Latest / Citipointe Church Caboolture / Your Will Be Done | Ps Rachel Eaton

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Your Will Be Done | Ps Rachel Eaton · Citipointe Church Caboolture

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Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.
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Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to
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take hold of. So we hope this message inspires
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you and build your faith, but it helps you have more of a God
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perspective for your day. Enjoy.
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I want to speak this morning on God's will.
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What is it to have God's will? What is it to be and live in his
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will. So we've all had the the message
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this morning is your will be done.
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So you've all heard the the passage in the Bible that says
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your Kingdom come your your will be done found in Matthew 6.
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So I want to speak around the biblical meaning of will.
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I am a CHC student at ministry college.
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Thank you Alex, a little bit teachy.
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OK, so the biblical meaning of will, it is actually the Greek
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word called thelema. If anyone here is Greek, just
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have a giggle at my pronunciation and move on.
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So the word dilemma, God's will is actually deeply centred in
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what he desires and what gives him great pleasure.
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When we pray your Kingdom come, your will be done, Your thelema,
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we're actually praying, Lord, we pray for what's going to bring
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you the most amount of pleasure. We want to pray, Lord, for your
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deepest desires to be done. It's a little bit different,
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isn't it? Can you hear the personal
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aspect, the relational aspect in that it is Thelema.
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So when we pray, it's what is the deepest, what's going to
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bring you the deepest level of pleasure here, Lord, in this
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moment, in this decision, or in this outcome, what will bring
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you pleasure? You see, to know God's will,
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it's actually to know God. Great authority and power comes
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from deep intimacy with Jesus. And Jesus was the one who
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demonstrated this for us time and time again.
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How many times do you hear of him taking off and spending time
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with the Father? Deep intimacy, knowing Him
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produces great authority in your life.
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So I want to speak around 3 points on what it is to know
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what God's will isn't. That'll be point #1 #2 what
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God's will is and #3 we're going to speak on the power of your
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will be done. Feel good this morning.
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So .1 what God's will is not, and I said there is not because
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in CHC you're not allowed to say isn't you have to do the
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extended version of is not just a heads up for those of you
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considering to sign up. You're welcome because you will
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get marked down on that. Let's talk about what God's will
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is not, and it is not your assumptions.
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God is not who you think he is. He's simply who He says He is.
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Years ago, I was out to dinner with friends who I'd spent some
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time with and they were all ordering dinner.
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And I noticed it was decided for me that I wouldn't partake in
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what they had ordered because apparently I didn't like that
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food. And I, I sat there for a minute
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and I went, actually the, the food that you've ordered is in
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my top three favorite foods. And they went, really, we've
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never seen you enjoy that kind of food before.
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They had spent some time with me and so they assumed that I
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didn't like this food, but I was right there.
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They could have just asked, but we do this with God.
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We assume that because we've spent some time with Him that we
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know what he likes and what he doesn't like, but he's right in
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the room and we can actually just ask.
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I, I want to give you some examples of this because I think
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people can flow out, throw out what they like to call fleeces
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to God and taken completely out of context of what it was
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originally used for in the Old Testament.
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But they might throw things out and say things like if the Lord,
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if the pastor wears green today, I'm going to take that as a sign
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that you're totally OK for me to leave my job.
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We can assume that we know what God wants, like we just we throw
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these things out. Another one might be if I get
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approved for that line of credit, I will take that as your
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word that you want me to have that money or you want me to
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have access to it even though I've completely overextended
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myself. It's so hard to get a rental,
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Lord. So if I get approved for that
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house, then that must be you telling me that you want me to
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move in with my boyfriend, that you want me to move in with my
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girlfriend. Honestly, God must look at us
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sometimes and go. I didn't say that.
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Why do I say this? Michael?
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Are you adding words to here? It's like, is Kurong ripping
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you? What, did they leave pages out?
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Are they trying to save money? Where do we get this stuff from?
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Because I don't read it in here. God's not who you think he is.
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He's simply who you he says that he is.
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So what God's will is not, it's not everything that happens.
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It's not everything that happens.
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Have you ever heard, oh, what happened that way?
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So it must have been God's will kind of thinking.
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I actually see a lot in Christianity.
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I didn't get a high school, I didn't get that grade, and so I
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didn't get into that course. That must mean that God doesn't
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want me to pursue that career, right?
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We didn't get the loan. And so God must not desire us to
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ever own our own home. I was late to get out of bed
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this morning. So God mustn't want us to be at
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this particular meeting. Come on now.
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You've all said that at some point, not everything that
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happens is God's will. Think about it.
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If everything that happens is God's will, we can chill out.
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Pastor Chris, come and take. We can just take a seat.
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If everything that happens is God's will, then why bother?
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Like, we don't need to do a Christmas production.
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We don't need to come here every Tuesdays and all of the other
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extra meetings and do it. Pastor Mill, you can chill out
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with me. Come take a seat.
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It's OK. There's no need for all of the
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tantrums and the late nights with children.
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We can just chill because I'm here to sing.
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Hey Sarah, Sarah, whatever will be will be God's will.
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This is actually quite comfortable and then super
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annoying. But I read in God's word it says
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Jesus actually asks us to please pray for God's will to be done.
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Why would he ask us to please pray for God's will to be done?
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If everything that happens is God's will, we need to think
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things through. God's will is what brings him
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great pleasure, great desire with intention.
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Think of the words pleasure and desire.
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When we think about pleasure and desire, it reminds me of buying
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a gift for someone. Imagine you go out and to to buy
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a gift for your wife. You think what brings her great
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pleasure? What does she desire?
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What's going to make her smile? You don't give your son 2 bucks
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to go to the supermarket and go just get her whatever.
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She's be stoked with that. And he comes back with chewing
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gum and goes, Mom's kind of love this aces.
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There's got to be thought like there's no, there's no thought
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in that. There's no intention, there's no
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cost, there's no sacrifice, there's no consideration.
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God's will is Lord. What brings you pleasure?
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What do you desire to see in this?
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I'm just reading through my notes.
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I got through the que. Sarah.
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Just thank you, Holy Spirit. Not everything that happens is
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God's will. Not everything that happens he
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desires, and certainly not everything that happens gives
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him great pleasure. The girl who was repeatedly
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raped growing up was not God's will.
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The spouse who cheated on their family was never God's will.
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The young man who was felt backed into a corner and took
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his own life was never God's will.
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A brilliant brother in Jesus being assassinated in cold blood
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in front of his family is not God's will.
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There's no pleasure or desire. In that moment.
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God created man in his own image, thus giving him his own
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will and his own desires. And in so doing, God actually
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sort of removed himself from that involvement.
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He's not controlling. He didn't make us robots, which
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is why people are allowed to exercise their own will, even
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though sometimes it's rooted in deep wickedness and it's why we
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see it in the world. Do you ever hear the saying
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everything happens for a reason? Does it?
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Is the reason sometimes just that someone was being allowed
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to be operate in their own deep seated wicked will?
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This is good right here now you might say, but I thought that
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with God everything works out for good.
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So here's your tension. Will and purpose are not the
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same word, OK? God's will is His thelema, what
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gives Him great pleasure? What is, what is his desire?
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In a moment we're going to have a look at the word purpose.
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And the word is prosthesis, and we find it in Romans 828.
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I think because I don't have my glasses on.
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Could be 26. Just read the whole thing, it's
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fine. It's a good book.
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Romans purpose, it's associated with the table of showbread.
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OK, it's actually about looking at what's in front of you kind
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of at looking what is stay with me.
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God is saying here that because of His grace, because of His
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mercy, because of His nature, because of His beauty, He will
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look at what's on this table, what's on your showbread, and
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go. I know that this wasn't my
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intention. I know that this act and this
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decision over here really didn't bring me great, great pleasure,
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but here it is. I don't want to punish you for
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that. I'm not into that.
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I want to pour out my love and my mercy.
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I want to pour out forgiveness. I want to cover and wash you
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with my blood. So here it is.
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It's on this table. So here's what I'm going to do.
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I'm going to take this mess of yours and I'm going to turn it
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into a message. I'm going to take this
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loneliness and I'm going to pour my love in.
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I'm going to take this tragedy and I'm going to use it for my
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glory in Jesus name. This is the beauty of the cross.
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It's the great exchange, and it gives God great pleasure to do
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so. He wants to pour out his
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forgiveness. He wants to see you healed,
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whole, restored, set free. He wants to see you in life and
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life more abundantly. And do you know how I know that?
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Because I know God's will, which brings me to point to what God's
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will is. This is a short point, but a
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long study. Romans 218.
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It says you know what He wants, what He desires, you know what
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is right because you have been taught His law.
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You know what He wants, you know what He desires, you know what
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gives Him great pleasure because it's all being written out for
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you. In John 11, it says that the
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Word was with God and the Word we, we have students in the
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room. Well done.
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When we take God's word, it's it's the literal God speaking to
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us. When we bring God's word into
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prayer with him, it's literally inviting the person of God into
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the room. You are literally having a
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conversation with the life giving God.
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It's Him speaking to us. This is where deep intimacy with
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Jesus is developed. This is where we find out what
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He wants. He wasn't shy about it.
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He wrote it all down for us. And so if you're not sure what
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God's will is in any situation, just ask.
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If you're not sure how to find that, go and speak to one of the
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pastors or one of the leaders to help you find out what God has
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to say on specific subjects, right?
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Communicating through him in his Word.
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It brings intimacy, but it also brings authority and power.
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So .3 and this is a a longer point.
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I want to talk about the power in your will be done.
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OK, so we have established that God's will is not just
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everything that happens. I don't get to sit on a lounge,
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Neither does Pastor Mel, neither does Pastor Chris and Rich,
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neither to any of you and say ka, ka, Sarah, Sarah.
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Whatever will be will be God's will.
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No, we are invited to partner with God in what he desires.
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We get to partner with him and actively be involved in bringing
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about his purpose, in bringing about his desire, what brings
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him great pleasure. So in Romans 12/1 to two, I
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wanted to speak on this, which is a really powerful way to see
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God's will being brought about, it says.
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And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to
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give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you.
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Let them be a living and holy sacrifice.
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This kind he will find acceptable.
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Sorry. The kind he will find
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acceptable. This is truly the way to
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worship. Don't copy the behaviour and
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customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new
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person by changing the way you think.
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Then you will learn to know God's will, God's dilemma, God's
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desire for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
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Did you hear it in there? It was to present your body as a
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living sacrifice, allowing yourself to be transformed.
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When you place something on an altar, it doesn't actually
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belong to you anymore. It belongs to God.
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And there's a a picture of this. Can you give me my fire stick,
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please? This would have been so much
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more fun if Pastor Mel would have let me do a live
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demonstration. I wasn't allowed to.
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It's called submission. Anyway, we're going to come and
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have a look at these two pictures up here.
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It wasn't just a random pretty picture.
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There was purpose here. So here we have.
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Oh, no. I've touched it.
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I'm going to get all my clothes wet.
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Have you got a baby wipe? Yeah.
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All right. Here is the altar of sacrifice.
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This was a daily sacrifice. Did you hear in that verse
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before that the God's will was about being a living sacrifice?
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It's not a one moment. It's not a one moment where you
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give your life to Jesus and go, Jesus, I invite you into my
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heart. Thanks so much that you live
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there, walk out of the doors and never come back.
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It's not a single occurrence. It's a daily sacrifice.
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So here we've got the daily sacrifice and over here this is
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what's called the altar of incense.
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Now when you hear about incense in God's word, what does it
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remind you of? Incense aroma.
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Call it out prayer. I heard prayer.
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So at the incense, the altar of incense is daily prayer.
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The reason I've got a fire stick.
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So in the Bible it talks about this was actually lit by God
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himself. That's called holy fire.
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The holy fire was then to be taken from the daily sacrifice.
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Daily sacrifice, right? And used to light the altar of
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incense. Here's what I want to pull from
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this. I'm going to do an exchange
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here. Baby wipes, Baby wipes.
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They're so great. Thanks friend.
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If you need to find those scriptures as well, they're in
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Leviticus 1612 to 13, Exodus 37 to 10, and Leviticus 924.
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So what I want to pull from this daily sacrifice combined with
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intimate prayer, it carries holy fire.
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Your daily sacrifice combined with daily prayer carries holy
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fire. Holy fire is power.
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Holy fire is the power that sees people set free, sees people
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delivered, that brings salvation, that sees legs grow,
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and it's carried through daily sacrifice and daily prayer.
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It positions you in power and the enemy does not want you to
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understand the power that you have in laying things down.
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It's laying down your will and picking up God's will, what
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brings him pleasure, what he desires.
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It's a, it's laying down what we want and aligning it with what
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God wants. I, I just want to bring up a
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story in the Bible. It's in Numbers 22 and it's a
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man named Balaam, deeply wicked man.
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I'd say I'd have a conversation within heaven, but I don't think
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we're going to see this man in heaven.
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He was, he was not a nice guy. So we had the children of Israel
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and you had the King Balak and he was terrified that they were
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coming like, Oh no, the Israelites are coming.
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We've heard about this God and what he does.
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So he goes and he hires Balaam. He's basically the big fat witch
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doctor of the day. And he's got all of his, you
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know, he's wearing his things and his blood on his, on his
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chest. He's, he's got all of the powers
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of, of darkness and evil. And so the king, he's known
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amongst all of the kings of the region as being the guy that if
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he blesses someone there, if he curses someone, they're cursed.
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So what comes Balaam and, and the kings are like, right, curse
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Israel and Balaam, who's actually heard from God.
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Just because you hear from God doesn't make you a prophet of
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God. It actually made him a very
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disobedient and rebellious man. But he, he heard, he actually
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knew that he wasn't going to be able to curse.
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And it was very frustrating for him.
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And so whenever he opened out his mouth, out would come
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blessing instead of cursing. And so the king was like, come
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on, you know, like, try it here, do it here.
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And he's so irritated and frustrated because he's the guy
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hired to bring a curse. And with all of his powers of
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darkness and with every methodology that is accessed to,
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he can't get through. Let's pick up the story numbers
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3115 to 16. This is what happened after.
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Have you allowed all of the women to live?
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They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and enticed
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Israel to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident so
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that a plague struck the Lord's people.
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Now this is interesting. Balaam lived in this deeply
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spiritual, volatile environment, but was unable to curse Israel.
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He was blocked, couldn't get through.
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So, frustrated at his inability to invoke a curse, he looked to
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one of the most powerful thing to walk planet Earth.
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He looked to God's people. He looked to God's people.
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He enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord through
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the Moabite woman and then brought a court, brought a curse
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on them that way. What was impossible to curse
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through extremely volatile spiritual means was brought
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about through a compromise of God's People understand that
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this is actually a negative story.
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But church, do you understand who you are?
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Do you understand the power that you actually possess?
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Because I promise you, the enemy does.
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And the enemy loves it when we are passive and unaware of the
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power that we carry every day. But we don't always recognize it
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because you know what it looks like for us.
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It's mundane. It's a daily sacrifice combined
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with daily prayer. It's mundane, but it carries
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power. If you could just imagine with
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me for a moment. Now look there, there is no
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condemnation in Christ. Whatever's on that table of
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showbread for you, God's mercy is at work in there.
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But I want to, I want to invite you into a moment of imagination
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for our region. Can you imagine if every family
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in our region, maybe for three generations, did these few
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things, got up in the morning and fed their kids, sent them to
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school, gave them a hug and told them that they loved them and
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stayed? If every family just went, I
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really don't like my spouse right now, but I'm just, I'm
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going to work through it. If every family in our region
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had done that for three generations, what would it?
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What would it look like? We don't understand the power in
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the mundane, in the everyday daily sacrifice, daily prayer.
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It carries holy fire, but we don't always recognize it
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because it's so mundane. And the thing about sacrifice is
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it's a sacrifice. It's usually the very opposite
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of what we want to do, right? It's the opposite of what we
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want to do, and it hurts. It's often the very thing that
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we're like, no, like study. Studied for 20 years.
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Lord, Are you sure? You said you wanted me to study.
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Yes, Rachel, I said I wanted you to study.
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But don't you understand? They make you reference.
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Where's the holy fire in that daily sacrifice?
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Laying it down with daily prayer.
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It positions you in power. It carries holy fire.
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Sometimes we want the the sparklers and the fireworks in
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in ministry. Let me Adam, God, show me the
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multitudes. I'm ready to see legs grow and
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God's like I'm so with you. Could you just maybe forgive
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your parents? Hang on a second.
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What? Daily laying it down.
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Have you said sorry to your spouse yet?
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No, I was right. I am right, ladies.
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I am a lady. So I'm going to just pick on you
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for a moment. Do you know how to say sorry?
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Does it come out of your mouth? Is it a normal part of your
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vocabulary? Is it a daily sacrifice?
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The words that you don't want to say, the words that are the
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struggle? I will say anything else, just
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not that word. It's the opposite often of the
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very thing that you want to do, but it positions you in power.
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Think of Daniel for a moment. Daniel was a man who was known
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for daily sacrifice and daily prayer.
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It says that he prayed 3 times a day.
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His life was a life of daily sacrifice.
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It was nothing for him to fast for years.
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All of the King's delicacies. It was nothing for him to show
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up to work again. But he was positioned in power.
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Those light mouths of the lion were closed.
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Dave. Sorry, Daniel.
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Did I say David? It's Daniel.
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Lived nearly 85 years. There's a lot of mundane in that
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story. Think about it.
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He served a wicked king. He probably got home from the
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lion's den and they're like, well, you've had a day off in
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the lion's den. Now you've got twice as much
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paperwork to do. It's mundane, daily showing up,
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doing I, I love to pray, right? I love to pray.
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I don't always feel like showing up and teaching people how to
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pray on a Monday night after working all day.
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Sometimes it's the very opposite of what I feel like doing.
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It's a daily decision to keep showing up, to keep laying down,
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to keep allowing Holy Spirit to press on those areas of your
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heart, to keep checking your attitudes, to keep aligning
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yourself back in submission, which is often the opposite of
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what you feel like doing. Just putting this out there.
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Submission isn't true submission until you're disagreeing with
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someone. Otherwise you're just going
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along with the flow. It's that moment where you hit,
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oh, I don't actually really like what you're.
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I don't even think I really believe what you're saying here.
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And then there's an aligning anyway.
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It's the opposite of what you want to do.
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It's laying it down. Daily sacrifice combined with
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daily prayer carries holy fire. It positions you for power.
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I will end with this with Stephen was a man full of the
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Holy Spirit, chosen and anointed to be apostle.
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To do what? Work with the dishes.
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He was anointed full of Holy Spirit because they needed
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someone to help distribute the food.
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He showed up daily, daily sacrifice, daily prayer.
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And as he was being a martyr and stones were being thrown at him
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and he was giving his literal life as a sacrifice, he comes
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out with this prayer and says Lord, don't hold this against
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them. Sacrifice, prayer, holy fire.
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Guess who was in the audience? Soul, it's where we get our
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great apostle Paul. God went OK Stephen, sometimes
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we miss the power and the authority that we walk in
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because it looks mundane. Pray only Lord, I need to read
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some more. I need to keep showing.
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You want me to go to work. You want me to love my children
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and my spouse? You want me to be that good
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friend? You want me to serve dishes?
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Really, Lord? Whatever he's pressing on, lay
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it down. It positions you in power.
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Your rights, your hurt, your attitudes, your control.
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What brings you pleasure, Lord? What is your will?
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What is your deep desire in this moment?
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Decision, outcome. Jesus.
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Jesus was the ultimate example, the ultimate example of
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sacrifice. It says in Galatians 1/4 that he
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gave himself to die for our sins.
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He did this so that we could be saved from the sinful world.
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And this is what God wanted to do.
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It's what God wanted to do. You might be here this morning
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and have heard this message. Some of you might have just come
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back. Like Alex was saying this
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morning. He wrestled with the with the
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sacrifice. So he left because it was easy.
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Some of you might have walked back in here this morning and
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going, no, I need to get my relationship with Jesus back.
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He was the one who first gave, he sacrificed everything.
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It's why we have free will, because the most important thing
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in the world to God is when we choose Him back.