Pastor Jeff and Cheryl Orluck
Pastor Jeff: Thank you, everybody. Welcome to you too, Cheryl. Good to have you.
Cheryl: We were just singing about the light, and we are shopping for a new fridge and I open this one refrigerator and the back wall is the whole light. It's a honeycomb design, so when you open the fridge, it's like glory. And of course, it's like the most expensive one.
Pastor Jeff: Of course.
Cheryl: And I'm like, "Oh, I want this one." It's just crazy. I was just thinking about how there is a greater light than that profile refrigerator. I'm just calming down. I don't need that light. I need that light. Okay. You can go on now. I just had to say that.
Pastor Jeff: I was just struck this morning. Thursday night we had our, our monthly prayer gathering, and I just felt honored to be sitting in praying with men and women of real, not just integrity, but power. It was an awesome hour that we spent together. And then this morning, I was looking around the room before the service started and I just thought, what an amazing thing to be part of this community that is just full of powerful people. It's remarkable. I'm so thankful that God has me here with you for us to do kingdom work together, because I'm with people who understand who they are and take seriously what they are called to. There is a lot more to come, I'm telling you. It's great.
One of those people, we get to honor this morning. Cheryl and I get to do that. It has been in my heart for a number of weeks now, and I'm so happy that we can take just a few minutes to honor Mr. Lee, Wangley, this morning for being a faithful servant at Hope. Lee, why don't you just stand for a moment, let everybody see your face. Anybody who may not know who you are, this is Lee Wangley. If I understand right, he may be the longest member of hope, aside from Pastor Brian, Jackie and Micah, because he attended the church, the very second meeting that they ever had. Is that right? You don't have to stay standing, but you--Lee has been a steadfast staple in this church ever since it started. And he has always been here. He is here every single Sunday. You'll never find him missing unless there is a good reason. When we built this building as it is with most construction projects, there are surprises. After doing a lot of course, coil samples and all this, it turns out we still had to dig out a bunch of bad earth. As long as we were digging it out, we thought, well, let's put it in a basement. But the basement required a whole lot of physical labor. Lee was one of those people who was here almost every evening after work, tying rerod for the pillars that all had to be poured with concrete for the work that was being done in the basement. He has been physically a part of building this church. He has been spiritually a part of building this church, and you will always find him sitting there.
Do you know what else is cool about Lee? He was married for many years to a very beautiful and talented woman named Kathy. She was actually an excellent singer with a beautiful voice. But she suffered many, many years with some real debilitating pain. Lee was faithful to help her serve her care for her every single day of their long life together that they lived when she was struggling with this pain. We lost her to heaven and Jesus got her. We'll see her again soon. That was a few years ago. He was just the kind of a faithful husband that it just exemplifies who Jesus is. And on top of that, his children come to church here and his grandchildren come to church here. In fact, Corey is up here running the slides for us today. We are just very thankful for who you are, Lee, and what you've brought to Hope over these many years.
Cheryl: I just want to say thank you for the love that I've felt from you, that you give to so many here. Your smile, the stories of your life are miraculous. Amen. You've survived life and death situations, being a policeman. When I look over at you on Sundays, I just think you are so precious, you are so valuable. I am so glad to know you now and to look forward to spending all of eternity with you. Thank you, Lee.
Pastor Jeff: Lee, the Lord gave me a word for you. And he spoke to me, and he said, "You think you are small and insignificant, but I say to you, you are a giant in my kingdom. You stand tall in my kingdom. I say to you that the demons know who you are and they are afraid of you. I say to you that you have proven yourself to be faithful and strong and true in service to me. I say to you that I honor you for that. I say to you that the time of service has not ended for as long as you have days on this earth. There is more that I have for you to do. So do not despair, give up or think of yourself as insignificant for those things would not be true if you embrace them. But what is true is that you are my son and you are my soldier. And that even this day called you to serve me even as you have all of these years. And I am pleased with you, my son and I have anointed you for more to do, that many will come to know me and that they will experience my love." And the mystery, Lee, is that while you've been waiting for the Lord to show you what to do, you've been doing it all along, and we have been blessed because of it. Yeah. Amen. Amen. That was the coolest song. Isn't that the coolest song?
Cheryl: Yes.
Pastor Jeff: We played that worship song, "Speak the name of Jesus, speak Jesus". Thursday, before we started praying, I said, "Oh, I wish we could sing that song before Cheryl and I speak our word." The Lord is so good. The title of our sermon is "The Jesus Way." As you know, we've been teaching the Jesus way, different Jesus' ways over the last year. The subtitle is "Trampling on Snakes and Scorpions". We are going to start with Luke chapter 10. This is kind of the heart and soul of our message. This is in the New Living Translation, verses 17 to 20.
Cheryl: When the 72 disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name. Yes, he told them, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy. And you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. But don't rejoice because evil spirits obey. You rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.
Pastor Jeff: So how do you like that? Jesus gave his disciples, we happen to be some of those disciples, he gave them authority over all of the power of the enemy. That's you and that's me. Jesus gave us authority over all the power of the enemy. There is no power that Satan or his demonic accord has that you don't have more of. In fact, we will get into it probably the next time we speak what kind of power he has and it's very limited. But regardless of that, every one of us, every single one of us who is a child of God, has been given this authority. It's interesting; he said, I'm giving you authority over the power of the enemy. You are going to walk among snakes and scorpions and you are going to do what to them? You are going to crush them. The title of the message comes from a different v version of the Bible where he uses the word trample them and it says, and nothing will injure you. We'll talk about that maybe in the next time we preach. We talk, we visit, I rewrite our notes, we talk again, we rewrite the notes and we ended up with so much. I think it stretched into a two week message.
Cheryl: And we got the message for the next time after that.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah. The Lord is good. We are going to go through I think the hows, the whos and the whys today. And then the what's will be probably follow that. How did we come across this authority? How is it that we have this authority? And I think it's really important that we start there so that we see the underlying foundation of the authority that Jesus has given us to live in and to minister to others in. Because the authority is for two things that I can see. We'll get into that more a little bit later, but it's really for our benefit and it's for the benefit of the nations. That's why he gave us the authority. He told the disciples they had this authority after they had gone out and ministered in his name too many others and they saw wonderful results.
This authority from the very beginning, we need to understand actually, it really is rooted in what he said to the disciples at the very end of this verse here. He said, "don't rejoice because evil spirits obey you. Rejoice because your names are registered in heaven." This authority is rooted in heaven, and it's rooted in our identity as children of God. That's where the authority is rooted: in your identity. Your identity comes from heaven. Let me say it again. Your identity and your destiny both come from heaven. They were not determined by your education. They were not determined by your childhood years, your family, your background. They are not determined by your ethnicity. The color of your skin or the nation that you grew up in. Your identity and your destiny were formed and determined in heaven. It begins with you being a child of God.
We've got just a couple of scriptures that speak to this and we are going to look at Galatians 4:6 and Ephesians 2:6. We'll probably take a pause in between them. But these are scriptures, you know, but we just want to reinforce this truth because this is the core foundation of everything that we do for Jesus and in our lives with Jesus. So
Cheryl: Because you are his son's, God sent the spirit of his son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out Abba, Father.
Pastor Jeff: Our identity is rooted in our intimate relationship with the Father. He calls us children. He calls us sons. He calls us daughters. We call him Father. If we use a term Abba, then we are calling him papa. It's a term of endearment; it's a term of intimacy. The Lord has always, everything that he has done, every, everything that he did for redemption, the whole reason Jesus died was because the Father was looking to have intimate relationship with us. He succeeded in doing that because Jesus bridged the gap so that we could again be joined in spirit and we could be joined in relationship with the Father and out of our hearts, we can know that he loves us and we can call him papa. That's where your whole identity comes from, is from the very fact that God is your papa. What an amazing thing.
Something I want you to understand about the name of Jesus. We sang a very powerful song about that name. The name of Jesus for us is not just a trigger we use to get things done. The name of Jesus is not just a tool in our toolkit when we serve God. The name of Jesus was given to us. It is your name because you are in his family. When you are in a family, you take the family name. So the name of Jesus is not just a tool; it's who you are. It identifies you. I am a Jesus follower. Jesus is my brother. Jesus is my lover. Jesus is my friend. Jesus is my Lord. Everything about my life can be summed up with my name, Jesus.
When you are speaking in his name, when you are using his name for authority, when you are commanding a demon to leave somebody in the name of Jesus, it's not just your tool or your trigger; it's your very identity. It's him in you that you are calling on. It's more than just functional. Amen. It's relational, this name that he is given us, so it makes it even more valuable and precious and it really makes us want to use it in the right way of course too. Let's try Ephesians 2.
Cheryl: For He raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms. Because we are united with Christ Jesus.
Pastor Jeff: Everything that we have begins and comes from those heavenly realms. When Jesus came in, he said, "The kingdom of God is near." We've talked about this before. There are two ways you could maybe translate "near". One is "it's soon to come". But I don't think that's what he was saying. The other way is geographically; it's saying it's close to you. I think that's what Jesus was saying. The kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is near; reach out and take a hold of it because it's right there for you. You see our identity, our life, our hope, our source is all in that kingdom that is here, that is near. When it's near. It's so close. You can reach out and take a hold of it. You can step into it, and you can live there.
That was his intent: that we would come under his lordship, live under his reign and in the goodness of everything that comes with his reign. His reign is his kingdom. Where he is ruling is where everything that is good about him happens. And we step into it by faith when we trust him. If you've trusted Jesus, you've stepped into this place where all the goodness of God is available to be showered out on you every day of your life. That should get an amen.
Cheryl: I like the reaching out part, reaching out for the kingdom. It's right there.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah, it's right there. Pull it in. It's not far away. It's not up there. It's in here. Holy Spirit lives in here. You don't have to call down Holy Spirit from heaven. He is here all the time.
Let's talk about the who. Who did Jesus give us authority over? Number one, he didn't give us authority over God. But sometimes when I listen to people pray, I wonder if they are confused about that. You ever hear people pray and it's like they are telling God what to do? You should tell yourself. I do. She is got the greatest story.
Cheryl: My seventh grandchild was being born and I would be at the birth. My daughter called; it was her third child and she said, "Mom, I got to go." And so it was them driving their car, me driving my car, and we are racing down the freeway. Okay? And we are both going the same way. So I don't know if I'm going to see them or not. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying to God, you keep that baby in until we get to the hospital in Jesus' name. I'm telling him that very like-- I don't know.
Pastor Jeff: Passionately.
Cheryl: Passionately. Yeah. I'm one of those people that's arms were flailing in the car and I was talking and people would be like, what is she doing? Anyway, we had to pull over and the baby was born. It was beautiful birth. Beautiful. Okay. And the police come, the firetrucks come. We, the baby had already been born and then they took Amber and ran and Ben along to the hospital to just make sure everything was good. And I was following behind them. And now I was exclaiming to God how smart he was and how much he knew and what a blessing that was to, to deliver a baby like we were by ourselves delivering a baby. And that was just the best thing. And I was telling him how he knew, you know, like he knew the whole time what he was going to do and it was just beautiful.
She told God what to do and he didn't listen. Number two, Jesus didn't give us authority over people. He didn't give you permission to tell everybody else in your life what to do. And the way I hear some people talk, it seems like they are confused about that. We spend so much time worrying about what everybody else should do. We have some basic responsibilities. We need to guide our children. Children need to be instructed and sometimes they need to be told what to do. But that's your responsibility if you are a parent. Sometimes, we think it's our job to tell everybody else's kids what to do. Maybe not so much or to tell other parents how they should take care of their kids. Probably not so much or to tell unbelievers what they should believe. Probably not the way that a lot of us want to do it.
The authority that we have isn't supposed to be used to coerce people to believe. It's not supposed to be used to coerce people to behave. It's not your job to get everybody to behave. It's your job to love them. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, they will take care of the behavior piece. if all you do is scold them and tell them what they are doing wrong, they are never going to fall in love with Jesus because they are because they are too busy being mad at you. Amen. How many people in our world are mad at God right now because of the way the church has treated him. But we've talked about that a lot. We don't have to beat that. It's a dead horse, but it's real. It's real. We don't have authority over God. We don't have authority over people. Oh, I have a great scripture for the authority over God piece. Let's go to Matthew 8:9 Because this is a good thought. I like this when the Lord gave it to me. It's on page two at the top.
Cheryl: I know this because I am under authority.
Pastor Jeff: Hold on one second. This is the centurion talking to Jesus. He wanted Jesus to come heal a servant. Jesus said, oh, I'll go to your house right now. And then this is what the centurion said.
Cheryl: I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say go and they go or come, and they come. And if I say to my slaves, do this, they do it.
Pastor Jeff: All the authority that we carry and when we see responses to our commands and we'll talk about those commands. It happens not because we are such authority figures ourselves; the reason we carry the authority is because we are under the Father's authority. It just flows; it follows. It follows us because we are his children and we are his servants and he is called us. Let's go back to Luke 10:19. Oh Cheryl, you are going to say something about this whole thing about the authority that he gives us.
Cheryl: Yeah. I just want to say that I have felt like it's God honoring me when he allows me to pray for people to use authority, to use it in my daily life, to use it in my own life. It's just such an honor to have that power to keep things in check and to serve others on behalf of Jesus and to follow that as a responsibility from him to do. It's like another obedience way of serving him. I just feel such honor when I operate in that. Yeah.
Pastor Jeff: When you get to do the things that Jesus called you to do, you realize there is nothing better in life. That's what we are here for. That's what we live for. Going out and doing street ministry, I remember I had one time, I had the greatest conversation with this guy who was very antagonistic at first. We really formed a relationship and ended with a really positive conversation down on a lake in Chicago and Minneapolis. He left and we got done. And I said, Lord, "If I could do this every day, I would give up golf." That's back when I was golfing. I gave it up anyways, but not because of the kingdom, just because I wasn't any good. Let's go back to Luke 19. I want to read again verse 19 of Luke 10 or Luke 10, verse 19, what Jesus said to his disciples,
Cheryl: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Can y'all picture that?
Pastor Jeff: Who did he say?
Cheryl: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Yep. I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.
Pastor Jeff: The truth is, the authority God gave you is not over humans. It was over spiritual means, who are active and busy in this world. Their primary purpose is to kill steel and destroy. Destroy. There is nothing they love better than to oppress beings who are made in the image of God. They love to oppress God's children and they love to oppress all those who are called to be God's children, which covers the whole human race. That's their mission. They live to oppress, and they do it very well. We see a whole world living in oppression because of the existence of this enemy and his hoard.
Cheryl: And then we come along in our authority.
Pastor Jeff: And we mess it all up.
Cheryl: And that is big. That is big.
Pastor Jeff: Okay, how about Ephesians 6:12? Here is another one. These are familiar scriptures, but I just want to make sure we have a biblical foundation for this.
Cheryl: But we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. There is an unseen world. I've heard it's more real than this. It's real.
Pastor Jeff: It was quite a long time ago. There was a, a real serious conflict in Serbia, Croatia. Oh my goodness, it could be as long as 30 years ago now. The US was considering getting involved in that fracas. I went to a gathering of pastors and intercessors about that time. And I remember there was a, an intercessor who I really respected who was doing some instructing at that thing. He talked about the Serbian conflict, Serbian, Croatian. He said, "Unfortunately, what the government doesn't understand is that these are ancient, ancient battles that are rooted in demonic principalities. This stuff has been going on for hundreds of years between these specific groups of people and behind the warfare are principalities. If you get involved in that-- it's not something new, and it's not something that's physical; it's spiritual. It's rooted in the spiritual.
Obviously, in this world of nations, there is spiritual and there is physical. And somehow, they work together. They are joined together. It's impossible among nations when one nation chooses to be an aggressor, if they choose to be aggressive, say as Russia, as Putin did with Ukraine, Zelensky, two choices: he can mobilize his army or he can become Russia. It's really not God's choice that we would have war. But unfortunately, in this fallen world, we do. But behind these powers, behind Putin, there are other things that are at work that we don't see. If we ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding, he can show us how to pray. When we pray, we are not just praying against Putin. We are praying against something behind this.
I don't know if any of you remember. This is quite some years ago. Oftentimes, Pastor Brian will sing a song that Don Potter wrote from back in Morningstar days. Rick Joyner was the pastor back then. Rick Joyner wrote a book called The Final Quest. Anybody familiar with that book? In that book, basically, it's a dream. I forget if it's a dream or a vision that he had. It was a pretty powerful experience he had. And he wrote it all down. He was climbing a mountain. It has been a long time since I read it, so it's a little bit vague, but, but the point is, while they were seeking to climb, ascend this mountain, they were being attacked. These demons were attacking them, and they were shooting arrows at them. But the amazing thing about it is that the demons were riding mounts, and the mounts were human beings.
All of the onslaught of these demonic hoards against Rick and all these believers that were sending this mountain were demonic, but they were carried by humans. And so much of the political and social and moral warfare that we experience in our culture today is-- I'm not saying that people who think different than us are demon possessed, but all of us can easily be under the influence of, and the oppression of spiritual forces. All of us experience that. We have to remember that even in political and social and moral issues, our enemy is not people. We are fighting against a spiritual enemy that's seeking to destroy this world because God loves it, and he hates God. He wants to destroy everything God loves, and so he will turn everything backwards that God made good.
And we see it happening, but it's because of his influence. If we are angry and name calling and arguing with people, we are fighting the wrong battle. We've been given authority over the snakes and the scorpions. People are not the snakes and the scorpions. People are oppressed by the snakes and the scorpions. It's our job to help them be unoppressed. One of the greatest ways that we'll do that is to exercise our authority on their behalf.
Cheryl: We get to do that for people. I'm so excited. This morning I woke up and I was like, okay, what day is today? What do I have to do? And, and it's like, oh, yeah, we get to preach today. And then I said, "Lord, help me." As I'm getting ready, the Lord brought to my mind a story when I was a child, and I grew up on a farm. When I was four years old, we got an Arabian horse. So when my dad put me on the horse, he said to me, "Now, I want you to remember one thing when you are riding this horse." And I'm like, what? And he said, "You are the boss. You are the boss of the horse." And I'm like, what? I'm the boss of this big thing? How can I do that? He says, "You don't need to kick it or slap it or anything like that. Just inside, you need to know that you are the boss, and the horse will sense that." Now, think of that in the realm of thinking of who you are and what you have in Christ, and how we walk around on this earth. Like we know that we are, so to speak, the boss against the enemy in people's lives. I love thinking that I'm like the FBI for God, and I'm like against the enemy and I'm going to get them. You know? Yeah. But that story to me about my horse was very powerful in the rest of my life. It just so fits into the scriptures and how we walk in life to set the captives free.
Pastor Jeff: When she wakes up, the devil says, boy, she is up. Watch your back.
Cheryl: Yeah. That's how I want to be.
Pastor Jeff: That's how we want to be. That's how we are. That's who we are. That just feeds really well into the whole, the whole why issue. Why did he give us his authority? And we are going to go back to Luke 9. We are going to look at verses 1 and 2.
Cheryl: To proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick,
Pastor Jeff: Up higher, not the one in yellow.
Cheryl: Oh. The spirit of the Lord is on me.
Pastor Jeff: Nope. Up higher.
Cheryl: No, okay. Then when Jesus called the 12 together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
Pastor Jeff: This is what Jesus sent his disciples to do: Drive out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the kingdom, and heal the sick. That would be us. That would be us. And not only did he call us to do it, but he gave us authority to do it. It's pretty amazing. The next one that Cheryl started to read is, is Jesus' mission statement, which is very important for us to understand as we reach into the lives of people.
Cheryl: The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Pastor Jeff: This is Jesus' mission statement. This is what he said he came for. He came to set people free. He came to give blind people sight, not just physically blind, spiritually blind. He came to open our eyes. He came to get us out of prison, not just physical prison, spiritual prison. So many of us are trapped in spiritual prisons of depression, spiritual prisons of confusion, spiritual prisons of lies that have caused us to go down a pathway that is destructive because we believe things that aren't true. In fact, that's the greatest, the only weapon that the devil has is the lie. Jesus said he is the liar and the father of lies. That's the weapon that he uses. He gets us to believe things that aren't true. And when we do, it affects how we live. It affects how we think, how we talk and how we live. Did I knock something over? Oh, okay.
Pastor Jeff: That's our mission now, is to take the authority of Jesus and go do the same thing that he did. And actually, it begins with our life because I can't help everybody else if I'm stuck in in a prison of depression. But you see the truth, and we are going to get more into this. There is so much to say about truth that we need a whole other session because we are running out of time here. In July, I think we speak on July 9th, it'll be a sequel to this, and we are going to talk a lot about how we wage the war. But let's just say this, that the truth is something that we need to learn how to apply to our own mind, in our own heart. Because the one thing that the enemy will constantly try to do is convince us of something that's not true that will diminish our joy. It will diminish our authority, and it will diminish the happiness that we carry in our lives, the meaning.
It all goes away when we believe things that aren't true. And as I've said before, oftentimes we think the devil will come and speak to us, and he'll pretend he is God. I find with me, he more often talks to me and tries to convince me that it's me that's talking. He disguises his voice as my voice. And of course, he won't ever hesitate to use somebody else to speak lies to you as well and tell you how worthless you are. The first place to employ the authority, of course, is in our own lives to determine that our identity comes from Jesus because he loves me and he loves me, and he loves me, and he loves me, and he will never reject me. And he forgives me when I fail. And he lifts me up, and he keeps me going forward. He has called me. I have a reason to live. There is a purpose for my life. My life has meaning because I am a child of God, and I am called by him. I have a destiny that he has given me. See, those things need to become real inside of us. They need to break down the lies that say, you have no value, you have no ability, you might as well just curl up and die. But we have that authority, and he is given us the truth. He sent the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth.
In Luke nine, two, Jesus said, proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. I want to suggest something to you. Don't be shy about praying for your friends and family when they are sick. Don't be bashful about that. Oh, but what if nothing happens, then nothing happens. But what if something does happen? What if you pray for somebody and something does happen? I think we can safely say that if you pray for your friends when they are sick, or your family when they are sick, there is a better chance you'll see a miracle than if you don't. Chances are pretty good if we all start believing who we are and what we've been given and we care. Remember, we are not doing this to prove anything. We are not doing this to convince anybody we are doing this because we love them. The same reason Jesus came and did it. Jesus came to redeem us because he loved us. We reach out into the lives of our family members and our friends and our work associates, and maybe even a random stranger when the Holy Spirit prompts you because of love. It doesn't matter if so, I'll make a fool out of myself. So you get to be a fool for Jesus. But maybe you won't be.
I have all kinds of friends and acquaintances who dared to pray for someone who was sick. I had one friend, he worked in a shoe store and his associate salesperson broke his leg and h he said, "Can I pray for you?" And the guy said okay. And he prayed for him. The guy's leg was healed. Whoa. Think that changed his life?
Cheryl: Anyway, when you pray for people, the spirit of God comes on them, and they feel the touch from him. That's not nothing. That's something
Pastor Jeff: We had one family member who was once in a while would come to Hope. She was visiting Hope, and Cheryl just went to greet her, stood behind her, rubbed her shoulders a bit, and began to pray over her.
Cheryl: And she said, "What are you doing? What's happening?" And I'm like, "It's the spirit of the Lord. Yeah. He loves you so much." She was like, "I'll take more of that."
Pastor Jeff: Most people are not going to be angry that you offer to pray. A few will. I offered to pray for a guy in a tobacco store. It's hilarious, isn't it? I had a friend, and I was his guardian and he smoked. And so I would help him manage his money. I would go and try to find him cigarettes cheap. There was a store owned by an Islamic man, and he was struck; he was complaining about his back. And I said, "Can I pray for you?" And he said, "Yes, but you can't pray in the name of Jesus." So that made it pretty hard.
Cheryl: What happened?
Pastor Jeff: Well, I tried to pray for him without using the name of Jesus, but I ended up thanking the father. And he said, "See, see, see how you just talked about the father?" So he didn't appreciate my prayer. But that's okay. So what? I probably said this. We used to, quite a few years ago now, when we were in the Toronto Blessing revival days, we had meetings at an empty mall called the Apache Plaza. We called them the Catch the Fire meetings at the Apache Plaza, the Apache Plaza meetings. A guy from Canada was a guest speaker. His name was Steve Hill. Every time he would speak. There would be amazing worship, he'd speak, and then the rest of the night we spent praying for each other. He would always say if nothing else happens tonight, if nobody gets healed and nobody gets a miracle, he said, the one thing that's going to happen is that everybody is going to get loved on really, really well.
It happened every single night we went, people were praying for each other, loving each other, blessing each other, and miracles happen. So don't be afraid. I remember Bill Johnson told a story. They got a Bible school out there. It's a signs and wonders Bible school. This is a long time ago he shared this story, but I've always remembered it. One of the students was shopping at Walmart one day, and he noticed that his hands were really hot. And he said to himself, "Oh, this is the Holy Spirit, I got to find someone to pray for." He started walking around the Walmart, stopping people and say, "Excuse me, sir. Do you need prayer for anything? Excuse me, ma'am. Do you need healing?" Finally, he was at the front door and the guy was walking in. He said, "Excuse me, sir, do you need healing?" And the guy looked at him and said, "Well, as a matter of fact, I do." He said, "Well, what do you need healing for?" He said, "Oh, I've got a horrible back." And the guy said, "Well, can I pray for you?" And he said, "Sure." So he put his hot hands on the guy's back, and the guy was instantly healed.
And so this kid didn't know any better, so he took the guy outside at the front of Walmart and he put his arm around. He says, "Ladies and gentlemen, this gentleman was just healed by Jesus Christ. And if you want to be healed, you can come here, and I'll pray for you too." Let's catch a little fire. There is a little fire here in worship. The Lord is sending more fire. He is got more for us. He is got a whole world of nations, broken, oppressed, and needy people who need his love and his redemption. And we are the ones that are going to bring it. You going to say something? It's us. We are all he has. Cheryl and I were listening to a message from our friend Bill the other day, and he asked this question, and so I'm stealing it from him. Let's just pose Matthew 28, verse 18 and 19 for this question. And that would be on the bottom of the last page.
Cheryl: Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always to the very end of the age.
Pastor Jeff: Now, if Jesus gives us authority to act in his behalf, and he gives us a mandate to do something like make disciples of all nations, will it be accomplished if we fail to do it? Is God just going to say, oh, I guess they are not going to get it done. I'll take over. Or as Cheryl said, is it a tremendous honor that he is chosen us to be his vessels of mercy on this earth? And he gave us his authority and he mandated us to bring redemption to the nations. And we are the ones who proclaim the kingdom of heaven and heal the sick. And if his church fails to do that, how will it get done? Or as Paul said, how shall they believe if they have not heard? And how shall they hear if they are not sent?
It's us, guys. It's a huge privilege, and it's also very scary. But do it anyways. Remember what Brian talked about last week? Do it anyways. Dare to care. Dare to pray for people. Don't ever, ever let the devil tell you that your prayer is just a meager poultry offering that doesn't have any value. I learned this in one of my travels to Ukraine. Pastor Robert-- Cheryl and I both had to say that, you know, Pastor Robert wears some really nice suits when he comes to church and preaches and stuff, but I only ever feel underdressed when he and TaQuaris come dressed in their African garb. And then I kind of look at myself, it's just like, I need one of those, you know.
I haven't been to Congo, but I've been to Ukraine many times and back when I started going was shortly after the Soviet Union fell. You couldn't even buy gas at the gas stations. People would be holding up gas cans along the side of the road and you had to stop and buy your gas black market. You couldn't get light bulbs. There is so much. I mean, nobody had money. Everybody was poor. All these people would come to Pastor Gregory, who was the head pastor of the church with these tremendous needs. They were losing their house. They didn't have groceries, this and that, and this and that and he had no money. He had nothing he could do. He didn't have a benevolence fund. All of his parishioners were poor, so he would take by the hands, and he would pray his heart out for them. I realized there was nothing greater he could have given them than to take them by the hands and agree with them in prayer for the blessing of the Father.
In a few short years, as I kept going back to Ukraine, I saw his church members begin to not just get jobs, but start businesses and begin to prosper and begin to be able to help others because they were prospering. It was God answering the prayers that faithful people prayed. When you pray for people that are suffering heartache and discouragement and who need help, if all you can do for them is pray for them, that is significant. Don't think, well, gee, nothing happened. Don't let the devil take you there. Believe what Jesus called you to and who you are in him, And let's change the world. That's our mandate. One person at a time will change the whole world.
Cheryl: Start with your family.
Pastor Jeff: Yeah, good place to start. They are the hardest.
Cheryl: And it's not too late to start. I still pray for my mom to see and hear because she is 93 and can't see her here very well. I still pray for healing.
Pastor Jeff: Yes. Why stop? It's real. As Cheryl says all the time, God is real, and he loves you. God is real and he loves you. Well, let's pray. Thank you, Jesus. Father, we thank you for what you've done. It's kind of unnerving and it makes me feel a little guilty because I realize so much of my life, I haven't believed who I am or lived accordingly. But Lord, you are stirring fresh things in all of our lives here. You are calling us to a new season. And what you gave us is still very real. You've given us authority over all the powers of the enemy, and you've mandated us to use that authority on behalf of the people in our lives. So this morning, father, we just say yes to you. We say yes to you to step above our fear and our sense of intimidation, our doubts, our what ifs, and to dare to reach into the lives of those around us. With love, with prayer, with faith when we see oppression to take authority over the strongholds behind it, to break the powers of darkness can clear the spiritual air around the people we love, to open the door for Holy Spirit to begin to breathe on them and speak to them and draw them to the Father. That's who you are, God of redemption.
We are your ambassadors. We are the called ones. We ask that you help us Holy Spirit, begin to stir new things in our hearts. Begin to teach us open doors for us. Let us know when the door is open so we don't miss it, and help us to be faithful and courageous to step into opportunities that you give us. Thank you, Father. Thank you for what you are doing. We yield to you, and we trust you as we walk with you into it. Amen. Pastor Brian,
Pastor Brian: I was thinking of the song that was recorded many years ago. Every day they pass me by. People need the Lord. Every day we have people pass us by. Every day, we have people pass us by that need him. I just pray, Lord, that we would have eyes to see, ears to hear, so that we can be your hands extended. We can be Jesus with skin on to these people who might be smiling on the outside, but in the inside, they are crying floods of tears.
We see even junior high and high school, college kids with everything to live for taking their lives at an alarming rate today in our culture because they don't feel they have a reason to live. You've come to give us life and life more abundantly. You've come to break the power of oppression and depression. You've come Jesus to make all things new in our lives, to give us a new beginning, to give us a do-over regardless of the failures of our past. The enemy is there to seize every opportunity, to bring accusation and plant his lies into our hearts and people's hearts. But you are greater, Lord, than any scheme of the enemy. You are greater and you call us to be that hand extended, to be that authority over these oppressive beings that at the fall of Satan, they fell too.
But we do carry within us the authority over them, and we need not fear them, but to walk confidently in your love for us and your love for the world, your love for the world. So help us to know who we really have authority over and the rest we'll just love as you love. This we pray in your name. Hallelujah.
I still want to invite all of you to stick around for lunch. It smells good. I was having a hard time focusing on Jeff's sermon a little bit with that fragrance wafting through here. Thank you, Ken.
Pastor Jeff: Oh, and Pastor Brian, we should just remind our prayer team members that after lunch we'll be meeting over here. We will start in 120 and see how that works. And we'll spend an hour together as a prayer team.
Pastor Brian: We are going to bring a few tables out, but there is always time for communion. John and Tina will be serving communion today over here at my right. And there will be people here to pray for you if you have a prayer need at the altar. Let's just lift our hands and honor the Lord.
Now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. And may you walk strongly in the authority that Jesus has placed within you. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for being here today. Hopefully, you can stay for lunch. God bless you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 6-4-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.