What Does God Have To Say About You？

And up to 209 countries to be part of this worldwide prayer meeting. This is a momentous day that you and I are now living in. It's a time when we anticipate the soon return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. A time when God is calling you and me and others as his church to rise up and to make a difference in our generation. So in the light of that, I'd like to speak this evening to people who feel captivated, lost, hopeless. You don't see any way out of your situation, let alone ever amounting to anything in the kingdom of God. But I want to suggest to you tonight that God is actually speaking to you whether you can hear it or not. And he's speaking to you things that maybe you've not considered yet for your own life and for your own future. Remember, he does not call things the way they are. He calls things the way they will be. That's how God works. So I'm going to speak to you tonight, not about your present condition, but about the things that God is willing to do in your life. We've sung about it this evening. We've sung about the holiness of God, the majesty of God. We've prayed tonight and we believe God for miracles, but I want to challenge you tonight to believe for a miracle in your life, your situation. Whatever your situation might be, God is greater than that situation. And he's more than willing. He went to a cross so that the power, not only the penalty, but the power of sin over your life might be broken and you might be brought out of the place that you might find yourself in tonight and into this place of incredible life that God promises to you through his son, Jesus Christ. Before I even speak or open the text of scripture tonight, I'm praying that God would let a faith arise in your heart. There's gotta be that mustard seed of faith as the Bible says, that little bit of faith that says, God, if this is you calling me, then I'm going to get up and I'm going to get out. I'm going to arise, I'm going to come forth and I'm going to begin to walk with you. This is a dark hour and the Lord Jesus Christ is calling his church to rise up. And that's you. If you had that seed of faith in Jesus Christ for your salvation, he's calling you now out of darkness and into his marvelous light. It's so wonderful you can join with us here tonight at Times Square Church in the middle of New York City, right at the very center of the world, as some people say. And I want to commend Pastor Tim DeLena for doing such a marvelous job in such a difficult hour. He is God's man called for this hour to take the church, this church, where it needs to go into all the countries of the world, into every heart, every home, every living room. God has gifted this man, he's a good man. He seeks God, he seeks the presence of the Lord and God's going to use him and this church in a powerful way in the future. It's a privilege for me to call Pastor Tim DeLena my pastor. I thank God for that with all my heart. Now tonight, here are the people that the Lord's led me to speak to. This is an example. This is from Washington. I ask God to forgive me for my hatred for myself. I hated myself and now I've dumped and how I've dumped my loving wife of 20 years when Satan got a hold of my life. So you're living with deep regret for things that you did in your past. And that regret, of course, is wanting to captivate you and destroy your future. From Bandura, Australia, I want so much to feel and to know God's voice and experience him in my life. I've been a Christian since I was 16 years old. Now I'm 59 and I've been seeking him in prayer for healing of cancer. From the U.S., I want to be a victorious Christian, but I can't get out of this deep, dark pit. Satan has decimated my family. I'm in despair, filled with fear and worry. Jesus, help me. From the U.S., I need prayer because I'm backslidden and addicted to heroin. I'm trying to get back to Jesus, but I find it impossible to kick the habit. Please help me. From Seoul, South Korea, I'm fighting laziness, lethargy, and cigarettes. I must study, but I sleep all day long and my sense of shame is growing. Please pray for me. From Virginia, a 19-year-old who feels suicidal, doesn't believe in God, doesn't feel loved, is just absolutely numb, but at the same time is reaching out for prayer. And so these are the people that I feel that the Lord would have us take a moment and speak to tonight about what does, I know what you have to say about yourself, but what does God have to say about you? Is his opinion of you exactly the way yours is of yourself? Or maybe does he have something for you that you've not considered yet? Is his voice speaking condemnation to you in your captivity or is he calling you into something that only he can do in your life, that he's willing to do in your life, and that will actually bring your life to a place where you will give glory to him? I know that's hard to believe for some, but the Bible does say, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things in his or her life pass away. Behold, all things become new. Now that's either true or that's not true. You see, if Christ is in you, these old ways of thinking, these old ways of doing, the old bondages, the old wildernesses of your life, they lose their hold, they lose their strength, and they're called, in a sense, by the voice of God to pass away. And God begins to speak something into your life of newness that only he can do for you. My part, your part, is to hear his voice. My part is to believe him. My part is to get up and start moving towards the sound of his voice and the promises that he's making for my life and for my future, for my family. I did that years ago, and God has not failed me. And even this day, as his voice is calling me into places perhaps I've not gone before, I'm still willing to listen because I know that all things do work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose. Psalm 29. If you have any device or a Bible or anything you can read along, or if you can't, just listen with me as I read this psalm. It's a psalm of King David. In verse one, he says, "'Give unto the Lord, O you mighty ones. "'Give unto the Lord glory and strength. "'Give unto the Lord the glory due to his name. "'Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.'" Or that means the beauty of being separated unto God. You know, some of you are listening to me right now and say, listen, I can't get off my couch. How am I gonna give anything to God? I can't get out of this pit of despair. I'm so entrenched in captivity. My grandfather was captive, and my father was captive, and I'm captive, or whatever your situation might be. And you're telling me, you're asking me to give glory unto the Lord? You see, there's something maybe that you fail to understand. It's not your job to give glory to him. It's your job to believe that he can use your life to bring glory to his own name. It changes everything. You are not the one responsible to give him glory. You are responsible to open your heart and hear the sound of his voice and begin to move towards the freedom that he offers you and the purpose that he has for your life in the future. Verse three of Psalm 29 says, the voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is full of majesty. You know, these waters that are roaring in your mind, they roar against you. They threaten to drown you. They tell you they're going to overwhelm you. They tell you you're not gonna make it to the other side of life, let alone the other side of eternity with God. The waters of all the voices that have risen up in our generation, all of the opinion. I don't think there's ever been more noise than in this generation. There's noise everywhere. There's noise in the media. There's noise on the radio. There's noise on television. There's noise on the internet. It seems like everybody's got something to say about anything and everything, but only one voice has the power to change things. Only one voice has the power to bring eternal life. Only one voice has within it the power to calm the storm, the power to change your future, the power to create life where no life exists. Only the voice of God, which is above the waters. I've always believed in the New Testament when Jesus was crossing the sea with his disciples and the waves threatened to overwhelm them and drown them. He stood up and in fulfillment, perhaps even of Psalm 29, his voice rose above the waters and suddenly there was a calm. Suddenly that which had the power in itself to sink their boat lost its power because a greater voice than the sound of the waves had risen up. You see, you've got a lot of waves in your heart, a lot of waves in your mind, a lot of waves in your home. You have to let the voice of God come into your heart now and come into your mind because his voice is higher than all the waves and all the opinions, even of your own heart. There's a verse in scripture that says, even if my own heart condemns me, God is greater than my heart. If I feel I have no future, God says, no, I say you have a future. And if you will believe the things I speak to you, you will undertake a journey with me that you've never anticipated could ever be part of your life or your future. Verse five says, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yay, the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He makes them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Syrian like a young wild ox. When I was a sheep farmer years ago, I had a sheep farm and raised sheep and sometimes I would have to refence the farm even by hand. And if you put any of the kind of wood in the ground, but cedar, it generally will rot off in a matter of one or two years and your fence is essentially worthless. But cedar has a certain component about it that if you put cedar in the ground, it can actually outlast you, outlast your life. It can be there for more than a generation. There's just that component of cedar. And many of us have had things in our lives that were maybe passed down to us or became part of our character or part maybe of the lineage of our homes and our families. And these are the cedars, the things that are just there for another generation. The things that we think will always be part of us. They'll never be broken. They're always going to be there. We wait for them to die, but they don't die. We wait for them to fall over, but they stand strong. And we don't know what to do. But David the King, when he wrote this Psalm, he said, the voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The voice of the Lord splinters the cedars of Lebanon. He destroys those things that would destroy you, that would lead you and I into bondage that would cause us to be, as some have said, well, this is the way my mother was or my grandmother. This is the way I am. And this is the way it will always be in our family. No, it doesn't have to be that way because God, when he speaks to you, he breaks these entrenched places in your life. He goes on, he says, he makes them skip like a calf. Now, I've seen that. I've seen newborn calves in the field because my farm was next to a dairy farm. I've seen when they're let out of the stall and they bounce up and down all over the field and they're just skipping for joy. This is brand new life. And they're let out of the barn finally. And they're in a new field. They're in a place they've never been before. It's a pasture that's filled with abundance. And they leap and dance and go around in circles when they're finally released. And this is what God says to you. I'll break the cedars in your life if you'll listen to me. And I'll give you life. I'll give you new life. I'll give you abundant life. I'll take you into a place you've never been before and give you joy that you can't have apart from my presence in your life. Verse seven, David says, the Lord divides the flames of fire. In other words, there's these impossible places that you think you're never gonna get through. These things that threaten to overwhelm and destroy, maybe even just the fear in some people's hearts as some of our cities are being set on fire in this generation. Maybe you're afraid for your future. You're afraid for your provision. Your protection. Maybe you're just afraid. But you see, when you start listening to God, he makes a pathway through this. And he gives you peace in the middle of the storm. And he starts to show you things that are eternal, not just temporal, not just things that are all around that can be burned and can be destroyed. But that which God gives you, that which Christ becomes in you is everlasting and he will lead you through it. Verse eight, David said, the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The voice of the Lord, those barren places in your life, those places that you think will never produce anything of life. I remember when I was a young police officer, I've shared this many times with many people. I remember how cold my heart was. I remember going to an accident scene, putting chalk lines around the bodies, just going eating my lunch. I didn't really care. My heart was as cold as a stone. It was an empty place in me, a wilderness. Maybe it was a way I protected myself from being hurt anymore, I don't know. But I do know that when Christ came in, he shook the wilderness. And I started to care about people. I became in a sense that calf that was led out of that confining place and found something so much bigger in my heart that only God could give. So I'm not just bringing you a theory about God, but an actual experience with God. He shook those barren places, taught me how to be a husband and a father, taught me how to care about people, taught me how to escape the confines of what others had said my life was going to be or the limitations that others maybe put around me. Or maybe I put them around myself. But I found that when Christ came into my heart, suddenly the wilderness was shaken. The voice of the Lord makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. The voice of God brings new life into every heart. That's what it means to be born again by the spirit of God. It means realistically starting all over again. It means new life. It means a new future, a new hope, a new heart. That's the promise of scripture that God gave. I'll give you a new heart. I'll give you a new mind. I'll give you a new spirit. This is God speaking to his creation. It's God speaking to you and God speaking to me. And he strips the forest bare, all those things that stand in front of you that tell you you're never gonna amount to anything. You're never gonna get anywhere. You're never gonna accomplish anything. You're never gonna get out of where you are. And even if you make the attempt to get up, you're just gonna get lost in the forest as it is. But the voice of God just strips bare these things that stand before you that tell you that you're never going to amount to anything in this world. And then David says something at the end, near the end of the Psalm and at the end of verse nine, he says, and in his temple, everyone says glory in his temple. Those who choose to walk with God, those who choose to walk in his presence, those who choose to let Christ be Christ in them, those who give up trying in their own strength to change anything and suddenly trust God to do everything he said he's going to do. There's this shout in the heart, glory, glory to God. Sometimes you just gotta, you gotta get it out because it's gonna hurt you if you try to keep it in. My God, my God. Sometimes I just wanna dance all by myself in my living room. Sometimes I wanna dance all over the platform in whatever house of worship I happen to be worshiping in. And they say, God, only you could have done this. Glory to you, all power, all glory, all dominion. Everything Lord belongs to you. And the scripture says in his temple, everyone says glory, everyone. You talk about a worship service. When you come into the house of God and you don't need the band to get you stirred up anymore. You don't need the preacher to get you stirred up as wonderful as that may be because God's presence has stirred you. You've been walking in victory. You're seeing change in your life day by day, line by line, step by step, precept upon precept. Your life is changing. The old things are passing away. The old bondages are losing their hold. The old confusions are giving away to clear and sound thinking. The old walls are giving away to faith and you're beginning to believe that God is able not just to save you, but your home, your family, and to use your life as an influence in your generation. And you come in after one more week of changing a little more and a little more, and you just shout glory. Nobody has to tell you how to worship God. You know, when I was a young Christian one time, I was invited into a church and I had to wait till the service was over to worship God. Isn't that sad? I remember I waited till everybody left. Then I ran up and down the aisles and I just started shouting, oh God, thank you for what you did in my life. That's just what it's like to walk with God. It's what it's like when the Lord has come into your heart and he begins to change you. Then it goes on at the end of the Psalm. It says, the Lord will give strength to his people and he will bless his people with peace. The Lord will give strength to you and he will bless you with peace. In Luke chapter seven, I'm just gonna close with some very, very quick thoughts. There was a widow taking her son out of the city and the son was her future and he was dead. And it was a type of a person whose future is gone. They don't see a hope and everyone around them, every voice around was also agreeing in a sense with her, your future's gone, your son is dead, your hope is lost. Then suddenly Jesus comes into the scene. He stops the procession and he just simply says, arise. In other words, get up. The power of death is no more power over you when the voice of God speaks to you. And so there are some tonight that maybe you feel like you have no future, but the Lord is simply saying to you tonight, arise. Just get up from wherever you are. Now, you might be sitting on your couch watching this tonight. You might be in your car, wherever it is. And maybe I'm gonna ask you in a moment, just take a step of faith and just arise, just get up. A sign in a sense that God, I hear you. I hear you calling me. John chapter 11, there was a man who had died again and all around the people were just lamenting the loss and even the fact that maybe Jesus hadn't been there when this man who had called out to him was on his deathbed and everyone else felt that there was no hope for him. And maybe that's the way people feel about you. Maybe you just spend, his sister said, he's been dead so long he stinks. Maybe that's the way you think some people feel about you. And maybe you're even right. Maybe they do feel that way about you. Maybe they think your conversation stinks, your life stinks. Maybe you feel that way about yourself. But Jesus came to this situation of no hope. And he said, come forth, come forth. Just step out and start walking towards the voice of God. No matter how you feel about yourself or no matter how many people have made a pronouncement of your hopelessness in your situation. And then lastly, in John chapter five, there was a man who was laying by a pool hoping for healing for 38 years. When Jesus said to him, would you be made whole? He said, well, I have no man when the water stirred that can help me get into the pool. In other words, here's a man who just says like everybody's given up on me. It's been 38 years. And I'm sure people had tried to get him there, but maybe he was heavy. I don't know. Maybe he was reluctant to get up, but he could never get in first. So he never got his healing. And most everybody, if not everybody, had given up on this man. That's why he could say, I have no man that would help me when the water is stirred. And to this man, Jesus just said, take up your bed and walk, rise up, take up your bed and walk. In other words, roll up this old life, this old way that you have been living, stick it under your arm and let it become your testimony of who God is in your life. And so this is what I'm challenging you to do tonight. To rise up, move towards God. Move towards the voice of God. This voice that breaks the cedars, divides the flames of fire, causes new life to come into every human heart that trusts in him. And roll up your old way of living by faith. Tuck it under your arm and get ready for a journey. A journey like you've never ever believed could be possible in your life. And when people ask you, what is that, Matt? Say, that's where I used to lay for 38 years. That's the place of captivity that I used to be in. But I heard the voice of God. I heard the creator of the universe. The one who died for my sin so that I might have new life. He called me. And not in my strength and with no certificates on my wall, with no hope, no self opinion that was worth anything, I simply got up and I started to walk with him. That's going to be the victorious church in this last day. It's you I'm talking to. You are going to be part of the victorious church. I don't know about how you feel tonight, but I'm done with you sitting on your couch, mourning over your past failure. I'm done with your whimpering about your addictions. It's simply time to get up and to start walking with God. Now, we're going to go to the communion table in just a few minutes. I think I'm gonna ask Pastor Tim to come back, Pastor Tim DeLena, and lead us in communion tonight. And as we do this, if you have any bread or juice in your home, I want you to partake of it with us because it represents the fact that the son of God went to a cross, paid the price.