This sermon challenges the listeners to stop trying to be God in their lives and instead surrender to God's promises and grace. It emphasizes the exhaustion and futility of attempting to control one's own destiny and the need to trust in God's supernatural power to transform and bless. The message highlights the transition from the Old Covenant of works to the New Covenant of faith in Christ, where believers are called to accept their righteousness in Christ and live in the victory provided by the cross.

My message this morning is a question. Are you tired of being God? Are you tired of being God? Go to Genesis please, chapter 12 if you will. Now Father I thank you Lord for the anointing that breaks every yoke. I thank you for truth that sets us free. I thank you for strength that can only come from the Holy Spirit. Thank you for faith and vision that are given through the Word of Almighty God. Lord touch this frail body today, quicken me Lord, quicken my mind, my heart. Father quicken us in the sanctuary to be able to hear what it is that you are speaking to your church in this last hour of time. Help us to understand these things, to lay hold of them, to walk in them O God and to live lives that will bring joy to your heart. Lord we thank you for it in Jesus name. Are you tired of being God? It's hard to be God you know. You have to keep your own universe in order every day. You've got to line up all the planets and those that are still trying to be God you can't even you can't even enjoy church when you're trying to be God. Because you're sitting here and you're trying to figure out how to solve your own problems, how to get out of the situation you find yourself in, how to make the impossible possible. It's very very hard to be God. In Genesis chapter 3 in verse 5 Satan, now you don't have to turn there I'm staying in Genesis 12, alright. Satan came down into the Garden of Eden and he infused a theological perspective into Adam and Eve. Some people have the sense it was just a pear or an apple or something from a tree. There might have been a physical representation, but it was actually a theological idea that he planted within the heart of Adam and Eve. It was something that had gotten a hold of him. According to Ezekiel the Lord says that was perfect. He said you walked up and down and you were anointed. You were in the Garden of God until the day that iniquity was found in you. And Satan came down to Adam and Eve and said you've created from more than this. I mean here you are tending this garden and naming some animals and meeting frequently with God. Don't you think life is meant to be more than this? Don't you realize that God is withholding something from you? You have the ability to see good and evil. Do you have to just listen to his voice? Is his the voice the only one that matters? Do you not have some reasoning power within you? You see God doesn't want you to partake of this because he knows that in the day that you do your eyes will be open and you will be as God's. And you will have the power or the ability to understand good and evil. In other words it's not just God's voice you have to listen to. You can listen to your own voice now. And you can look at something and you can say it's good even if God says it's evil. Because realistically he's not the only one that has the plan for everything you see around you. And Adam and Eve must have pondered momentarily on these things and then then they bit into this theological lie. And subsequently they were driven out and barred from the tree of life. That place that God said whatever you need, whenever you have something that is out of your grasp, whenever you feel that you need sustenance, strength, you can go to this tree. You can go into the garden. You can partake of any of the fruit that's in the garden as it is and it will be provided for you. And subsequently Adam and Eve are driven out. They're barred from that tree which is called the tree of life. But yet God spoke to Satan in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15 that a people would be born into this world who would crush this thought of his mind that he planted into the hearts of people that in ourselves we can be God or as God. He said I'll put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed and it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Now the Lord was not taken by surprise in the garden of Eden. He already knew Christ the scripture tells us and the plan of salvation was foreordained before the foundation of the world. God knew what was going to happen and he said to Satan yes you've planted this seed in the heart of those who are created in the image of God for fellowship with God and fraternity with God that they can be as God and yes you feel that you've succeeded as it is in separating man from God for all of eternity. But out of the seed of the woman there's going to be born a people who are going to crush this thought of your head. They're going to put their feet upon your head and prove to you that they're not God and you are not God. So man headed out from the garden with the thought planted into his fallen nature that he could be the God of his own destiny and what a marvelous mess we've made of that in our generation. Circling the globe generation after generation after generation calling evil good and good evil. Planning our own course planning our own destiny building weaponry that can destroy this world as quick as the flash of a camera all the time believing that we can master our own course and somehow there will be no eternal consequence to it. But I do believe with all my heart we've come to the end of all of this. We're at the end we're living we're living literally teetering over the edge of eternity this very moment that you and I are here. Nuclear weaponry in North Korea now in the hands of an insane regime really and you and I have not seen what this weaponry is capable of doing and we don't realize how we live on the edge of eternity all the time now. Now God in Genesis chapter 12 came to a man called Abraham. I'm fast forwarding and I'm going to bring something out very quickly that would probably take about five days to teach and so please bear with me if I've missed a few things. And God came to Abraham and made him an incredible promise and he said get out of your country and from your kindred and from your father's house to a land that I'm going to show you. And I'll make of you a great nation and I will bless thee and I'll make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curses thee and in these shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Now that's an incredible promise. Now I want you to keep in mind that in Abraham was the DNA of the man Jesus Christ and in Christ you and I have become the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham. God came to Abraham said I'm going to do something that only God can do. I'm going to take you and I'm going to so multiply you and so supernaturally change you and make you what you could never hope to be that out of you are going to come a people through whom all the world is going to be blessed. Folks that's you that's me. Paul the Apostle in Romans 4 16 says that Abraham was the father of us all. In other words he would believe God Christ was born through him and we through Christ are born into this world and my life and yours is to be a fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham. God said I'm going to do something that man can't do. I'm going to supernaturally change you and isn't that exactly what happens to us when we come to Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes upon us are we not made into something other than what we were. Aren't we glad that we're no longer God. Aren't we glad that our knee bent and our tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord. Genesis 9 15 God made a Genesis 15 rather God made a covenant with Abraham because Abraham stumbled a few times in his life actually but in Genesis 15 he said how is this going to be. How am I going to inherit this that you promised me. I'm getting older and I don't have a child and he said and the Lord took him outside and he said look abroad now in verse 5 he said look toward heaven and tell the stars if you're able to number them. He said so shall your seed be. Now God is speaking to Abraham about the church you have to understand this. He's your name is there my name is there. It's through Abraham the the patriarchs of Israel were born and through Judah that Christ is born and we are born through Christ into this world. Now that's got to be established or you won't understand where I'm going with this. And this verse 6 as he believed in the Lord and it counted to him for righteousness. And the Lord told him he said and he said in verse 8 how do I know that I'm going to inherit this. God you've made a promise to me that is so big. It's so preposterous really. It's so impossible. How am I ever how's this ever going to happen. I'm getting old I don't even have a child and yet you're telling me that my descendants are going to be more than the stars that I'm looking out in the sky or the sand that is by the seashore. How do I know that this is going to happen. And the Lord said to him take a heifer of three years old and a she goat of three years old and a ram of three years old and a turtle dove and a pigeon. And he said he took all these and divided them in the middle and laid each piece one against the other but the birds he didn't divide. In other words cut except for the birds cut the sacrifice in half and make a pathway between them as it is. God said I'm going to make a covenant with you. And through this covenant the promise that I've made to you is going to be fulfilled. But then he opened something to me. He says now listen there's going to be your seed are going to go into captivity seemingly for 400 years. And they're going to be afflicted and there's going to be struggles and there's going to be trials. But Abraham I'm going to be faithful to you. Thank God for those who don't believe that God's able to bring your family out of captivity. Especially as we go into the Christmas season. Thank God that we don't have to be God to our families. We don't have to figure out how to get them all into the kingdom of heaven. All we have to do is believe God as Abraham did. Walk in to impossible places in faith. Trusting in the faithfulness of Almighty God. Trusting in the one who's able to call things that are not as if they are. And then he said when the sun went down it was dark and behold a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between those pieces. Now that's a type in the Old Testament of God the Father, the smoking furnace, the burning lamp, God the Holy Spirit, and the sacrifice divided Jesus Christ the Son of God. And in this Old Testament Scripture you see a type of God himself making a covenant actually with himself. The only thing that Abraham was supposed to do is drive the birds away. When the vultures came to devour this covenant, devour this sacrifice, the job of Abraham was to push away these vultures. And that's your job and mine. We have a Savior who went to a cross and paid the full price for our sins. We have the power of God living within us to change us and to make us into whatever God calls us to be. It is all done. It was finished on Calvary. We can't add to this sacrifice. There's nothing we can do but put ourselves by faith into the hands of Almighty God and say Lord you lead me, you guide me, Lord you bring my family through to safety, Lord you give me the skills and giftings that I need. And when Satan comes down and tries to devour that sacrifice that paid for my sin and made a way into the supernatural, my job is to push the vultures away. That's your job folks. Push the vultures away. Push the thoughts away. Push these devouring powers of darkness away from what became yours through the cross of Jesus Christ. When you see this, this thread of covenant runs all the way through the Old Testament. You see it again in David. You see it all the way through this covenant of promise. You see it in the Old Testament promise. Not by power nor by might but by my spirit says the Lord. It's all the way through. Once you see it in Genesis, it's all the way through that God says no I'm going to do this. This is coming from my hand. It's going to be done by faith. It's going to be supernatural. It's going to be miraculous. It's going to culminate in a church called the Church of Jesus Christ that will rule and reign with Jesus Christ forever. And it runs all the way through the Old Testament. But there's another covenant that was added in the Old Testament. Remember after God brought the children of Israel out of bondage as he told Abraham, he brought them to the foot of a mountain. And he made another covenant with them. It was called the covenant of the law. Now remember that man's inherent problem is that he thought in himself he could be God. Remember back in Genesis? He ate of the fruit. Did you know it's in you as well as in me. Each one of us have a fallen nature, a sin nature that really wants to be God. That was what Adam and Eve ingested in the Garden of Eden. And so God said well if you think you can be God, here are 600 plus laws for you to obey. Now only God can obey them. And so if you think you're God, you have 600 plus laws to obey. But remember if you break one, you've broken them all. And you have to come back and start over again trying to be God. And remember the people in Deuteronomy and in the book of Joshua, they said we, the Lord is, we will obey God. We will do these things. We will fulfill them. They were sincere. They were, they didn't see it as an insurmountable problem. We're going to do this. We're going to. Now Paul in Galatians 324 says the law was introduced in the Old Testament as a schoolmaster. When you read Galatians you'll see it in the entire chapter, chapter 3, to bring us to the understanding that we're not God. We can't be God. Even in our best intentions we can't be God. Even the most sincere religious people here cannot be God. Peter calls it a yoke which neither we nor our fathers could bear. Old Testament historians tell us that a literal river of blood flowed out of the temple. Because there were sincere people who really did want to obey God. They really did want to obey these laws that God set down for those who determined that they wanted to be godly. Think about it for a moment. What if we were under that covenant today? And you had to bring in a lamb, a ram, a goat, a turtledove, or a pigeon for those that were poor. It was such a ministry of failure that the Pharisees actually set up their families in the outer court of the temple. And they sold goats and doves, and they sold rams and lambs, and they even changed money from those that had come from a distance. And the ministry was a ministry of failure all the time. Sin, confess, sin, confess, sin, confess. Imagine if you had to bring a goat or a lamb into this place this morning and have its blood poured on the altar, and you prayed, and you felt clean, and you said, oh now I'm in right relationship with God. Then you go out, and you go to the parking garage, and it's 45 minutes and your car still hasn't come. You get a little hot under the collar because somebody has a bit of an attitude. You say something you shouldn't say. You hang your head in shame. You come back to the outer court. You pick up another goat. You come back into the temple again. A river of blood. A river of blood. It was a schoolmaster. That's all it was, a schoolmaster just to teach us you can't be God. There's no possibility you can be God. You can't even obey 600 laws. There's no way that anybody in their own strength, and those who tried to fulfill it in their own strength, they developed a tier system of religion. And the religion they developed judged others, despised the weak, hid its corruption with exterior garments and prayer, and ultimately hated God and their fellow men. Now you can say, Pastor, how do you know that they hated God? They killed him when he came. It's not even debatable. They hated God. They hated what represented God. And that's what people who try to be God in their own strength will eventually do. The only way you can maintain a sense of righteousness is to judge everybody else. There has to be this tier system. It has to judge the weak. It has to stand in its own righteousness. Some never learn the lesson that we can't be God. Now remember the promise, the covenant that God made to Abraham. Now ultimately God made a covenant not with us, but with himself to redeem us. The covenant's not with us. He made a covenant with himself. Why is the gospel called good news? You ever thought of that? What was the Old Testament? Bad news? Wasn't there a way to redemption in the Old Testament? Why all of a sudden did angels appear in heaven and say, I bring you glad tidings or good news of great joy to all people. Unto you this day is born in the city of David a Savior. The Father said to the Son, Son you're going to go down to the earth. We've created man in our image and man has failed. You're going to have to go down to the earth and you're going to become a man and you're going to walk for 33 years among them. You're going to be touched by the feelings of their weaknesses. Then after 33 years you're going to be taken to a cross and you're going to die. And not only are you going to die, but I'm going to turn my back on you and the full wrath that I have reserved for those that have rejected my love and my ways is going to be poured out on you. And you're going to pay the price for all the wrong that they have done. But Son, on the third day I'm going to raise you from the dead. You're going to have to trust me in this, the Father would have told him. Remember on the cross Jesus said, Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. In other words, I believe that it will be exactly as you've told me. On the third day you're going to raise me from the dead. And he said, Son I'm going to raise you from the dead and I'm going to bring you back and you're going to sit on my right hand. And at my right hand all of heaven will be yours. And you will rule and reign for all of eternity. You will have all the resources of heaven, nothing will be lost, everything will be gained, it will all come back to you exactly as it has been before the foundation of the world. You're going to have to trust that I'm going to raise you from the dead, that you're being sent to pay the price for the sin of fallen humanity. And the Son said, Father in John 17 24, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. The Son said to the Father, Jesus said to his Father, Father I will go and I will trust you and I will believe that you will raise me from the dead, that I will pay the price for the sin of humankind and be brought back to the throne of all authority and all power, that all heaven's resources will be mine. But what I ask of you Father, you're part of the covenant, is that everything that I get, those who believe in me, they get it also. Where I am is where they are. Praise be to God. Did you understand today that we are seated according to Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 to 6, we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Did you know today that if you are in Christ, if you are trusted in Jesus Christ, you're already in him at the right hand of Almighty God. Not one day going to be there, you and I are there. You say, well how's that possible? Well folks, you can't detach the head from the body. He is the head and we are the body. The easiest way to understand it is a runner in a race. I've shared this with you before, but as you get to the finish line, the runner stretches his head forward. He lunges forward and his head crosses the finish line first, which means the body has already won the race too as well. That's why Paul says we're more than conquerors through him that loved us. We've already won. I don't see my life from earth up to heaven. I see my life from heaven back to earth. Now folks, you've got to see this. Let me just read it to you very, very quickly. Ephesians chapter 2 verses 4 to 6. It says, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ. By grace are you saved and has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. I am seated with him. I am more than the conqueror. I've already won the race. I'm already on victory site. I live here on the earth. We'll explain that in just a moment how that works. Paul said, listen to this in Ephesians 1 17 to 23, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places. Far above all principality, power, might, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. And has put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. That's why Paul is saying that you could see what I see. That I am in Christ. Christ is in me. I'm already seated with him in heavenly places. I'm already more than a conqueror. I've already won the victory. I'm living on this side of eternity just simply to be a declaration of this victory that's been won on Calvary for all who would put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You and I don't have to be God anymore. There is a God who did die on the cross, who does quicken us and give us life, the promise of life on earth, and the promise of eternity with him. So you ask me the question, where does the Holy Spirit fit in all of this? Well John chapter 16, Jesus said it this way. He said, no John 16, I have the wrong chapter, sorry. Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. He will glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and show it unto you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore said I that he shall take him of mine, and he shall show it to you. Now the Puritan writers understood this. Here's the simple truth of it. I am in Christ, seated at the right hand of Almighty God. Already a conqueror, already victorious, but yet I also live on planet earth. This is my standing. This is what the Puritan writers call it, it is my standing. I am in Christ. I cannot be condemned by the devil. My righteousness is not my own and neither is yours. It's given to us of Almighty God. I cannot have the devil point his bony finger and try to discourage or destroy or take away that. I have to push the birds away from that sacrifice. I have been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, the Lamb of God. There's no need for another sacrifice. The writer of Hebrews said when he entered into the holy place, once and for all he offered his blood as the atonement for my sins. No longer the need to sin, confess, sin, confess, sin, confess. One sacrifice, once and for all, the day you believed in Jesus Christ, the day your heart truly, truly opened and you embraced the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, you were lifted to that place in Christ and now you are seated together with him in heavenly places. You've got to get that very deep inside of your heart, especially to face the days that you and I are going to face. But I live on planet earth as well. And the Holy Spirit is the third person of God given to me to take what is mine in Christ, make it a reality. And all my life the Holy Spirit is lifting my state in line with my standing. Do you understand this? All my life. Paul says I'm leaving behind the things that need to be left behind. I've not arrived but I'm pressing forward to the mark of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ. I've not arrived but I'm going forward towards it. You and I will never arrive to what the measure of who God is on this side of eternity but as we behold Jesus Christ, as we behold the victory, as we see the resources of heaven, as the promises of God are open to us, we are changed by the Spirit of God from image to image and glory to glory. That means the glory means the weightiness of God comes into our physical being. We are changed. We are changed. We begin to embrace and know more of the love of God. More faith comes into the heart. The strength to get up and get out of things that formerly held us captive. It's all in the New Covenant folks. It's all there. All you have to do is get up. There are no steps to anything. You just simply get up and walk out. You walk out of pain. You walk out of prison. You walk out of hopelessness. You walk away from suicide. You walk out of trying to be God. I don't have to try to be God. The living God is inside of me. I don't have to try anymore. I have to believe that the sacrifice he made for me is sufficient for my sins. That I am in Christ already more than a conqueror. I see myself quite often as sitting in Christ at the right hand of God looking down and saying, come on Carter, come on man, don't give up, keep going. The Bible says that Christ is the intercessor for us. He's not sitting at the right hand of God saying, oh I really pray father that Pastor Carter makes it. He's having such a bad week. It's such a hard month. That's not the intercession. The intercession is just the fact that he's there. He's there folks. He's just there speaking my name. That's all that is necessary. If the devil had access to the throne of God, he would come up and point his finger and bring accusations against you and I. Oh John did this last week. Oh Mary did this. Oh James fell short. And the father simply looks at the son and says, son what do you have to say? And the son just says your name. That's always John, James, Mary. And the father looks and says, away with you. My son is standing in intercession for those that have trusted in him. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Now this is preposterous for those who are still trying to be God. It's only when the knee is bent and the tongue confesses that I'm not God. Jesus Christ is the Lord. There is no other name given under heaven whereby men must be saved. Thanks be to God. Folks when you really understand this truth, it takes the weight off. You're not trying, you don't have to figure, don't have to organize your own universe. You don't have to worry about how this is going to happen or where this is going to change. If Abraham could have spent his whole life wringing his hands 400 years, 400 years, 400 years my family are going to be in captivity. Oh God, how are we going to get them out? Lord said, I'm just going to get them out. I'm just showing it to you. I'm going to get them out and they're going to come out supernaturally. We're living in a generation where the Lord is saying, I'm looking for faith again. Abraham simply believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, not works, faith. God's looking for faith again. The revival that God wants to send is not going to come through works. You will not buy a book on how to do this. It's faith in the heart. Faith that my price has been, the price is paid. Faith that says sin is dealt with. I am in Christ. I do sit at the right hand of God. I do have the power of God's Holy Spirit within me changing me, lifting me, making me more into the man or woman of God that God says that I should be. Praise be to God. Faith that says no prison can hold me, no blindness can take the sight of Christ from my eyes, no wound of the past can continue to bruise me, no gates of hell can hold my family away from the love of God. Hallelujah. The old covenant was man make, was with man. In other words, God said to us, God said to humankind, you do this and I'll do this. You do this and I'll do this. And nobody could do it. And anybody who tried ended up hating God and their fellow man. The new covenant, God said, I'll make a promise to myself. And what I'm asking you to do is to believe me. And I'll make promises to you. The resources of heaven will become yours. The promises of God will open to you. The power of God through the Holy Spirit to see these promises made in reality will be given to you. We don't have to figure it out. We have to read it, folks. Look at it. Let the Holy Spirit quicken it. Remember Jesus said when he comes, he will take what is mine and he will show it to you and he will show you things to come. We're not talking about future events like nations rising and falling. We're talking about he will show you things to come in you. He will show you what I'm about to do. Peter says in 2nd Peter chapter 1 verses 3 and 4, according as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him that's called us to glory in virtue, whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Promises of God given to us by these you might be partakers of the nature of God. The promises of God. We don't have to make promises to God. We can't keep them. We can't obey the laws. We can't make promises. So as you go into this Christmas season this year, do yourself a favor and resign as God. It's very, very tiresome trying to be God. Resign. Abdicate. Step down. Bend the knee. You're not God. It's not your promises to God that are going to avail anything. It's God's promises to you that are going to make the difference. That is the new covenant. God says I'm looking for faith as I did in Abraham. I'm looking for faith in you. I'm looking for somebody who'll just believe me. Revival never comes through the works of the law. It comes through the hearing of faith. Revival being a people brought back or made to be what God intends us to be. A people who move in the supernatural, bringing that life and message of Jesus Christ to a fallen city, a fallen town, fallen families, a fallen generation. Not the works of the law, but the hearing of faith. And that makes the gospel a beautiful thing. It makes it good news. That I can go to any person on the street and say, listen, can I tell you what God did for me He'll do for you? And I hope He'll do more for you than He's done for me. The ground is completely level at Calvary. It's not the strength of human will or effort. It is just simply the believing heart that gets the miracle. Isaiah said it this way, the lame take the prey. I love that scripture. The lame, the persons who know they're not God, the persons who don't have it all together, the people are willing to bend the knee and confess with their mouth, I'm not God. I can't fix this marriage. I can't make my teenagers live for you Lord. I can't change my situation. I can't even change my own character as much as I try and as much as I've had sincere intentions and efforts, I just get on this never-ending cycle of sin, confess, sin, confess, sin, confess. God help me to bend my knee and to accept the sacrifice for my failing and to allow you to change me by your promises. Give me the grace to stop trying to change myself. That's the key to freedom. That's the key to becoming everything that God has intended that you and I should be. Not our promises to him, but his promises to us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Especially if you're trying to be God. Sounds way too good to be true, but it is the truth. It's how we change. It's how we have the authority to condemn the condemner. So you can't condemn me because I'm not presenting myself as anything righteous. The righteousness I have has been given to me by Almighty God and I have not played games with God. I have truly believed him. He's come into my life and he's changing me. As I read and the Holy Spirit makes known to me what is mine, I believe it and he comes and he makes it a reality. That's why the gospel is good news. That's why the angels would appear in heaven and say rejoice. This is worth rejoicing over because the time of humankind trying to be God is over and whosoever will can now come and God will be God to them again. Tree of life is lost in Eden. The tree of life is regained at Calvary. We can touch that tree. We can get the fruit of that tree. We can we can walk in that relationship with God that was lost because of sin. When we finally get it out of our hearts, when we finally admit I'm not God and whatever that means to you, even those that are here today and you're constantly calling yourself unclean. Now remember what Jesus, what the Holy Spirit spoke to Peter and said what I have cleansed you have no right to call common or unclean anymore and if you're calling yourself unclean all the time you've believed in Jesus but you're calling yourself unclean then you're still God because God said you don't have a right to call yourself unclean. If I've cleansed you, you don't have the right anymore. So you get off the throne. You get off the throne and you let me be God to you. You believe that there's something in your character that will never change. That means that you've become God in that area of your life. You've taken over from God who said I can do anything. There's nothing impossible with God but you've taken over that area of your life. You've sat upon the throne and said I'll never change. I've always been this way. I'm always going to be this way. Well you've taken the throne from God in that area of your life and you're intending to be God in that area. It's very wearisome. This holiday season would you believe God for your family? I believed for my father's salvation for 26 years folks. 26 years I prayed. 26 years I believed God. 26 years he put a word of faith in my heart that this man will be brought through to salvation. 26 years and God led me to him. The last conscious hour of his life and I led him to Christ and we had the most wonderful hour between a father and a son. I will cherish it for all not only time but I'll cherish it forever to see my father at rest and at peace and to see God having answered 26 years of prayer. It's time to chase the birds away. It's time to push away every lying voice that's trying to stop you from getting through to what is truly yours in Jesus Christ. I don't know what your struggle is today whether it's family or whether it's just despair whether it's a hopelessness about the future. We're living in dire economic times you already know that now and I know it's in a lot of people's thinking. What shall we eat? What shall we wear? Where shall we live? Jesus said all these things the Gentiles seek after but you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Now we either believe that or we don't folks. There's no middle ground in this. We either believe it or we don't believe it. That he will provide the things that we need as we seek him and his kingdom first. Now father I just thank you Jesus. I thank you Lord for the simplicity of this word today. I pray God you give us the grace Lord to bend our knee and confess with our tongue that Jesus Christ is Lord. Help each of us through whatever valleys of the shadow of death we have to walk through. Almighty God all that we're asking in the name of Jesus today is that you be lifted up and glorified in this generation. God Almighty take what is ours and show it clearly to us and give us the faith to believe you. We thank you for this in Jesus mighty name. I want to give an altar call today here in the annex as well for all of the people listening who just said pastor I I'm just so tired of trying to be God in this area of my life and today I'm just going to come and bend my knee before the only God and I'm going to give this situation to him and I'm going to believe that he will give me the strength and give me the vision and give me the understanding I need to get through these days that I'm in and are just before me. Let's stand together and if that's the cry of your heart just meet me at this altar and we're going to pray together after a few minutes of worship. Thank you Jesus. Thank you. Oh now for the honest believer when you and I sin it doesn't the Bible says it's not imputed to you. Now if it were imputed that means it were held against you you'd be saved at three o'clock lost at four saved at five lost at six and you just really hope you die on the right side of the clock. It does hurt our relationship with God. It does dull the Word of God. It does make us less able to hear about who we are in Christ but it does not for the honest for the honest Christian for the honest seeker of God it does not break your relationship with God. It's not imputed. I remember the Puritans were very concerned about this truth being known. You'll read about it in Pastor David's book The New Covenant. They're very concerned about this. They said well won't it turn the gospel into some kind of a lawless thing. Well the hypocrite will play games with the law or with grace it really makes no difference to the game player will play games with whatever you put in his hand but for the true and honest seeker of God this is where the strength of the cross is found that I cannot be condemned by the devil if I have an honest heart I cannot be. He has no access to me. He has no access to I am fully received fully clothed fully righteous. I cannot be condemned. That's where your strength is. You see if you don't get beyond that then the devil will just condemn you and you'll feel condemned and so you get on this the Old Testament cycle of sin confess sin confess sin confess and that becomes your whole prayer life your whole life as a Christian is all around you just spiritually speaking picking up a goat literally every time you pray and walking back in the temple asking for cleansing which has already been given you in Christ. Yes there's moments where we say God forgive me for that I shouldn't have done that and the Lord just says okay let's let's move forward. It's that simple. There's no huge procedure to this you just you accept the cleansing you move forward. You look as if it's too good to be true. It's a it's a stunner because you come in and say oh God that's why it's good news. That's why the gospel is good news. I don't have to be God anymore. I don't have I just have to simply believe that what you did for me is sufficient and that you're going to make me into the person that you have destined me to be. You're going to do it God. My job is to believe you and chase that filthy birds away that try to take the simplicity of Christ away. Paul said I fear to the Corinthians lest you be turned from the simplicity that is in Christ brought back again under us into a system of works which God never intended our relationship with him to be. And so realistically who goes the farthest today at this who goes the farthest in this journey? People with PhDs, royal blood, noble, the wise. No that's not what I read in Corinthians it says doesn't God take the foolish of this world and the weak and those things that are nothing and nobody to bring to nothing everything that exists in its own strength everything that still walks in that carnal reasoning that I can be as God. Doesn't God take the weak of the world to bring this foolishness to nothing? And so it's really the believing heart that gets the victory. That's the beauty of it. The simplicity of it. I hope you all I hope you just leave us all the pastors here and I hope you just leave us in the dust as far as preachers go. I hope you just take the gospel a lot farther than we've ever gone with it. I hope that God gives you the gift of miracles and laying on of hands and the healing of the sick and I hope God does it with all my heart. This is a generation that doesn't need to hear any more theories about God. This is a generation that needs to see the practical outworking of a living relationship with God. Now Father I pray Lord for those that have come to this altar today. God Almighty help us to accept our cleansing. Help us by faith in spite of the fact that we struggle. Lord help us to accept the fact that we are cleansed, received, clean as the righteousness of God according to the scriptures. Help us God Almighty. Give us strength and grace Lord to face this generation, this time that we're living in. Do the miraculous in us O God. Shake the place where we are Lord. Fill us again with the Holy Ghost and let your word begin to live in our hearts. Take us O God and let us be the church of Jesus Christ on fire with life God in this city. Lord just infuse this city with the life of Christ through your people. You said to Abraham that we'd be a blessing. The whole world would be blessed you said. So God we just open our hearts and our hands and say Lord bless the world through me. Bless the world through my life. Bless the workplace. Bless my neighborhood God. Bless the places I travel. Bless them through me Lord. Bless them through me God. Father as you just be God in me Jesus. Just be God in me. Be God through me. Speak to my heart throughout the day. Flow through my mouth. Flow through my hands God. Guide the steps of my feet. Look through my eyes Jesus. Just be God through me Lord. Be God in this city in this generation father. Oh Jesus thank you Lord. Thank you mighty God. I pray you just absolutely cause our hearts to explode with the good news in Calvary. This holiday season God may we not be silent. May we not be put to shame by our enemies O God. But bring us out of every darkened place. Bring your church out of the 400-year captivity. My God my God in this country today Lord bring your church out in this last hour of time and bring her out with a high hand O God. With the strength of Almighty God bring your people forth. Father I thank you for this with all my heart. Praise you and bless you today in the mighty and holy and unmatchable name of Jesus the Son of God. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. Thank you God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.