shift mentality, we cannot enter all the good things that God has planned for us.

So the remedy, notice what the remedy is, and I won't go into it in this session. The remedy is, God showed Moses a tree. Now clearly there's a lot of prophetic symbolism in that, but essentially God showed him a tree, that when he put it in the water, the bitter became sweet. It's an amazing picture of God, the solution to victim mentality is a revelation of God's love and the healing power of the cross. It's interesting the first thing that they came across flushed up their victim mentality, and the first thing that came up is associated with bitterness. When people have been hurt, abused, suffered, experienced injustice, pain, grief and various things, they often instead of resolving it, become bitter. Bitterness reflects in complaining, and so there's a remedy, and the remedy is revelation, revelation I'm not a victim. I have a Father who loves me! I have a Father who's got the answer for every situation! I've got a Father who can show me what He accomplished at Calvary, and I can respond in faith and be delivered and healed and restored, and develop a positive mentality, and experience resurrection life.

We'll give you a few simple things on that afterwards - but isn't that amazing? That's the first experience they had, and it was to bring to the surface their victim mentality. Now the other one we looked at was this. It's found in Luke 15, and this is the elder brother, the Elder Brother Mentality. Now of course there are a lot of Christians who are an elder brother. You could be a sister, and still be an older brother. The older brother is this story. Now this is the story, we'll just quickly cap on it, then I want to show you some solutions.

You remember Jesus is talking to the Pharisees. They have challenged Him, and their challenge they gave Him, in Verse 1, is this: You eat with the wrong people. You're eating with sinners, You're eating with prostitutes, You're eating with all kinds of BAD people, and you're making them all Your friends. They like You, they gather around wherever You come. You've always got a riff raff, a rabbly crowd of broken people. If You were a man of God, You wouldn't do such a thing - so they were critical of Him. Jesus then told the three stories; first one reveals the work of Jesus, the shepherd; second, of the Holy Spirit; the third, of the father. So these three stories are all one story, to show God values people and loves them. The last story is the story of the father, and the father had two sons - you know the prodigal son, and he said: dad, I don't want to live with you. I want to be out, give me the money. In other words, before you're dead, give me the money, I want my inheritance now.

He went out. You know he had a bad life, a rotten life. He blew it all, and then he came to his senses, turned around and he went back to his father with a repentant heart, and when he did that he was welcomed. No matter how much he stunk of the pigs and smelt and was broken and wrecked his life, God loved him. This is the heart of God. He loves people. You say well I've got to get my life right, before God will accept me. No! The story absolutely blows that. That's a religious mindset. God says: I take you like you are! If you can receive My love, and connect with Me, I can pick you up and journey you to where you need to be. It was God, it was the father who restored the son. It's the father who put clothes on him, the father who gave him authority. It was the father's extravagant love. We need revelation of his extravagant love.

Now of course the elder brother came in from the field, and he said: what's this party going on? Now isn't it interesting that associated with people's lives being changed, heaven celebrates, heaven parties! Churches need to celebrate. We need to have laughter and fun, and perhaps move the chairs, and get rid of all the chairs and get you to run around and jump up and down and celebrate a bit more. It's very healthy to celebrate. Sitting in pews is not healthy really - about one or two hours and that's it, you're done for a week pretty well. But God wants us to celebrate, and so you notice here, he had a great celebration. Now this is what the boy did. Now notice what he did. Now he portrays a victim mentality, notice what he does. Here it is - he said: he was angry. He was angry, and notice what he did, he isolated, pulled away from relationship, pulled away from his father, pulled away from celebration, pulled away from connection.

Then it says this: his father came and he pleaded with him. He pleaded with him. In other words his pa entreated him to shift his heart attitude, and open his heart and welcome his brother back in, and of course the boy said - you're familiar with it - oh! I've been here all these years serving you. I never did anything like he did. You never gave me any of my goats, I could have fun with my friends and a party with my friends. As soon as this son of yours comes, devoured his livelihood with the prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him. What kind of father are you? What kind of justice is this? And he said: son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. How come I haven't got the fatted calf? Simply this, you've got a bad attitude. You haven't got an attitude that can receive a fatted calf. You're in the house, but you're not receiving what God wanted for you. Why is that?

He was in the house. Come on, we'll just get - let me just - he was in the church! He was among God's family, and he couldn't access what he wanted, because of the way he thought. He had a victim mentality, and it's amazing the way it showed up. Interestingly enough, he substituted works for relationship. He just worked hard for his father, but never knew his father. He had no emotional relationship with his father, and had no understanding of his father's heart. That's what his problem was. He substituted for relationship, being good and working hard. Lots of people do that to be loved. He developed a victim mentality in many areas of his life. When we substitute works for relationship, we are convinced we're right, and we can't receive the things we want to receive from God.

I very much have had to wrestle with this myself. When I grew up I was emotionally quite disconnected, a major effect on my life from quite young, so the way I dealt with it, instead of connecting I isolated ,just like this older brother did. What I did was go into a world of fantasy reading books, and here's the other thing, working hard. I got the diligence prize every school I went to. Why did I get the diligence prize? Because I worked hard. Why were you working hard? Oh, I want you to ask me that. I might have to look at what motivated me to work hard. Actually I was trying to find approval and love, that I didn't feel I had, and so I had a wrong belief inside me that went something like this: If I just work hard enough, I'll be noticed and approved and loved - and would you believe it, there was another belief in there as well: I'm unlovable. So no matter how hard I work, I'm never going to get the love I want. Isn't that amazing?

So year after year I work, work, work, work, work, work, work and I never had the emotional connection with my father that I was longing for, and I hoped would come with the work, because here's what had happened. When I thought I'd done really well, he would look at what was wrong, and see it could be better. What it does is it increases the pain, and then leads you to view life in a certain way. Now here's a question to ask - so of course the thing is, as I've journeyed I've had to try and deal with this stuff, and here's the thing that's interesting. When I became a Christian, it didn't change. I wish it had. It didn't change. It just changed form, got very busy serving God. Same driving mentality: I'm unlovable, if I just do enough, God will love me. Did I know God loved me? I had it in my head, but the problem is, it's not in your head that it counts, it's in your heart. If your heart is programmed with I'm unlovable, you will remain a victim, and you'll always look and see all the reasons why things don't work out. You'll have every kind of excuse, every kind of reason. You'll blame everyone and this and that, even blame the devil. The devil will be the persecutor, Jesus is going to be the rescuer. You have a whole victim cycle operating in your life, and you don't learn to grow and become a son, who learns how to partner with God in life.

This is what God's wanting the church to grow up to our son-ship, so we learn how to partner with God in life, so the temptation is then - and particularly if you're in a prophetic flow - is to wait for God to tell you everything, and you just do what God tells you to do, when God wants you to grow in wisdom and intimacy with Him as the source of wisdom, so you'll learn not to run everything off prophetic flow, but to balance prophetic flow with wisdom and how to make life work. Ooh, you probably know someone like that, and I was like that. For me, to tell the truth, it's been a journey to get rid of all of that stuff. I've had some decisive moments in my Christian life, where I encountered the love of God as a Father, and major changes took place in my heart.

I can remember one time just weeping for two hours as I experienced His love in my office, and felt the touch of God as a Father for the first time. It's tangible, it's real, you can experience it, and when you do, it changes you. Now I'm ready for another dose. I believe God's got much more, so I'm positioning my heart for more - so victim mentality sabotages everything, and here's how it sabotages it. Because the thinking is: I'm the victim, it's not my fault you know. It's not my fault, it's someone else's fault, I'm right! That's the way a victim will think, I'm right, and I'd rather be right than have a relationship, so I'll be right and I'll have a breach, rather than actually be vulnerable and declare maybe I'm not right, and even if I am I really want relationship. So victims view life through someone else is the cause of their problems, and so they're the victim. The second thing is, a victim has to blame someone, so a victim says: you're my persecutor, it's you. You did this to me. You're doing this to me. It was that boss of mine did it - and so victims always have got someone to blame.

You can listen and it won't take long, and they'll find someone to blame. Israel began to blame Moses, but they were really blaming God. The elder brother began to blame the father - notice his language is a little careful, but at the end there it is: this son of yours, and you gave him all this money. He's wasted the money, spent it on prostitutes would you believe, and now you have a party. Hey, what's up with you? So he sees the father as being the source of his trouble, so a person who has a victim mentality will have two other groups of people in the world; one are people to blame, persecutors, people who're against him - they're agin me. Now of course church gets that, and they get to start to think like the world's agin me. No, the world isn't agin me; the world's lost, the world needs us. The world's not against us. Come on, start to think right. We have the answer for the world. We're the light of the world. The world needs us.

So the other thing that a victim has is a rescuer. They must have a rescuer. Someone has to come and help me out of this mess. I need you to come through, won't you help me? Then when I've manipulated you into helping me, then I turn to someone else who'll meet the next level of need. So what happens is relationships become extremely unhealthy. Victims cannot develop an emotional closeness with anyone, and this of course - you'll have a look in this thing tonight - is one of the key things. There's no possibility that relationship could work. It's doomed from the start, because of the nature of it - so victims, it's easier to play a victim than to be responsible, so here's some simple steps to get out of it.

So I want to share with you some simple keys, and it's a journey. I wish I could just say we could get you up in an altar call and pray, we could fix it all up. It would be wonderful if we could do it. We can pray and break some things over your life. We can pray and impart some things into your life. We can lay hands and let you experience the flow of God's love, but essentially the journey out of victim-hood, is a journey of opening your heart to become vulnerable, and to experience God's love, and to change. It's a path of being vulnerable, instead of building walls. The evidence that you have passed from death to life, is in your capacity to love, and celebrate, and embrace people. Any time you draw back from people, your love is growing cold. The issue is one of love. Oh, well you don't understand what they did. No, no, no, no, actually I'm not worried about what they did. The issue is your love is growing cold. Take ownership what's happening in you, as you are isolating and withdrawing.

Okay, let's give you a few simple steps. The first thing is to become aware of the pattern, become aware of the pattern. If we're not aware of the pattern - so here's a few things you could think about. Here's a few questions you could ask yourself, and just as I go through these things I know you'll think of someone who's just like this, and they really need help. Actually you'd be the one to help them. You could become their rescuer, then when you don't come through for them, they'll turn on you, see? We have to - actually Jesus is the only saviour. He is the only saviour. He's the only one who can save people, so we have to lead people to Him, because in Him they find the love of God. In Him they find healing. In Him they find deliverance, in Him they find all they need - not enough, so we can give a little bit. Okay, here it is: number one, become aware of the thinking patterns, so let me ask you a few questions. Just tick these off, just perhaps it might be you.

Do you have patterns in your relationships where they turn and go ugly? Do you have a history of hurting people, or being hurt yourself? I'm hurt, I seem to get so hurt in relationships - ooh oh, you've got a problem inside you. Okay then - do you blame yourself, or blame others? Do you find you've got a blame thing going on in your life? That usually means a victim mentality. Do you find you're often frustrated, angry, resentful? You've probably got a victim mentality, and are not recognising you're operating out of: I'm powerless, I have no choices, when you really do. Do you feel smothered, or have you felt smothered and unimportant in your family life? Usually what that means is, you bury your feelings, bury your opinions, bury your desires, and you just do what you're told, and inside you believe you're powerless. It follows you all through life - it's one of the biggest things I've had to come to face.

What about some childhood experiences? Have you grown up with yelling and abuse in the home, and you've learnt to yell, and people have yelled at you? It's almost certain you'll have a victim mentality going on in your life. If there's been sexual abuse, or physical or verbal abuse, if there's been rejection or abandonment in your background; all of these things - or even a life-threatening emotional trauma - all of these things, the emotions associated with it, cause people to come to a conclusion, and it's that conclusion they reach, and how they handle it, is what determines what goes on next. So a person who sees, say a marriage breaks up, and the child's at the age of five, he interprets it as terrible pain, a lot of pain. He interprets it: this means I'm unlovable. Dad has abandoned/rejected me. People are going to reject me. Now once that's locked into a person's heart, their life will begin to cycle around that trauma, around that belief system, and believe it or not, it just keeps happening and happening and happening and happening and happening and happening. They pray and they ask God to bless them, but the cycle keeps happening and happening and happening, because it's rooted in the heart in bitterness, emotional trauma, grief and judgements made about fathers or about men.

I have seen this. Lyn would have seen this, Cecelia, all the people who counsel have seen this happen, and so there's a need to understand that the patterns often were formed in trauma or events when we're very young, so have a think about some of that. Here's the second thing is, that once we become aware man, I do behave a bit like a victim, I tend to blame others and don't take responsibility. I'm not willing to face up to things in my life and get proper ownership of it, and look at choices, and actually I don't really do too close in relationships. Men don't do that you know? Men are pretty tough, you don't get close, that's sissy stuff for girls. Now all that kind of nonsense - that's all it is. It's just a lame excuse for the real brokenness and inability to be intimate.

So how do we get free? Number one, just become aware there's a problem. That's the biggest thing. Second is to take decision I'm going to own it and start to change. You've got to own it: It's my stuff, I've got to deal with it. There's no freedom unless I make a decision: it's my stuff. You can blame people for all your life, but until the day you say: I've got stuff, it's time for me to face up and get to own my stuff, you can't change. You can come to church as much as you like, pray as hard as you like. Until you own I've got stuff, you don't change. You've got to say man, I've got some things to face. It's why we run these courses, restoration, deliverance, freedom, and various kinds of other courses. They're to help you own your stuff, start to think about how you think, start to begin to look at your belief system, how you work with finances and so on, how you work with relationships.

So you've got to own your stuff, so what is it that I feel? What is it I really believe in my heart? What issues have I got that I've never faced? Is there someone I avoid, or I have a reaction to when I'm with him, or shut down when I'm with him? You know, you start to ask that question, you're going to start to get insight where the problems are. The third thing, ask the Holy Ghost. Ask the spirit of God to help you to uncover what lies there. Sometimes you need to talk to someone, and they'll help get you - Lyn is like a razor when she does it. She goes straight down prophetically and [makes a sobbing sound] before you know it your tears have come. You're determined you weren't going to go there and cry - then you cry. Why are you crying? Because you've blocked off from your heart the true issues of your heart, and the moment someone puts a word on it, or puts the truth into it, immediately the pain will surface. We don't need to be afraid of pain or isolate from pain, or just go into our own world or medicate the pain. We need to recognise pain is part of life. There's a place of healing, connected to people and connected to God, where we can actually resolve it, through talking about it, releasing forgiveness, repenting of our reactions.

What do I need to do? I need to yield to the Holy Ghost's direction. How many of you have felt the Holy Ghost talking to you about something, about a relationship, about an attitude, about something that keeps happening in your life, but you kept pushing it aside? He was trying to help you face something that's holding you back. Oh but it's just too painful, I don't want to go there. Well okay, don't go there, but you're going to cycle through the problems until you do go there. Going there means having the courage to face your pain, bring it to the open in relationship with someone or with God, and then get to grips with what you need to solve, whether it be a bitterness, whether it be unforgiveness, whether it be some judgement. Whatever it is, God wants to heal you. He loves you. He went out to get the older boy and bring him back in. How come the older boy didn't get into the party? His own attitudes kept him out. He would rather be right in his own mind, than enter relationship and celebration. He would rather stay in a place of anger and resentment, than to move out of that into party time in the father's house!

That's what God has in mind - party time in the Father's house, where people are filled with His love, filled with the extravagant love of the Father - but you've got to open your life for that. So yield to the Holy Ghost. He'll tell you what to do, and then it may be that you've got to spend a bit of time renewing how you think, and how you act. We'll teach some things on that next year, how you think in relationships, how you interpret life, when you feel something, what am I feeling? Where's it come from? What do I believe? What does God's word say? It takes time to reprogram your thinking, but you can do it with the word of God. The truth is you're loved, truth is you're accepted, truth is nothing can separate you from the love of God. Now let me just show you something, and I'll finish with this.

When you go through adversity, affliction, difficulty or pain, the first thing you feel is unloved, and what comes out of your heart is what's in there. If you believe you're unlovable, then you'll struggle with the pain and isolate, but God loves us, and when we're in pain and difficulty, He wants us to come near to Him, and near to one another, not run away. If we can start to change those patterns, God's going to bring such a river to here, right now there's a river flowing through the church, to heal hearts, to heal broken relationships, particularly men. I want to tell you now there is a river flowing. It's been flowing for some months now, and it's been touching man after man after man, to heal broken hearts, restore lives, and start men connecting in a different way. That's why we're having this breakfast coming up. It's to start talking about that journey that men need to make, to move out of isolation and into being connected and whole.

In this last few months God has moved in the church. You just ask Lyn, man after man has come and broken down in a presence, weeping as God has put the finger on the issues that block relationship. I've been facing and experiencing these things happening. I've had people come to me, same thing; men weeping as God touches their heart. This is a time in the house of God, when God is doing something fresh to connect us. The biggest reason people are disconnected is this: we've got blocks in the heart from being able to love, and we need a revelation of God's love, and a removal of the blocks. God doesn't want you to think like a victim! He says no matter what happens, so someone messed you around and betrayed you? Oh, we're more than conquerors through Christ Jesus who loved us - and notice it's not self-help stuff. We're conquerors through Him, through a person, through a person who loves us, a loving person see?

And so someone rips you off, someone hurts you, someone betrays you, yeah, we're more than conquerors through this Jesus Christ, we have access to this person who loves us, who reveals the Father's love. We have access to Him, oh, we're going to be turning to Him, we're going to open up to His love. The riches of His love will grow in our life, and we'll become overcomers in a greater way! You don't have to stay in a place of defeat all the time. Why should you? You're not called to that. God has brought you out of the bondage of slavery to fear, and into knowing Him as a Father, into His wonderful and glorious life. Who would turn away from that? Who would prefer to stay like the older brother in the house, bitter, resentful, angry, twisted, unloving, cold, unable to connect with the JOY of what God is doing in other's lives? Ooh, don't stay there. Those were the religious people, the Pharisees of the day.

Jesus said: this is a day of great rejoicing, when there are two groups of people, those who don't know Him are coming to know the Father's love, be restored, and it's time to celebrate, and there are those who are in the house, who don't know the Father's love, coming to be restored, and together celebrating the goodness and love of God. What a great God we serve, Amen. [Amen] Why don't we give Him a clap right now? [Applause]

Father, we thank You for Your amazing love, where with You have loved us, and given Your Son, and hold nothing back from us. Father, we open our hearts here - just close your eyes for one, two more minutes. I wonder is there any person here who's not yet received Jesus Christ, and positioned yourself, opened your heart to have your sins forgiven, and receive a flow of the love of God from heaven. Well this is your day to do it. This is a great day to do it. Jesus said: to everyone who received Him, He gave power to become a child of God. Is that you today? Why don't you put your hand up and say Pastor, I'm going to give my life to Jesus today? Perhaps you may have fallen away from the Lord, you say I need to come back to Him today, I've got lots of other things in my heart. That fire is no longer burning.

Perhaps today God has spoken to some of you about isolation and distance. You may not have understood all I said, but when I talked about being isolated, and working hard but never feeling you're good enough or making it, something registered with you; just raise your hand, say that's me. God bless, many hands. When I began to talk about thinking like a victim, and it's not my fault, always someone else's fault, and when someone tries to help you and adjust you, you just react to them and say: you're attacking me. Why are you attacking me, why are you putting me down? And all they're trying to do is help you see something you can't see. If that's you, you've got troubles. Why don't you say: God, You're speaking to me today? That's right, God bless, God bless.

Father, I just thank You for each person's responded today, there would come a revelation, a river of Your love to bring healing, restoration. Father, we want to live in the love of God. Whatever our circumstance, whatever's happening, we open our heart for an increasing awareness of Your love. I can feel His presence just coming upon us right now. I could feel it from the beginning of the service. Just lift your hands, open your heart, just do something, say Father, I receive Your love. I receive Your love. Whatever blocks me from receiving more, show me, show me. I want to journey into intimacy with You, knowing You, experiencing You, becoming secure so I can actually represent You well. I don't want to be dysfunctional in my relationships, blaming, accusing, reacting. I want to be whole. Lord, I receive Your love. I can feel His presence and love here right now.

Musicians are just going to sing that song they're doing now. What I'd like you to do is reach out to someone next to you, and let the love that God has given you flow out of your heart into their life. Don't be stiff or awkward, just: can I pray for you? Ask their permission first. If they say no, respect that. It makes it safe for them. If someone doesn't want you to pray that's okay, you don't have to. You need to respect them, but just ask the person: can I pray for you? I'd really love to pray for you and bless you. I want you to know God loves you.

Summary Notes

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1. Introduction

Romans 8:34-39

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”

Paul lists a number of different situations but also a decisive outcome.

“More than conquerors” = to gain a decisive victory; vanquish totally; gain surpassing victory in every situation.

We are no longer victims to circumstances or tragedies – we are more than conquerors.

God’s love expressed in our heart – the Love of the Father – frees us from victim-hood.

2. Victim Mentality is a Way of Seeing and Relating

Victim is a person who is abused, hurt, or oppressed by another and is unable to break free.

Victim Mentality is a person who refuses to take responsibility for their life and blames others for what they are experiencing in life.

A way of thinking and interpreting life that comes from unresolved offences, grief, bitterness and heart beliefs.

Proverbs 23:7 “As a man thinks in his heart so he is”.

· Example of Israel – Slaves in Egypt (victims under a harsh taskmaster)

Exodus 15:22-25 “The people complained against Moses”

Their temporary hardship and difficulty caused their bitterness to show.

They looked for someone to blame.

The remedy – God revealed His Father’s Love that healed their situation.

· Example of the Older Brother – Slaves in the Father’s house (slaves to the law)

· Luke 15:25-31 “He was angry and would not go in”

· The elder son served – worked hard but had no revelation of the Father’s Love.

· He substituted works for relationship and believed he was right.

· Personal example:

Emotionally/relationally isolated – (past unresolved).

Worked hard to gain approval (heart belief).

Developed “Victim Mentality” in many areas of life.

Journey of revelation of Father’s love and healing.

Key issues:

– breaking patterns of isolating in pain and resolving heart pain.

· Elder Brother

Isolated Blamed Justified self Bitterness

Closed spirit Judged Wrong beliefs Anger

3. Victim Mentality sabotages Relationships

“Victims” interpret life/relationships through their heart’s bitterness

(i) I am a victim = not my fault, hurt, I am right, withdraws

(ii) You are my persecutor = it is your fault, you are against me, attack

(iii) I need a rescuer = someone must come through for me, meet my needs

· “Victims” are unable to develop emotional intimacy because they believe they are “unlovable”.

· It is easier to play the role of the victim than to assume responsibility.

· Note: A person with a victim mentality will play all 3 roles.

4. Steps out of the Victim Mentality

(i) Become Aware of your Thinking/Behaviour

Questions to ask yourself -

· Patterns of relationships that is ugly?

· History of hurting or being hurt?

· Blame self or others often for things going wrong?

· Frequent feelings of anger?

· Childhood experiences?

(i) Yelling

(ii) Sexual abuse

(iii) Struggle with feelings, openness, over-ridden

(iv) Rejection, abandonment, other types of loss

(v) Life threatening emotional experiences

· Felt smothered or unimportant in the family.

(ii) Ownership of Pain and Vulnerability

· There can be no freedom without responsibility

· What are the feelings? What are the beliefs?

· What are the expectations?

· What events in the past have been some of these issues?

(iii) Ask the Holy Spirit to Uncover the Roots

· Painful experiences that impact and how they relate?

· Personal reactions – anger, bitterness, judgements?

· Beliefs, expectations and inner vows formed in the heart.

(iv) Yield to the Holy Spirit’s direction on how to resolve them?

· Personal ministry and counsel?

· Repentance

· Forgiveness

· Renouncing judgements and inner vows

(v) Work on Renewing the Beliefs

· What is the old belief?

· What is the truth?

· Meditate – embrace – confess the truth – ask the Holy Spirit to reveal love.

(vi) Practise Giving and Receiving Love

· Refuse old patterns of isolating

· Connect and practise giving and receiving love

· Romans 8:14-15

Victim Mentality (2 of 2)

Sun 12 Dec 2010  « Back to Top

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Paul had some difficulties: beatings, stonings, shipwrecks. If God was on His side, you'd think that He could have at least told him to catch the right boat, but three times the boat he was on sank. He's there in the water, holding on to pieces of wood. Not nice - but he never, thought like a victim.

In prison, chained to a Roman soldier, he never, thought like a victim, or as one imprisoned. He said: In all these things we are more than conquerors! Whatever you're facing in your life, believe me, you have got it in you, you are more than a conqueror. Of course if you don't believe that, if you think you're a victim, you're in trouble.

Look with me into Romans, Chapter 8. Last week I was sharing on Breaking Free from a Victim Mentality, and I want to just pick it up because there'll be some who weren't here, and move from there into developing a kingly mentality. No use just breaking out of one thing; you've got to put on something else, and develop a different way of thinking. I'll share with you some things, some practical keys, but I want to just pick up where we were last week. We looked in Romans, Chapter 8 and it says in Verse 34: who is it that condemns? Christ who's died and is risen, is at the right hand of God. He is there making intercession for us right now. He is praying you and I will succeed. Who will separate us from the love of Christ then? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword?

Verse 37: In all these things, no matter what life dishes up to you, and Paul had a few things dished up; beatings, stonings, shipwrecks. I mean you'd think if God was on His side, you'd think that He could have at least told him to catch the right boat, but he had three times the boat he was on sank. He's there in the water, holding on to pieces of wood. That's not very nice - but he never, never, never, never thought like a victim. There he is and he's in prison, chained to a Roman soldier, but he never, never thought like a victim. He never thought as one imprisoned. He said: no, no, no, no! No, no son. In all these things we are more than conquerors! Whatever you're facing in your life, believe me, you have got it in you, you are more than a conqueror. Of course if you don't believe that, if you think you're a victim, you're in trouble.

But the reality is, the truth of God is, you have got all it takes through Christ. Notice the key thing in there? It says: in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him. It is your vital union with Jesus Christ. It's your connected with Him. He has already won the victory. He has already faced every challenge of life. You and I as we connect with Him can arise with His life. When you put off your struggles and put them on Him, and begin to learn how to draw on His life, you are more than a conqueror. I like that - more than a conqueror. That means to gain decisive victory, to have a surpassing victory in every situation. So whatever you face in life, from the little mundane things in family life, marriage and finance, to work, to major challenges, you have got it in you to win, if you hold on to Jesus Christ. You are designed to win. There's no way God planned your failure.

Can you imagine God planning your failure? It's not what He does. He plans your success. I know the plans I have for you, plans for good, not evil, that you would prosper and be positive and be filled with hope about your future. So let's have a look. I want to just pick up there this aspect of victim mentality. I want to touch on it again, and we're going to go over this time into Numbers, Chapter 13 - going to find two different mentalities in Number 13 and 14. We're going to find a victim mentality, and the way it operates and it's consequence; we're going to find a kingly mentality, how it behaves, how it thinks and acts and we'll talk about how to shift.

So in Numbers, Chapter 13, we'll pick it up there in maybe Verse 25: And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. That's the 12 spies. Now they departed and they came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And then they told him and said: we went into the land where you sent us. Truly it flows with milk and honey, and here's the fruit.

Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; we saw the descendants of Anak there, the giant. The Amalekites are in the South; the Hittites, the Hebusites, Amorites and other ites in the mountains; Canaanites by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan. Then Caleb quieted the people - shhh! Let us go up at once and take possession. We're well able to overcome it. But the men who had gone up with him said: we can't. We're not able to go up against the people, they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land they'd spied out, saying the land through which we've gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, the people we saw are men of great stature. We saw the giants, descendants of Anak which came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so were we in their sight.

Now a victim mentality will steal your Godly inheritance. You have to understand what's at stake here. The promises God holds for your life, the destiny He wrote for your life, the good things He planned to accomplish in and through you, all depend on you adopting an attitude of faith. If you stay in a victim mentality, there is no way you can rise into, and experience, the things God has planned for you. God has planned financial breakthroughs, breakthroughs in your personal life, breakthroughs in relationship. He's planned not just breakthroughs; He's planned breakouts, where you start to influence people, win people, see answers to prayer. However a victim mentality will steal away all the good things that God has planned for you. This is why it is important to shift from a victim mentality to a kingly mentality.

I must shift the way I see life. I must shift in my heart and in my mind, in my words and in my actions. I must make a choice to change. No one makes it for you. No one makes it for you. Wherever you have been, no matter how bad, tragic, no matter what bondage, whatever slavery, whatever problem you have been in, God can use it as a stepping stone to get you up into your destiny, and as He redeems your past, you begin to see how it prepared you for the things you have ahead - but you make the choice.

Now I want you to have a look at this thing; first of all just redefine the victim mentality. A victim mentality is a way of thinking. It's a way you think. It has to do with your thought life. It is a way of looking at life and interpreting it. It is a belief system in the heart, so it's a whole way of thinking and believing, the way you approach your life.

If you are in the secular world, then the motivators would begin to show you how to think differently. As you think differently, they'd say you'd have a different life, which is partly true. Definitely if we think good thoughts, as you'll see shortly, your life will change. So a victim then, a victim mentality is a mentality where the person - now notice this - they will not take responsibility. That's the bottom line. They refuse to assume responsibility. They choose rather to make excuses for why life is like it is and to find someone or something to blame. When you blame someone you put responsibility on them, you remove it from yourself and leave yourself powerless and resentful at how life sucks. This is a way of thinking, it's an internal choice in your heart. Every situation that comes to you, you can approach it as a king or as a victim. No one chooses the response but you. Think about that.

So a victim mentality then is a way - it's blaming others for why I feel like I do: You make me feel so mad. No, I don't make you feel so mad, your feelings are your feelings, they're not my feelings. OWN your feelings. They're YOURS! You can go to the grave with them if you wish, or you could choose to change. You have to understand this is a very, very important thing, because New Zealanders as a whole, there's a widespread victim mentality sits on many people. It's in the culture, but in the culture of the church we want to shift you to have a kingly thinking, where there's nothing in life that isn't too much for you. Amen! Amen! I can see there's resistance going on but that's alright, we're going to keep going there, and I want to share with you something at the end that'll be an insight that'll really help. So let's have a look at Israel, and how they viewed their situations.

I want to do three things; how they viewed their situation, how they responded and then what it cost them. I want to show you how God directly connects their failure to get His promises, to the way they thought and behaved. So you can be in church, saved, redeemed but if we don't make a choice to shift our thinking and believing and living, we actually live substandard, and below what God intended for us. So first of all how they viewed their situation, what their belief system was, how did they see themselves first of all? They see themselves like grasshoppers: I am a grasshopper. It's called an inferiority complex. I am a grasshopper, I'm small, problems are big. That's a belief system. The second thing is how they saw life's challenges, Verse 31 and 33: Oh, the giants in the land are too big for us. Oh, you mean that God allowed something to come into your life that was too big for you to handle, and you weren't ready and prepared to deal with it? Oh really? I thought He was more in control than that. The giants - everything is a giant to a person with a victim mentality. It's a problem they're burdened with.

The next thing is their inheritance, well how they saw the promises of God: Oh ooh! It's a land that devours its inhabitants. There's a lot of problems. Finally, how they saw God - look at this. Look at this. Read in Chapter 14, Verse 3, how they saw God, and here's where the real problem is, how you see God. It says: why has the Lord brought us to this land? We're going to be killed by the sword, and our wives and children - notice this - should become victims. Isn't that amazing? They have lived - wouldn't it be better to go back to Egypt? Where was Egypt? Egypt was the place where they were victims and they were slaves. They'd lived there, they felt like a victim, thought like a slave, and when God got them out and was trying to bring them and prepare them to move from His direct provision into the principles of the kingdom and advancing the kingdom, they resisted and said: God must hate us. He's brought us out here to kill us. We're better to leave Him and go back. Whoa - so how they responded, because of those things they believed - notice the seeds of things they believed, the way they saw themselves, the way they saw life, the way they saw the giants, the promises of God that God Himself - notice what they did.

Here's what they did, how they responded. Read it in Chapter 14: So they lifted up their voices and cried and wept. Number one, self pity, they cried and they went: oh it's not fair, life isn't fair, too tough... They just had whinge. All night they cried. The second thing you notice they did was they blamed, Verse 2: All the children of Israel complained. A complainer is a victim mindset, a complainer, a person who complains, has got a victim mindset. Why? Because he's putting the blame out there, that's why he's complaining: well you did this, you did that, and they're complaining and complaining - now what that is, it's actually putting my life is bad because of what you did, rather than actually I have power to choose what I do with my life; I can grow through the experience and become a better person. I can change my life around, and I can shift what's happening. You notice they complain.

The other thing you notice there is bitterness. There was deep bitterness in their hearts. Notice what they said, Verse 2: If only we'd died! That's a very sad person isn't it, very sad. So they had bitterness in their hearts. They had judgements. Notice they judged God: He's brought us out here to kill us. God's made life so unfair - and finally you notice they had rejection and unbelief in their hearts, Verse 4: said let's select a leader, and let's go back to where we were, or putting it another way, let's stop following the Holy Ghost. Let's leave church and just go back. We'll go back and start to party again and sing again and go into the pubs and just do what we used to do, it was a lot easier then - but where were you when you were there? You were in slavery. You never found freedom there; you found freedom in Christ, and He's wanting to bring you into great things. He wants you to grow.

So you notice there, God wanted them to change. Victim mentality cost them an inheritance. Look at this, Numbers, Chapter 14, Verse 21 through to Verse 23: Now truly as I live - this is the Lord speaking - all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. In other words, God's saying: even though Israel failed in it's purpose, I have in the future a generation I will raise up, and they will manifest the glory right through the whole of the earth! Then He says: because these men, now these ones, now He's talking about these ones - because - notice this - they saw my glory. They experienced the glory of God, had glory times, fire - it was visible, tangible. The signs I did in Egypt in the wilderness, they put Me to the test 10 times, and wouldn't believe or obey My voice. They shall not see the land. Notice the word 'because'. They had such opportunity, but did not believe. He said: they can't go in.

Hebrews 3, the last verse says: they failed to experience God's provided provision for them because of unbelief. A spirit of unbelief keeps you out of the supernatural life flow and provisions of God, and it's connected to the way you view life, and view God, and view yourself. It's connected to your heart condition. As a man thinks in his heart, that's how his life goes. Think about that. Now we read it, and mentally we separate ourselves away from these people, and think: that's not us, that's them. But this is written, it says in 1 Corinthians 10, for the church not to make the crazy mistakes and suffer the same consequences. Over the years I have seen many, many believers let go of God, because in the circumstances of life, their heart did not embrace God in His truth. Their heart stayed frozen in the bitterness and judgements and the lies of their past. This is why we have in the church, processes for healing and restoration, because it's vital to shift that junk out of your heart, so you can arise and begin to believe God. You can't build over rubbish. If you want to build a building, you clear it good and put a good foundation down, getting deliverance and healing and changing the belief system of your heart.

Now to change the belief system of your heart is called this, it's called repentance. Repentance. Foundational to the life of God is repentance. Jesus said: repent, the kingdom is at hand. In other words, I have so much to offer you, its right at your doorstep, but to enter it requires repentance, a change of heart view, of heart belief, of heart approach. God has many things for us, but repentance, changing our belief system, is crucial to entering it. It's not about an external performance; it's about the heart welcoming truth, embracing it, and experiencing it. We'll share a few keys on that just shortly.

So you notice there, they were burning with bitterness, resentment, unbelief and judgements. They needed to get their heart clear of it. That's what the wilderness was about. It was about an opportunity to get freed up of the baggage of the past, come into a place of recognising over and over again, God is loving, God can be trusted, God provides. Now I can learn to arise, be responsible, and partner with Him in taking the land. So in your initial Christian experience, God shifts a lot of things out of your life, but then it's to prepare you so you can begin to walk with Him, begin to dream and explore desires, begin to discover your destiny, and begin to flow with Him into fulfilling your destiny. But if you remain stuck in the baggage of the past, then your belief system doesn't come up far enough to get you into what God has. So changing or repenting requires recognising the patterns of thinking and believing. You've got to be aware of it and recognise it first of all, taking responsibility that the root issues are mine, and I'm going to take and embrace the process of change.

It involves resolving grief and anger and bitterness and judgement. You've got to resolve this stuff, or it just keeps operating in your life. It's like a garden with weeds that have never been weeded out. It involves renewing the patterns of thinking, and beginning to start to recognise and confront old patterns when they come back, and making a decision to change. I guarantee you, you change in your thinking and believing, you'll change in the friendships and the people you've got around you. You will, because changing in the heart changes what's outside you.

Okay, now let's have a look at a kingly mentality, and the kingly mentality is found in Caleb. Let's define a kingly mentality, a kingly mentality. That's what God wants us to have, a kingly - so a kingly mentality is a way of thinking. It's a way of thinking like a king would think. It's a way of viewing life like a king would view life. It's a way of interpreting the experiences you have through a kingly dominion mindset. It's a way of thinking, and so we have to change our way of thinking.

So in 1 Corinthians 6, Verse 17 it says: he that's joined to the Lord is one spirit. So a kingly mindset is a way of viewing life, I am joined one spirit with the Lord, God and me are one, and wherever I go God is with me. This is a winning team! God, Almighty God, who never lost a battle in His life, is with me! That's a kingly mentality see? Kingly mentality means I take full responsibility for my personal life, my thoughts, beliefs, emotions, responses, words and actions. No more blame game - you! No more! Kings don't get the blame game going. Kings stand up and own their life, and then govern their life, then govern beyond them. They have influence because they've shifted. Romans 5:17, a person exercises faith to manifest the life of God, so a kingly mentality is something like this. I'm connected to God Almighty, who loves me, is with me, means good for me, and He has called me to represent Him on this earth and to extend His kingdom, so my prayer is: Father, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth in me and through me just like it is in heaven. That is a kingly mentality. It's a whole way of looking at life, so a challenge comes up; it's an opportunity to bring the life of God to change it.

The life of God changes things. Last night in the park, when we had over 100 people there singing and worshipping and just singing the Christmas carols, but you know what? They released a spiritual atmosphere into the place, so people fell, cried, were touched, their hearts started to turn back and remember God. What is all that about? That's heaven starting to come to earth. It's people joined to God, flowing as one, bringing the life of God out to where people are. It's the most amazing thing - so the example of it is Caleb. Here it is in Numbers 14, Verse 24: But My servant Caleb has a different spirit. He's got a kingly spirit, kingly spirit. He's followed Me fully, I'll bring him into the land where he went and his descendants with him. So whenever you hear the word Caleb, at least three times in the Bible it says: oh, My servant Caleb, who has a different spirit! What God needs is people with a different spirit, not the spirit of the world, complaining and victim and orphaned and alone, but a different spirit, a spirit of the king! The king of kings inside us, a spirit that says: God is with me, and I'm aware of Him, and I can work with Him, and we'll do some things together.

The name Caleb means literally this: Caleb means to be forcible, to have a bit of push and grunt; or it means not to be a sissy and a pushover. [Laughter] So Caleb means no sissy boy here! No pushover here! It also has the meaning to be a dog, like a dog would fiercely attack - so I kind of thought of him being like a Doberman. [Laughter] You imagine yourself being a Doberman, my goodness they're scary dogs aren't they? You look over a gate and see a Doberman, there's no way you're going there. Wouldn't that be right? No way you're going into any place where there's a Doberman. You look there, and their ears go back, and the teeth begin to bare - you're gone! There's no way you're going to hang around. Now that's what the devil wants to see, is a church full of Dobermans. [Laughter] See? So when they go grrrr grrrrr the devils flee! We're not like that to people, we're like that to the devil see?

This man here was a forcible man, so how did he see his situation? See, what I'm concerned about is more than just his name. His name is prophetic of the type of the person who has a kingly mentality, and arises and gets God's promises, but there's things that he had in his heart. In the Book of Joshua, Chapter 14, he said: I brought word back as was in my heart. When a person shares what's in their heart they're revealing their beliefs, who they really are. They're actually being quite open and transparent. Now I want you to see the contrast of Caleb's heart, and what he really believed, and the heart of the people of Israel. Here it is, let's have a look at Caleb, how did he see God. Look in Numbers, Chapter 14 and Verse 9: And the Lord is with us. See, how did he see God? Almighty God is with us! He didn't see God as being someone far off, distant, uncaring, unloving. The Mighty covenant God, and I'm in covenant with Him. I belong to the tribe of Judah. I belong to a tribe connected to Him! God is with us! What a difference it would make in your life if everywhere you went: GOD IS WITH ME! - Now don't yell that out, they'll think you're nutty, but [Laughter] - well you may want to yell it out but, you know?

But you need to know it experientially on the inside, to feel that truth, God is inside me. Almighty God is with me. Wherever I go, God is with me. I'm not alone in life, I don't have to struggle in life. God, my Father is with me, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is in me. Now you see when we get to believe that in our heart, it begins to fill the mind and you begin to talk that way, it just comes out of you. You talk that way. Notice the way he saw himself; Numbers 13, Verse 30: Caleb shut the people up, and said: let us go up, we're well able to overcome it. Notice the way he sees himself? We are well able. He included everyone else, which is quite generous of him. What he's really saying is: I can do this, I can do it, I can do it because God is with me. I can do it. So how did he see himself? He saw he's an over comer.

Do you see yourself that way, or see yourself as a victim? See, no victim mentality here, we can do it, we're over comers. Paul said the same thing: I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me, Philippians 4:18. See, it's the same thing. Whatever God calls me to do, I can do it through Christ who strengthens me. See, it's the way you see yourself. You're a winner. Tell someone next to you, you're a winner. [You're a winner.] Well no one likes to call themselves a loser do they? I mean imagine if you turned around - see the bubble that comes when you say: you're a winner, but imagine if you turned around and said: you're a loser! Man, you'd probably get a poke on the nose. There'd be slapping, there'd be aggro, there'd be all kinds of stuff go down there.

Hey listen, the devil tells you you're a loser every day of your life, 24 hours of the day. He's always telling you you're a loser. He wants you to believe you're a loser; God wants you to believe you're a winner. You've got to choose who you're going to listen to. You've got to listen to God and what God says: you're a winner! The same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is within you. You must be a winner! That same spirit energises your body. You don't have to be tired when the spirit of God is available to flow through your body. Come on, think about this. See, we choose our attitude when we get out of bed. Ooh, another day, oh no. [Laughter] Oh glory! Another day! It's an effort and a discipline see? How did he see the challenges? So he didn't look like a victim: oh no, giants, this is so bad, what kind of mess am I in now? He didn't look at it like that. This is what he said, Numbers 14, Verse 9: Don't rebel against the Lord, don't fear the people of the land. These giants are bread, their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us.

How did he look at Giants? How did he look at giants? He said they're bread for us. Giants are the food of kings. Giants are the food of kings! They're the bread of kings. It's one thing to feed on the bread, the word of God, but there's another bread that gets you strong, and that's feeding on the giants! Feeding on the giants - not fleeing the giants; feeding off the giants. Giants are bread. You see I can feel the unbelief rising straight away. [Laughter] You think well I hear what he's saying, but inside I don't believe that at all. [Laughter] No way. Well okay, you can believe what you choose. I guarantee your giants aren't bread. Your giants actually hurt you, wound you, defeat you consistently, because you don't see them as bread, as part of God's provision to grow godly people, great champions, great kings. Kings have to be grown, they don't just turn up. You sit in church and listen to a message and then you become a king? I don't think so. [Laughter] You've got to be doing something the rest of the week you know, and so when you go out there, God's got a giant for you to face.

Instead of looking, thinking oh how you doing today? Oh ooh... Oh, I see you've got a giant! Oh ho ho! You've got a giant! [Laughter] And you're a grasshopper. I can feel grasshopper emanating out of you! Come on, see? It's the words coming out of your mouth; it reveals what's in your heart - grasshopper or giant slayer? See, Caleb said at 85: you remember that mountain where all the giants were, and the majority of people had a whinge and a whine, and complained and wasted 40 years? I want that mountain with those giants! See it doesn't register does it; see 85 someone asking for a challenge. Most people at 85 just want a rest home, [laughter] someone to wheel them around, take them for an outing, feed them and wipe up the dribble. [Laughter] But we're not like that! [No!] We can remain strong and vibrant through Christ's life within us - but you have to have a mentality like that. I'll show you why in just a moment. Anyway so there it is, giant. Giants are bread.

Notice what he says: Their defence is departed from them. What he's referring to is this. The demonic realm that empowered the giants, and made them look so fierce and gave them such authority, God has already caused it to be broken over their life. That's why you can win the victory. They may look big, but actually their defence is departed from them, their demons are no longer operative. We have something more operative. Now you come to the cross, Colossians 2, and it tells us very clearly now God, Christ has disarmed principalities and powers so you would not fear spirits but rather walk in dominion over them. You've got to believe it though, have to believe the truth, repent of the old stuff, the unbelief that stops you getting the victory. So he saw the challenge as their bread, and notice how he saw the land: it's flowing with milk and honey. Man, have we got a good life ahead. So we ask how's it going? Oh, not too good. How's it going? Man, God is providing challenge after challenge for me to grow, I'm looking forward to the things He's bringing into my life! Bread, milk and honey is ahead for me, milk and honey!

You say oh, but you don't understand, we're in a crisis. There's no crisis in heaven. It's only in your mind and heart. Now I know it's in the physical reality, but God takes people through crises. So how did he respond? So when a person's got this kind of faith in their heart, notice he brought word this was in his heart. The big thing is how he saw God: God is big and great and loves us. He's a covenant God. He's with us. We can't lose. We can't lose - and even a setback is just that, it's a setback. Even a failure's just a setback. We can't lose. We can't lose, because why? Because God said it, and God doesn't lie. See, He's based on the truth. Remember they'd all seen the glory, they'd all seen the miracles, all seen fire. They'd seen all manner of things, but what they needed was faith in their heart - which comes by believing the word and character of God.

They needed to shift and begin to be believers - so what happens next? So how did he respond? Well this is how a person who's got faith in their heart responds, in Numbers 13, Verse 30. He shut up the critical negative talk. Now believe me, if you listen to critical, negative talk, and don't say a word, you're in agreement with it, and the spirit behind it. You've got to understand if you listen to negative, critical talk you have come into agreement with the spirit behind it. What you say and do is important. If someone starts being negative and critical, you need to do what Caleb did, and shut it up! He silenced the people! He refused to dwell among people that were critical and negative. He stopped the negative talk, and spoke into it. That's what faith does, that kind of stuff see? The second thing is, he rejected the negative attitude - Verse 9 of Numbers 14: Don't rebel. Don't fear. Don't get a bad attitude. God is with us.

You've got to realise that negative words and negative attitudes are infectious like a plague. They're like a spiritual disease. If someone had leprosy, or some kind of aids and the sores were everywhere, I can't see you going up there and giving them a hug. You'll just stand back a bit and you'll have a bit of caution going on in there, don't want to catch what you've got. But when someone comes near with negative words and a negative attitude, it's very easy to wrap them in our arms and hug them and love them and get into agreement with it and the spirit behind. He just cut it out completely, and challenged the people to think and believe differently. He rejected the negative attitude, and he boldly declared the word of God. We are well able, God is with us, their defence is departed, they're bread for us. This is it, we can do it.

Now understand, this was his heart, and God says he's got a different spirit, different heart attitude, a kingly dominion heart attitude. You know why the others couldn't go into the land? Because it required faith to inherit the promises, and two men had it. Those two, God said: I'll bring you in, but the others can't come in. Why can't they come in? They haven't got what it will take. They just can't make it. That's why God may have lots of things for you, but if you don't prepare your heart and shift your thinking, you can't make it. We can't make it in there, because it requires faith to access the promises of God. There's got to be a heart belief, so notice he had a big heart belief, and so God says man, this boy I'm bringing in. Not only him, all his family as well. He's got another spirit, a kingly spirit. Okay, so how can we get that kingly heart attitude in us? Let me give you a couple of thoughts, and then we'll finish up.

Battles are won and lost in the mind and heart. The battles of life are won and lost in the minds and the hearts, because the Bible says - Proverbs 23:7 - as a man thinks in his heart so he is. Now that word 'thinks' is an on going present continuous word. In other words, as a man is continually thinking in his heart, then that's how his life is working out. Why? Because of the thoughts, and what thoughts do. I want to share with you something I discovered through a little bit of research just recently. As you continue to think, you are building your life, so your thoughts are building the life you'll have on the earth. Your thoughts are like bricks, and you're putting them in one after another, and so the way we think and view life begins to build into us, and program in us, how we're going to be in the future. You have to understand that.

Now there's been some research done on thoughts, and thinking processes, and here's some interesting things you may not have realised. I don't have a picture I could show you but thoughts are actually can be measured. In other words they occupy space in your head. A thought is not a nothing. See, a thought is something. A memory is something. We don't tend to think that way, but it is something. Now what is it? Well it's actually neurons going through a path. There are chemicals released, and there's some pathways formed in your mind, so there are electrical impulses, neurons, and chemicals released - see for example, if I just got everyone, now it's nearly half past eleven now, so if I got everyone beginning to think about a beautiful lunch - oh, there it is. Chicken, ooh, I can see it now. I can see the gravy on it, all that seasoning, and the potatoes and - oh it's looking good. Now immediately I'm starting to feel hungry. [Laughter] My body - not notice this, I want you to get this - my body and feelings responded to my thoughts. So as I began to think, there was something happened in my body and emotions, same with yours.

If you begin to think about a painful experience for a little bit, and you begin to remember that experience, begin to imagine it and picture it, very soon there'll be feelings come, emotions will come, and you'll begin to enter into that experience - sometimes tears come. I found one certain piece of music I just played the other day, as I played the music, I found tears come. I thought that's strange. The music is triggering off thoughts, and they're connected to emotions. Because I've got emotions, I must have thoughts; I wonder what they are? So they're all interconnected. Now here's the interesting thing. They've been able to study the brain, and here's the interesting thing that happens. When you think, thinking involves electrical impulses, neurons connect, and you form like a tree in your brain.

Can you imagine a tree with lots of branches? Now the more you repeat certain kinds of thinking, the bigger the tree grows in your brain - so if you begin to think say, negative thoughts about yourself, and continually repeat them, there grows like a tree in your brain, of neurons connected to one another, and the connections grow thicker and stronger and deeper. It becomes set in your brain. So a person for example who continually looks at pornography begins to develop in his brain memories or trees, neuron trees, which grow thicker and thicker and thicker, and there are paths. It triggers off chemistry in their body. That's how God has designed us, it's a physical thing - and so God designed us. Now here's the thing. If a person begins to change how they think, they've observed on the electron microscope, that the trees that hold the memory or the patterns of thinking begin to shrink and dissipate, and if you stop thinking those thoughts they eventually vanish, as though they were never there. Isn't that amazing? They've discovered that in science. I was reading it in a book recently.

If you start to develop different ways of thinking, then new neuron paths form up, and new trees begin to form within your brain - so imagine that, that within your brain are registered the ways you've thought all your life. If you will stop thinking certain ways, and begin to develop new thoughts, there will be new neuron paths formed, new connections formed, and old ones will wither and die away. Think about that. Isn't it amazing? Now here's the thing about those thoughts. They are connected to emotions, so if your thoughts are negative, you unlock bad chemistry in your body; it affects your DNA and your health. So our body is not wired to cope with things like bitterness, judgements, resentments, self pity, unforgiveness. All those toxic thoughts create memory trees, neuron trees in your mind, that every time you go there they get stronger, and they unlock toxins in your body. Think about that - so what is very true is this: You can be transformed totally, as you will renovate your mind.

You'll be transformed totally by the renovation of your mind. Now I wish I could have you come up and lay hands on you, and renovate your mind [laughter] but as you all know with renovation, you've got to remove and strip out the whole room, everything that's in there, and systematically replace it with something else, systematically replace it with something else. What we have to do is called renewing of the mind, and Joshua was commended to do it before he went into the land. One of the biggest instructions God gave him is this: meditate, ponder, picture, imagine, get into the feelings of My word, so My word begins to build neuron trees and begins to shape the way you think. Declare My word, because that'll reinforce it in your life. Begin to act on My word - notice what He says - you will make your own way to prosper. In other words prosperity outside us, begins with change inside us.

Kingly manifestations outside, begin with kingly thinking on the inside, and no one can do it except you - so that requires these sorts of things, becoming aware of how you think. In other words, notice what you feel, because behind a feeling is a thought, or a belief. Evaluate it, judge it. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:5, bringing every thought and every imagination into captivity, these things that exalt themselves against knowing God. So many of us are limited in our experiences and knowledge of God, because we have thoughts that resist and oppose and continually frustrate God's revelation flowing into our life. Renew the mind and it begins to change. How do we do it? We need to picture, imagine the truth, see the truth, begin to imagine what that feels like, the truth: God is in me. When Clark was here he shared a brilliant message, just of what it took for him to meditate that Almighty God was in him. This God that made creation in me, every day meditating on it, so wherever he went he could minister the power of God, because he felt immediately the presence of God with him.

Meditate, ponder, imagine, picture, begin to let it affect your feelings, begin to speak it and embrace it, declare it over your life, begin to live out and act according to it, and you'll begin to find old memory patterns start to shift, new memory patterns start to form, and your life begins to change. I've determined in this coming year to work on some different areas of change. What about you?

Let's just close our eyes right now. The core of it is repentance, a change of mind and a change of heart, and that's where every one of us stands today. If we want to see more of the kingdom of God in our life, let's turn from old, unproductive thinking. Abandon it, reject it and put it off, and let's be renewed in our mind, and put on whole new ways of thinking and living that make us productive and fruitful, and make us think like a king, talk like a king, act like a king and experience kingly advances in our life.

Just while our eyes are closed and heads are bowed is there any person here today doesn't know Jesus Christ? This would be a great day for you to turn from an old way of thinking, an old way of life, a life in bondage, slavery and alone, into a life connected to Jesus Christ. At the cross Jesus died and broke the power of sin in your life so you could be free.

Is there anyone here today right at that place of decision? I wonder how many others today, as I've spoken today you realise that much of what you're experiencing in life that makes you unhappy, is a result of wrong thinking, of issues in the heart unresolved, and God's been speaking to you today about putting off the victim mentality, dealing with the victim issues of the heart, and beginning to put on a kingdom mentality - no more blame, standing up, and beginning to take hold of what God says about you. Day by day meditating in the truth, rejecting the lies, evaluating your thoughts as they come in - does this line up with the word of God? If it doesn't - I reject that thought, it's an ungodly thought. I hold the truth in my heart, I confess the truth, meditate on the truth, embrace the truth, until I see it manifest in my life.

I believe there are many people today, God's speaking to you about that. Would you raise your and say: God's really challenged me to have a kingly mentality. Father, I just thank You. Father, I pray today for your grace to flow in the house of God, to break old victim mentalities, and to begin to raise up a new breed and generation with kingly thinking, thinking like a king, thinking as You've called us to think, standing and confronting ungodly thinking, rising up to do new things. Father, we just honour You today. We thank You, You've made us one with You, and Jesus, we give You the honour. Shall we give the Lord a clap today? [Applause]

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Table of Contents

The Prayer of Kings (2 sermons)

The Prayer of Kings (1 of 2)

The Prayer of Kings (2 of 2)

Let the Kings Arise (4 sermons)

Kings Dream (1 of 4)

Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4)

Servants or Kings (3 of 4)

Slave or Son (4 of 4)

Breaking Free from Victim Mentality (2 sermons)

Victim Mentality (1 of 2)

Victim Mentality (2 of 2)