Now I want to ask you a question
this morning.
If the Lord shows you a way out
of your dilemma, are you willing to walk
out?
Now I know I have a word for
somebody.
Now probably for a lot of people, it's
going to apply.
And it's an answer to a cry that's
in your heart.
This morning the Lord's going to show you
it's a way out.
Now the second part of the question, if
the way out is really simple, will you
still get up and walk out of it?
Are you looking for a complicated answer to
your problem or a simple answer?
That's the way God always is.
Remember in the midst of the storm?
When they said, do you not care that
we're going to perish?
What did he do?
He just stood up and what did he
say?
Peace.
Be still.
And that was the answer to the whole
problem.
All the effort, all the fear, all the
sense that we're not going to make it.
All that seemed to be against them and
overwhelming their journey.
It all came to an end.
You see, but they had to be willing
to let him speak.
And many people don't get to the end
of their struggle because they're simply not willing
to let him speak.
Feeling that we have to infuse something of
the impossibility of the situation into the equation.
In other words, we have to tell God
how hard it is.
Lord, I know you've never faced anything like
this before.
You've never seen a life like mine.
And perhaps there is an end to your
power.
Perhaps you've never figured you're ever going to
encounter somebody like me in all of creation.
We have to be willing to just simply
let him speak.
Now Father, I thank you God Almighty.
Lord, there is such simplicity in Christ that
Paul himself said to the Corinthians, I fear
lest you be turned from the simplicity that
is in Jesus Christ.
God Almighty, would you open our hearts?
Would you open our minds?
Would you just unlock heaven this morning?
Would you give freedom?
Lord, would you let a multitude of people
walk out of the captivity that the enemy
has prepared for them?
Would you give freedom?
And Father, would you give us the grace
to know that you are God?
And to have the courage to get up
and walk out of whatever trap the devil
has set for us.
And Father, we thank you for it.
We bless you.
We praise you.
In Jesus' mighty name.
Psalm 31, please, in the Old Testament.
I feel there's people here today that all
hell has come against you to keep you
from church this morning.
You had to fight to get here.
You had to fight in your mind.
You had to fight last night.
You had to fight when you found out
you were early and you forgot to set
your clock ahead.
You've had to fight to get here.
But you're here.
Thank God you're here.
And the Lord is not going to disappoint
you.
My message is entitled, Marvelous Kindness in a
Strong City.
Psalm 31, beginning at verse 21.
Blessed be the Lord, for he has showed
me his marvelous kindness in New York City.
For I said in my haste, I am
cut off from before thine eyes.
Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplications
when I cried unto thee.
Let me speak that in plain English.
I said without really clearly thinking it through,
there's no hope for me.
God has turned his face away from me.
But in spite of what I had said
and felt, you heard my cry when I
cried to you.
Oh, love the Lord, all his saints, for
the Lord preserves the faithful and plentifully rewards
the proud doer.
Be of good courage, and he will strengthen
your heart, all ye that hope in the
Lord.
Be of good courage.
Now, this is a psalm of David.
This is a psalm of a man who's
anointed to be a king.
He is, in one sense, a co-regent
with Christ.
He's ruling and reigning, and he has in
him, in the DNA of David, is Jesus
Christ.
And ultimately, the church of Jesus Christ.
But at a season in his life, David
found himself in a strong city.
By definition, it means a place where he
was hemmed in.
Where there seemed to be a mountain of
besiegers against him.
It was a place of distress, well defended.
In a sense that, not only was it
defended from without, it was defended from within.
In other words, nobody could get in and
nobody could get out.
David said, I'm in this place, and I'm
feeling around, and the walls are so thick.
And the defenses are so strong, I don't
know how to get out of this city.
I'm overwhelmed, I'm hemmed in by my circumstances.
And people in situations that so seem to
have the upper hand, that I feel like
I'm in danger of losing everything.
That I once felt God had promised me.
Have you ever been there?
Have you ever been in a place where
you feel like God gave you a promise
of something, even if it was a whisper
in your heart as a child, but now
you're in a place where you feel like
I'm in danger of losing it all.
I'm so weak, I'm so frail.
Verse 9 of Psalm 31.
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I'm
in trouble.
My eye is consumed with grief, my soul
and my belly.
In other words, all I can see is
hopelessness before me.
I don't see a way out.
I don't see how I'm ever going to
change.
I don't see how I'm ever going to
get through this.
I can't fight this anymore.
I don't have any strength to get through
it.
Verse 10, he says, my life is spent
with grief.
My years with sighing.
My strength fails because of my iniquity and
my bones are consumed.
In other words, I'm so filled with regret
for what my life has not been or
is not becoming, that I walk the streets
constantly sighing for grief.
I thought I was, I thought I was
going to be.
I thought there was hope before me.
I thought my life was going to take
a different course than it's taken.
And it's not becoming that.
And this sense of inner sense of grief
is starting to overwhelm me.
Now I do come to church.
I do raise my hands.
I do sing the songs.
But this grief is gaining strength and my
praise is losing strength.
My strength is failing, he says in verse
10.
I seem to have no power to change.
My weaknesses are stronger than my strengths.
And my bones are consumed.
That means I'm overwhelmed.
I don't have the power to stand anymore.
I don't know how to do this.
I don't know how to change.
I don't know how to live the Christian
life.
I don't know how to make a difference.
Verse 11, he said, I'm a reproach among
all mine enemies.
In other words, my enemies mock me.
There are these voices all around.
Ha ha, look at you.
Look what you've become.
You who are, what are you again?
You're going to rule and reign with who?
And look at you.
Is the kingdom of God in that despicable
condition that he needs you to rule and
reign with him?
Who are you anyway?
And all you can, now David is describing
in Psalm 31, something that's going on in
his heart.
He can feel this mockery around him.
Have you ever been in a place where
you can just feel hell laughing?
You can feel demonic powers around you.
Just, there's no, it seems like there's no
rest from it.
Laughing and mocking.
Look what's happened to your life.
Look where you're headed.
Look where you're going.
But especially, he says, I was approaching among
all my enemies, verse 11, but especially among
my neighbors.
In other words, the people around me, they
don't see anything in me or my testimony
that they would, they would find desirable.
That's not a very good place.
Have you ever been in a place where,
you know, Peter says, always be ready to
give an answer to people who ask for
the hope that is in you.
Have you ever been in a place where
nobody has asked you for like a year?
Because they don't see any hope.
And he says, my neighbors, they don't see
anything in me that they'd find.
Now that may not be true, but that's
an issue that's in his heart.
You can see this man going home every
day and wherever it is that he lives,
and he's, let's say he lived where you
did, and going down the corridor of your
apartment building, and it seems like you've had
so little effect on your neighbors.
They know you.
You say hi to them every day, and
there's this inner thought that they don't see
anything in me.
I'm supposed to be an ambassador for Jesus
Christ.
I'm supposed to bring the sweet savor of
God everywhere I go, but I don't think
my neighbors see anything in me that they
would want.
And he says, I was a reproach among
my enemies, especially among my neighbors, and a
fear to my acquaintance.
In other words, my friends are afraid of
what's happening to me.
People are telling me to lighten up and
enjoy the city just like they do.
Lighten up, enjoy the city.
There's lots to do here.
Find your solace in it.
But David knew his life was destined for
something higher than just lightening up and enjoying
the city.
And he says, and they that did see
me without fled from me.
And my life is supposed to be an
influence.
Yet, at least in my perception, people find
so little of God that's attractive in me
that they seem to be not only ignoring
me, they're avoiding me.
Now, a lot of this can be paranoia
in your life.
It can have no basis in reality.
You can be walking through the city, and
you can actually have the strength of God
in its full measure in your life and
just simply not be aware of it.
You've given in to inner fear.
You've given in to the voices of the
enemy.
Like the men in the boat, you're traveling
across, and suddenly the boat seems full of
water, and the waves seem to be overpowering
you.
Your human effort is seemingly not making a
lot of headway because of the violence of
the opposition that's against you.
But have you forgotten that Jesus Christ has
never left you?
He seems to be asleep, but he's not
asleep because God never sleeps.
He's just at rest inside of you.
He's carrying you.
He's never left you.
He's never forsaken you.
Verse 12, he says, I'm forgotten as a
dead man out of mine.
I'm like a broken vessel.
In other words, I'm supposed to represent life,
but I don't feel that I have anything
left.
And what I did have, the life I
once knew, seems to have escaped me.
Now, I don't know how many are living
in that place today, but I do know
from time to time, it can become the
struggle of most everybody.
And then inside, he said, I've heard the
slander in verse 13 of many.
Fear was on every side while they took
counsel together against me.
They devised to take away my life.
Now here's what the devil is really after.
Get you to despair, get you to see
no way out, get you to believe that
your life is somehow a gross disappointment to
the living God, get you to feel that
there's no point or purpose to your life.
And then the thought comes, why bother living?
Don't think that Christians are immune to this.
As a matter of fact, you become the
greater target once you know Christ.
He hates Christ and he hates everyone who
has Christ within them.
Why bother living?
What's the point of your life?
Go to church, pray some prayers, come home
to your apartment, sit here lonely.
Why bother living?
And folks, I know there are people here,
you're fighting these thoughts at this very moment.
You're actually fighting the thought of suicide.
Something you never entertained.
You never believed you'd ever entertain it.
You never thought you'd ever go there.
And if you don't deal with this inner
question that my life has no value, it's
not a long step to that point.
It's not a far step to get to
the place of thinking I'm better off dead
than alive because there's no purpose to my
life anyway.
You and I have a tendency to think
that the people of the Bible were supermen
and superwomen who didn't have to go through
the struggles that you and I go through.
But that's not the case.
And that's why God allowed people like King
David to write these words, to have you
and I understand.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, 13,
You're not going through something unique.
You're going through the very same thing that
others, hundreds of thousands and millions of people
before you have had to go through it
and they've made it through and they're now
part of that great balcony of witnesses in
heaven that are looking down and saying, Don't
give in.
Don't give in to the lies of the
devil.
Don't give in to the discouragement of the
enemy.
He'll try to convince you that you're the
only one, that somehow God's turned his face
from you, that your temptation is so different,
your trial, your situation is so unique, that
somehow it has even taken God by surprise.
But the word of the Lord says there's
no test that has come your way that's
any different than anybody else has ever had
to go through.
Peter himself says in 1 Peter 4, 12,
You have to understand when you came to
Christ, hell has a cannon and you came
right into the sights of that thing.
Your enemies, you're not fighting flesh and blood
anymore.
According to the scriptures, you're fighting spiritual wickedness
in high places.
You're fighting principalities of the air.
You're not fighting flesh and blood anymore.
You're fighting in a whole different arena than
you used to fight in before you came
to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
And it makes me thankful for the writer
of Hebrews, says in chapter 4, verse 15,
that we have a high priest in Jesus
Christ who understands and has felt our struggles.
The scripture says he was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
Jesus Christ went through what you're going through.
If he didn't, then the scripture is not
true.
The scripture says he was tested in all
points like you are.
That means he was tested to be discouraged,
tested to believe his life had no meaning,
tested to believe he was of no value,
even to his heavenly father, tested, moved upon
by the enemy, tempted constantly, badgered by powers
of darkness, all to stop him from going
to that cross, all to stop him from
the redemptive purpose of God that had been
set apart for his life.
You think maybe for a moment that he
might have been tempted to give up.
Now, it seems almost blasphemous, except it's in
the Bible, right?
Father, if it'd be possible, take this cup
from me.
If there is any other way, if it
could be done, if your redemptive purpose for
humanity could be accomplished another way, oh, Father,
would you consider doing it that way?
Listen to what Isaiah says about him.
He'll grow up as a tender plant and
as a root out of dry ground.
He has no form or comeliness, and when
we see him, there's no beauty that we
should desire him.
He's despised and rejected of men, a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we
hid, as it were, our faces from him.
He was despised, and we esteemed him not.
But surely he's borne our griefs and carried
our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
smitten of God, and afflicted.
Do not think that at some point, when
society seemed to be rejecting him, when he
had 12 people left at a table, one
of them was a devil, the other 11
were going to abandon him in his hour
of need.
When society itself, his own that he had
created, that he came to, who received him
not, looked at him and said, listen, there's
nothing kingly about him, nothing royal about him,
nothing noble about him.
There's nothing in him that any of us
desire.
Our religion has not brought us to the
point where this is the kind of a
Messiah that we would want to embrace.
We esteemed him not, the Scripture says.
Do not think at some point, walking through
the midst of that strong city, that discouragement
may not have come into his heart, that
thought to that part of him that was
man, fully man, there's no point to this,
there's no purpose to this.
Even Satan himself in the temptation in the
wilderness tried to virtually short-circuit the whole
procedure, trying to appeal to that.
What's the point?
The people don't appreciate it anyway.
If all you want to do is rule
and reign over them, why not just bow
down to me and do it my way?
Why not just agree with my logic?
Why not just bite into the same lie
that Adam and Eve embraced in the Garden
of Eden?
Why not just be God without having to
go to all this trouble of rejection, all
this difficulty?
He was tested, tempted in all points like
as we are.
I don't think that's even debatable.
How did he get through then?
You know, I love the fact that it
was really Psalm 31 that he was quoting
on the cross.
It's incredible because start in the beginning of
Psalm 31 verse 1.
In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust.
Let me never be ashamed.
Deliver me in thy righteousness.
Bow down thine ear to me.
Deliver me speedily.
For thou, be thou my strong rock for
a house of defense to save me.
For thou art my rock and my fortress.
Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me and
guide me.
Pull me out of the net that they
have laid privily for me, for thou art
my strength.
Into thine hand I commit my spirit.
Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, God of
truth.
This is the very verse that Christ spoke
in the last moments of his life on
the cross.
Father, into thy hand I commit my spirit.
It was not a random statement.
He was actually quoting Psalm 31 and verse
5 as we've come to know it.
Into your hand, O God.
Into your hand I have to believe that
there's a reason.
I have to believe there's a divine purpose.
I have to believe that God, you're going
to be faithful to me, Father.
You're not going to leave me in the
grave.
You're not going to let my enemies walk
over the place of my death.
You're not going to let hell itself sneer
at my life.
That's got to come into your heart, Saint
of God.
There's got to come something into your heart
that says, O God, this is about your
honor.
This is about everything you've ever promised.
This is about your life within my life.
Lord, you're not going to let me be
triumphed over.
You're not going to let this city ruin
the testimony of God.
You're not going to let my enemies triumph
over the testimony of Christ.
My life is not going to be irrelevant.
You're going to do something through me, God.
Even if I feel like I'm going down
to the grave, you're going to raise me
up.
That's why Paul says in the book of
Romans, but if the spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in
you, he that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by
his spirit that dwells in you.
He will quicken your mortal body.
The Lord said it never has been about
you.
It's not about your honor.
It's about my honor.
It's not about your ability to make it
through to the other side.
It's about my ability to take you through
to the other side.
If anybody's name suffers reproach in this, it's
not my name.
It's not your name.
It's the name of Jesus Christ.
And Christ will not allow his name to
be triumphed over.
Hallelujah.
I love the story of my little, well,
not my little girl anymore, but Kate, when
she was just a little girl, the overseer
of the denomination that I was pastoring at
that time and came to stay at my
house one weekend, he and his wife, and
Kate was about four, I guess, or five
at that time.
And so the overseer's wife said, do you
mind if I tuck your little girl in?
And Pastor Teresa and I said, fine, go
ahead.
So she went and sat beside her bed
and she said, Kate, she said, does the
devil ever come to you at night and
try to lie to you and try to
make you afraid?
And Kate says, oh, yes, he does.
And she said, well, when the devil comes,
what do you do?
And Kate looked her in the eye and
said, I'd tell him to go right back
to hell where he belongs.
Do you not think there might be a
bit of wisdom in that?
Do you not think there might be a
time just to get up and just tell
Satan to just go right where he belongs,
just get back where he belongs, just get
out of my life, get out of my
mind, get away from my spirit.
The one who raised Christ from the dead
is going to quicken my mortal body.
The one who raised Christ from the dead
is going to put light in my eyes.
He's going to put faith in my mind.
He's going to put vision again in my
heart.
He's going to make me understand that this
whole walk and testimony is not about me.
It's all about him, that I don't have
to bring him to people.
He is well able to bring himself to
people through my life if I will rest
in him and let him do his work
on this side of eternity.
Hallelujah.
Sometimes it's a good thing to die because
that's where Jesus Christ comes alive in us
again.
Sometimes it's a good thing to know our
weakness.
It's a good thing to know our frailty.
It's a good thing to know that you
and I can't get through this walk without
God.
We can't do it in our own strength.
We never would be able to.
We can't do it in our own power.
Listen to what the prophet Isaiah says in
Isaiah chapter 40.
Now that chapter begins where God tells Isaiah
to comfort the people of God.
He says, Speak comfortably to Jerusalem and cry
to her that her warfare is accomplished.
Her iniquity is pardoned.
And she has received of the Lord's hand
double for all her sins.
Now the Lord told Isaiah, Now you go
to my people and you comfort my people
and you tell them that I have won
the victory.
Her warfare is accomplished.
The victory is not hers.
It's mine.
I've pardoned her sin and I've given her
life where all she had was sin and
failure.
In verse 27, the Lord asks a question.
He says, Why sayest thou, O Jacob?
Now Jacob is, you can insert yourself into
there.
And speakest, O Israel, My way is hid
from the Lord and my judgment is passed
over from my God.
Why do you say that the Lord does
not see me?
Why do you say that God has forgotten
me?
That he's not fighting for me.
That somehow he has judged me.
Turned from me.
Why do you say this?
The prophet said to the people of God,
Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
In other words, Are you a stranger here
in Jerusalem?
Have you not heard that the everlasting God,
the Lord, the creator of the ends of
the earth is not faint?
Neither is weary?
That there's no end to his understanding?
Have you not heard?
Do you not know who it is that
you're serving?
Do you not understand who Jesus Christ is?
Do you not know what it means to
be filled with the Holy Spirit of Almighty
God?
Verse 29 says, He gives power to the
faint and to them that have no might,
he increases strength.
Even youth shall faint and be weary, and
young men shall utterly fall.
There's seasons and times and difficulties that the
strongest of us can't get through in our
own natural strength.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall
renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings as eagles.
They shall run and not be weary.
They shall walk and not faint.
They that wait upon the Lord, they that
allow God to be God within them, they
that turn away from the natural strength that
we all have and say, God, I'm not
gonna get through this in my own strength.
You've got to come and quicken me and
give me life.
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength.
They'll mount up with wings as eagles.
They'll run and not be weary.
They'll walk and not faint.
Hallelujah.
Then chapter 41 verse 1 starts.
Remember David said, I'm in a city.
I'm in a place where these voices are
roaring against me and the inward fear of
my heart is overcoming me.
I have these incredible promises of God but
I don't know how it's ever going to
become a reality in my life.
And he starts.
God says something.
God speaks.
Sometimes it's just as simple as God speaking.
Folks, we look for some incredible revelation.
You say, Pastor, if you'll just unlock some
new truth.
If you'll just present some new key.
My question to you is what's wrong with
the old key?
It still works in the lock.
Why do you need a new key?
The old one is just as good as
it's always been.
Still opens every prison door.
Still releases every captive.
Still unlocks every place.
Still opens the treasure house.
It's one key.
One key does all in the kingdom of
heaven, folks.
Opens the treasure house to the full supply
of God.
Why do you need another key?
Why do you need another revelation?
Chapter 41, verse 1.
Here it is.
Keep silent.
This is the voice of God.
Keep silence before me, O islands, and let
the people renew their strength.
It's that simple.
Remember in the boat Jesus stood up and
the disciples said, Do you not care?
We're about to go down.
We're perishing.
Our efforts have run out.
Our seamanship is not going to get us
through.
We know what you said but we don't
know how we're going to get there.
I'm so thankful they stopped talking.
Can you imagine if the scripture recorded then
Jesus stood in the boat and the disciples
kept on saying, Well, we'll row a little
harder.
Well, we'll do a little more.
Imagine if they didn't have the sense to
just be quiet.
And Jesus stood up and said, Peace.
Be still.
And the scripture says, Immediately the waves stopped
and the wind stopped.
And the disciples said, What kind of a
man is this that even the wind and
the seas obey him?
He says in Isaiah 41, Keep silence before
me.
There's a point where God just says, Quiet!
To every voice, every devil, every lie, everything
that's coming against your life.
It's that simple.
He just says, Be quiet.
You get up out of your seat.
You come and stand before God.
You're in the midst of a storm.
You don't know how you're going to get
through.
And suddenly God does what God has always
done.
He just, Deep in the recesses of your
heart, He says, Peace.
Be still.
After he rose from the grave and came
into the upper room where all those fearful
disciples were gathered, they'd all failed him.
They all felt like abject failures.
Peter had even brought an oath of a
curse upon himself, saying, I don't even know
who this man is.
John, for all his dedication of love, had
run away and left him alone in the
garden.
And all the people were failures.
And Jesus walked right through the door, right
into that room.
And the first thing out of his mouth
is, Peace.
Peace.
I know your hearts are troubled.
I know your hearts are afraid.
But in my father's house, the scripture says
there are many mansions.
And I go to prepare a place for
you where I am your coming also.
Until that day, I will never leave you
or forsake you.
Until that day, no weapon formed against you
is going to prosper.
Until that day, every tongue, every tongue that
rises against you in judgment, you shall condemn
it.
You have the right to tell it to
be quiet.
You have the right to stand against these
things.
You have the right.
It's a God-given right.
You have a righteousness that's not your own.
It is given to you by almighty God
himself.
You have a strength that is not your
own.
You have a cleanness.
You have a power that is not your
own.
You have a life that is not your
own.
It's all given to you by Jesus Christ.
You have the right to stand hell to
the face.
And say, be quiet.
Be quiet, Satan.
Be quiet.
And get behind me.
You have no taste for the things that
be of God.
Keep silence.
He said, Oh, islands and let the people
renew their strength.
Keep silence.
Keep silence, New York City.
Keep silence, airwaves.
Keep silence, every devil of hell.
Keep silent.
And let the people renew their strength.
Folks, I think this is a miraculous moment.
I don't say that lightly.
When I was given this word, I felt
in my heart that it's that simple.
God speaks and says, keep silence.
I'm never going to let my people go
down.
Wind, waves, airwaves.
Everything that comes against you, the Lord just
says, be quiet.
And let my people renew their strength.
Hallelujah.
Oh, hallelujah.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Father.
Thank you, God.
That we don't have to fight this in
our own strength.
Thank you, Lord.
That we don't have to get through these
days with our own reasoning.
Thank you, Lord.
That there is a power greater than anything
that will ever come against us as your
people.
Lord, there's provision greater than our want.
There's safety greater than our fear.
God, there's life that's greater than our failings.
You will be glorified in us, Jesus.
You will be glorified, Lord.
We thank you, Father.
Lord, I stand today against the hopelessness and
despair that Satan himself is trying to plant
in many of the people of God.
We take the authority given to us by
Jesus Christ.
Satan, we step upon your head.
We step upon your mind.
We step upon your thoughts.
Jesus Christ has triumphed over you.
The blood of Christ has cleansed us from
all sin.
The glory of God will carry us.
Father, we thank you, God.
I'm asking you, Lord, to break the spirit
of despondency and despair and suicide and the
feelings of worthlessness.
My God, break it.
Break it, Lord.
Break it to the uttermost.
Destroy it, oh God.
Cause it to lose its voice.
Cause it to lose its strength.
Lord, let your people go free.
Father, I thank you for this, Lord.
God, let this be a day of freedom.
Let it be a moment of freedom.
There is a moment, Lord.
There is a moment where fear is broken.
There's a moment, God, where captivity is taken
captive.
I ask you, Father, in Jesus' mighty name,
Lord God almighty, to open every prison door,
give sight to every blinded eye, give healing
to every wounded heart.
Lord, as we go into the Christmas season,
I pray, God, there'll be clapping of hands
in our streets.
There'll be a song in our hearts.
Oh, Jesus, you just do what you do,
Lord.
You raise us from the dead.
God almighty, you just do what you do,
Lord.
You give power to the faint and to
the weary.
You lift us up, God, and cause us
to walk and run in a difficult time.
Lord Jesus Christ, I'm asking you to do
the miraculous in our hearts.
God, in this hour that we're living in,
this is an incredible time for you to
declare your life through your church.
And, Father, we thank you for this in
Jesus' mighty name.
Now, we're going to stand, and I want
to give an altar call, which is an
invitation to come to the front of the
sanctuary for everybody in this place that this
message has spoken to you.
And you just simply come to the front,
and we're going to pray together.
Let's stand together.
In the annex, you can step between the
screens, if you don't mind.
We're going to pray together.
Just step out.
Everybody who's despairing.
You say, Pastor, you've just read my mailbox
today.
Who told you about my life?
God did.
Just step out.
We're going to believe God for the breaking
of despair, discouragement, a sense of worthlessness.
You're going to touch the hem of his
garment today and be healed.
He promises a new mind, a new spirit,
a new life.
And that's what he's going to give you.
Hallelujah.
The church of Jesus Christ is never going
down.
We're going over, folks.
Never down, always over.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, mighty God.
Thank you for freedom, Lord.
Thank you for peace in our hearts.
Thank you, mighty God.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
The only thing I have on my heart
to say to those that have come to
this altar is peace.
Peace.
The Lord says, I'm not angry with you.
I've loved you with an everlasting love.
I engraved you on the palms of my
hands.
You're not a failure.
The Lord would say to you, My life
is inside of you.
You're not a failure.
My blood has covered you.
You're not a failure.
You're going to rule and reign with me.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to carry you through life.
You have a divine purpose.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to walk with you.
You're not a failure.
My presence is going to flow through your
life.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to answer your prayers.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to unlock your prisons.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to give you spiritual sight.
You're not a failure.
I'm going to astound this generation with you.
You're not a failure.
You're my church.
You're my church, says the Lord.
You're my church.
You're my bride.
You're my people.
You're not a failure.
You belong to me.
You belong to God.
You're not a failure.
You belong to God.
You're the bride of Jesus Christ.
All heaven stands in envy of you today.
You are in an enviable position.
You're not a failure.
You're the bride of Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah.
You look in this text of scripture.
It was the people that pressed through the
crowd with issues of disease and social stigmas
and difficulty and the nobodies and nothings of
society pressed through and touched God and God
overturned the God of this world through them.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
You have an incredible future.
Future.
Remember, you don't have to do it all
yourself.
You just do the little part that God's
given you.
It's his job to save the world, not
yours.
You just live as a Christian.
And that's where the victory comes.
Stop sighing and start singing on the streets.
There's a point where you have to do
what Katie did.
Just tell the devil to go back to
hell where he belongs.
There's a point where you just have to
do that.
Satan, you're not having my day.
You're not taking my week.
You're not taking my joy.
And you might start singing on 50th by
faith and you might be fighting to spare
51st but by the time you get to
52nd, 53rd, all of a sudden the tune's
starting to come alive.
By the time you're at 55th, you might
be dancing in the street.
What does it matter?
And the beauty is in New York, you
can do that.
Any other town in America, they'd lock you
up.
But in New York, you can do that.
You can talk to God out loud in
the street.
You can clap your hands.
You can be happy in the midst of
this.
Lamb of God.
Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you, Lord.
Thank you.
Thank you, God.
Thank you, Jesus.
There is a time to shout.
There is a time to give God glory.
There is a time to praise Him.
There is a time to lift up His
name.
Hallelujah.
The wall is coming down.
There's a time to give God glory.
Hallelujah!
There is a time to shout!
There is a time to dance!
There is a time to rejoice!
Glory to God!
Let's give God praise!
Let's give Him praise!
Let's just finish this day out by giving
Him praise!
Hallelujah to the Lamb of God!
Hallelujah!
Thank you Lord!
Thank you mighty God!
Thank you Jesus!
Thank you Lord for freedom!
Freedom!
Thank you Lord!
Hallelujah!
Glory to God!
Thank you Jesus!