Praise Night

And, Gene, this is the hard one. In the world, Gene and I attend the same ball games because our grandson and son, respectively, attend the same game. They play on the same team. Seems like day after day. Gene, if we were to ask ourselves, if we were living in dominion, in power and authority, we'd probably say, well, of course. The question we need to ask is, what would those other 20 or so bystanders say about us? Now, I know what they'd say about Gene because she stands up and she rants and raves. But she only does what I'm doing. You know, we kind of work as a team. Dominion, power, and authority. Over all the works of the enemy. More love. More power. More authority. More dominion. I don't have a lot to share tonight. But I have one prayer, and one expectation, and one hope for all of us. And here's what it is. It's that we take one step closer tonight to understanding the possibility that there is a different kind of lifestyle. There is a different kind of living that God has in store for us. His beloved people and his beloved bride through Jesus Christ. I'm real tired of talking about it. I'm real anxious, as I hope you are, to live like it. You see, the Bible, beginning in Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation, talks about a different kind of living called kingdom living. Genesis 1 and verses 28. These are familiar verses to you where God said, Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule, rule, pretty strong word, over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. You know where I see dominion living the most? I see it in museums. Think about it. Museums are a good illustration of dominion living. We stroll through a museum. You know, we can walk by a rhinoceros, a lion, you know, a tyrannosaurus rex, 1800 times our weight. And we kind of have a strut about us of domination, of dominion living, of authority. We're very comfortable in an environment where we know we have control. Now, you take a child into one of the museums where they have these living creatures and so forth, animated, and what's their experience like? What's it like? What? Fear. Yeah. You bet. You know, it's kind of, nothing comes out of it. You know, and we quickly explain to them that they don't need to be afraid. More and more. More authority. More power. How many of you have seen the movie Arachnophobia? This is the least movie-going crowd. What's that? Arachnophobia. That's the, you know, the fear of spiders. Anybody here afraid of spiders? Don't put your hand up. Because we have some that we have planted out there and I wouldn't want you to, I've got to tell you a story. Arachnophobia is a weird movie. I don't know why my, I'm sure it's my wife that picked it out. I don't know why she brought it home. But it was supposed to be a comedy. Anyway, it was a real comedy. Five minutes into it, my wife left. And my oldest, well, I'm sorry, one of my children spent the next hour and a half jumping from the floor up to the couch. You'd run up and down the couch, jump back on the floor. You know, as this story unfolded, it was a tremendous comedy as it scared five out of the six of us to death. Less than a week later, I went out to play ball with one of my children, slipped on my ball glove, right on my middle finger, a great deal of pain addressed my knuckle. I threw off my glove and there was a little wasp in there. Now, how many of you think that I'm going to look in my ball glove for the rest of my life? Now, am I a dominion liver or what? I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm in control. You see, I just want to get you in touch with reality because too many times we come into church and we look really churchy and all that kind of stuff. We look like dominion livers, but we're not. And I've got to tell you, I already, when I was in college, the way I got through college, half of the way I got through college was through my summer career as a painter. We have other painters that are here tonight and I'm sure you can relate to this, but wouldn't you know that God put a summer student painter together with his greatest fear, which is the fear of wasps. I mean, I can't tell you, Paul, how many times, you know, 30 feet up in the air, wasp nest, if you'd had a timer on me, I'd say, you know, 0.35 of one second I was down, 30 feet down. And I didn't care. If they took me to the hospital, that was fine as long as I avoided the wasp. We need to be in touch with the fact that we're human. But we also need to be in touch with the fact that God has prepared a way for us to live in authority, with power, and with dominion over our fears, over the powers and principalities of the air that want to dominate us. Amen? Does anybody want to live a little bit closer to what God has prepared for us? That's what I'm praying we can do tonight as we minister to one another and as we get in touch with who we are. I want to encourage you, just be transparent, be real for once, some of us. Just need to be real. You know, I'm not the only one that can get up here and make a fool of myself and be the star of one-liners and all that kind of stuff. You can do that too. Just, you know, it starts by being honest. When we get real, then God can invade our circumstances. Now, I'd like everyone to stand. Half of you just say to yourself, uh-oh. Now, follow my instructions very carefully. I would like you to turn to two or three other people, a group of three or four, not five, not two. A group of three or four, and you already know who each other are because you're going to let your name tag. Except for our singers, they need to get in touch with name tags. Okay, and I want you to share, now don't share about it, but I want you to share one of your greatest fears. Oh! Did you ask me to get that close to reality? Yes, go ahead, turn. Good. Find your group of three or four. I want you to take about two minutes to do this, about 20 seconds each. Share it. I can see that not many of you have a fear of me picking on you for not sitting down. Did anybody think somebody in their group had a particularly weird kind of fear? What's that? All the fears were kind of common. Nobody was afraid of Jan or I, were they? There's one. You know, it's interesting, but there are some things that are just, there are some things, some folks who just have to go out and minister, and that's okay. It's like, really, the cat's out of the bag. Just go ahead, let the Holy Spirit do His work. I told you. Expect God to start moving. We want to help. I mean, a part of our growing as a body is to get in touch with who we are, because we're born in, we're born in sin, but born into the kingdom, and so we're, you know, salvation is a daily process. We want to help you. We want you to get in touch with those kinds of things, but to learn how to dominate them. Amen? I want to show you something. Let's go ahead and put that overhead on, on the summer series. We're putting together, this is kind of an announcement, and forgive me, you know, if you think this is terrible to do this right in the middle of our praise time, but it's where we're going this summer, and I'm going to let a little cat, a little kitty-putty cat out of the bag, let you know one thing that's coming up in our quarterly ministry brochure for the summer. The summer of Wednesday nights is going to center on the series called From Fear to Eternity, and I'm serious. No, that's not, no. No, I'm serious. Let's take it right on through. Beginning in June, the origins of fear, breaking the fear complex, Pastor John, and then we go to the fear of change, Life's Catch-22, into the fear of going broke, a real fear in a decade of change, and the fourth in the series is the fear of becoming a fool, for Christ's sake. David Hunter will be here. Then after that, Pastor Jeff brings, yes, arachnophobia, ophidiophobia, and dominion living. Anybody know what ophidiophobia is? Huh? Yes, the fear of snakes. The next in the series will be the fear of addictions, the victims and their victimizers, and we'll have a special guest for that, Jerry Johnson. Then the fear of being victimized with real lessons in self-defense. Then, don't we talk about it? I'm serious. Then the fear of people and overcoming a lousy self-image. Then the fear of God, the beginning of wisdom, to the fear of unforgivable sins, a healthy fear indeed, and we'll close with the fear of losing it from a psychiatrist's point of view. Dr. Lewis, does that sound exciting or what? Anybody think you can relate to that this summer? You're laughing, but I know why. You see, we all have fears, and we all have sin, and we were all born into sin. But see, those things enslave us until we move from fear to faith, as Jan was sharing, and to freedom. In Hebrews chapter 2, the author cries out that through Jesus' death that you and I have been freed. Freed to taste again the meaning of dominion. Freed to live beyond our circumstances. Because you see, Jesus Christ has given us complete authority over our lives. In Christ, there are no limitations. There are no restrictions to that which we can overcome. And the neatest thing of all is that God gave Jesus, His Son, complete authority to act on our behalf. You see, we're under His authority. That's why it's important to be under His Lordship. When we're under His authority, He has the freedom to deliver. He has the freedom, as the Spirit of God moves, to release, to set captives free, as the prophet Isaiah spoke about. I want you to turn with me to Matthew chapter 8. We're going to look at some verses here. I'm going to ask you to follow on the overhead as well as we prepare to minister to one another. Because here in Matthew, we have a wonderful compilation of the demonstrations of Jesus Christ's authority over all the powers that want to lord themselves over us. Matthew chapter 8, beginning in verse 14. When Jesus came into Peter's house, He saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She got up and began to wait on Him. When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Him, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He took up our infirmities and carried all our diseases. The curse of sickness through dominion, power, and authority in Christ, we have healing. Leave that up. Now skip over to verse 28 of the same chapter. When He arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met Him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. What do you do with us, Son of God? They shouted, Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time? Some distance from them, a large herd of pigs was feeding. The demons begged Jesus, If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs. He said to them, Go. So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water. You know the rest of the story. And that's the third on this overhead. Go ahead, write past nature. Over anything that Satan is doing, attempting to do, or thinks he will do in your life, Jesus has the ability to cast them out through the authority of His name. Verse 23, backing up a few verses. Then He got into the boat, and His disciples followed Him. And without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, Lord, save us, we're going to drown. He replied, You of little faith, why are you so afraid? Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey Him. Our staff was sitting in a meeting recently, and we asked the person who was waiting on us, just out of the blue, What's your greatest fear? And I'm telling you, not one second passed when she responded, the fear of dying in a fire. She knew exactly what it was that gripped her. Jesus Christ has the ability to release us who were captives and set us free. We don't need to live that way. Chapter 9, verse 1. Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own town. Some men brought Him to a paralytic lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, Take heart, son, your sins are forgiven. At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, This fellow is blaspheming. Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, then He said to the paralytic, Get up, take your mat, and go home. The man got up and went home, and when the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe, and they praised God, who had given such authority to men. Which is easier, to say that your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk? Jesus Christ has the ability to release us from the dominion of what? Sin, that invades every one of us. We're at whatever level Satan has tried to put us on, God is here to shatter that, and set us up in authority with Him, in the kingdom of God, for Christ's sake, for Christ's glory, beginning someday, beginning now. Finally, verse 18 of chapter 9. While he was saying this, a ruler came and knelt before him and said, My daughter has just died, but come and put your hand on her, and she will live. And Jesus got up and went with him, and so did His disciples. So then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the edge of His cloak. She said to herself, If I only touch His cloak, I will be healed. Jesus turned and saw her. Take heart, daughter. He said, Your faith has healed you. And the woman was healed from that moment. And when Jesus entered the ruler's house and saw the flute players and the noisy crowd, He said, Go away. The girl is not dead, but asleep. And they laughed at Him. After the crowd had been put outside, He went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region. Even death has been conquered. As Jesus breathes life into a dying or dead body. I want to ask that we minister to one another now. Not necessarily in the same groups, but I'd like to minister to one another as I first read to you Hebrews 2.14-15 Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. I'd like you to leave those on the overhead, please, Chuck and Nance. And I'd like you to look at these. I'd like you to be honest with one another. And I'd like you to say, Hey, if there's one area in my life where I would like to take one step closer to dominion living, this would be it. I need to experience the forgiveness of God. I'm scared to death of. I'm afraid of death. I'm frightened that... And you fill in the blanks. And I'd like you to pray. And I'd like you to lay hands on one another. And I'd like you to take this seriously. It's not an exercise in futility. Rather, we are ministers able to impart through the power that God gives us in His Holy Spirit life and freedom and release. For some, this could be pretty intense stuff. You could choose to take it lightly. For others, it may not be that big a deal. But I'm telling you something, Gene, and I began by saying this. I'm tired. I'm tired of you and I not being the salt and the light of the earth that Christ has called us to be as different, as set apart, as kingdom dominion livers, seeing the power of God released in us but rather held in check by these things that are part of this world, not of God's kingdom. Let's stand. Go ahead and turn in those small groups. Two or three or four. No more than four, please.