As followers of Jesus, we can't stay still. We have to keep moving forward and taking new territory for the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Jesus said something very interesting in Luke chapter 19 verse 12. He said, Look, occupy and keep moving forward until I return. We don't sit around in the lifeboat just saying, God, bring Jesus back and get us out of this messed up place. Jesus said, No, I want you to occupy. Take new territory. I come back. This year may be the year that you take more territory for Jesus than you ever had before. And here's what I mean.
This might be the year. Seriously, some of you said all my life I've wanted to lead somebody to Jesus. I've talked to people about Jesus. I've never led anybody to Jesus.
That might just that one person. This might be the year you lead your first person to Jesus Christ. You're going to take new territory for the Lord. We had a guy in our church at age 91. At 91, he started a ministry to mentor inner city young men. He did that ministry for several years until he went on to be of the Lord Jesus Christ at 91. He said, I want to take more territory for the Lord Jesus and started this inner city ministry. This year, we're going to expand our business to impact more people, to give more to the kingdom than we've ever had before. My point is, this is your year.
Listen to me. To not be stagnant, but to take more territory for the Lord Jesus Christ. Joshua was one of these men on the verge of taking territory for God. Joshua was a territory taker. He's been leading the Israelites under Moses' name. He's been leading the Israelites under Moses' leadership for 40 years. Moses is now dead. They're standing on the brink of the Jordan River.
They're about to cross the Jordan River from modern day Jordan into modern day Israel and take territory for God. Here are some things that this territory taker, Joshua, has going against him. Number one is his age.
The guy's about 90 years old. That's one thing going against him. Number two, he's taking over after the death of Moses.
It's a difficult time to try to lead an organization when the old leader has passed from the scene. That's the second thing going against him. Third thing going against him, he's taking a bunch of rabble, just a bunch of bedouins, and they're going to try to do siege warfare, lay siege to some big cities. Siege warfare, if you know anything about military, and I do. I'm an expert on military stuff because I played Xbox Call of Duty one time.
If you know anything about trying to take a city, siege warfare is the most difficult kind of warfare. He also has, if you take the Bible literally, which I do, according to Numbers 13, some of his enemies, you know I talk about this a lot. I've become the Nephilim pastor because I get into this stuff. Some of his enemies are evidently half demonic, half human hybrids. Unless you think that's silly or hyperbole, that's all throughout Scripture. Every ancient culture has stories of demonic entities who came down and had relations with human women and produced these entities. And evidently, it happened in Genesis 6, it happens here as Joshua is about to take new territory. Listen to me, I think it might happen in the future. Jesus is as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be before the Son of Man returns.
I believe personally in the last days, you're going to have an onslaught of demonic entities and it could be the return of the Nephilim. I've actually talked to two medical doctors. These are medical doctors who are at the top of their field. They're professionals.
They're leaders in the medical world who have actually started getting into this stuff and researching stuff. And they said, you know, Chad, with this transhumanism, and I don't mean transgender humanism, transhumanism with blending humans and technology and robots, they said, we may be seeing the return of the Nephilim right now. So you understand what I'm saying? Joshua is coming against some big stuff. He wants to take some territory. But there's going to be some things coming against him.
Listen to me. You want to do something significant for Jesus, some things are going to come against you. And what God said to that territory taker, Joshua, he says to you at the beginning of this new year, whether your territory be leading somebody to Jesus, get your finances in order, you're a homeschool mom that want to raise your kids to love the Lord Jesus Christ, you're a Christian businessman. What God says to Joshua, he says to you right now. Look at this, Joshua chapter one, verse one.
Now, it came about that after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, Moses, my servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel, every place on which the sole of your foot treads. I have, not willed, yet.
Did you notice this? Now, I am going to give it to you. No. Every place your soul treads, I have given to you, just as I spoke to Moses, from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, as far as the great sea toward the setting of the sun, will be your territory. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will show you, or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you.
Do not turn it from the left or to the right, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not tremble.
Do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Now look, sometimes you need to be instructed. Sometimes we just need to be reminded. I don't know that I'm going to say anything new and innovative today.
I'm just going to remind you of some things. Let me give you four traits of territory takers. You can do something for the Lord this year. I'm going to give you four things that God gave to Joshua. Number one, territory takers pray. If you look at verse one, it says, God spoke to Joshua.
This entire passage is in the context of God speaking to Joshua, and then Joshua speaks to God. If you want to take new territory for the Lord Jesus Christ this year and do some significant things for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, look, you and I must be people of prayer, but I want to expand this for just a second. When I say prayer, you think, okay, I have a 15-minute prayer time every day. Do that, but I want to give you something else. I want you and I, and I'm preaching to myself, I want us to start doing, here's a term I want to use, in the moment prayer.
You know what I mean by that? You're just minding your business, and a crisis comes, and your first reaction is not the panic, get mad, or cuss. Your first reaction is to say a quick prayer.
You hit a decision, and before you call your lawyer or you call your cousin to see what she would do in a situation like this, first thing you do is you stop and you pray. In the moment prayer, listen to me, prayer is spiritual warfare, and in fact, I'll tell you this, one of the biggest causes of military losses if you stay in the military is a lack of communication. I was reading a historian talking about Robert E. Lee and the Battle of Gettysburg, and he said Lee would have won the Battle of Gettysburg if he had had something that you can go and buy at the Walmart today, and that's a walkie-talkie. That battle was lost because of a lack of communication. Listen, a lot of your battles are lost because of communication.
I love how John Piper puts this. He said, we have taken prayer, which is a military weapon. We Christians have taken prayer, and we have domesticated it. When I was a kid, one of my friends had a basement, and in that basement, this friend had a little button you could push, and it would ring upstairs to Mama. And so if we're down in the basement and we ran out of potato chips, just push the button, Ma, we need some potato chips down here.
Mama come down from glory and give us some potato chips, and that's how we look at prayer. God, I need this. God, I want that. God, I'd like to drive that.
God, I'd like to live in that part of Raleigh. We have domesticated prayer. Prayer is not a domesticated intercom. Prayer is a warfare walkie-talkie where we're talking to our commanding officer, and he's giving us insight and resources.
Are you with me on that? In the moment prayer. Now, here's what some of y'all are thinking. Well, Chad, I'm not like you. I'm not a pastor. I've got a real job, and in my job, we can't just pray all the time like you preachers can. How am I supposed to pray in the moment on my job at wherever you work?
Does it make sense? So you're talking to the boss. The boss says something to you. You need wisdom, but you can't go to the boss. Let me go to the prayer closet for 20 minutes, and I'll come back to you. We can't do that at work. Let me show something to you.
This has always fascinated me. Nehemiah is a cupbearer to the most powerful man in the world. Cupbearers, he is like the personal assistant to Elon Musk or whoever. He is a personal assistant to the most wealthy, powerful man in the world.
And if you're a cupbearer, you're always smiling and you're always happy. Nehemiah is a Jew, and he's just found out that his land has been absolutely devastated. And Nehemiah, as a Jew, is in a position to be able to do something about it. And it says in Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 4 that as Nehemiah comes to the king, the king says, wait a second, you're my cupbearer and you're frowning. You're upset about something. Now, this could, he might not get fired over this. He might get killed over this.
You're expected to be happy. Nehemiah, you're depressed. So the king asks him, what's going on? And he tells him, and then the king says this, verse 4, then the king said to me, well, what are you requesting? What do you want me to do for you, Nehemiah? And it says this, so I prayed to the God of heaven and I said to the king.
Now, wait a second. That doesn't mean he left, wouldn't have, you know, a 30-minute quiet time and came back. The king asked, what do you want me to do for you? He says, I prayed and I answered the king, which tells me in like, he may have just paused for two seconds. And in his spirit just said, God, give me the words to say. He didn't say it out loud. He didn't pray in tongues. He didn't shout out loud.
He didn't do any of that stuff. The king just said, what do you want me to do? He pauses and in his spirit says, God, give me the words to say. Now, folks, that's a great model for you businessmen and businesswomen, that you hit a tough situation, you need an on-the-spot answer, and you pause for just a second and in your spirit just say something like this, Spirit of God, help me to answer right now.
Isn't that beautiful? If you're going to be a territory taker this year, here's what I want you and me to do. Before we kind of go off half-cocked and just kind of shoot out an answer, I want us to do this. I want us to learn to pause for just a second and pray. Territory takers pray.
Number two. Here we go. You know, y'all talk about this all the time.
All right, here we go. Territory takers are people of Scripture. They are people who are in the Word of God. They read the Word of God. They memorize the Word of God.
And by the power of the Holy Ghost, they practice the Word of God. Look at this, verses seven and eight. Here's what God says to this 90-year-old territory taker. Joshua, only be strong and very courageous.
Look at this. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Don't turn to the right or to the left that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law, this thing right here, will not depart from your mouth, but you will meditate on it day and night so that you be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Now, I'm saying, here you go again.
Because I've been here about 20-something years, and I keep telling you the same thing. It's prayer and the Word, prayer and the Word, prayer and the Word. You pray, and you read the Word of God, and you meditate on the Word of God, and you memorize the Word of God. It just shows two things. That is the foundation. Honestly, that is the foundation of your spiritual disciplines.
You say, what are we going to do through prayer and the Word? I'm not a computer nerd, okay? I'm not into computers and technology, although I will say this. We've had several instances lately with our computer and our Internet and our telephone, and I've kept telling my wife the same thing. I said, honey, here's what I think we need to do.
Cut it off, wait for a second, and cut it back on. Did you know about 50% of the time, Chad's wisdom works? I'm a computer expert.
I don't know. But I thought of some computer nerds, and I said, now, is this true that everything goes back to zeros and ones? They call it binary code.
Have you heard of that before? That everything about your computer programs, it all goes back to a whole series of zeros and ones, zeros and ones. Have you heard of that binary code, zeros and ones? Through zeros and ones, our computers launch rockets. Through zeros and ones, we can shoot missiles.
Through zeros and ones, our computers can run entire cities. And I'm telling you something, through the zero of prayer and the one of the Word of God, you can bring down strongholds, you can grow in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can take new territory for the Lord. Joshua prayed, and then God says, Joshua, you stay in this word. And in fact, I love this, Ezra chapter seven. Ezra is coming back from exile to Israel, and he rebuilds the nation of Israel.
He is successful. It says in Ezra chapter seven, verse nine, the good hand of God was on Israel. You know what it means? God gave Ezra all kinds of, he was successful.
That's what it means. The hand of God was on Ezra. He was successful. Why was Ezra successful? It says in verse 10, because Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, to practice it, and to teach it. I'm just telling you.
Think about spiritual stuff for just a second. There's success in this book. Y'all believe that? In fact, I read this article, I can't remember if it was in the New York Times or not, but it was a December 3rd, 2013 article. It said, quote, Nobel Laureate, the Bible is the key to Jewish genius. Jews make up two-tenths of one percent of the world's population.
It's like what? 0.2 percent of the world's population. That's how small of a population globally the Jews are, and yet they are awarded 20 percent of global Nobel Prizes.
And scholar Robert Almond, who won the Nobel Prize in economics, says, here's what I think. It's because the Jews study the Old Testament. They study the wisdom of Jewish Scriptures, and there's something practically advantageous about being in Scripture. 0.2 percent of the world's population, and they're awarded 20 percent of Nobel Prizes.
And again, he says, it's because the Jewish Scripture is integrated into being a Jew. I read this year, I'm trying to find this article, I can't find it. I read this years ago.
Y'all remember this thing called the Reader's Digest? I don't even think they publish that anymore, but I read years ago in the Reader's Digest this thing from a, he was a famous cardiologist, and they asked him, they said, you're innovative, you're the top of your field, what is the key to your success? And I'll never forget this guy wrote, he said, well, every day before I go in to do surgery, I just spend some time with the Lord and I pray and I study my Bible. He said, when I study my Bible, the Bible has nothing to talk about heart surgery, you do realize that. There's nothing in the Bible about heart surgery. Yeah, he says, when I study the Bible and I start doing heart surgery that day, I'll start having insights that are beyond me.
They just come to me. He said, I've noticed this, when I skip my time in the Bible, those insights just don't seem to come. There's something practical about being in the Word of God, and God says to Joshua, Joshua, do you see this in verse 8? He says, look at this, he said, meditate on the Scripture, meditate on it, day and night.
The Hebrew word for meditate right there means to, it's kind of interesting, means to mutter, to kind of talk under your breath. I think there's something powerful about just silently reading Scripture, but if you take this literally, he's also saying to Joshua, Joshua, I want you to speak Scripture. How many of y'all believe there's power in the words you speak? And so read it, meditate on it, but there's also something powerful about just speaking the Word of God. When you get to a tough spot, and the finances aren't there, and the business isn't doing well, and the bank account is dwindling, there's something powerful about just speaking, my God shall supply all my needs according to my riches in Christ Jesus.
I have never seen the righteous forsaken or God's children begging for bread. There's something powerful about just speaking the Word of God. I'm ready to take some territory for Jesus.
I want to do some big things for Jesus this year. I want to pray in the moment, I want to be in the Word of God, and then the third trait of territory takers is this. Now watch this, territory takers, they're not timid, they're not a bunch of wimpy cowards, they're bold and strong. Look at verse 6, be strong and courageous. Verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. Verse 9, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous, do not tremble, do not be afraid. Here's what he says, he doesn't say this, don't feel strong and courageous, he said be strong and courageous.
How many of y'all know this, actions don't follow feelings, feelings follow action. You be bold and strong even if you don't feel bold and strong. You step out and boldness even if you don't feel like stepping out and boldness.
Anybody know what the word for courageous is right there, strong and courageous? It's chazak. We sell chazak merchandise. If you see a little Hebrew shirt that we have or mugs out there, have you seen this?
It just says chazak, be bold, be strong. Why do you sell that stuff all over the place? Are you trying to make some money?
We probably lose money, I don't know if we make money on that stuff. Why do you sell chazak, be bold, be strong? Y'all just staring at me.
How many of y'all have seen those here somewhere in our church before? Okay. Here's an interesting story in the Old Testament.
It's just hitting me. Where Jacob says to his father-in-law Laban, Laban, here's how I want you to pay me for working for you. All the striped sheep and goats are mine.
All the solid colored goats are yours. Have you read that before? And you know what he did? Now, if you're into agricultural science, this doesn't make sense, but he got sticks of wood and he cut stripes in it and he put it there in the watering trough so that when the animals went up and started drinking and they would stare at the striped wood, it says they began to produce striped animals. Have you read that before? Now, again, I don't understand it.
I can't explain that. But what they saw is what they produced. And one of the reasons why I put chazak all over the place is I want you to see boldness. I want you to hear me talk about boldness. I want to display boldness because what we see and talk about is what we're going to produce. And God says to Joshua, don't be scared like the rest of them. Joshua, this year, you be bold and you be strong. Pastor John MacArthur was asked by a group of students a while back, young people. They said, we're living in a crazy world.
I think it's during the whole COVID stuff, all this crazy stuff going on. They said, if we're going to thrive in this next generation, what do we need? Without thinking, he said two things. Young person, if you're going to thrive in this next generation, number one, you need critical thinking. Have you noticed?
Nobody thinks straight anymore. You need critical thinking and you need courage. I love that because the Bible says in tough times, everybody else's hearts will melt with fear, but those who do know their God will be strong and do mighty things. And God says to Joshua, you're going to come up against demons. You're going to come up against demonic hybrids. You're going to come up against armies.
You're going to come up against a lot of bests. And Joshua, they can be scared, but you can't be scared. You be bold and you be strong. Our kids are looking for parents who are bold and strong. Our churches are looking for pastors who are bold and strong. Alexander the Great said, I would rather come up against an army.
Look, I'm more terrified by an army of lambs led by a lion than a bunch of lions led by a lamb. God says to Joshua, be bold and be strong. And where's that boldness come? It comes from two places. It comes from one. It comes from the presence of God.
Verse nine, God says, have I not commanded you, Joshua? Be strong and courageous. Don't be afraid. Why? Because I'm going to be with you everywhere you go.
If you have time, go through your Bible and look at how many times in the Bible it says, don't be afraid. Why? Because God's with you. Fear not.
Why? Because I'm with you. I'm not scared anymore.
The man's with me right here. The presence of God brings boldness. And then number two, the promises of God brings boldness.
Verse three, every place on which the soul of your foot treads, I have already given you. And I can imagine a year from now, Joshua hit a major battle. And it didn't look good. And they came up against a bigger, badder, tougher army. And Joshua in his flesh said, can we win this battle? And then he remembered, no, no, God's already promised, I've already given this to you. When he came against a tough time, we're going to make it. I wonder if we went back to this conversation. Yeah, we're going to make it.
Why? Because God said we're going to make it. But I know God is with me. And when I know the promises of God, see, he's the problem. Some of y'all don't even know the promises of God because you don't even open this book. Charles Spurgeon said, I have thumbed through this book a thousand times, and I've never thumbed through a broken promise of God. There's something about being in the Word and knowing the promises of God.
Let me give you an example. I'm running out of time, but this is good. Y'all hear me, I keep talking about the story of Peter in prison.
I've talked about it for the last couple weeks. I've just been meditating on that. The man has just been told, tomorrow you're going to be taken out and decapitated. And he's in prison that night, and what's he doing a couple hours before he's supposed to be killed? He's praying.
I'd be throwing up all night. He's there praying. And I wonder, where does Peter get that kind of boldness where he can sleep hours before he's supposed to die? I won't go through all this, but in John 21, this is just a few years before this. In John 21, Jesus is talking to Peter.
Now, follow me. And in John 21, a few years before this night that Peter's about to be killed, Jesus is talking to Peter, and he says, Peter, here's what's going to happen. One day, you're going to get old. He says that when you're old, they're going to take you where you don't want to go and stretch out your hands and kill you. And John said Jesus told him this, signifying what kind of death he would die.
What kind of death would you die by having your hands stretched out? Crucifixion. He's just told Peter, when you're an old man, you'll be crucified. This is a few years later. Peter's not an old man.
He's only in his 30s when he's in prison that night. And Herod can't crucify. Jews didn't have the power to do that. Only Romans could do this.
Only Herod could decapitate. So here's what I think happened to Peter. He's sitting in that prison, and they just said, aren't you scared? You're going to die tomorrow.
And he thinks in his mind, no. Just a couple years ago, Jesus said, I'm going to be an old man when I die. I'm not old yet. I'm going to be crucified. Herod can't crucify me. He can only decapitate me. Either Jesus Christ lied to me a couple years ago, or Jesus promised me I'm not going to die tomorrow. I don't know how he's going to do it.
He's cutting it kind of close, but I'm going to go to sleep. And when you know that Jesus is with you, his presence is with you, and when you know that he has promised you all these beautiful promises of the word, it just makes you bold and strong. So as we look at a new year, I want you to pray in-the-moment prayers. This is the year where you stop reacting when things happen, and you start praying. There's a stimulus.
There's a reaction. And between the stimulus and the reaction, you're going to take a few seconds and just start praying. You're going to be in the word of God.
You're going to be bold and strong. And let me give you one more, one more trait of a territory taker for those of us who are in the New Testament era, and this is it. Keep your focus on Jesus Christ.
I want you to look at this. In Hebrews 11, it talks about all these people who went through good times and bad times. And then in Hebrews chapter 12-1, it says, Let us keep our eyes on Jesus.
A.W. Tozer says this, in Hebrews 12-1, some of y'all wonder, what does it mean to have faith? Hebrews 12-1, faith is the gaze of the soul upon the triune God.
Isn't that great? Faith means you just keep your focus on Jesus, not on the circumstances, on Jesus. You say, Well, Jeff, where do you see Jesus in this passage? It's interesting that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus Christ says this. At the end of Luke, Luke 24-27, Jesus says, I, Jesus, I'm all over your Old Testament if you just look hard enough. Where do you see Jesus in this passage?
Anybody know the name? God's been talking to Joshua. Anybody know what name Joshua is in Hebrew? Yeshua. Do you know what Jesus' name is in Hebrew? Yeshua. I think Joshua is a prophetic picture of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's interesting. Do you know the site where Joshua is about to cross over the Jordan River? It's the same site where about 1,200 years later, Jesus was baptized. Y'all ever go to Israel with us? We'll take you to the baptismal site where Jesus Christ was baptized.
I think we have a picture of it here. The very place where Jesus Christ was baptized and said, I am now leaving my 30-year comfort zone and stepping out into my divine destiny, that's the very spot where Joshua stepped out of his comfort zone and went into the divine destiny. I see Jesus in one other place as well.
Look, if you would, at verse 10. Joshua commanded the officers of the people saying, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people saying, prepare provisions for yourself, because in three days we're going to cross this Jordan. He went to the camp of the Israelites.
It's very interesting. In the book of Numbers, we have the layout of the Israelite camp. For 40 years, this was the layout of the Israelite camp, and it's laid out in rabbinical precision. For example, it uses cardinal directions, north, south, east, west.
Not northeast, not southeast. The camp is laid out in cardinal directions. It's laid out. This group of Israelites will be here. That group of Israelites will be here. The width of the camp cannot exceed the width of the Levites.
If you look at the book of Numbers, the way the camp is laid out from an aerial standpoint, what does that look like? The cross of Jesus Christ. A demon-possessed man named Balaam tries to pronounce a curse over the Israelite camp, and he can't. And I think it's because you can't curse the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is all over this passage. Now, I'm telling you, Jesus is with you. He's not going to leave you. He's not going to forsake you. Listen, be in prayer. Stay in the Word. Be bold and keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. This is a year to take more territory than you've ever taken for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, listen. Some of you like it. It sounds good. It feels great. I'm ready to take some new territory for Jesus and take down some demons and expand my business. My family got on fire.
I'm ready. And you get excited in here with the lights and the music and people saying amen. But as soon as you leave this door and get in the parking lot and somebody almost backs in to you, you say, oh, dear God, why am I going through this? Jesus said in this world I'll have tribulation. I didn't know somebody was going to.
Isn't it interesting how we can be so excited in here when we forget it out there? The existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard tells me a great story. I love you, but his story kind of reminds me of you. He said once upon a time there was a town of ducks. One Sunday morning all the ducks came waddling out of their houses and they waddled into the church and they squatted in their pews after they sang their duck hymns and said their duck prayers. The duck preacher began to preach. He said, ducks, you were born to fly above the clouds and the ducks quacked, amen. And he said, ducks, you can soar like eagles. And the ducks quacked, amen. The duck preacher said, ducks, you can fly as fast and as straight as a hawk and the ducks quacked, amen, preacher, amen.
And after the service was over, the ducks hopped off their chairs, waddled up to the pastor to thank him for his inspired message, and they waddled back home. I'm tired of waddling. I want to rise up and be bold and strong and come against the enemy and take new territory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want to waddle like a duck anymore. I want to be the man that God has created me to be.
I want you to be the woman God has created you to be. This is the year to take territory for Jesus. You pray, you stay in the Word, you be bold and strong, and you keep your eyes on Jesus. Now, I will say this.
You try to do something? I'm not playing reverse psychology. I've seen so many people in this church get on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ and then all hell breaks loose and they come and tell me what's wrong. My life was easy until I got excited about Jesus and serious about my walk with Jesus, and then everything came against me. I said that is the greatest backhanded compliment Satan could give you. When everything's going great and there's no opposition, you better check yourself. You might not be doing this thing right, but you get on fire for the Lord Jesus Christ, and the forces of hell come against you. You need to lift your hands and praise you because there's something about you that the enemy is intimidated by, and he's coming against you.
Are you with me on that? And what I'm trying to say is, you walk with Jesus this year, you have temptations, you got a mess thrown at you, you will come against the forces of hell. And yet in the book of Revelation, there's a beautiful little verse that says this, but we overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb. He's going to try to condemn me for my mess, my wickedness, and I'm going to say to Satan, you are right, I'm not a righteous child of the most high God in my own flesh, but 2,000 years ago, that man Jesus died in my place. He forgave him my sins. I am washing his blood. I've been adopted as a child of God. God is for me and not against me, all because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want you to stand on me right now. Now, if you're not a born-again believer, don't partake in this, okay?
I mean, I just can tell what Paul says in 1 Corinthians. It's not me, this is Paul. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm the Amazon delivery guy.
I'm just delivering the package. In 1 Corinthians, Paul said, because some people have misused communion and they don't recognize the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are sick and they die. Okay, so I don't want you to get sick and I don't want you to die. If you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, don't do this. But if you're a born-again believer, Jesus said, I don't want you to ever forget what your salvation cost me. You are on your way to hell. You are a prisoner of Satan. You belong to the kingdom of darkness. And 2,000 years ago, I came to this earth and I died in your place. I took all of your sin upon myself. I was buried and I came back to life and you turned your life over to me and I forgave you. When you die, you're going to heaven.
You'll never be alone again because I'm going to be with you, all because of what happened at the cross of Jesus Christ. You should take that piece of bread out. I'll never forget doing this in Jerusalem, right near where Jesus Christ was beaten within an inch of his life.
He was chained to a post and they just took a whip with bone and glass and stone and they just, they beat the fire out of him. And Jesus said, this is my body, which is broken for you to take and eat. The book of Romans says, it's just a little condemnation, not a lot for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. Is that what it says? There is no condemnation. 1 John says, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of 90% of our unrighteousness, except for the really bad stuff.
Is that what it says? The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness. There's forgiveness found in Jesus Christ. And Jesus said, take and drink, for this is my blood which is poured out for you. I don't know about you, but when I think about what Jesus did for me and how much God loves me and who I am in Jesus Christ, I don't know about you, I can't get depressed.
It just banishes depression and anxiety. When I think about how good God has been for me, all I can do is lift up my hands and just praise the name of the Lord. Can you do that right now? Just lift up your hands wherever you're at and let's just start praising the name of the Lord right now. Let's praise Him. Let's praise Him. Let's praise Him.
Let's praise Him. You know, we got this little saying in America, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words what? Will never hurt me. You know, Jews did not believe that. Jews believe that there are power, there's power in the word you speak. That's why this year I want you to pray. When I say I want you to be in the word, I want you to start speaking forth the word of God. You ought to be loud and weird and obnoxious, but just speak forth the word of God. That's why every Sunday I say basically the same thing to you over and over again, and I say it in Hebrew because I believe there's power in the words we speak. So as I look at you today, I don't look at a bunch of church members, a bunch of people who had an hour to kill on a Sunday morning.
I'm looking at you. Y'all are warriors of the Most High God. You're like soldiers of God. You're coming against demonic forces and the forces of hell, and you're not scared. Why? Because greater is He who is in you than that mess that's out there in this world. I kind of feel like I'm Patton, but I don't cuss like Patton did. I'm like, Patton, look at my troops, and I give you your marching orders, and I say to my troops, which is Hebrew for be bold. Y'all be strong. You don't be afraid, and you don't be terrified of anything.
Why? Because the Lord your God is going to be with you everywhere you go in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen and Amen. God bless you, beloved. Let's go change this world for Jesus Christ.
