Good to see each and every one of you here today. So glad you chose to worship with us. And if you're here for the first time, you are our VIPs. If you get stopped by one of our great volunteers on the way in, make sure you grab one of those blue cards in front of you, scan the QR code on the back of the seat, fill out that form.
You know, we don't want much. Just your tax ID numbers, credit card, no, we don't want to. We got a special gift for you. You just want to make sure that you feel welcome here at New York Church.
Also, if that's what they will be at that VIP area after the service, he'd love to speak to you. And just say thank you for worshiping with us today. How many are excited to be here today? OK, OK.
How many of you guys want to move in a mighty way? I'm trusting that God's going to change some lives in here today. Well, we are wrapping up our battle-tested series today. Pastor Joe has a great message for you.
And it is going to come to a conclusion in this one. But I've got good news. Next week, we start my show. I thought I was going to say the absolute best.
My favorite series, blockbuster summer. We'll be doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So blockbuster summer, if you don't know what blockbuster summer is, we take movie clips.
And we take biblical principles out of those movie clips. So hopefully the goal is that when you watch that movie the next time. And I'll just go into you next week's going to be the Patriot. I know all of you have seen it.
The Patriot. Next time you watch that, you'll say, let me tell you how God can use that movie. Amen. That's the goal.
So I'm looking forward to it. I hope you're bringing somebody we get each and every Sunday. It's going to be a great time. We want to fill this place up with people who need a relationship with Jesus Christ, people who want to get closer to them, people who don't know him yet.
That we get to introduce them to them. Y'all believe that? Well, stay until you're thinking, let's get ready to worship. I want to say this, though.
We couldn't do any of the stuff that you see happening here for one for two things. So I want to say thank you, thank you so much for being a part of what God is doing here. You know, everything that we have, it really is even ours. It belongs to God.
And we're just stewards of what God has given us. And so when we give back to God, he's able to take what we pass this through our hands and blesses it and blesses this community through your faithfulness and your generosity. And so I just want to say thank you for being a part of what God has called us to do here and reach the four to three, the Bladen Robison in Columbus County for everybody out there that has lost it, is hurting. We're going to reach him because of your faithfulness to give weekend and weekend.
Y'all believe that? Oh, how many of y'all know that's going to be a battle? Yeah. How many of y'all know that's going to be an obstacle that we've got to overcome?
We've got to fight? Well, guess what? I got good news. We don't fight it alone because we're getting ready to sing and declare who the battle belongs to because it belongs to the Lord.
Let's sing it today. Let's sing it today. Let's sing it tonight. Oh, God, the battle belongs to you.
And if you are for me, you can't be against me. Oh, Jesus, there's nothing impossible to do. Oh, before nothing can stand against the power of our God. You're shining the shadows.
You win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. I need for a chest You nothing can stand against the power of our God You shine in the shadow You win every battle Nothing can stand against the power of our God Or a chest You're gonna be for us Nothing can stand against the power of our God You shine in the shadow Nothing can stand against the power You better bring a heart ball hallelujah with him this morning Yeah, I don't always be So I won't keep on sleeping Till my soul catches up with my soul This time my hands go free And times that it goes And this days when the praise comes out easy Days when it takes all this strength I've got I'll bring my heart for hard-fucking My storm tossed towards self-storey To tell how they're facing You're hard with the door But I'm trying to leave The other struggle keeps me honest And it brings down the walls of my pride Spaces improve my soul Till ten through the fire I'll land a few days That's when I live just a little I'll bring my heart for myself To tell how they're facing I'm gonna get a church, take a new This morning the same God That's fighting for you right now, the same God from the Old Testament The New Testament The miracles he performed and all that he performed for you In your life this morning Let's do the word sing a minute Oh God God God God God God I'm standing on your faithfulness In on the God of Mary Oh things are possible In on the God of Day Let us share good boy My faith's good life I've got my own child Oh God my God I know God my God I'm here now I'm standing on your faithfulness Oh God my God I am now In now Oh God my God I'm here now Oh God my God I'm here now Your children You hear your children now You are the same God You are the same God You are the same God You answer prayers back then And you will answer now You are the same God You are the same God You are providing You are providing You are providing now You are the same God You are the same God Father God, come before you in the name of Jesus. God, thank you for your faithfulness.
Thank you, God, in spite of everything we've done and everything we'll do. So many times you've always been faithful. God, there's never been a situation we've stepped out into alone. There's never been a circumstance that we've handled on our own.
Every situation, every aspect of life, God, you've been faithful, Lord, and thank you for that. God, thank you for your presence in this household. Father, we just ask God that you would stay here with us, Lord, that you would have known the word, Lord, that it would not fall on death years and death years. God, be the center of this service, we pray God.
Be lifted up above all things. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, good morning.
How we doing? Happy to be in church today? Give that praise. See my hand clap.
Would you do that? What a great job, yeah? Thank you so much for coming today. Help me welcome those who are listening all the ready watching online.
Let them know you love them. Welcome them to the New Light Church. Always good to be in the house of the Lord. Always good to be under that anointed singing, right?
Just want to mention one thing is that we have impact at night, next Sunday evening at my home. That's for high schoolers and college and career folks. I know it's the fourth of July and many will have things that they're going to do, but some don't, but we're going to have to deal. So make sure you make a note of that and have those teenagers over there.
We have a great time. We're going to cook some good food and it'll be great. We're in a current series called Battle Test. How many of you enjoyed the series?
Have you enjoyed it? Yeah. Well, the thing is today is the last sermon in this series and we've been taking battles that were fought in the Old Testament and some of the New Testament as well, but throughout the Bible and we've been kind of learning principles about fighting and how to handle battles and things like that. Now, a few weeks ago we dealt with when you build, you can build under fire.
In other words, you can have opposition coming your way when you're building anything, whether it's a marriage or raising a family, a ministry or career or whatever. We've talked about that and then we talked about how to win last week. So today I want to kind of wrap this thing up and look at something that looks like this when you don't know what to do. How many of you have ever been in a position where you just didn't know what to do?
How many of you are there now? Life can be so overwhelming, you just don't know what to do. And we're going to talk about that because there's a story in the Bible that helps us understand that and you find it. It's in the Coronicals and you'll find King Jehosaphat is there and it's in chapter 20.
So you'll read a sign that this week is go read, you can read 19, 2021, or you can read the whole book, but anyway, get this and I thought I preach about it today, you'll have some understanding maybe about what's going on and it'll help you do that. So when you think about that, I want to give you this right here. How many of you have ever been in a situation where you just didn't know what to do? I'm talking about those moments when life comes at you from every direction and you're completely overwhelmed.
Have you ever been in one of those situations? Now there's something that'll say yes to that, the truth is, if you live life long enough, you're going to be in those situations and life is a hard way to go, all of us agree with life and stuff. So what I want to talk about today is maybe you don't know which direction to turn. You're trying to figure things out and you're facing this situation.
It can be in a number of areas. You don't know what decision to make. You're not sure which way to go. You don't know what to do.
And sometimes we can get in those situations and we can be paralyzed by what we're facing or what's going on in life. Now you can apply that to financial situations, relational situations, family health children. You can go from one extreme to the other on that because we're all going to face problems and we're going to deal with those kind of things. Here's the deal.
Sometimes God allows us to get to the end of ourselves so we finally turn to Him. Sometimes God will allow you to run every course you can run, do everything you can do and it seems like nothing is working. And He does that so we'll get to the end of ourselves and we'll do a few things in our life and in relations to Him. And He'll get us to that place and a lot of times unfortunately He hasn't used difficult situations to get us to that place.
I want to give you the context of the battle that I'm going to talk about today. Then we'll jump right into this thing because someone told me back there, they only 30 minutes today. I guess it's a Jude Lot of Fourth coming right. You think I get this done in 30 minutes?
You don't think I get this done in 30 minutes? I'll cut up on that and prove you wrong today, right? When you think about it, Jehah's the best king of Judah. He's been a good king.
He followed the Lord. He's torn down idols. Now here's what I want you to see. In his situation he was a good king.
He did follow the Lord. He tore down a bunch of idols but he didn't tear them all down. You remember when priests were not long ago about the children of Israel where they didn't deal with all the enemies in the promised land? Same kind of thought right here.
He didn't tear all the idols down. He taught the people's God's word. However, there was a problem. Three armies are coming to destroy Him and His people.
He surrendered. He's outnumbered. He's outnumbered. He's outgunned.
He's surrounded. He's outgunned. He doesn't know what to do. He's in kind of a bad situation.
But here's what I want you to see. Import it right here because he could not defeat these enemies that were coming against Him. So He didn't panic. We know that for sure.
And He didn't run. So when you think about that, He's in a position where He knows He's about to lose everything. He can't help Himself. He knows Israel's going to be defeated.
That's what He thinks in His mind. He didn't run. He didn't panic. But what He did do is He went to God.
And that is the whole thing that I want you to get today. A lot of times we'll do a lot of things but we don't go to God first. And that's where we're going to go for just a few minutes today. So there's three takeaways.
I want to give you from this sermon day. Three things I want you to take out of this story today and they look like this. Let me finish out. Judah doesn't have the military power to defend themselves.
The King looks at God and says, we don't know what to do. We just didn't know what to do. Now think about when the King says that. So the first thing He did is your husband's back admitted he was in over his head.
And a lot of times that's all it takes for you and I to get God. Now let me give you a little story with myself about that. I remember when I was in the furniture business and I was just a young boy. I mean really didn't know anything.
And I was promoted to manage the story in Monroe, North Carolina. And I was there and I thought I knew some stuff until I got there and I realized I was in over my head. And I remember distinctly one day I was sitting at my desk and I didn't know what to do. I was overwhelmed and I just said to God I can't do this.
I don't understand how to get this done. I'm not qualified to do this. I'm really in over my head. And I'll tell you after that moment I do distinctly remember I wasn't even serving the Lord by the way.
Was it living right? But I do remember that God somehow energized me. Somehow He worked and things came together and I had a great career ahead of me. But here's what I told you kind of a week ago or so.
I told you that the devil will come at you when you begin to start something great in your life and I will try to beat you before you ever get started. And that's what happened to me. But when I'm telling you when you use the power of the words that you say Lord I don't know what to do. I need some help.
I'm telling you right now that God always comes through. How many of you have figured that out? He's a great God and He does that. So let me give you the story here.
Oh our God, won't you stop them. This is your husband, Fap. We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do.
Now I want you to think about this moment and imagine this. Imagine how the people felt and imagine how the king felt when he had to admit he didn't know what to do. There are times in this church we'll meet and we'll be talking about things and situations and I'll tell the staff I don't know what to do. I really don't know and that is a very humbling place to be because the truth is you're telling the truth about that it's a biblical position for you and how to be in.
And God desires us to get to that place that's called humility. It's called humbling ourself and inquiring of God and trusting God for what you do. It's a biblical principle and you can see it in verse Corinthians it says this. If you think you are standing strong be careful not to fall.
The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He would not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you're tempted he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
That's the principle in the word of the Lord. The problem is a lot of times we don't humble ourselves. We don't come to the Lord and we don't inquire of him. We don't seek God and do all those kind of things there.
So here's what God really is saying to you about today. You and I have to come to a place where we stop trying to figure things out on our own. Did you hear what I just said? A lot of times we're in over our head.
We don't know. We can't figure it out. And God designed it that way and allowed it to get there so you and I would turn to him and call upon his name. But the problem we have as believers a lot of times we will strategize.
How many of you like to strategize with something that's going on? You know you'll call the family meeting, you'll lay the strategize out or the business meeting and you'll lay that strategize out. Nothing wrong with planning, nothing wrong with coming together, nothing wrong with talking to other people. But God said before you ever do that, before you ever is trying to manipulate the situation what I would like for you to do is just come to me.
And a lot of times what we'll do instead of going to God, how many of you know this will go to other people? We'll call other people get other people that will vice before we ever go to God. So here's what I want you to see today. Some of you are exhausted right now because you're trying to handle something.
God never intended for you to handle. Think about that a moment. A lot of times we take things on our own and we place burdens on ourself and we take things that God never intended for us to handle. You know God likes to handle a lot of stuff for us.
He really likes to get ahead of us and handle things for us. I'll read you this scripture again so I can show you a part that I left out. Oh, our God, once you stop them, we are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We do not know what to do.
That was the first scripture I read you, but watch how it closes. But we are looking to you for help. Do you hear what he did right there? He just didn't stop with a problem.
A lot of times you and I will stop with a problem. We'll go to the problem. We'll rehearse the problem. We'll tell people about the problem, but we don't take it to God.
And so what he did, he didn't stop with a problem. He went to the problem solver. So I've done to tell you today, if you're facing an overwhelming situation and you don't know what to do, which way to turn and you're paralyzed by fear and certainty and doubt and all that, the one thing that you should always do is to go to God and let this problem solver solve the problem you have in God. It's speaking a clear word to everyone over today.
That's exactly what he wants us to do. Think about the king and how he approached that. Here's what I want you to see right here. The world will tell you this.
You got yourself into this stuff. You figured it out. How many of you have done? How many of you parents have told your child that before?
Well, see, God doesn't work that way because here's what God says. You bring it to me. It makes you confess it to me and confess that you're overwhelmed. And when you do that, I'll do the work that needs to be done in your life.
That's how God works. So we have to have this paradigm shift and we have to begin to look at God for who he is and what he is and how he does things. And here's what I want you to know today. Breakthroughs begin when we admit we need God.
It happened that way in your life when you got saved, when you come to a place where you realize you couldn't live the life that God called you to live and you couldn't function and do right. You called on the name of the Lord. Breakthroughs always happen when we go to God first. So if you need a breakthrough in your life, you got to get to God.
That was the first thing I wanted you to see. Second thing is, Jehazaphat positioned himself in God's presence. So number one, you got to admit it, but then you got to position yourself. Watch what the scripture says here.
Jehazaphat was terrified by this news and begged the Lord for God. Does everybody say begged? He begged the Lord for God. He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting.
So people from all over the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord's help. As all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives and children. Now look at this scripture closely. Number one, he begged the Lord.
That's the forward word to you and I. But how many of you know you can beg the Lord when you're in a desperate situation? When you get there where you can't handle things, you can beg the Lord. But the other word that kind of helps us is they salt the Lord.
They didn't seek everybody else. They went to the Lord and they got the entire family involved in this thing. So here's what we know. They prayed, they gathered and they fasted.
In other words, they came together and said, hey, this is too big for us. We're going to get wiped out here. We can't defend ourselves. So we better call on one that can help us in time.
So they came together. They prayed. They fasted. One of the things you got to understand this morning about this sermon is simply this.
Is that God looks at our actions. He looks at what we do and he looks at how we respond and how we look at him. And when you think about this, it really shows it's a sign to God that we really mean business and we trust him. When we come together, when we fast and when we pray and we do all those things seeking the Lord because here's what I want you to say.
When you pray, you're just seeking the quiet of the Lord. When you're fast, you're just inquiring of the Lord and you're trying to get closer to him. And when you come together on a regular basis, it speaks volumes as to where your trust is and who you're trusting in this life. So here's the question that I have for you today.
When a crisis comes, what is your first move? When something hits your life and hits your family, what is your first move? What do you do first because here's what happens? Is it your phone calling a friend?
Now, how many of you would agree with me? I'm the preacher and when I have trouble, I would generally call one of the pastors or I'll call somebody I can talk to. Sometimes I'll do that. Sometimes I'll get it right and go to God first.
But what God is trying to show us right here is, look, I want you to come to me first. Is it good? Anybody ever googled anything trying to fix yourself? When I was going to the doctor back here a couple of years ago, I couldn't fix myself, didn't know what to do.
I'd go on Google and I'd read about everything, man, I had everything in the world. But what I had, you don't know what I mean. Those are Google doctors, I went to a doctor in the pitfall and I was talking to him and I was telling him what I had learned and not what he'd been studying all his life. And I was telling him what I thought was wrong in my life.
He looked at me and said, look here, preacher, you got to get off of Google. You don't need a Google doctor. I wanted to say to him, if you were doing what you need to be doing, I would be on Google. But I did.
I did. So when you think about that, are you trying to fix yourself? Or are you running to God? And what God desires is for us to get in the habit that every time something happens in our life, every time we're overwhelmed, every time we're facing a problem, here's what I learned.
If you'll go to God in the simple little things, when the big thing comes, it's automatic that you're going to go to him. So make it a habit of going to God on a regular place, it's Scriptress Bible, here's what the Bible says. Don't worry about anything instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need.
And thank him for all he has done. There's the whole deal right there. Go to God. Thank God.
Tell him what you need and remember what he's done in your life. If you go back and just rehearse every good thing that God has ever done in your life. And here's what I want you to say. I don't care if you're serving the God or not.
I knew when I was in trouble in the furniture of business and I was in over my head. Here's what I did. No, that I had a God that loved me regardless of what I was doing, that he died for me and paid for my sins. And I said, Hey, if he'll do that for me for that, he'll do it right now for me here.
And that's what you got to get in the habit of understanding. Then you will experience God's peace. Right there it is for life. You go to God and you experience His peace, which it sees anything you can understand.
His peace will guard your heart and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Watch what Psalms says right here. God is our refuge and our strength. Always ready to help us in times of trouble.
Do we believe that church? Do we really believe that scripture right there? Well, if we believe that scripture, the question is why don't we run to it? Why don't we put him there?
Number one, why don't we inquire of him when we're facing this opposition in our life? See, here's what we've learned already. You seek God first. You position yourself and the way you position yourself by the way when you're reading this word right here, you're trying to get a word for the Lord, right?
Just studying the word of the Lord, reading every day says it speaks volumes to God about who's the priority in your life, coming to church on Sunday morning and making that a priority speaks volumes to God about the priorities in your life. It's important that we gather together. It's important that we read the word. It's important that we pray.
It's important that we put God first. Position ourselves for God's presence. And I know someone would say this when the Bible says, if you go to heaven, he's there. If you go to hell, he's there.
You can't get away from his presence. I got that and I understand that. But how many of you know when you need to encounter with God, you need a person to encounter him? That's what I'm talking about right here.
The battle belongs to the Lord. That's what we've understood so far. So here's what I want you to see now. Jazafat worship his way through the battle.
This is important right here. If you go into the battle, the worst thing you do is sit down and shut your mouth. You got to worship God. And you got to worship God through the battle because battles are coming.
Here's the scripture. The King Jazafat bowed low with his face to the ground. That's a position of humility. And all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same worshiping the Lord.
One of the things that you were created for is to worship the Lord in everything you do and in your entire life. See, they worship before the victory. Did you get that before the victory ever came, they worship the Lord. They turned their allegiance to the Lord.
When you look at that word, worship, it's simply talking about who you are. Who you show your allegiance to. Who is important in your life. What are the important factors in your life?
So, chronicles will say it this way. After consulting the people, the King appointed singers to walk ahead of the army. Now here's the deal. If you're on the praise team and we've got a major battle going on in three arms that come against it, how many they're going to call it a choir?
I mean, don't you think they thought the King was a little bit touched? Because he called the choir and he called the praise team and said, I'm going to put you out front. I don't know if he was sacrificing them, but I think there's a bigger prince of the way here. I think the bigger prince of the way is he knew what he was doing, he knew what God would do and how God would respond when people worship him, right?
He has his strategy that doesn't seem really real. So he puts the singers and walks ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they say, give thanks to the Lord, his faithful love endures forever. And at the very, look at this right here.
Now, at the very moment, they begin to sing and give praise to the Lord. The Lord calls the armies of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seer to start fighting among themselves. The armies of Moab and Ammon turned against their allies from Mount Seer and killed every one of them. After they had destroyed the army of Seer, they began attacking each other.
So when the army of Judah arrived at the lookout point, in the wilderness all they saw were dead bodies lying on the ground as far as they could see, not a single one of the enemy had escaped. How did God do that? He did that through the thing called worship. You better get that this morning.
They began to sing and they began to praise God and give God thanks and God. God involved in that thing. I want you to hear me today. The battle plan that they had made no sense.
And a lot of times the battle plan that God has in your life, it makes no sense, but there is a weapon that you have called worship of Almighty God. And when you begin to sing and praise and give glory to God, there's story after story in the Bible where men were facing devastating things and they began to pray and worship God and the Spirit of God and the power of God interrupted their life and did great things. He sent the worship team first. So I think the next time we have a problem, we haven't had one a long time.
Many years. I think next time we have a problem, I'm just getting the praise team together and saying, you see how worshiping God, how powerful it is. He didn't get a bunch of warriors together. He just got the singers together.
He said, what we need is God to be in our midst. We need God to do this. So here's the deal. When you think about that, how do people worship when they're in the world?
How do people worship when they're terrified? When you're terrified and you don't know what to do, here's what you got to do. You start with truth and you don't follow feelings. You can't follow feelings and emotions.
You can't serve them. You can't worship them. You got to start with the truth and the truth is found in the Word of the Lord. And the truth is we worship God who were overwhelmed and we're paralyzed.
You see, they begin to sing before God did anything and they sang and they were doing that above their feelings and their emotions. They didn't have anything to do with how they felt. It had everything to do with the truth of God's Word. So here's the deal.
When you're in the next battle, you're in when you're facing the difficulties of life, you cannot go with your feelings and your emotions. You can't trust that. You got to trust the Word of the Lord. And God says what I want you to do is choose to worship me and not follow the mood you're in.
That's what God is saying right now. Worship begins with thanksgiving to God. When we begin to give God thanks for everything he's done. And God hears the praises and the accolades of his people and we worship him and we don't worship him with our feelings and our emotions.
By the way, when you think about worship, worship has everything to do with your body and your actions. That's what you do if you got that. See, you use your body to worship. Here's how it goes.
I use my mouth to give thanks to God. I use my mouth to get praise to God. I use my hands to raise to God and add adoration of him and worship to him. I put him first in my life.
I get up and I come to church and I get up and I do what God's calling me to do. I get up and read it's all about the body and what the body does. Not my mood or not my feelings. So here's a question I have for you today.
What this look like on Tuesday morning when you're facing financial ruin. When you're facing health crisis, financial ruin, you're facing problems in the marriage, problems with what does it look like. Here's what it looks like right here. You turn on worship music.
Sometimes you can do that. You declare God's goodness out loud. Anybody ever done that? I'm telling you, I've been riding down the road before dealing with the situation.
I didn't have the answers for it. I turned that worship music on. It doesn't matter which one you listen to, whatever lights you fire. It doesn't matter to me.
You can turn on sometimes I'll turn on southern gospel. I'll get a little depressed and I'll go to some contemporary. Sometimes I'll turn a little contemporary on. I can't figure that out and I'll go back to the southern, right?
We do that, but we turn it on and we listen. And you declare God's goodness out loud. How many of you pray out loud? One of the greatest things you can do is begin to pray out loud.
Sometimes I just pray out loud and people will come by me and they'll think I'm talking to myself, well, you can get away with that today because these people got these ear pods in there. You've been somewhere in the store and somebody's talking to head off and you beside them, you think they're talking to you? I start asking myself, what do you say? And they'll keep right on talking.
I said, excuse my. I'm not understanding what you're saying. I said, you know what I mean? Make a fool like that.
Right? So you get away with talking to God. They don't know if you got your pods in or what you're doing. You just begin to talk to God and listen to what God says and you declare out loud the goodness of the Lord.
Has God been good to you in this place today? Has he been good to you in life? Maybe you don't serve him, but you can look at your life and God has blessed you every way you turn. And I want to tell you this right now.
It doesn't matter where you are in life. How good you live and what you've done. All good. Good things come from all out of God, right?
So we can get praise and worship the God about everything. I can get praise and worship the God about anything in my life, no matter how significant or insignificant I think it is. It's all done because of God because all good things come from him. You turn on worship music.
You declare God's goodness out loud. Even sometimes through tears, you have to do that. You thank him for past victories. Watch this now before you've ever seen the victory.
But that's important right there. Before you ever see the victory, you give praise and honor and glory to God. The very moment that the singers began to sing is your husband fat situation. I'm telling you, God moved.
Did you get that? The very moment that they began to sing God said, I'm going to get involved in this. So here's the question. Why is praise and worship so powerful?
Why is me giving honor to God? Why is it so powerful? Why is it so necessary? I'll show you right here.
When you worship, worship shifts our perspective. A lot of times we're in these battles of life and we're there and we're fighting and we don't know what to do. It doesn't look like anything good is going to come out of this. I need a change.
I need a paradigm shift in my life. How many of you agree with that right there? You can get into midst of the battle in the midst of the fight and you start focusing on everything around you. You start focusing on what you have, what you don't have, what resources you can use and all that God said.
Hey, start focusing on everything around you. You start focusing on what you have, what resources you can use and all that you need a change of paradigm. You need a different perspective in your life again to look at God and worship Him and He'll change that perspective. He does it every time shifts our focus from the problem to God.
Isn't that good? It gets God involved. Break spiritual change. This is all worship shows reverence and honor to God shows what we value most.
Express is true faith demonstrates our love and loyalty to God and it fulfills the purpose God created us for and that was the worship Him. That's why worship is so important. So let's talk about some ways that you ought to be worshiping God. How about gathering together with that big great way to worship God?
If I want to show my Lord to the God, I gather together together. Remember, John's a fat. He called them all together. The family, friends, animals, everybody.
He called them all together. They came together. That's a motive worship for me. If God is the priority of my life, I'm going to come together.
I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to fast and pray. I'm going to do all that. I'm going to sing and I'm going to lift up hands to the Lord.
I'm going to obey the Lord and I'm going to use spiritual gifts to serve the Lord. Is that worship going out of God? Everything that I believe or does is worship as unto the Lord. So God is giving us these things.
So see the reason when I read this Bible, I want to get closer to the Lord. When I pray, I want God to talk to me. When I fast, I'm really desperate and I really want to get closer to the Lord. None of these can deliver you by the way of what I'm talking about.
Now, there are things that God gave us to get close to Him. So I worship God in the midst of my trouble. I use my spiritual gifts to serve God. That tells me and the world that God is the priority in my life.
Did you get that? Watch this right here. At the very moment, they begin to sing and give praise to the Lord. The Lord calls the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seer to start fighting among themselves.
Isn't that real good? Not one person had to go out and do anything. You better get that right there. A lot of times we've been raising a world that says we got to do this.
We got to work it out. We got to manipulate it. We got to strategize. We got to do all this kind of stuff.
But I've learned something about God. You can save yourself a lot of trouble and a lot of heartache and you can win battles quicker if you go to the Lord and you worship Him and give it to Him and it mips. You don't know what to do. That's where that is.
So here's what we've learned today. It mips your hand over your head. How many of your head? You got to admit that.
I mean, you're in your hand over here. You can't do it. Position yourself for God's presence and worship your way through the situation. That's what you got to do.
So the two groups of people that I want to talk to today. One is you've never said yes to Jesus. You're trying to fight life on your own. Trying to live this life on your own.
The second is this. You're a believer, but you're trying to fight a battle with your own. You're using conventional weapons for spiritual battle and God sent me to tell you they stopped doing that. Every head bowed, every eye closed right here.
I want to talk to you for a moment. First, I want to talk to those people who you've never said yes to the Lord. The Lord, in fact, has brought you through many battles. You just never maybe realized that.
Maybe you did realize it. He's brought you through many battles, but maybe you're facing a battle now. Maybe it's just life and you never said yes to Him. You've never made Him Lord and save your life.
Let me tell you what that looks like. Maybe you've never had this encounter with the Lord. Where after you had that encounter with Him, you walked away. You were a different person.
Not a perfect person, but a different person. You look back over your life and you can see how God's blessed you, how God's worked in your life. But you've never said yes to Him, never given your life to the Lord. Well, here's the problem.
God is a good God. He'll help you in times of trouble. But what he really wants you to do is give your life to Him. He wants you to acknowledge Him and say, yes, Lord, I want to give my life to you.
I'm sorry for the things I've done, the way I've acted, things I've said. I want to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Here's the deal. If you'll do that, then you can be sure the power of God can work with you through the rest of your life.
Here today, you've never said yes to the Lord. You need to make things right with the Lord of death that she would you slip that hand up. I'm not going to call you out. I'm not going to call you forward.
God bless you. I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm just going to pray for you. If that's you, would you get that hand up?
You want to live for the Lord today? You want to give your heart to the Lord? Because here's the deal, no matter what happens in life today. If you have to meet the Lord today, you've got to be ready to meet Him because there is a heaven and there is a hell.
So I want to ask it again. You've never given your life to the Lord. If that's you, would you get that hand up? I'm not going to call you out.
I'm going to pray for you. The Lord wants to do a great work in your life. If that's you, could I see that hand. Maybe you're a believer, but you're trying to fight these battles on your own, in your own strength.
And we can do that. We're human beings. We can do that. Trying to fight in your own strength, not calling on the Lord first, not going to God first.
You're in a situation right now where you don't know what to do. You just don't know. And God wants you to admit that to Him. He wants you to confess that to Him.
And He wants to do a great work in your life. That she would you slip that hand up. I'm going to pray. You just don't know what to do all over this building, many hands.
All over this building. Father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you today, Lord. And many people here at meeting, they're believers. They love you.
They serve you, but they're overwhelmed by circumstances, whatever they may be. We've learned the three principles today, but God, we need the courage. We need the patience. We need wisdom to approach life, God, and light your house of fat did where we humble ourselves and call upon your name, realizing we're in over our head.
Lord, we position ourselves today to receive from you. And Father, we choose today to worship you through this situation. I pray for every person, God, that is raise their hand today. I pray God for divine deliverance in their life.
And I pray God that they have learned a valuable lesson about worshiping their way through the circumstance in the crisis. Humbling themselves and calling upon your name, positioning themselves to receive whatever they have need up from you, God. I pray for every person that raised their hand today. And I pray God, you move mildly in their life.
And we'll give you the praise, the honor and the glory for it. This in Christ's name, we pray. Everybody said, Amen, do you all see that clock back there? With your brag on the preacher out here, 10, 54.
I just made some of those four that you lie. Here's what we're going to do. Stand to your feet. I want to praise Him.
Look here. We're going to worship our way through some stuff. Some people like this got some stuff. You want to worship you way through it?
Here's how you do it. Raise your hands right. Get them up right here. Just raise them.
Universal sign us the renders. Your choice to do that. I want you to worship the Lord for just a few moments and then we'll go home, right? God bless you.
Let the Lord work your battle out. You answer prayers, thy thing. And you will answer them. You are the same God.
You are the same God. You are provided. You are provided now. You are the same God.
You have a blessed week. What's the next week? Thank you for coming today. Any other...