Jamie Winship Message #2 - Reclaiming Identity

When he invited me out there to LA, of course, I didn't know, have any idea what they were doing. And so I was doing, just doing this thing in Detroit. And right when I was getting on the plane to go from Detroit out there to LA, the enemy hit me in a super vulnerable. Hats off to the enemy on this one, brilliant way, brilliant. I always underestimate how clever he is and think I'm smarter than he is, and that's when he gets me. And it really hurt me. I mean, it hurt me, my reputation, it hurt me personally. And it was like, I'm like, two hours before I got on the plane to fly out there. And so flying out there, I was like, empty. I'd lost my identity that quick. It was gone. I was completely empty. And I couldn't call Donna because I was on the plane. And and I was just like, totally lost. And I haven't had that happen in a long time. And so I realized that it must be really important what is gonna happen in LA. And it was hugely important. Yeah, and it continues to be amazing.

But so I knew, I figured while the enemy's really went with a cheap but very effective shot on this one. And so I was, I was on the plane flying out there, and I just said to the Lord, like, I'm, I am bankrupt at that moment. Like, that really hurt. You know, that hurt me. And I don't know how to recover from it. If, if in those moments of your life, I can't pick up a book and read what to do, then right, I can't put in a podcast that goes because it was so super personal to me. And one of my great fears in life that I wouldn't really, I didn't wouldn't let myself address. I wouldn't let God address it with me. I just kept it back here. And the enemy took it advantage of it. And and it really stung me. And so if you, if you can't access God, him in a way that's deep enough to know that it's not your own talking yourself out of something, you cannot recover from things like this. In order to be able to go meet with these guys and the Lord in any way use you with his authority and power, the recovery has to be powerful. It has to be quick. And it has to do it in a way that the enemy can't come back in the same spot and push again. Like you have to be healed right then, right from a very deep pain. And so I just said to the Lord, I need you to be my friend. Like, right now, before I get to Los Angeles, from between Detroit and Los Angeles, I need you to be my friend. In economy class. So come back here with all the people. I know that really know him. We're up in first class. And so because they sell a lot of books and stuff. So they're not in venues where the video does north. They go, "Ass, forget it, get the band up here." There's a little more production involved in what they do. And I've taken it personally. I'm not jealous of that or anything. But anyway.

And so, so this is what the Lord said to me. He said, "This song I was writing down, 'You're my friend, I'll lay it all down to feel your embrace.'" Those lyrics are about a God that actually touches you. It's not an abstract God that's propositional truth floating around in Hellenistic thinking. I don't even know what that means. What I just said, that's how obscure that is. That's how. But he's like, "There. He's like, here." And he will touch you. And he actually calls us names like friend. And if you don't believe that about God, you don't know him. I mean, that's my challenge. And if you're gonna go out and take on an enemy that will touch you hard, and you don't have a God that can do it, you're in big trouble. Do you understand that? We believe that Satan talks every day. We don't believe God speaks anymore. How weird is that? How strange. I have to go in and defend myself in front of believers that I think God speaks. But I asked everyone in the room, "Do you think the enemy's gonna?" "Yeah, he runs the media." "Where's God?" "He's not in the media." Like, how weird is that? An enemy that speaks and a God that doesn't anymore? Yeah, he wrote us a book. That's it. That's the end of it. Look out. Look up in Deuteronomy. What happened in Detroit? It's not there. So it has to be a real God. He is our real God. And that's why we worship Him. Help me to know you are near. Help me. I love that song. Help me to know you're near, Lord, tonight, right now, in these next couple of minutes. Help us to know experientially that you are near. Experientially, not up in our head, down in our heart. That we can feel your touch in our hands and on our bodies and in our spirit. And we get the chills and we giggle with you because you're so powerful and near. And you make us brave. You do. You make us brave because you're real. Do do that in and through us tonight. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So, so last night, we were just talking about this process. This process that we see all through scripture. And I'm just picking, I just picked up Gideon because it's a little bit quicker and it covers all, a lot of territory in a short amount of time. But you can get, you can start with Adam and Eve and go all the way through the Bible, and you'll see this process over and over again in all different cultures, at all different times, in all different circumstances to show you that the truth of this is super a-cultural. It doesn't exist in a particular time and place with people. It goes across all of it. This God of history. And so looking at Gideon. So Gideon and the people of Israel find themselves in a complicated situation. And you know, like I was saying last night, if you look down into it carefully, what the enemy is doing is attacking the people of God in Israel through their identities. Even the judges, it's all at the same thing all through scripture. But in Judges, you can see seven distinct attacks against seven distinct identities of a culture. And and if the enemy is able to disarm or disable one identity in this room, one identity group in this room, the whole room becomes ineffective. We so do not believe this to be true that we think if we have one superhero, it'll work. One famous person, it'll work. It will not. It will not work. Your weakest muscle is the most important place. It's where you have to work. And so, and so the enemy is attacking. And the first one he attacks, the prophetic people. And then it goes down through the ex-orders and the mercy people. If your country loses the identity of mercy among its population, you become a bitter country, a self-protective country that doesn't care anymore about the rest of the world because your mercy people have gone silent. Because we despise them. "Oh, you want to help everyone?" "Oh, my gosh." Once you start talking like that, you have lost the ability to win any of those identities. That's why Paul's saying, "It's one body. Every part has to work all the time." Stop elevating one part over another. Stop doing it. But I don't know what we think. Like, is that just us? Nice talk? It's reality. And because we don't believe it, the enemy just keeps hurting us. And civilizations come and they fail. And they come and they fail. And we're like, "Oh, it's just the way it is." It doesn't have to be that way. It does not have to be that way. And we're drifting right into it again. Here we go.

So in Judges, in the word, we have examples of, "Here's what happened. Learn what happened. Learn what to do correctly. Learn what to avoid. Learn, learn." And then apply it in a new and fresh way in your own chapter of this story, advancing your young generations forward. Like, "Here's, here's what we learned in all of our failure and success. Here's what we learned. We're giving it to you. Do it better and faster than we did. Please God, do it better and faster than we did." The what me and Donna and our team were able to accomplish in our first 10 years on the field took the guys that taught us 20 years to figure out. But they taught us what they learned in 20 years, and we could do it in 10. And we taught it to people that could do what we could do in five years. And then they could do more than that. And they do. That's what, that's what discipleship is all about. Better than the person who discipled you. Greater, not the same as. That's not either. You're not advancing. Like, I told you everything I know. Do it better. Our, our own kids do everything better than me and Donna ever did. And I'm super proud of that. Because you can't teach them how to do it better. I can only teach them what I know. And they figured out how to do it better with the Lord. Like that. And they off they go. And on they go. So the Judges is telling us this story. So in the process of God moving into this disastrous situation, it begins the process. Remember, it's not steps, it's not a formula, but there is a process. And the beginning of the process is always speaking truth. Telling the truth. You have to speak truth, or the God of all truth isn't involved. You have to pray in truth. I'm talking to believers, lost people. I mean, it's so funny how we view lost people. It's like they're like, so lost. Like they say dumb things. It's like they don't know what's going on. Why do they do that? They're lost. Why are those people over there killing each other? They're lost. I wish they would act like us, the believers. What's wrong with them? Well, let's go talk to them. [Music] They were believers. I'd be over there. This is weird thinking. And the enemy's like, "That's brutal. That is so brilliant. I'm sure you had to write a book about that." "I will. I'm gonna have a seminar on that." And so, so like that. So truth has to be spoken. And even when we think we're speaking the truth, we don't know. That's the beauty of the prophet. That's what the prophet's job is. Like, "You know what you guys are saying? It's false."

So when me and Donna hurt, when the Lord first moved in this particular time in our life to move over into Indonesia and work for the Indonesian government in this Islamic university situation and said we were gonna move. You know, our kids are little, young. And so I don't know how to explain to our kids who are fine, what were they? Five, three, and ten months old? Ten months old, whatever. He's just so long. But the other two are sort of figuring out. And I was telling them, "We're gonna move to a different country." And I wanted to make it like a big adventure for them because we were terrified and I didn't want to communicate. Now, so, "Yeah, no, we're gonna go live on a little island and there's gonna be, you know, monkeys and you're gonna get diarrhea." So, "No, no, no." But they didn't know what that wasn't. It's like, "We all right?" And I was like, "Yes, yes, you're probably gonna have it all the time." "We are? Have we ever had?" "No, it's an, it's gonna be new. It's gonna be a new thing." And I would hear them in their room at night, they'd be laughing. If that's how much you can deceive people. And and never speak on parenting ever. And so, and then when they realized what it was, you know, they never trusted us again. So that's all right. That's not a good example. Erase that example from your mind.

But when we got, so we got over there and we start living there. And so we want to be able to communicate, obviously, to the people, all of our wisdom. And so, you know, you learn in the language and all that stuff. And so we lived in this terrible little awful house. And they were our cue to like, "Look, doggy." And I was like, "No, that's a rat." Then, you know, and there's a lot of them. They've had puppies. Yep, right there in the couch. Good. And we have diarrhea. Great. And school, how's it going? Just like we hoped. And so, though, this place where we live didn't have screens, you know, in the window. And it was like, I don't know why they don't have screens. But so I said to Donna, I said, "Donna's like, we gotta get screens." Like, like we're gonna die here. And I said, "So I said, okay, I'm gonna go talk to the landlord about screens." But just like our language wasn't great. And since there were no screens, I didn't know the word for it. Like, "We need one of those things that you don't have here." And so I was trying to figure out how to say it. How do you communicate something that they don't have that we have to have? So I'm looking for the word. I don't ever actually, I to this day, I don't actually know the word. It's that. So you just kind of speak with an accent and say the word in English, you know, "goodie," you know, a screen. So, so like, so I go over there. But screen wasn't the problem. The word problem. I like thought that would be the problem. The word problem was the word for mosquito, which is "yom look." Now, "look now, look." And what console, you have to memorize the sentences because you're not fluent. Okay? Like, okay, we need, we have a mosquito problem. Problem is "masala." "Masala a mocha problem with mosquito." And so I'm practicing this, walking over to this Muslim guy landlord in this completely Muslim Indonesian area. And you know, you don't want to make a mistake and look stupid. And so I'm down, I mean, they were drinking tea and they're very indirect. And so finally, I get to it. Okay. But I've kind of lost track of the words in my mind's. And so instead of saying, "yom look, mosquito," I say, "one yet monkey." One yet. It's a little mistake. It's not that big of a deal. Boy.

So I say to the guy, "Hey, listen." He's like, "House to house." "Oh, it's amazing. So I love the little dogs that live there. And I've never lived in a place like this." And he's like, "Yeah, good." And now I said, "I have to have a request though. We need these things. Screens. We need these things in the window." He's like, "What is?" So we're speaking in a nice, like, "What is?" "I don't know what that is." And I said, "Yeah, it's like a thing you put up in the window." And he said, "Well, like, what's that for?" And I said, "You know, to keep monkeys out of your house. We've been right in the middle of the city." And he's like, he's like, "And like, I, you know, my, my nose." I was like, "Wow." I said, "That." So I was so. Well, he's like, dumbfounded. He didn't think I'd ever figure out how to come talk to him, challenge him on this thing. And he goes, he goes, "Oh, are you having a problem with monkeys?" "Everidge your house?" "And like, are you? Do you not have him at your house?" "Like, I live a block away from you. How do you not have them?" "You said, honestly." "He says, honestly, I've never seen one in my life." And I was like, "Oh, liar. Oh boy. Oh my gosh. This is all Muslims treat us right. It's just gonna tell a lie. You've never seen. You've never seen a monkey in your life?" "Nope." "Like, I know, 'cause they're all at my house." "I thought that I really got him. I know they're all done in our house." He goes, "When do you? When do you see him?" "I like, every night." "Yeah, night." He goes, "You have monkeys in your house every night?" "Yeah." "Yes." He goes, "Are there a lot?" "And I'm like, do you think I try and count them? Does that make any sense to you? Why would I lay it? Why would I try and count? Alisa, dumbest. What's wrong with you?" He's like, "What's wrong with you?" And then now it's like, "Oh, you don't like Americans. I get it." You know, see how this works? And the enemy's right in your head. Like, he refuses to admit there's monkeys in your hospital. I'm like, "I get." "Hey, I don't need you, Satan. I got this one." And so he's, I said, "There, I'm not kidding. There's hundreds in our house every night." He goes, "Where are they?" "The more eyes." "I don't know. I don't know where they go in the morning." He said, "Well, how did they get in?" "Look, they fly in." "Like, wow." He's like, "They fly in every night in the hundreds?" "Yes." He goes, "What do they do?" "They bite us." "Like, look at my great sir. He's like, 'That's a monkey bite.' Look, what do you think it is?" So he's like, "Well, I don't know. I guess we could put some up in the windows to keep them out." "Sure." "Oh my gosh, big tree here." So I leave. That's settled. Proud of my language ability. Super confident. Went well. And I tell Donna, "Yep, not another monkey in our house." And she's like, "Monkey? What are you talking about?" "Oh my god, brother. Here we go. Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. The enemy's now working between me and Donna. It's unbelievable." And she goes, "You're saying what? You're not saying mosquito, you're saying monkey?" Like, "Oh my god." And then I reviewed, "Oh my god, I have sealed my reputation forever. This guy is never gonna listen to me again." And I was just too embarrassed. Every to go back.

Here's the thing about that guy. His daughter was gonna be one of his little ten-year-old daughter was going to be one of the key Muslim women in a massive movement among the people group there. His daughter. And what I did with him because I was so sure I was right, I was so positive I was right. And everything that I was saying to him, even though he was challenging me on it, I didn't know that I was wrong. And I didn't even know to ask that I might be wrong because I was so sure I was right. And I was talking to the father, potentially ruining it's a great woman that was gonna come out of that people group. How do you know what you don't know? How do you know? Like, you think you're right. Aren't we right? Aren't we right? I ask myself, "Am I right?" And I tell myself, "I am right." Isn't that what you do when you have a problem? I asked myself, like, "I'm discouraged, sir." "You?" "Yes." "Why do you think you are?" "I think I don't know. I think it's someone else's fault." "I agree." "We're a." "Yes." This is called the disease of introspection. I'm walking side by side with myself as an advisor to myself. I'm just gonna get a loan and think this through. That is the worst strategy you could ever come up with. And so, and so when you start walking this way, and that your whole, the whole thing starts to crumble around you, then you start, "Well, that's not me. So it must be God. It must be that as somebody else." And so the only way that can be rectified is if a truth teller comes into the situation, a speaker of truth. And that's what happens. And when the people cry out and they're like, "God, this is a disaster. Like, we're finally gonna tell the truth. This is, we can't fix this. We give up. We can't fix this. We cry out to you. We don't even know if you exist. You don't seem to. But we don't have any other option." And God, because he's merciful, loving, always comes. He never comes when you complain. It's interesting. In in the Bible, I see two places where God will kill you on the spot. Do you ever look for these places? And by God, just like killed people. One is if you take credit for something he did. Had to death. And two, if you complain. He killed 3,000 people. What was their crime? They complained. Just think if he did that, our churches would be empty. If he killed complainers like he did in the Old Testament, he doesn't like complainers. And he won't respond to complainers. He will respond to people that cry out in desperation to him, always, always. Because they're crying out from their real situation, not just "make it better for me." And so they cry out. And so he sends in the truth teller to remind him of what's true. God is God. He's always been with you. He'll always be with you. He brought you out of slavery. He's always done it. He always will. He's with you. You've forgotten who he is. He is God. He's the center of existence. He's a person. He wants to be your friend. He wants to draw close to you. He wants you to feel his touch and his presence all the time. That's what's true. This truth. You believe something false about him. Because you believe something false about him, you've become, begun to believe something false about yourself. You're not worthy of him being close to you because he's not close to you because he's gone. And that's your fault. And you're not worthy. And your, and you, you, you, you've always been. People don't want to be with you. It's your. You've always been abandoned. Think about it. Haven't you always been abandoned? Yes, I have. And then you start to feel yourself wrongly, wrong belief about God, wrong belief about myself, which leads to wrong actions. And then we go into the church community. And the church community is trying to fix the wrong actions over in book and seminar. And we've got to stop this. You, you know, I remember sitting in the Church of men, a church group of men. And the speaker comes up and goes, "Out of the 50 men in this room, 48 of you are addicted to pornography." We're just like, "Who are the two that ruined this? Like, where are you?" "Forty-eight of us." Like, "Do you ever hear these statistics?" "Five out of ten of you." I feel like, "Wow, this is really gonna be an interesting time together." Like, "How dare." "What are you? The accuser?" I can, I could stay at home and be accused by the enemy all day long. Why do I want to drive over here at 6:00 a.m. to be accused like that? I don't want to hear that. But so, so I have wrong, and wrong view of myself. And I'm doing wrong behaviors to try and correct the pain I feel because I'm so messed up. And I hate myself. And I hate my job. And life is terrible. And the world's gonna end. And God's not there. And so I try and do things to to medicate the issues in my own spirit instead of going back to God and say, "Can you tell me over the truth about what's happening here?" And he does. And you're like, "Oh my gosh, you're in control of this?" "Yes." "And I'm with you the whole way?" "You are." "Oh, then I don't need this. I just need you." So he comes in with truth. That's what he does. Once truth is being spoken, once the truth is being spoken, and the place is open like this, and the way has been cleared, here comes Jesus. Here he comes. Here he comes. In Judges chapter six, here he comes. After the prophet, after John the Baptist, after the prophet comes the king himself. And here it is being played out in the Old Testament as a picture for what's really gonna happen. Greater. Judges chapter six, verse 11. "Now the angel of the Lord came." So the prophets come, told him the real situation, what the real situation is, and the real, what's the real source of their problem? What's the real source? Fear. That's the real source of every false thing they believe. Fear. Fear of the gods of the Amorites, not the Midianites. The Amorites and the Ammonites were scary people. They were experts in witchcraft. Their history is fascinating. There, there was, I had a quote here from one of the Apocrypha writers. Says this one translation relates how the tribes of Israel learned all of their wickedness from the Amorites, the masters of witchcraft, whose books they kept hidden. The Israelites kept hidden under the mat of Mount Abarim, and whose wonder-working idols could restore sight to the blind. Isn't that the thing about the enemy? Is you think you're gaining freedom with him? You think you're gaining insight with them? And really, you're going blind the whole time. He even just hate. You want to be really free? God gave you a limited kind of freedom. You want to be really free? Yes. Grab that fruit right there, and you'll be free. Like God is free. Okay. And she grabs it, and she loses all of her freedom by one act of taking things into her own control. And she lost her freedom. I promise you, you'll have insight that no one else will have. Out by becoming blind. This is the deception of the enemy. And the Israelites buy into it. And they're intimidated by the magical witchcraft powers of the Amorites. And one of the Amorite kings, it says in Deuteronomy chapter three, was he was like Goliath. He, his bed, that tells the measurement of his inspired by God and inerrant, infallible, the size of his bed. That's an interesting fact. Is it's 9 feet long. The bed because that's how tall this guy. And he, see, it says he's like the Rephaim. He's like the giants. He's one of their leaders. They're the Israelites are scared of these people. They're magic. They do brutal things. And if they had YouTube back then, they would be doing them on YouTube just to scare you. And you would be afraid of them. And you would change your whole policy of your country because you're afraid of what they're saying and doing. You would move in away from God, back to, "What do we do to protect ourselves against this?" Forget God. These guys, these people are on YouTube. Where is God? Where is he? They're executing people every day on YouTube. We are afraid of this kind of God. Change our policy. Put someone in charge that will kill these kinds of you. And it just goes crazy. So the prophet points out the truth. And so now they know the truth. Here's the real source of your fear. It's false. It's not true. God is God. He's in charge. Now that you know that truth, now we can send the identity to rescue you, which is people in this room. So the angel of the Lord, Jesus, the pre-incarnate Christ. So prophet Jesus, here it comes. Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree at Ophrah that belonged to Joash the son of the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. Remember, he's part of the brilliant strategy of, "Let's hide." Because that's what they're doing. And he's, Gideon has grown up in this mentality, or he's in this mentality of, "That's what you do." Does anyone break this mentality? No. It's what we all do. So it's normal. And that's what, what smart people do. If you were really a good steward, if you were really a good steward of the things that God gave you, you would bury it in a cave and hide it from the Midianites. That's what good stewards would do. You wouldn't risk it out here. You'd have a stash away for difficult times. And that's what a good steward would do. So get in a cave and hide it. Smart. And they had a seminar on how to do that and stuff like, like that. And so that's what he's doing. Who's gonna tell him not to do that? Who's gonna tell him different in his whole culture? Who's gonna say, "This is a bad idea"? Nobody. Nobody. Until the Prophet comes. Like, "You know, you guys are really, you know, you know why you're losing? Because you're afraid of the evil out there that can't hurt you, but you think it can. So God can't protect you. So you got to do it." So that's what he's doing. Why not? And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, "Here it is. The beautiful passes. The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor." I like how when, let's just think of this as Jesus is a visible appearance of God. Is Jesus? So Jesus comes to where he's hiding. He loves to walk right into our hiding places. He does it with the disciples, you know? So after the resurrection, after the resurrection, they're like, "Hey, Jesus is alive! Jesus is alive! What shall we do? Let's hide in a locked room." That's their strategy for the first church service. Let's hide in a locker room from the rest of the world. Who are you afraid of? The Jews. What? Because they can kill us. Okay. They just killed Jesus. And he's back. Like, apparently, he's stronger than that. Why are you? Huh? Why are you afraid of the Jews when he just had the victory over death itself? What are you doing? So, but Jesus doesn't stand outside going, "Hey, you cowards, come out here." He doesn't do that. "You chickens that ran away the whole time I was there, you're running away. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna give." He doesn't do that. He walks right inside of their fear. He, if you will say, "Your fear." He will walk right inside of it. Right through your little lock. You don't even have to open the door. "Lord, I'm in here in my fear." "I could come right through the door. Come on here. I come." He just walks right through every barrier, everything you've put up to keep bad things out that's kept you trapped inside. So you'll never do anything. The enemy's like, "He's done." And the Jesus watched right through it into their hide. Look. And they're like, "Not now. They're afraid of him." "Like, are you afraid the Jews anymore?" "They didn't walk through our door. You did." "I'm scared of him now." This is always how the disciples are. You know, "We're afraid of that storm." "Be quiet, storm." "That we're afraid of you." You know, because this is where we're gonna put our fear. That's all we want. And so Jesus comes in there. And they're like, "Look, looking." You know, and he's the unwanted. When he's looking, "Look, look, look, look. Isn't this amazing? This isn't Colonel. Doesn't blame him. It's not like, 'Where were you when this was happening?'" He doesn't say that to him. He doesn't. "It's gone." "Yeah, look. They won't be." "I'm unwanted. I'm here. I died for you. And let's go forth now. Here we go. Okay. I'll be back. I'll be back. Let's go. You don't have to hide." "Okay." "I'll be back." He leaves. Seven days later, where are they? Locked in their room again. They made it out seven days. But then they went back and locked the door again. And Thomas is like, "I'm not going out there unless I am myself." Boom. Here is again. "Hi." How many times will he do this? As many times as you ask him. How many times will you come in your deepest fear? Every time you ask him. He doesn't keep a list of it. Always right here. "Call me." "I'm here." "Let's go." "What do you need?" "I need to touch you." "Touch me." "Draw near to me." "Come on, touch, touch." "Set ready. Let's go. Here we go. Here we go." I love that about the Lord. Every time. All the time. Over and over and over again. How many times? Seven times? Now, infinite. Infinite. Why are we afraid to do this with him? Why are we afraid to say, "Lord, oh, I really fell down on this one. Okay. I've got all these barriers up because I'm afraid. Now, can you come?" "Hello." "Hi." "I'm here." "Here I am." "Remember I died for you." "See, like it's all done. You don't have to be afraid." "That's right." "Here we go. Here we go. Here we go." You know how many times he would say, he'd just burst into that room? The first time. Every time. First time. "All right, weren't you here yesterday?" "Was I? Remember that? Isn't this the first time that I'm doing with you?" Because he separates our sin as far as the East is from the West and remembers that no more. Every time is the first time with him. I love that cycle. "I remember I did this last week." "Nope. Here I am. Here we go. First time. Let's go." Everyone gets the first time. 8,000 times you get the first time. That's such a relief to me. Ask him. I'm telling ya. When I'm praying with my friends, God's gonna be disappointed. It's gonna be the first time. He's gonna come in and go, "Just forgive you." "Like, what?" So he comes here. He is. There's Jesus. He comes into that your hiding place, your little, your little survival tactic. And he comes in. It's like, "Hi, mighty warrior. You ready to be that thing? You're not acting like it." I love how you go. Only he'll only call you by your true name. He won't call you a false name. We call ourselves false names all the time. The world calls. We got a stronger right. Everyone. At Jesus would never walk in a room and start that way. "Hey, I came to tell you guys something." He would never say something. He would never call us a name that the enemy calls us. He only calls us names. Listen to this. That he would call himself. Do you realize that he names us after himself? Like every proud parent does. If you hear a name that's not a name God would call himself, you didn't hear him. And so he comes in there. "The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor." And Gideon says to him, you know, Gideon's like, "Who? Who are you talking to? Like, please, sir." He doesn't know who. "Please, sir. If the Lord is with us, why here we go, here we go, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, 'Did not the Lord bring us out from Egypt?' But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian." Wow. Wow. Jesus in the foot and hurt. You know, he's sleeping in the boat and the hurricane comes and the disciples wake him up and they go, "Don't you care that we're gonna die?" Two false statements. Two false beliefs. You don't care. And we're gonna die. That's what they believe to be true. We're waking you up to tell you two things that you don't seem to know are true. One is we're gonna die. And two, it's because you don't care. We just wanted to wake you up and tell you that. And it's great being with you. And Jesus is like, "Oh, wow. Wait a second. I can't hear it because of the storm. Shut up." Okay. "No." And they're like, he's like, "Listen, listen. I do care. And you're not gonna die here. But I'm showing you what, what a person with a fully integrated mind of God does in a hurricane. I nap. Here's what I do when a hurricane of immense proportions is blowing through my world. I just take a little nap. Rest in the Lord. It's not gonna hurt us." That's what you would be doing if you knew that truth. You wouldn't be going, "We're gonna die. You don't love us." "We're gonna die. You don't love us." False, false, false, false. Well, these are false statements. Are not true. And Jesus won't speak into false statements. He's not gonna, "Oh, sit down. Tell me how you feel about this." He doesn't do that. It's not true. What you just said. "Shut up to the storm." That's what's true. And I do care about you. And that's what's true. Stop acting like none of this is true. He comes in and he says, "What's true?" "You are my mighty man of valor." Gideon tells him the facts as he views them. And what truth he draws from the facts. Well, here's a situation we're in though. This is occurring in our country. As a result that I have drawn the conclusion based on the facts that you have, the Lord has forsaken us. Doesn't my conclusion? And his and and well, look what the Lord says. And the Lord turned to him and said, "I love." Here's, here's, here's, here's Gideon's questions. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And here's the Lord's answer. "So mighty man, let's go in the strength that you're already possessed." He doesn't answer one of those questions. Why not? Because they don't matter. Like, "I'm not here to answer your why questions. I'm here to tell you what to do. I'm here to tell you who you are. And I'm here to tell you what to do." "God, what do you want me to know? And what do you want me to do?" God does not answer why questions. He doesn't ask Job that. That's Job. But when you say to God, "Lord, this is a situation I find myself in. What do you want me to know about this situation? What's true about this situation?" He'll tell you every time. And then, "What do you want me to do?" He'll tell you every time. Because obedience is better than sacrifice. How are you gonna obey if you don't know what to do? He'll answer every single time. But he'll only speak to you in your identity. Because he only will ask you to obey inside of your true identity. If you don't know your identity, you don't know he's talking to you. And the Lord's turned him and said, "Go on the might that you that's already yours." And you say, "This is real. You do it. You save Israel from the hand of Midian." "Do I not? Aren't I the one sending you?" "Like, you? I'm here. Let's go. Come on. Here we go. Ready? Here we go. You're a mighty man of valor. I made you that way. Ready? Here we go. Stop living like a coward." "Where are you living like a coward?" "By the way, you're a mighty man of valor." "Well, never mind this. Yeah. Come on. Let's go. And save Israel." "Who you?" "How many of us?" "You." "I never." "Who asked you?" "You." "One of you." "You who in this room?" "Do you do you understand what this means? One of us in this room can rescue the United States of America if we move in our own idea, your identity with God." "One of us can do." "We do not believe that stuff. We do not believe that." "Boy, what if we did? What if I actually thought, hey, I think God's actually calling me to kind of lead the whole country?" "What if we did believe that? That God would talk to us like, 'Draw near to me, Lord.'" "Okay. Lead the country." "Go away from me, Lord. I feel so distant from you because I'm not gonna do that." This is the, this is the duplicity in our relationship with God. We, it's such a waste of time. Why? It's not fun. We think we're saying something to God. He's like, "You, do you know? You don't even know what you're saying, do you? You think you're asking me for protection from something and you don't even know what you're saying to me. And what you're saying is wrong. Ask me what I want you to know. And ask me what I want you to do. And I am happily tell you. And I will send you. And I will even go with you to do it." Isn't that amazing? Wouldn't that be exciting? And the Lord turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian. Do I not send you?" And he said to him, Gideon says, "Please, Lord, how can I save Israel?" All right, here's a better question. At least he's participating now. "How can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house." True and true. "But unimportant." And unimportant. Not how we decide things. Yeah. But my family's tiny. "I know. I already knew that before I got here. What's the point of that statement?" "We're a little family." "I know. What so?" "Do you use a little family?" "I'm an only child." "Okay." "All right. All right. That's your." "And we're weak." "I know. That's why I'm here. Do you get that? Because we're your wheat." "Like, I'm really strong." "Here's the beautiful truth statement. I'm weak." "Yes, you are." "Yes." "Beautiful." "I don't show up when you think you can do it. Ever. And guess what? You fail. But when you look at me and say, 'Wow, we're just a little people and we're weak, but can we walk in our true?'" "I didn't do this." "Yes, yes. Because I will get with you on that one." "Yeah." "But I will be with you and you will strike the Midianites." "Ask one man." "What a statement." Gideon has no idea what that means. It was like, "You mean I'm gonna go out by myself?" "Yes." "Alone?" "No, but me." "Yes." "As one man?" "Yes." "But you will fight with many as one person, unified as one. And you will all be of the same mind in one accord. And when you are moving the same mind as one accord, and you move as."