Transcription
But my question for you is, who are you? And did you know how you answer that determines everything that goes on in your life? Amen. Every single thing. It's not about who God is. God is awesome. And he's not limited in any way except how we limit him to him. And we limit him because we don't understand who we are and what he's done for us and things like this.
So let me start over here in John chapter 1 and I want to share this from um they came to John the Baptist and they started asking him who he was. So in John chapter 1 and in verse 19 it says and this is the record of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who art thou? And he confessed and denied not, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, "What then? Art thou Elias?" And I'm going to uh share a few scriptures with you because sometimes people just skip over this. But they asked him different things about who are you? And the first thing they said, uh, "Are you the Christ?" And he said, "No, I'm not the Christ." And then they asked him says, "Are you Elias?" And this was a reference to Malachi 3:1 and also Malachi 4:es 5 and 6. The last two verses in the Old Testament talked about that before the Messiah came that he would send uh the prophet Elijah or Elias to prepare the way. And if uh the way wasn't prepared, then the Lord could have come and cursed the earth instead of redeeming the earth. Could you put those scriptures up there so I don't have to turn over there? like go to Malachi 4:es 5 and 6 if you could put that up there. It says uh behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. And so this was one of the prophecies and they said are you this Elijah that was prophesied and he said no. Now remember that because I'm going to show you something here in just a second. And so he told them, he says, "I am not." And then they said, "Art thou that prophet?" And he answered, "No." And this is reference to uh Moses prophesied that the Lord is going to send you a prophet like unto me and you will hear him. And of course, this was prophesying Jesus. So they started by asking him, "Are you the Christ?" And he said, "No." They asked him, "Are you Elias?" And he said, "No." And then they said, "Are you that prophet?" And he said, "No." And so it says, "Then they said unto him, who art thou that we may give an answer to them that sent us, what sayest thou of thyself?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Make straight the way of the Lord as he said unto the prophet Isaiah." And this is a quotation from Isaiah. I think it's chapter 40. And he he knew who he was. He knew what God's calling was on his life.
And let me just say some things here. Again, I've meditated on these things. I could preach for weeks on these things. And and it's hard for me to skip over some of the things that God's been ministering to me, but I just hadn't got time to do it. But let me just say that later on in Matthew 11 and also in Matthew chap 17, the Lord spoke when he was talking about John the Baptist. And he said, "This man is the greatest man that has ever been born among women." And then he told his disciples that if you will receive it, this is Elias or Elijah which was for to come. And then in Matthew chapter 17, he once again told them that this was the Elijah that was prophesied in Malachi. And he told the people that this was a fulfillment of that prophecy. And yet John the Baptist when they asked him, "Who are you?" He said, "I'm not Elijah." He had a partial revelation of who he was and what God told him to do. And this is one of the things that the Lord's been speaking to me and I've been focused on is that even though I've learned a lot of things and I've I've man I've escaped so many of the self-imposed restrictions that I had on my life, God is showing me you just still need to learn who you are. You need to come up higher. I've got bigger things. Uh that book that Mike was advertising about, don't limit God. If you've never read that, you ought to get that because the second most important or the most impactful experience I ever had with the Lord was January the 31st, 2002. And the Lord spoke to me through Psalm 78:41, which says that they turned back in in their heart and they limited the Holy One of Israel. And God told me I was limiting him by my small thinking. And I tell you, at that time, I had been in ministry for 34 years. And God says, "You're limiting me." And at that time, we were covering 3% of the US population. And we had doubled in the two years prior to that. I started on television in January of 2000. And January of 2002, we had doubled. I thought we were doing pretty good. And God says, "You are limiting me." And I decided to take the limits off God. And that's what that whole book is about. And it's got a portion in there about your imagination. This is something that I wasn't using my imagination. I I knew what God wanted me to do, but I wouldn't see myself doing it. And anyway, I encourage you to get I wished I could share everything I know with you. Amen. Uh we've got everything out there. Everything I know is either in uh on on a CD or a DVD or in a book. Amen. We got 200,000 hours of free materials on our website. If you listen every day for 8 hours, it'll take you 66 years to go through the free material. And if you listen 24 hours a day, it'll take you 22 years to go through the whole thing. So anyway, I've got a lot to say. I'm going through this quickly, but uh I knew what God wanted me to do, but I was limiting him by my small thinking. And just as Jeremy was saying, you never understand everything. You never plumb the depths of anything. You know, I've been studying this uh I've been really busy in ministering nine I ministered two days this week. Nine hours of recording, two days this week. Uh 18 hours all together. And I usually minister around 30 times or so a week. And I've just been busy. And so I was going to go exercise. Got up real early in the morning, going to go exercise. And I thought, man, I just need to be in the word. And so I'm going to at least go to one chapter. And I three hours later, I was still studying. I just get more out of the word of God than I've ever gotten out of the word in my life. You And I'm reading the same scriptures that I've read a thousand times, and yet they're just alive. And so anyway, I'm still learning. You need to learn who you are. And it will either release what God wants to do in your life or it will limit what God wants to do in your life if you don't know who you are and what God has really called you to do. Amen. Amen. I've got an entire series entitled How to Find, Follow, and Fulfill God's Will. And when I preach on this, uh, I would say usually 80 to 90% of the people I'm preaching to will stand to say that they don't really know what God the purpose for their life is. They hope that they're doing something that's good. They ask God to bless what they're doing, but they don't know for certain. And I guarantee, I learned from Billy that you don't coast to the top of the mountain. you don't fl flo float upstream. It takes effort to pursue the things of God. And if you don't know where you're going, if you don't have a clear vision of where you're going, you'll never get there. It doesn't happen accidentally. And yet the average person is just going through life hoping that things work out, believing that Sarah Sarah, whatever will be will be. It doesn't work that way. It's my experience that when God shows me what to do, man, there is opposition. Paul said, "There is a great and an effectual door open unto me, but there are many adversaries." And this was the Apostle Paul writing, the one that wrote half of the books of the New Testament. I guarantee you, you are going to have Satan fight against you. And unless you know what God has called you to do, and unless you refuse to quit, you aren't going to get there. So, you have to know not only what God has called you to do, but who you are to be able to accomplish it. And this is where so many people miss it. Man, I've got a million things I'd like to say right now. I'm struggling to stay on track. Let me say it this way. Before you can find out who you are, you've got to get a revelation of who God is.
Because if you have a wrong concept of God, you won't know who you are. You will never believe it's as good as what it is. If you think God is a God who is dealing with you based on your performance, which again, Jim Baker uh today and and all of us have spoken along these lines. Mike was speaking about that and stuff. You've got to recognize that God loves you because he is love, not because you are lovely. And if you tie God's goodness to your performance, you don't understand who God is. And you will never really understand what he's done and what your potential is because your own failures will limit you and think, "Well, how could God ever use this?" God's never had anybody qualified working for him yet. You aren't going to be the first one. You need to find out who God is. And my personal testimony is that I got born again when I was eight, but when I was 18, I had become a religious Pharisee. I was told that if you will do what's right, God will answer your prayers and everything will work. And so, I was living as holy as anybody I knew. I lived holier than any preacher I ever met in my Baptist church. I've never said a word of profanity in all my 76. I'll be 77 here in April. I've never said a word of profanity. I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never taken a drink of liquor. I was living a holy life, but I was trusting in my goodness. And I had this experience March the 23rd, 1968 where God showed up and I saw the glory of God.
I don't know how to explain that. There's no way I can communicate what happened, but I saw the glory of God. Not with my eyes, but I saw it in my heart. It came by revelation. God just pulled back a curtain and I saw God. I saw the glory of God. And when I saw it, he was totally different than the way I had perceived him. And another thing, not only did I see who God was, but in the light, you know, the Psalms chapter 36, in thy light shall we see light. It's only when God gives you revelation, when he opens up your heart, that's the only way that you can ever see and understand things properly. Amen. You are incapable of figuring out your life or anything on your own. And I know that this is offensive to a lot of people, but this is exactly what the word says. Jeremiah 10 23. Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walks to direct his steps. If you think that you are a self-made man and that you know what to do, that's the very reason that you got so many problems. And that will limit God. And so when you really find out who God is, the first thing that will happen is you'll find out who you aren't. Amen. And until you come to the end of yourself, you'll never find the beginning of God. That's a huge statement. And I'm saying this in love, brothers. I believe that God brought you here. I I man, you guys are excited. You've been worshiping the Lord. We've seen great things happen. But there are very, very, very few people who have truly come to the end of themsel.
You know, we had Robert Slairen here this week and he was ministering to the students and he gave uh two hours about Katherine Kman. I don't know how many of you knew anything about her, but I was privileged to be a part of her meetings. I ushered in some of her meetings and I saw the supernatural power of God operate through her. But he gave the background about how that she got married against everybody's advice and they told her not to do it and she wound up getting married. And on her wedding day, before she even finished the they finished the wedding and as they were headed to the hotel to change clothes, she she fell down crying. God, I've missed it. I made a mistake. And I forget how long they stayed married, but it was just a matter of days and she wound up getting a divorce because she was not supposed to do it. This was back in the early 50s and because of it, they banned her. uh a divorce was just totally bad and she was trying to minister. He even told one instance of where she was up preaching and as she was on the stage, somebody brought a note to what the head minister and when he found out she was divorced, they walked up and took the microphone away and commanded the deacons to take her to the bus station and send her out of town. They wouldn't let her minister. And her ministry was just shot. And so anyway, she finally came to a place of God, she's nothing. And she was just totally devastated. And she says, "But God, I'm nothing, but if you can use nothing, use it." And then the second hour, he went into showing the crowds the impact that she made. And he from behind the scenes, he uh talked to a lot of people who were the closest to her and stuff. And every time she got up to minister, she would talk about God, I'm nothing, but if you can use nothing. And I was in her meetings and I heard her say those things. I didn't know the backstory, but as Roberts was sharing all this stuff, it really was impacting me. And the point for bringing this out is that until you come to the end of yourself, you aren't going to find the beginning of God. You are the biggest problem that you'll ever have in your life. Wow. Amen. Ouch. And it's not only because you think you're awesome. You can think you're a mess. You can be so aware of your failings that that limits God that you think God is going to use you because of your goodness and your own conscience condemns you. And so how you view yourself, I'm not talking about your physical body and just your mental, emotional part, but how you view who you are in Christ is the dominant thing that either limits or releases the power of God in your life. That's right. And if I could sit down and talk to every one of you, I can guarantee you every one of us has some skewed ideas about oursel, who we are, and what we can do. And every single person that God used, you know, they were talking about David today. And David over in 1st Samuel chapter 16 when Samuel came to anoint him to be king. Did you know his dad didn't even think enough of David to put his name in the hat? He kept him out with the sheep because it says in 1st Samuel chapter 16 that David was a beautiful guy, pretty boy, and he wasn't king material. So his father didn't even present him as as one of the potential kings and they kept him out in the in the uh with the sheep and finally they brought him in. So his dad didn't honor him. There's some of you that your dad, your family haven't honored you. Maybe a previous mate or something that you've been through or a job and people put you down. And then after David was anointed, David went out and when they were fighting Goliath, did you know his older brother Eliab says, "You've come down here. You know the naughtiness that's in your heart. You've come down here to see the battle." And he accused him of sherking his responsibility. And who did you leave those sheep with? And the truth was his dad sent him with food to go see how things were going and bring back a report. Everything that his older brother said about him was a lie. And yet David didn't spend any time trying to justify himself to his older brother. It says that when it happened, he just says, "Is there not a cause?" And he turned and continued to say the exact same thing. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? And it says it was after he turned away from his brother's criticism that they heard this and went and reported it to Saul. And Saul called him. If he had been stopped right there trying to argue with his brother and justify himself, they wouldn't have heard this. He wouldn't have had the opportunity to go fight Goliath. And I tell you, there's some of us that we're stuck trying to justify oursel and to prove to everybody that no, we are somebody and that God is using us and God has told us to do these things. You just need to get to a place to where it doesn't matter what people say about you. Amen. Amen. Amen. I tell you, that's hard to do because God made us for fellowship. He didn't make anybody to like rejection. If you like rejection, something's wrong with you. But you can't let rejection or criticism hurt you. You're supposed to cast your care about it over on the Lord, and we're supposed to keep our eyes on the Lord. And so, David just turned from his older brother and continued to say the same thing. And then Saul the king began to say, "You can't go fight this giant. You're a youth and he's a man of war from his youth." So his dad rejected him. His older brother rejected him. And then uh the king rejected him and said, "You can't do it." And then Goliath railed on him and told him, "Who are who am I dog that they send somebody like you?" And he just began to rail on David. You know, it doesn't matter what anybody else says about you. It's what you say about yourself. And David did not change. He knew who he was. He He was the anointed king. Did you know that this fight with the giant was never a fair fight? The giant never had a chance. He didn't recognize that this little runt of a kid was the anointed king that had the power of God behind him. Everybody judged him based on the external. But David knew who he was. And the reason many of us are shrinking from the giants and the problems in our life is because we don't know who we are. We're looking at oursel and taking the opinion of other people. He had everybody criticize him. There was nobody that believed in David but David.
You know, the same thing happened when Moses sent out the spies. Numbers chapter 13. And it they came back and they said at the end of Numbers chapter 13, they said uh it was a good land that the Lord has promised us. Everything he promised was true, but there's giants. There's walled cities. And we were in our sight as grasshoppers. And so were we in the sight of the giants. You know, it's one thing for the giants to call you a grasshopper, but the reason that they lost and they spent 40 years in the wilderness is because they saw themsel as grasshoppers. And I tell you, I can relate to this. I've never had a superiority complex. That has not been my problem. My problem has been an inferiority complex. And I've always felt just super inadequate. And when somebody comes out and criticizes me and circumstances don't seem to go the way I want, my default is to sit there and agree with them. That's what the spies did. And the sad fact is most of us have been listening to the 10 spies network. And we listen to all of the criticism and the reasons that we can't do it. And there was only two of the people, two out of the 10 spies who said, "We are well able to do it. These these giants are meat for us." You know what a blessing it was? instead of going into houses that were uh you know small or something like that. These giants had giant houses and they had already cleared the uh ground. They had already planted the crops instead of looking at it negatively like all the reasons why it couldn't work. Two of them Joshua and Caleb saw all the reasons it could work and those are the only two that ever entered into the promised land because they saw themselves through the eyes of the Lord. David see did the same thing. He said, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine?" That's not just a reference to his physical body. That was a reference to the fact that they don't have the covenant. I am a covenant man. God has promised me victory. He was dealing with Goliath, not on the basis of his height and relative uh stature and things like that. He was dealing with it on the basis of a covenant.
This is what we've got to do is find out who we are in Christ. What has Christ promised us? And that's how you're supposed to evaluate things. You know, I was over in Germany with Mike and Carrie, and Carrie made a statement over there that has stuck with me for years. And Carrie was talking about an instance. I don't remember the all the details, but uh she was uh presented with an opportunity to pray for somebody who had died. And her first thought was, I've never prayed for anybody who is dead. I've never prayed for somebody to be raised from the dead. And as she was meditating on this, the Lord spoke to her and he says, "But I have raised lots of people from the dead and I live on the inside of you." But you know, this is what we think often when something come, well, I've never done this before. But that's because you're in the flesh. You are, you don't know who you are. Did you know the spirit that lives on the inside of every one of you if you are born again is the same spirit that raised Lazarus from the dead, that raised the widow's son from the dead, that has done all of these things. There is no inadequacy in any person in here in your spirit. All the inadequacies are in your flesh. And there just so many scriptures that talk about that if we walk in the flesh, we cannot please God. You got to walk in the spirit and that's how you have victory. Every one of us in the spirit is identical to Jesus. We have his power. We have his mind. We have his might. But the truth is most of us don't see oursel in Christ. We see oursel in the natural.
If I was to ask you who you are, if you came to this meeting and I said, "I want to greet you. So tell me who you are." You could tell me things about your flesh. You could tell me if you're tall or short, young or old. You could describe whether you have a beard or don't. You could do things about your physical flesh. And if uh you could describe your personality that I'm outgoing, I'm an introvert or you know whatever. But when I ask people who you are in the spirit, there really is a vagueness. Most people don't have a clue. And this is what changed my life. Wow. Like I said, I got born again when I was eight. When I was 18, I saw the glory of God. And immediately my impression of God totally changed and I saw who I wasn't. I lost all confidence in my flesh. All of it. No confidence in my flesh. But it was about four or five years before I began to discover who I was. I knew who God was. I knew who I wasn't. But I didn't know who I was in Christ. And the thing that made the difference for me is when I began to understand what I call spirit, soul, and body talking about your identity in Christ. Because I had experienced this love of God for four and a half months. I was caught up in the presence of God. And I mean, I didn't consciously eat or sleep for four and a half months because I was just so excited about the Lord, I couldn't I couldn't do anything. And so I knew that God was awesome and I knew that he loved me, but I couldn't understand why God loved me because I didn't love me. right? I knew all of my problems and I was an introvert and I just had so many limitations on me and I couldn't I knew by revelation that he loved me, but I couldn't understand it. And let me just say this that if you don't understand the things of God, you'll eventually lose it. It doesn't matter what kind of an encounter you have with the Lord. And as I've taught on this, I've had literally hundreds of people come up to me and talk about that they had some miraculous encounter where I mean, God touched them and it was awesome, but it seems to wear off because you can't live by emotion. You can't live on experience.
As a man thinks in his heart, that's the way that he is. This is the reason that I'm a teacher. This is the reason I emphasize so much trying to teach people things through the word of God because it doesn't matter how God touches you. It doesn't matter what kind of experience you have. The way you think in your heart is the way your life is going. There's no exception to that. Proverbs 23:7, as he thinks in his heart, so is he. And some of you may think, oh no, I'm sick, but man, I'm praying for healing. But you're thinking sick if you're sick. Thank you for that thunder of silence. I know that didn't bless some of you. You're thinking, "No, it's just organic. You had nothing to do with it." You may not have welcomed sickness. You may not have embraced it. You may not have prayed and asked God to make you sick, but your thinking is sick. You're thinking that you're only human and after all, it's flu season and after I get old, this is supposed to happen. That thinking is sick. Moses lived to be 120 years old and his natural force wasn't abaded nor his eyesight dim and he was under an inferior covenant. Exodus chapter 23 25 says that God will turn off sickness in the midst of you. You do not have to live with sickness. You do not have to go through periods of health and sickness. We're living far below our privileges. You know, I heard a story one time about a man who booked passage from England over to the United States on an ocean liner. And uh anyway, he didn't realize that it included food. And so he brought crackers and cheese with him. And for three weeks crossing the Atlantic, he would sit out on the deck and eat his crackers and cheese. And the last day of the trip, the captain saw him out there and he came up and asked him, "Why aren't you inside eating with everyone else?" And he said, "Oh, I didn't have enough money uh to buy anything but the ticket. I didn't know. I didn't have enough money for the food." And he says, "But all of the food was included in the thing." And this man had been starving himself, not taking advantage of it. And it's just like us. There's a lot of people that have a ticket to heaven and you're going to make it, but you aren't taking advantage of things. Jesus died to produce physical healing in your body. And if you can accommodate sickness and say, "But you know, I was born with this and it's not that serious and I can live with it." That's the reason that you are. As long as you can tolerate it, you will. As long as you'll tolerate being poor, you will. We don't know who we are. We don't know what we have. Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Not waiting until we get to heaven. It also says in Galatians chapter 1 verse4, "Who Jesus gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world, not just the one to come." Amen. You are supposed to be delivered from all oppression, depression, poverty, sickness, worry about what people say, fear of death, fear of rejection. You shouldn't be living with these things. When I say this, some people are going to take this as condemnation and saying, "Boy, you're criticizing me." I'm not criticizing you. I'm telling you what God made available to you. And I'm saying that we're living below our privileges. And it's because we don't know who we are. We don't know what we have. You look at yourself as just being human.
People all the time will say, "But I'm only human." Well, I'm not. Amen. I got the spirit of God living on the inside of me. Onethird of me is wallto-wall Holy Ghost. I've got the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead living on the inside of me. That ought to be enough to heal your cold. That ought to be enough to heal your hangail or whatever your problem is. And yet people put up with all kinds of sickness because they don't know who they are and they don't know what they have. Did you know Moses is kind of a different example? Because Moses was supernaturally spared from death. There was an edict by the Pharaoh to kill all of the male Hebrew children. And yet his parents saved him for 3 months. And then they put him in this basket and just put it into the Nile River. And it just happened to float right to where Pharaoh's daughter was. And she took him in, raised him as her own son. So the one who Pharaoh wanted to kill was actually raised in Pharaoh's house at his expense. That's awesome. And I have to say this because more pe most people are more moved by a movie than they are by the word of God because we don't spend much time in the word. We watch movies more than we spend we're studying the word. And so people think that according to the ten commandments Moses didn't know who he was and he was just a nice guy that went out and tried to defend the Hebrew. That's not what the scripture says. Ma acts chapter 7 says that he supposed his brother would have brethren would have understood how that god by his hand would deliver them but they understood not. Moses knew who he was when he went out and killed the Egyptian. He was trying to bring deliverance to the Jews. And so Moses wasn't a person with an inferiority complex. He was thinking that God supernaturally spared his life. Put him into Pharaoh's house. He was second or third in command over the entire land of Egypt. And I've even read secular accounts how that he had the greatest victory and some of the greatest spoil that was ever brought in to Egypt. He was a mighty warrior. He had everything going for him. And it was just easy for him to think, look what God has done. No wonder he chose me to bring deliverance because of all of his clout, his position, and his power. So he was self-confident and because he tried to do it in himself. I've got an entire teaching on this. Man, I wished I could teach on that. But he tried to bring deliverance to the Jews 10 years before the prophecy of Genesis 15 came to pass. So he was premature trying to bring God's will to pass. He tried to do it in his own strength and power. It cost him 40 years in the wilderness and it cost the children of Israel 30 years extra bondage beyond the prophecy of Genesis chapter 15. He messed the whole thing up and he spent 40 years in the wilderness. Not because again with the Ten Commandments as Moses heads into the wilderness, this awesome voice comes on and says, "And so he heads into the wilderness where prophets are made and stuff and that's a lie. He went into the wilderness because of his own self-will and because he got ahead of God and tried to do it in his own strength and power.
And brothers, there's some of you here that you love God. And you may even know what God's will for your life is. But if you are trying to bring it to pass in your strength and in your power and depending upon your wisdom, you are your biggest problem. Again, you have to come to the end of yourself before you find the beginning of God. And so, he spent 40 years in the wilderness. And finally, God appeared to him and says, "Now go down and bring deliverance to the Jews." And you know, there were five different times the Lord told him, "Go do it." And Moses said, "God, I can't do it. God, I they won't listen to me. It won't work." And in the fourth chapter of Exodus, right after the Lord said, "They will believe you." Moses said, "They won't believe me." And God said, "What's in your hand?" And he said, "A stick." And he said, "Throw it down." And when he threw it down, it became a serpent. And he fled from it. And then God said, "Pick it up by the tail." You know, without me going through this whole teaching, I'm I'm covering a lot of stuff. Basically, what he did, this was Bush University. He had been in Bush University for 40 years saying, "God, I'll do it your way. I messed it up, but give me another chance. And if you read over in Hebrews chap 11, I think it's around verse 20ome, it says he endured by seeing him who is invisible. He wasn't in the desert saying, "God, leave me alone. I don't want anything to do with you like the Ten Commandments displays." No, he was holding on to the fact that he knew God had called him and he was asking for another chance. And so, here was his final exam in Bush University. Throw a rod down. It turned into a snake. Now, pick it up by the tail. And when you pick a snake up by the tail, you don't have control of it. It could turn. It could bite you. Moses didn't have the benefit of knowing what Exodus 4:4 said. He hadn't written it yet. When he picked it up by the tail from his standpoint, that's death. And he was saying, "God, I'll do anything." And God said, "Anything, pick it up by the tail." And he did. And when he picked it up by the tail, it turned back into a rod. But in Exodus 4:20, it says, "And he took the rod of God in his hands." It wasn't his rod anymore. When he first had it, God said, "What do you have?" And he said, "It's a rod. It's a stick." But after he threw it down and picked it up by the tail. It was now the rod of God. And he did 10 plagues in the land of Egypt and brought them out. He held it out over the Red Sea, split the Red Sea, and then he brought the Red Sea back, destroyed Pharaoh and all of his armies. He conquered the mightiest nation on the face of the earth because he learned to quit trying to accomplish God's will in his own strength and power. And instead, he let he found out who he was in the Lord, and he kept depending upon the Lord. And it wasn't a one-time decision he made when he first went down. Did you know that the uh Pharaoh made things worse for the Israelites? And so the Israelites who at first were excited about a deliverer coming and bringing them out. They turned on him and they said, "It's your fault." And Moses began to panic and he began to say, "God, I told you they wouldn't believe me." And did you know that in Exodus chap I'd have to look it up. I think it's in chapter 6. The Lord says, "I've been known by the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but by my name Jehovah, I have not been known." Now, this is man, some people will say the name Jehovah was used all the way in the book of Genesis, but you got to remember Moses is the one who wrote the book of Genesis. And that was nobody had ever called him Jehovah. And the word Jehovah, there is disagreement among scholars exactly what it means, but basically I've studied this out and it means I am the one who will fulfill my word. He had promised him that he would use him to bring the Jews out. And he says, nobody has ever known me by the name of the one who keeps his word, the one who lives to fulfill his word. And because God revealed himself as Jehovah to uh Moses, Moses all of a sudden had this burst of faith because he saw who God was. He saw that God was faithful to fulfill his word. He started relating to God and doing what God told him to do based on the promise based on the covenant instead of his own ability. And because of it, he destroyed the mightiest nation on the face of the earth at that time. Amen.
You've got to find out who you are. Same thing happened to Gideon. Gideon was threshing wheat behind a wine press because the Midianites were oppressing the Jews. The the Jews had conquered the promised land, but they didn't walk with God. And so during the period of the judges, uh they had other nations that would come in and oppress them for a while. And then God would raise up a judge and they would win a battle. And then as they didn't seek the Lord, they would come under this again. And so at this time in Judges chapter 6, the Midianites were oppressing the Jews. And Gideon was hiding behind a wine press, threshing wheat because if the Midianites saw him doing it, they'd come and take his harvest from him and he wouldn't have anything to eat. And so here he was hiding from the oppressors and an angel come and says, "Hail you mighty man of valor. The Lord is with you." And Gideon says, "If I'm a mighty man of valor, then why has all of this happened to us?" Did you know he didn't know who he was? And God was saying, he was talking to him based on the covenant, based on the call of what God had called him to do. But he was just looking at himself in the natural. And did you know that there were five different things? Twice he put out a fleece and he did all these other things. There were five different times that God proved himself to Gideon. And finally, Gideon went out with just 300 men. Did you know at one when he first sent out the call to all of the Israelites, there were over 30,000 people that showed up to fight the Midianites. And the Lord said, "This is too many." And so he told Gideon to tell him, "If you are afraid, leave." And man, there was like 10,000 that left. And finally, there was still too many. And so the Lord told him to go down. And he wound up with only 300. He started with over 30,000. He wound up with 300. And Gideon went down and and destroyed the Midianites. It says that they were like the sand of the sea. There was millions of them. And 300 men defeated him because he found out who he was. And brothers, I'm telling you, this is this is what's holding any person in here back is that you just don't know who you are. You don't know who God is. You don't know who you aren't. Some of you are still thinking, I'm more than able to do everything. You got to learn who you aren't.
You know, when Mike was ministering this morning out of Daniel 11:32 and he says, "Those who know their God will be strong and do exploits." Man, I meditated on that all afternoon and got some great things out of it. And the Lord reminded me of 2 Corinthians chap 12 verse 10 where Paul said when I am weak then I'm strong. So put those two verses together. If you know God you'll be strong and do exploits. If you're weak you'll be strong. Most people can't merge those things together. But that's talking about when you are weak in yourself. When you aren't trusting in yourself, when you come to the end of yourself and you start letting God live through you, that's when you're strong. That's when you know God. If you are still a self-confident person, if you are doing things your own way and asking God to bless it, you aren't weak yet in yourself. And therefore, you don't really know God. You know, I I have people come and and they're arrogant and they're promoting themsel and talking about how awesome they are. And as soon as a person does that, I just write icabad over them. For those of you that don't know, over in 1st Samuel chapter 2, uh when Hoffni and Phineas, the two priests were killed in battle, one of their wives was pregnant. And as she heard the news that her husband had been killed, she went into labor. She delivered the child and they named him Kabad, which means the glory has departed. It was mourning. And when a person comes out and promotes, man, I'm awesome. No wonder God chose me. What a great choice. I can see the wisdom. I just write over you because you haven't seen the glory of God. If you ever see the glory of God, you'll recognize that God loves us because he's loved, not because we're lovely. You'll recognize it has to be God that is using you. And man, there just there's a million things I'd love to say right now. Proverbs chap 10 verse third or Proverbs chapter 13 verse 10 says only by pride comes contention but with the well advised is wisdom. Did you know most people reject that and say that's not so man I got contention. I got people I've got strife in my life and it's not pride. You disagree with that but that's exactly what it means. I ministered on this about 30 years ago down in PBlo, Colorado. And I remember this little Mexican man. He was only about that tall. And he walked up after I got through and he stuck his fist, his finger right in my chest. And he says, "I disagree with you on this." He says, "I've got all kinds of strife and contention in my life." And he says, "Pride is not my problem." He says, "If anything, I've got low self-esteem. I just don't feel good about myself at all." And that's because some people think pride is only arrogance. It's like having a stick. There's two ends to that stick and they're opposite to each other. Arrogance is one manifestation of pride, but the other one is low self-esteem. Did you know uh being timid and shy is pride? If you're a shy person, if you're a timid person, if you're a person that doesn't have confidence in the Lord and you get intimidated by things, you are a super prideful person. And I hadn't got time to explain that, but it's true. Pride is spelled P R I D E. I is the center of pride. And if you are self-centered, if you are thinking about yourself, that's pride. And if God says you go lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and you think who am I? That's pride. You're looking at things from pride. If he says that you can do all things through Christ and you say, "Man, I can't do anything." That's pride.
When Jesus came to John the Baptist and he said, "Baptize me." John said, "I'm not even worthy to reach down and unlatch your sandals on your feet. I'm not worthy to baptize you. you need to be baptizing me. Did you know what he said was true? But Jesus said, "You need to go ahead and do it and fulfill all righteousness." And the truth is, none of us are
worthy to represent God. None of us are worthy to do the things that God wants us to do. But if you sit there and discount God using you because you are so aware of your failures, it's because you are in pride. You are exalting your opinion over what God says. Amen.
So you have to come to the end of yourself. But if you stop there, it's like getting in a ditch on this side of the road. There's a ditch on both sides of the road. You've got to go down the middle to arrive at anything. You've got to recognize that you in yourself are nothing. Paul said that in me, that is in my flesh, dwells no good thing. If he hadn't put that parenthetical phrase in there and said, "In my flesh," that would have been a wrong statement because he had God Almighty living on the inside of him. But in his flesh, he was nothing. He said in Philippians chapter 3, the last part of verse three, he says, "I have no confidence in the flesh." He said he took all of his great achievements. And right after he said, "I have no confidence in the flesh," then he goes on to say, "But I could have confidence in the flesh if anybody does." And he began to start naming all of his great accomplishments that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He had been discipled under Gamaliel. He was awesome in the natural. And he says, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted but loss."
You know what we do with our dung? We frame it and put it on the wall so everybody can see our dung. I'm not saying that you don't recognize what you've been able to accomplish, but you need to make sure it's through the Lord. You need to recognize it's God that did it. You don't need to have a good self-esteem. You need to have a Christ esteem. You need to know who you are in Christ. You know, one of the benefits of this is that when you mess up, and you will mess up, and when you do something wrong, you don't fall apart like a $2 suitcase, like, "Oh, God, I thought I was better than this. I thought I'd gone beyond this." Did you know your flesh is always going to be flesh? Your flesh is not getting better.
I don't care if you've been born again for 20 years, 30 years, 50 years. Your flesh is not getting any better. It doesn't matter if you have USDA choice flesh. If you were in the flesh, you cannot please God. God is not pleased with you because of your flesh. The thing that makes you stronger is like Paul said, "When I'm weak, then I'm strong." When you turn away from your flesh, when you turn away from your own ability and quit thinking that God, look what I've done. Now you can use me. I've got a great idea.
When you turn away from that and you are just totally dependent upon God, that's when you're strong. Yes. You know, when the Lord showed me January 31st, 2002, that I was limiting him by my small thinking, I've got a whole book written about it. I won't go into all of that, but I was limiting God because I was looking at me and I was so aware of all of my failures. I've often said that if I was God, I wouldn't have chosen me. Nobody has ever accused I actually had Paul Milligan, the uh CEO of our ministry. He was sitting right there and he got up to introduce me and he introduced me by saying, "Nobody has ever claimed that Andrew was the smartest man in the room." What an introduction. But it's true. And anyway, I was so aware of my limitations. That's how I was limiting God. It wasn't arrogance on my part. It was this tendency because I've seen the glory of God. And in comparison to the glory of God, I was just so aware of all of my limitations that I was limiting God. I was like John the Baptist. I'm not worthy to loose your sandals. I'm not worthy to baptize you. And the Lord had to get me over myself. And I'm still doing that. And I'm still learning. God has opened up doors and doing things that I've got to I've got to get a better understanding of who I am in Christ. Not my flesh, but who I am in Christ. I need to recognize what the call that God has placed on me. And I'm saying these things about myself, but I'm using that as an illustration for all of you. Until you understand who you are and get a revelation of it, you'll never fulfill God's plan for your life. It doesn't come to pass accidentally. It comes to pass through a lot of effort. You are going to have to resist the devil. He will throw everything he's got against you. As long as you are into yourself and living by your own ability and leaning under your own understanding, the devil will reinforce that and he will help you because he can beat you hands down any day. It's only when you lay your life down like Moses did and pick it up by the tail that you really have any strength and power.
You know, I had Pastor Chay on from California here and he was walking through and I was showing him the buildings and he was impressed and blessed by it and he says, "Man, you must have an awesome vision. What is your vision?" And I told him, "I don't have a vision." And he got a little upset because he teaches on vision a lot. And uh he was like, "What? You don't have a vision?" I said, "Honestly, my only vision is just to know the Lord and to focus on him." That's the only thing that I'm after in my life. And because I have a relationship, he's told me to do certain things and so I'm following. But all of the buildings that we're building and stuff, that's not my vision. That's me being obedient to his vision. That's things that he placed on my heart. It's not something that I came up with and I'm asking God to bless my vision. Amen.
And you know, we just in the last couple of months, the Lord gave us the stewardship of God TV, which is the third largest television network in the world. And I won't take time to go into all the things, but the potential of that is just phenomenal. And I didn't seek that. I didn't pray and ask God for this. They came to me, and I would have had to have backslid on God to keep from doing it. Wow. And right now, we've got the potential of literally doubling or tripling the ministry in just a very short period of time. And I'm not seeking those things. I don't care about that. The Lord could tell me to move to Africa and live in a grass hut and I'd be glad to do it. I'm not sure my wife would go with me. But honestly, I don't have any desire except to know the Lord. That's the only thing. Man, I wish I could just somehow or another open your heart up and pour this into you because I haven't got the words to describe what I'm trying to say. But you've got to find out who you are in Christ. And this is the way you do it is through the word. Amen.
You can't, you know, if you want to see what you look like, think of this. Did you have you have never seen your face? And some of you think, "Oh, I see it all the time." No, you see a reflection of your face, but you with your eyes have never looked at your face. I remember being over in Uganda and right next to the elevator in the hotel we were staying in, they had a mirror and it was a bad mirror and when you stood there, it made you look tall and skinny and it wasn't an accurate reflection. I'm sure all of you have seen some of those mirrors that can distort your image. How do you know that what you're looking at in the mirror is correct? Amen. You just take it for granted. And did you know that the image that you're seeing is not a real image? It's a mirror image. Wow. When you hold up your right hand, the person in the mirror holds up their left hand. And we've gotten where we understand that. Anyway, my point is, I'm not trying to get you to doubt what you see in the mirror, but I'm saying you have never looked directly at yourself. You trust a reflection to tell you what you look like. And the Bible says in James chapter 1 that this is a mirror.
This is the you can't see your spirit. You can see your flesh, but you can't see your spirit. You just go to the word and when it says that you're blessed with all spiritual blessings, you say that's what that's what the truth is. And it doesn't matter if your checkbook shows that, if the doctor's confirming it, if a lawyer is telling you other things. You just get to where you go by this. And yet, most of us will go by our personal experience, our feelings, and things like that instead of what the word says. We don't know who we are in Christ Jesus. And this is the reason that we aren't accomplishing what God wants us to accomplish. I tell you, this is so powerful. I've got so much more to share, but the heart can't absorb more than the seed can endure. So, I'll pick this up again tomorrow morning. But I'm just encouraging you, brothers, that every one of us limits God. You know, when the Lord spoke that to me January 31st, 2002, that's not the last time he told me I was limiting God. He's told me that dozens of times. Matter of fact, just this last year as we were contemplating taking over God TV, which is a huge deal, a big deal. It's the biggest step I've ever taken in the ministry. The Lord was telling me, "Don't limit me. Don't you limit this. This is something I delivered to you on a platter."
Just one of the things that's happening. Did you know that we are going to be going on I I'm not sure I'll have the right uh things. Billy might have to correct this, but we're we're going to be going on YouTube TV. We're going to be going on uh what are some of these? Anyway, every every time a person buys a flat screen TV, we're automatically loaded on there from this time on. And the man who's with God TV is the one that used to work with Disney and put them on everything. And he got born again by the people at God TV and he quit what he was doing, came to work for God TV and he is going to put us on uh things that um no other Christian ministry will be on there. It's all secular things but yet they have huge reaches and we will have an exclusive exclusive avenue on all of this stuff. We are going to be reaching millions and millions of people that have never tuned in to our programs before.
Did you know just uh two days ago I called James Brown, the sports broadcaster, and it was his 75th birthday. So I called him just to say happy birthday to you. And it just so happened that Tony Dungy was on the phone with him and they were talking. So he said, "Here, let me put you on speakerphone." I said, "What were y'all talking about?" And Tony interviewed the manager, the coach, and some of the uh players on the Seattle Seahawks right before the Super Bowl. And he said it was some of the greatest interviews he's ever had. These people are strong believers. They prayed and believed. And he said it was wonderful. And the network cut out every single mention of God in those interviews. And they were talking about what can we do? And I said, 'Well, the Lord just happened to wake me up last week and ask me to ask you if you would start doing these interviews and we'll now put them on God TV and GTN.' And they got so excited they said, "You won't have to call us back. We will call you." Says, "We're going to work this out." And we are going to have exclusive on the two top sports broadcasters in the world on our television networks.
And I didn't pursue this. This isn't something I thought of and asked God to bless it. I'm telling you, God can manage your life better than you can manage it. God is smarter than you are. And the real key to the Christian life is learning how to get out of the way and say, "God, not my will, but yours be done." Amen. Amen.
So, I just want to encourage you. I'm going to be sharing more tomorrow, but you need to really ask the Lord to reveal to you who you are. Not only for your sake, but did you know the world is praying and asking for help? They don't even sometimes know it's God that they're asking for. They may be looking for wealth or for all kinds of other things, but what they're really wanting is to fill that emptiness with God. And you're the one that God wants to use. God doesn't move independent of people, right? And so, if you don't find who you are, your life won't be what it's supposed to be. But also, there are other people that'll miss out on their miracle because it's going to come through you.
You know, I don't know how many people we've got, but there's over a thousand people or so. And if every one of us walked out of this place with a revelation of who we are, and again, it's a progressive thing. But if we were walking in the fullness of who we are, did you know that these thousandsome people I talked to one person here that's from Singapore. We have people here from Canada. We got people right here Singapore. And we got people from all over the world. If people went out of here walking in the fullness of what God wanted them to, this would shake the world. Amen. But most of us are just doing a tiny bit of releasing God's power. It's not just about you getting born again and going to heaven. If that's all there was to salvation, then it'd be a service to just kill you as soon as you get born again so you could go to heaven and really enjoy it. God left us here so that he can flow through us and change people's lives. We've got to reach our full potential.
So let's stand up and Father, I'm just praying right now in the name of Jesus that you open up our heart and help those who are arrogant and self-confident like Moses was in the beginning. Father, I pray that you help them to come to the end of themselves that they would get it by revelation and not have to be knocked flat on their face to recognize it. That they would just receive this from you and receive it by revelation. Father, for those who are so um inferior and feel like they made so many mistakes that you can't use them, I pray that you'd help people to see who they are in Christ and that it's based on your righteousness, your holiness. Like Jim was saying today, that we are in you and you did all of these things for us. We get it through you. Father, I just pray that the Holy Spirit open up our heart and help us to receive these things. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. Thank you, heavenly Father.
Boy, the Lord is speaking to me that there's people here that maybe you've seen this to a degree, but there's other people here that this is a revelation to you. You've only known yourself in the natural, in just your body and your mental, emotional part, but you don't have a clue who you are in Christ. And it's not going to come until you seek it. Right after it says in Jeremiah 29:11, it says, "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." The NIV says, "A hope and a future." And then it goes on to say, "You shall seek me and you shall find me when you shall search for me with all of your heart." You aren't going to have this revelation until you start searching. You have to make a commitment. Thank you, Jesus.
So again, every one of us in here can go deeper in this commitment. So, in a sense, every single person could respond to what I'm fixing to ask. But I'm asking specifically for those of you that this is just like a brand new wrinkle in your brain. You have never thought these things. You've never thought about there being some you being somebody beyond just who you are in your physical body and in your mental emotional part. You're without a clue of who you are in the spirit. If that's you, I want you to just be honest enough right now where you are to lift your hand and I'm going to pray for you. And there's a scripture that we can pray over in Ephesians chapter 1. And I believe I used to pray this scripture for years every single day saying asking God to reveal things to me. And if you will enter into agreement with me, I believe that God will do the same thing for you. So those of you that are receiving this prayer, I want you to put your hand in the air and I'm going to pray for you. And I'm gonna pray this won't work for anybody that doesn't have their hand up. Man, here's somebody with both hands up. Praise God.
Father, we just thank you according to Ephesians chapter 1 that you would give unto us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you and open up the eyes of our understanding so that we could see the hope of your calling and the exceeding greatness of your power towards us. The same power that you used when you raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Father, open up our hearts to see who we are and what we have. And help us not to limit you. Help us to take the limits off. Father, help us not to be like that man who just thought his ticket gave him passage across the Atlantic. But Father, help us to enter in and partake of everything that came with the ticket, everything that you've done for us. Father, we're praying right now and opening up our heart. And we believe that this prayer is based on the word, Ephesians chapter 1. So, we've prayed according to your word. And we believe that we have the petitions that we asked of you. We believe that you are opening up our understanding and that Father, we are going to see ourselves and you in a brand new light. Thank you, Father. We thank you that there are going to be men leaving here that will go home a brand new person. Thank you, Jesus. We agree and we believe that we receive in Jesus name. Amen. Praise God.