It's Time For Another Ridiclous Battleplan

Tonight, as many as people in up to 211 countries and dependencies throughout the world are joining with us every week to pray. Next week, we're going to be coming to you back again from our Bible School Summit, International School of Ministry in Grantville, Pennsylvania. You get the opportunity to see young people filled with the fire of God and with the faith of God are going to be praying with us. And we're just so thankful, thankful for being here. We're thankful for the times that we've been able to be in New York City at Times Square Church. And we're thankful to be back again at our Bible School next week. We're going to have communion tonight as well. So if you have some bread and any kind of juice at home or some crackers or anything like that, these are just emblems of a greater truth. We'll talk about that a little later on. We're going to have communion together. So take a moment and just go into your kitchen and get those things and prepare to join with us as we share in the word of God tonight. I'm going to be speaking to you from the book of 1 Corinthians. So if you have the Bible in your home tonight or if you have any kind of electronic device where you can get the scriptures on it, I'm using the New King James Version if you want to be able to follow along with me. So Father tonight, God, I thank you for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. God, I thank you Lord that when you move in conjunction with your word, this is what we sang tonight. We need to move. God, it's something that has to happen in the hearts of your people. People that are listening tonight has to happen in my heart. Nobody escapes this. God, you don't move apart from your people and apart from moving within the hearts and lives of your people. And so Lord, as it was in the beginning, you spoke and the spirit moved and things were created. We ask again tonight, God, that you would speak to us from your word and your Holy Spirit would move upon us. And Lord, we'd be taken out of weakness and into strength, out of confusion and into clear thinking, out of purposelessness into the divine purpose that you have for each of our lives at this time on the earth. God, thank you for the touch of heaven this evening. As we pray, as we open your word tonight, give me the ability to speak this the way that you would have it to be spoken and give our hearts the ability to receive it in the way that you would have us to receive it. Let none of us escape your great grace tonight. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Now let me start just by making a statement tonight. We're living in a crisis time in this world. I personally believe that this world is launching its final assault against the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You can read about that all through the scriptures. There's some particular chapters like Matthew chapter 24, for example, that deal exclusively almost with this moment. Paul the apostle talks about it in Timothy and the book of Thessalonians as well. So you can take time and you can study that. But we see this rising of lawlessness in our generation. We're beginning to realize that there is no hope for peace. There's no hope for reconciliation. There's no hope for justice, true justice, according to the word of God. Godliness in our homes and families and our children apart from a divine sovereign move of God in this world. And as I have seen the news and studied the word of God, I've come to a conclusion. And it's the title of my sharing tonight, that it's time for another ridiculous battle plan. There's no other conclusion I can come to. And you'll understand what I'm talking about in just a moment as we look in the scriptures. And I'm speaking to you tonight. I want specifically to talk to the distress, the in debt, the discontented, the addicted, the people who feel hopeless. You wonder if your life is ever going to amount to anything. Is there anything you can do for the kingdom of God? I'm talking to failures tonight, people who maybe you headed out to serve God at some point in your life and you feel like you've miserably failed and your moment of ministry or influence somehow has passed you by. I'm speaking especially to you tonight. And I want you to listen to the words that God has given me to speak to you. I wanna start tonight in 1 Corinthians 1, and verse 18. We're gonna start there and we're gonna go through almost right to the middle of the chapter. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Now, let me put it in context. That means that Jesus Christ died to pay the price for our sin so that we might be forgiven when we place our trust in him for our salvation. That means to be saved, to be taken out from under the penalty of eternal separation from God and brought into relationship with God because we've trusted that Christ took our place on that cross. Now, there's something of the power of God. There's a power, obviously, in God to forgive our sin. We all understand that. But there's another power. There's a deeper power. There's something that God has done for us through the cross. When he was raised from the dead, the Bible tells us in the New Testament, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, the promise to you and I is that the one who raised Christ from the dead will also quicken our mortal bodies. So he will bring us out of a place of death. He will bring us out of a place of weakness or confusion or listlessness or just living lives that really don't amount to anything or bring any glory to God. By the Spirit of God, the promise of the cross is that we will be lifted out of this place of weakness and darkness and brought into life and light. As Pastor Patrick shared tonight, an abundance of God will become ours. The strength of God will become ours. And through each of our lives, God will do something that he's determined to do, things oftentimes that you and I have not even thought he's able to do. I had no idea what God was going to do through my life the day that I gave my heart to Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It was just so far out of my thinking, I couldn't have even conceived of it in my mind. But yet God in his mercy started leading me out of the places I used to live and the ways I used to think into something brand new that he had for my life, a new place that he was going to take me, an influence that he was going to exert through my life to bring other people to him, the saving knowledge of who he is. So this is the message of the cross. It's redemption and living the redemptive life as it is. For it is written, verse 19, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. In other words, I will do something that natural man can't reason. It makes no sense to the natural man, the natural mind. That means the mind apart from God. I will do something that will bring the wisdom of this world to nothing. I will go beyond what this world is able to achieve. I'll go beyond those who get to high places because of their influence or their degrees or their accessibility to power and promise as this world offers it to them. Verse 20 says, where's the wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For the Jews request a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks. In other words, to those who live by their own intellect and influence foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. There is an ability that God gives to those who belong to him and a wisdom that through the Holy Spirit and the word of God that is imparted into our minds as we trust in God that this world doesn't know anything about, this world can't give it and thank God this world can't take it away either. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. And so as I read this, as I remember the first years I began to read this many, many years ago, I was thinking that the foolishness of God, how could anybody even consider saying that God has any foolishness? No, Paul is using it rhetorically in a sense. If you accuse God of being foolish, Paul is saying his foolishness is wiser than all of your wisdom put together. If you accuse God of being weak, his weakness is stronger than anything that you can produce in this world because of the cross of Jesus Christ and the people of God. All throughout redemptive history, God has chosen the weak things of this world and he has enacted battle plans that to the natural mind, remember that it's this foolishness of God is wiser than men. To the natural mind, the plans of God don't make any sense. The battle plans of God are absolutely ridiculous. You and I both know the examples. For example, in the book of Exodus, the people of God are in captivity to a much more naturally powerful nation. They are being given tasks to do. They're discouraged, they're depressed, just like we have a lot of prayer requests tonight of people who are down and feel defeated. And their children, it gets to the point where their children, their firstborn sons, or their sons rather, are being thrown into the river to drown. Can it not be said that in our generation that our children are being thrown into this, a river of confusion, whether it's gender confusion or doctrinal confusion or our doubt about the reality of God. Their minds are being, as I speak, their minds are being indoctrinated with ideas that are so far away from the ways of God that it's actually scary. And it got to the point where the people of God of this generation began to cry out to God. They didn't know what else to do. They didn't have the resource to be set free from this oppression, this oppressive culture in a sense that had encircled them and was imposing its will upon them and harming their children. And so all they knew to do was to cry out to God. And when they cried out to God, God initiated a battle plan, a battle plan to get his people out of captivity from under the influence and control of one of, if not the most powerful army on the earth at this time. And so God initiates a battle plan. Now in the world, if we were going to try to set millions literally of people free, we would be hiring foreign armies. We would start military training. We would have camps. We'd be building chariots. We'd be finding horses. We'd be hammering swords. But God's battle plan is to go into a desert. In the backside of the desert, as a matter of fact, and he found an 80 year old man there. A man who stuttered, might I add. Lost his ability to speak. This man had no weaponry. He had no chariot. He had no access to power. All he had was a stutter. He had a history of failure, as far as he could see. And he was given a battle plan. I want you to go and stand before the most powerful leader on the earth of your time, and with a stick in your hand and a one line sermon. That's all he was given to do. And the man was so weak, he needed his brother to deliver the sermon. And he stood before Pharaoh and it was just, let my people go that they may sacrifice unto me in the wilderness. That's all he had to do. That's your commission. Imagine to the, you see, I firmly believe that the only reason that Pharaoh didn't kill Moses and Aaron when they appeared in his court is because it was so humorous. You see, to the natural man, the power of God is foolishness to the natural man. So here's this old man. He's 80, he's got a stick. He's got no resource, no power, no access to anything. No army behind him. And he's so weak, he can't deliver the one line sermon. And his 83 old brother has to do the talking for him. And I think that Pharaoh just looked and was just so humorous. That's the only reason he didn't kill him right on the spot. And then of course, at a certain point, it became a contest of power. And Pharaoh at this point was a matter of pride. It was a matter of whose power was greater, his or these men who claimed to be speaking for the living God. You know, it was God's plan to set his people free through this duel of weakness as it was. And the first thing when God came to Moses, the first thing out of his mouth is who am I that I could go and deliver your people out of captivity? Who am I? And that's the way you and I are. That's the way you are tonight. As I'm speaking these words, is it possible that God is speaking a little spark of faith into your heart about something maybe he wants to do in and through your life that you haven't considered yet, but the very first thing out of your mouth, out of many of us, actually, is who am I? Who am I? Who am I that you would ever consider using my life? Who am I that I can't do? I mean, I don't have any skill. I don't have any ability. There's nothing I can do. The book of Judges, there was an enemy army that came in every year, 135,000 of them. And they literally scooped up all the produce of the land, everything that God's people were trying to build or procure for themselves, this enemy army would come in and just steal it all. And the people of God felt so hopeless and so helpless. And yet a messenger of God appears to a young man called Gideon and calls him a mighty man of resource. His first thing out of his mouth is, how can I save Israel? Don't you understand that my family is the weakest in all of the tribes and I am the weakest and least in my father's house. I think you've got the wrong address, but God says, no. You see, this is your resource. And I want you to listen to me tonight online. This is your resource. I have sent you. I've sent you. And if I send you to do something, you will accomplish it, not in your strength or your wisdom, but in the strength and wisdom that I give to you, it will be done. The book of Esther, there was a law written that the people of God were to be oppressed. And then after that annihilated and all of their, everything they had gained in their life was to be taken away from them. They were filled with fear. And when the word of God came to this young girl who had been placed strategically in the King's court, the first thing out of her mouth is, I have not been called before the King for some time. And it's like the person tonight that says, well, I don't think I can make a difference because I haven't really been in any kind of communication with the Lord for quite a while now. And I don't feel lovely. I don't feel like he wants me. That was her initial response. And you go into the New Testament, the book of Acts, you have 120 people in an upper room. And these people have all failed. They have no strategy. They have nothing they could offer the kingdom of God. And the questions that would be in each of their mouths would be, who are we? And what chance do we have to overcome all that is now against us? There's a dominant culture called Rome who consider themselves superior to the ways of the people of God. They've conquered almost all of the whole known world. Their soldiers are everywhere. They have the upper hand. We don't even have weapons. And all of us, we've all failed. They all knew that. Our boasts of love and loyalty to God, our proximity to him and our leaning on his heart and every other display of affection or statements we made about how loyal we're gonna be has all fallen through our fingers, has all fallen into the sand. So who are we and what are we that you would even consider using our lives? And what chance do we have to overcome all that is now against us? You see, it was time for another foolish battle plan, another ridiculous battle plan. That's the only way I can describe it because can you just imagine the battle plans that God has used throughout the years? And that's why in verse 25, it says, for the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. See, God could do it all himself in just a moment of time. The beauty of the scripture is that he chooses to use you and me. And he uses us not when we're strong, quite often he uses us when we're weak. When we feel like our ministry moment like Moses has passed us by, when we feel like Gideon, like our house is, we're just so small and we've just accomplished so little and we don't have a heritage and we've got no influence or authority, whatever could come through our lives. When we feel unlovely like Esther, uncalled for, unwanted, like we had access once but we don't have access to the throne of God anymore. Or as in the book of Acts, we feel like we failed him. He trusted us, we told him we loved him. When the time came to stand, we cowered, we hid, we ran and now all we can do and all we know how to do is pray. The foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. In verse 26 now, Paul goes on. Now he's bringing his whole thought to a culmination, to a conclusion, just as I am tonight, to a decision that has to be made. In verse 26, he says, for you see your calling, brethren. Now here's my point. You are the ridiculous battle plan of God and so am I. You are God's ridiculous battle plan in the year 2021. You are the one that God wants to use. You, you who is addicted, you who is despairing tonight. You are fighting discouragement and panic attacks. You who have trouble in your home and your family. You are just like everybody else that God has ever used throughout history. You see your calling, Paul says. You see your calling. And that's my question to you tonight. Do you see your calling? Do you understand it's not many mighty. You see your calling brethren, not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world. That's the foolishness of God. The reality that God has designed and designed to work through me, to glorify his own name in the earth, to work through you, not in our strength, but in our weakness. In the book of Hebrews, he tells his own people, he says the invitation to his throne, to commune with him is not when we are strong, but when we are weak, when we need mercy, when we need grace, when we need God to do something that only God can do. Not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and base things of the world. And the things which are despised has God chosen. And the things which are not, or means nothing to bring to nothing the things that are. So tonight, if you are foolish, if you are weak, if you feel like you're the worst person in your neighborhood or your family, if you feel despised, if you feel even rejected and unloved by God, if you feel like you are nothing, then you are God's battle plan in this generation. Praise be to God, you are God's ridiculous battle plan. You are the next Moses, Aaron, Gideon, Esther, book of Acts Christians in the upper room. Oh, praise be to God. Oh, praise be to God. Praise be to God. You know, it's sad because for years, especially in the Western world, we forgot this. Somehow we left it off. And we started trusting in the wise. And we started trusting in the naturally strong, the naturally noble, the naturally mighty, those that had 16 degrees on their office wall. We started trusting in the strategists. Those who said, yes, we know how to do this. We have the strength to do this. We have the power to do this. And here we are today in the same situation that the people of God in the Old Testament right up to Acts chapter two found themselves in. Here we are one more time. Because flesh has gloried in the presence of God. And so we find the victory that was ours or should have been ours now going back and farther and farther and farther back into captivity. And one more time, one more time, I hear the heart of God. I hear the voice of God calling. I hear him calling those of us who feel like we're sealed behind a door in a tomb and have no life and have no strength. I feel him calling the nobodies and nothings of society one more time for one great and last glorious visitation of God in the earth. One last time. One last time when the men and women who are gonna stand and say, listen, you gotta hear me. I was nothing and Christ became everything to me. I was blind, but now I see. I couldn't walk, but now I'm running. I had no resource, but now I'm finding there's a river of life starting to come from my inward parts. I couldn't put two words together. Now I can't stop speaking. It's the man or woman who stands and says, I didn't love anybody. I didn't even love myself. I felt unlovely. Now the love of God is flowing through my heart to people everywhere. And I want you to know this simple message. What Jesus Christ did for me, he can do for you. He opened my prison door. He gave sight to my blinded eyes. He healed my wounded heart. He restored my broken home. And this is who he is. This is what he does. This is what he's able to do for you. And people will say to you, well, who are you? I'm nothing. I'm nobody. I was among the weakest of the weak of this world. I felt weak and despised and unlovely and unwanted, but suddenly I heard a voice calling me. In my bedroom, in my living room, in my car, on the bench where I was listening to a prayer meeting on my cell phone, I heard the voice of God calling me. Praise be to God. And I began to realize that I was God's end time battle plan to bring people out of darkness and captivity into the marvelous light and life of Jesus Christ. Verse 29, Paul says that no flesh should glory in his presence, hallelujah. The prophet Isaiah talked about the last days and he said, I hear from the earth in the midst of the fires, songs of glory to the righteous one. Glory to him, not to me, not to my abilities, not to my denomination, not to my church, but glory to him. Glory to him who called me out of darkness into marvelous light. Glory to him who called me out of the grave and gave me life. Glory to him who raised me up out of nothing and gave me a voice that is his to make a difference in my generation. Paul says, but of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption that as it is written, he who glories, let him glory in the Lord. Paul is basically saying, it is through Christ that we're given everything we need to do what he's called us to do. As he said to Moses, go, this is your strength, I've sent you. To Gideon, go, this is your strength, I've sent you. To Esther, you were raised for a moment such as this. And to the people in the book of Acts, he said, just go and wait and pray until I come. And I will give you what you need to do what I've called you to do. Praise be to God. 120 failures became God's ridiculous battle plan in the New Testament. They stood out in the public square without weaponry, without a strategy, without a plan. They had nothing written out on paper, but they had in their heart the presence of God. They had in their lives the power of God. They were speaking about him, not about themselves. They were speaking about the things he was going to do and the things he was already doing in each of their lives, not about anything that they had strategized. It was all about Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. And thousands that day saw it, thousands just melted into the dust. Their religion failed them at that very moment because they saw God doing in the people that which only God can do. And yes, they suffered for it. Many of them suffered for it, but they brought the gospel to you and to me and to this whole known world because they were God's ridiculous battle plan for the moment. And so you don't need to be mighty tonight. You don't need to be noble. You don't need a natural wisdom. You don't have to be strong. You don't even have to feel loved. You can feel despised, but God has chosen you. And so the question is, do you see your calling, brethren? Do you see it? You see, God speaks by his word, and then by his spirit, he brings his word to life in your heart. If you don't let the Holy Spirit touch you, then the words I speak or you read tonight are just learning. And Paul warns in the New Testament about people who are always just learning, but never brought to where that truth is supposed to take them. You have to just pray tonight. Oh, Holy Spirit of the living God, make the things that I've read tonight or heard tonight from your word, make them real in me. And I am nothing and I'm nobody, but God, if you want to use me, you can have me. If you wanna send me where I could never go, I'm yours. If you wanna give me what I could never possess, here I am. I open my heart to you. I open my life to you. Lord God, take me and use me for your glory. Now, I know what I'm speaking about. I've shared this many times, but as a young believer in Christ, I was only saved for a few years or even less, and I was visiting a church and pastor, I don't even remember the full message, but he gave an appeal. He gave an appeal at the end of the message. And it was very similar to what I'm telling you tonight. I don't think it was identical, but it was very similar because I felt this draw come into my heart to give the rest of my life to Jesus Christ. I was already a believer in Christ, but to give my future into his hands and to say, God, if you can use me for anything, I'll give it all to you. And when the altar call, when the appeal was given, strangely enough, nobody moved in the church. We're talking, I don't know how many people were there, probably 700, 800 people, maybe more. And nobody moved in the whole church. And they had everything I didn't have. They had the knowledge, they had the background, they had the pedigree, they were raised in Christian homes. I wasn't, they knew the Bible, I didn't. And I found it so strange that nobody moved, but I was strangely moved upon at the same time. I get out of my seat and I headed down to the altar and another man get up on the other side. There was only two of us that day that responded to the call to give what you have to God and let him take it and let him be God through you and let it be used for the sake of others. And I remember getting on my knees at the altar and I said, God, I don't have anything to give you. I have a bad temper if you need that. I'm a lousy husband, I'm not a good father. I felt everything that I've shared to you tonight. I felt that in my heart. I felt unlovely, I felt foolish, I felt weak. I felt, I despised in a sense what was going on in my own life, in my own heart up to the point of coming to Christ. And I felt like I had nothing, I couldn't speak. I was still grappling to get out of my own fears. I had a lot of issues still going on in my heart, my mind. And I remember the words, I prayed something like this. I said, Jesus, if you can use nothing, here I am. I have nothing to give you. And I remember the thought in my mind, the little boy at least had some loaves and fishes that he gave when you fed the crowd. I don't even have that, I have nothing. I came to him empty, broken, wounded, ashamed. I said, but if you can use it, here it is. And God enacted another one of his ridiculous battle plans through my life. And so I know what I'm talking about. I'm not bringing to you some pie in the sky theology that you can't attain to. I know where you are. I know how you feel. I know what fear feels like. I know what being in, I know what struggles are like. I know what they, I know the whole deal with it. But I also know what God can do. And so tonight we're gonna come to a communion table and I'm going to ask you tonight to give your life to Jesus Christ. Not just for the forgiveness of your sins, but that you can be a person through whom God does the miraculous again in our generation. Father, I pray. I pray tonight for those that are online. I pray for those that are listening tonight. Every man, every woman, every child, every age, every background, every situation. In Jesus' name, Father, I ask you to go and invade whatever place everyone is in tonight and touch every heart and touch every life and raise men and women and children up out of the place of weakness and into your strength. I'm asking you, Jesus, to be glorified, to be glorified. Let faith arise in every heart. Let every man, every woman in every situation just say tonight, God, I'm in. I'm yours. Jesus, I belong to you. Do with me whatever you choose to do. I will not put limitations on you. You can use me, you can take me through any door you wanna take me through. You can use my life for any purpose. I will not say no to you. I will go as they used to say in the church years and years ago, where you lead me, I will follow. God, I want to thank you in Jesus' name for what you're doing tonight. Now, everyone online, pray this simple prayer with me. And everyone in this room, would you pray with me please as well? Lord Jesus Christ, I trust you. I believe you. Lord, I believe that you can use my life for your glory, that you can do something through me so much bigger than anything that I could think about for my own life. And so I yield to you. I'm asking you, lift me out of where I am and take me where you want me to go. And give me a message for other people. Use my life in such a way that I will shout glory to you everywhere that I go. I thank you for hearing me tonight. You are going to take me out of my present weakness and into your strength. In Jesus' name, amen. Gonna ask the worship team to come, please if you will. We're going to prepare to have communion together in just a moment. And for those that are listening, don't turn back. Let God use your life. You are the end time battle plan of God. You are, you are. No superstar is going to rise up now. No high profile preacher. It's you that God is going to use. It's you, the weak, the marginalized, the foolish, the addicted, the despairing, the depressed. He's done it all throughout history and he's going to do it one more time before he comes. Oh God, oh, I wish you, I hope you can hear this. I hope you can see this because I see it. See, I promised you a few weeks ago, I'm not going to speak to you as addicted and afflicted and oppressed any longer. I'm going to speak to you as mighty warriors in the kingdom of God because that's what you are. You are mighty, mighty warriors in God's kingdom. God bless you. Let that, say it with me. Say it with me at home tonight. I am a mighty warrior. Come on, say it. I'm a mighty warrior in the kingdom of God. And start saying it tonight to yourself. Say it before you go to bed. Say it when you get up in the morning. I am a mighty warrior in the kingdom of God because that's how God sees me. Praise be to God. God bless you. We're going to come to the communion table in just a moment.