Transcript

Sermon Transcript: Five Blessings in 2022

9/6/2022 23 min read

Oh, come on. Let's give Jesus a great hand. Clap. He's wonderful. Come on, everybody. Let's really give Jesus praise. Amen. Wow. Such a blessing to be here. Jeff's told me all about this new building you have, and I'm just honored. Very, very honored. In fact, his introduction was over the top. Dude, I can hardly wait to hear myself after that introduction. I don't know if my wife would agree with all of that good stuff, but anyway, hey, I love you. And just want to just give a shout out to Jeff and Kim. They were front row people at Pastor's University that now had 354 guys go through it in the last, since COVID started actually January 2020. And they were just front row, just hand up every lesson or two, just questions, hungry, amazing. And so we just got kind of close in that time and now just to see you and see the church and the amazing staff that I've had a privilege to meet, it is just a real honor.

And how many of you men were here yesterday? Raise up your hand. We had some great guys here. Give them a hand clap for rolling out of bed on a Saturday morning. Yeah. So I just been praying about this year of 2022. And it started back Pastor's University in January of 2020. And it's been a rough couple of years if all of us be honest about it, just politically, financially, health wise, academically, it, you just name it. It's been rough. It's been a lot of transitions. But as I went into this year, I was actually praying for the Lord to just make a shift somehow. And interestingly enough, he brought me to the last chapter of the Bible to the book of revelation, where it speaks about a tree of life that bears fruit every month. Which is interesting, because we know there's no time in heaven, it's eternal. But yet it does describe the time duration of a month.

And that every month there is a new fruit on that tree or the trees of life, whatever it may be. And so pears one month, apples one month. I don't know. I have no idea. We'll find out. But I guess what spoke to me was that God wants to bless me with a new miracle every month in this year. And I have been claiming that with our church since January, when I first sort of unpacked this message there at our church. And people have told me that throughout this year, they have had amazing miracles in five areas, which I'm going to share with you in a moment. And I know we're a little bit down the year, but doesn't matter. It's a scriptural principle that God wants to bless you.

And in the book of Psalms, which I love Psalms, it's one of my favorite books of the Bible, Chapter 112, if you happen to have a Bible, which I know you, don't, you look on your phone or the screen. But anyway, if you happen to and you turn there, you'll notice it's a short Psalm, just 10 or 11 verses. But it is an acrostic Psalm. It takes the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and it for each phrase starts with a different letter like A, B, C, D for our alphabet. But this is a very short Psalm, but it's about the blessing. Everybody say the blessing. The blessing of God is so amazing that he blessed Adam and Eve. He blessed Abraham it says. He blessed Noah when he came out of the arc. God's wanting to bless you. And you may not realize this, but blessings are not automatic. They don't come to you. And you do have to pick the fruit off the tree. Blessings are something that God has provided, but your faith has to reach out and take.

I like to make it kind of like the promise land. God promised them this beautiful land with rivers, streams, orchards, gardens, houses that they didn't build. But it wasn't automatic. Basically you see that grace provides, but faith receives. I'm going to say that again. Grace provides, but faith receives. You got to take it like the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus didn't even know she came up behind him. He said, "Who touched me?" He was walking grace. Grace was coming out of him. But nobody else for some reason, reached out their faith and took their healing except that little woman with an issue of blood 12 years. And she was healed. Now you may be sitting here today saying, "Man, my life needs a blessing. I need miracles. I need breakthroughs in my kids, in my finances, with my relationships, with my emotions, with my calling, I need breakthroughs." Well, it's going to be you reaching out and taking it. It's not a siege mentality. That's where most Christians are. It's a seize mentality.

Now my favorite movie of all times is Air Force One. And that great theologian, Harrison Ford, come on somebody. And I just love it, man. He hides on air force one, those terrorists take over the plane and he hides. They think he's jettisoned, but he hasn't. And he's hiding down in the baggage down below. And he tricks him down there with noises and all and starts killing them. And he's the president, man. And I mean he's fighting and taking care of business. And well finally he gets down to the very last guy, the worst terrorist, the one that was the mastermind, goes down into the cargo hold and he and Harrison Ford have it out down there. And they get the tail of the air force one plane down. You know how all kind of vehicles can drive up in it and all. They get that down and they're fighting out on this tailgate if you remember. And it looks like Harrison's going to get thrown off and this guy's strangling him or whatever, but he managed to get a loop of rope around this guy and tie a knot.

And then he kicks him over his head and the man goes flying off the plane. And he's about 50 yards away just dangling at the end of this rope and he's dead. And that's sort of the [inaudible 00:07:06] of this huge drama. But the greatest line in the history of all cinematography happened when he said, and can anybody remember what he said? "Get off of my plane." Get off of my plane. What a thing to say to a terrorist that at the end of all this stuff that had happened, get off of my plane. And if you don't remember anything else about the message today, just remember you going to have to kick the devil off your plane. And he's going to stay on there at the controls until you realize who you are in Christ, you're born again, you're saved, you are seated with Christ in heavenly places. Christ put his foot on Satan's head and defeated him and rose from the dead. And he brought you up spiritually to sit with him in heavenly places.

And you have authority over the devil. So come on, stomp your foot a little bit in your chair and go, get off of my plane in Jesus name. Now that's what I'm talking about faith, because it says fight the good fight of faith. Fight the good fight. Faith is a fight. Faith is a press. Faith is a taking, a seizing of something that grace has already provided. Now let me enumerate these five areas. You can jot them down if you'd like. Or if you have your Bible, you can write them in the margin. But tomorrow morning I want you to get up. Or if you come to the prodigal prayer meeting on Sunday night, or you come to the prayer meeting Tuesday night, let this be a great little template for prayer.

And we're going to start right with verse two where it says that of the blessed man or woman, his offspring or children will be mighty. Mighty in the land. Not weak, not a part of the problem. They're going to be a part of the answer, part of the solution. I deal with parents all the time, even Christian parents, they don't understand why their kids are not serving God and why the enemy is just taking them away and all that. And they think, Lord, if you will do something, please do something. And he's not going to do any more than he's already done. He says your children will be mighty in the land. And the generation of the upright, that's me and you who serve God, will be blessed. When Melanie and I got married, 1976, we left two weeks later for Africa to be missionaries. I led a team of ORU students.

And so we were supposed to be there six weeks. We ended up staying for two years off and on. We went back and forth twice. But we just really kind of reached the point in our lives where we knew that we were ready to start our family. We had no idea what would happen. We had our firstborn, Joel, and then we had Jonathan, and we had Jared, we had Melissa, we thought we were through. And about six years later, Melanie said, "I want some more." So we had another little boy and said, "Well he needs a buddy," so we ended up having five boys and a girl. Come on. I told the guys yesterday, I'm not just pro-life, I'm prolific. Come on, you know what I'm talking? So if they would, put my little family picture up there somewhere, that's my flock from 2019.

Now that's when I had 16 grandchildren. Now, number 19 is on the way. My 19th grandchild is in the oven, going to be born in January and we could have 22, 24. I have no idea. But I did keep five of them this week for six days. And I escaped to Denver to get up here with you. So what I'm saying is they're a huge blessing. But what this scripture is saying is you're not going to just bear children. You're going to bless children. What a difference. When you serve God and you train them up in the way they should go, you bring them to kids' church. You read the word of God to them at night, you pray with them. You have no idea that you're not just affecting your lifetime, but they say that in five generations from you, you'll have 1200 descendants. 1200. And that's an average.

Now some may not have that many, but some may have more. They traced the genealogy, and if you've heard this forgive me, but they traced the genealogy of two people who lived in the 1700s in America. One of them was a college president, actually Princeton's president, Jonathan Edwards, a pastor. From him, five generations came quite a legacy. And I'm going to put this up on the screen for you somewhere, they'll put this up. They call it the five generation rule. From that one man and his wife came a US vice president, a Dean of a law school, a Dean of a medical school, three US senators. He had no idea when he was alive. That those would be from him 120 years later. Three governors, three mayors, 13 college presidents. 13. 30 judges, 60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 military officers, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, 100 clergymen, and 285 college graduates. That came from him and his wife.

And he never saw most of them. At the same time they traced a notorious criminal named Max Dukes. Mr. Dukes was in New York Correctional Institute in and out for years. So they traced five generations and it was about 1200 people. But the difference was stark. It says in this particular study, he had seven murderers, 60 thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 other convicts, 310 paupers, 440 who were physically wrecked by addiction to alcohol. Of his 1200 descendants that were studied, 300 died prematurely. What a difference. In the water of life, in the water of death. In the blessing coming out on 1200 descendants and the curse falling on 1200 different people. And that is all inside of you and I. We are carrying legacy. And when it says that children of the righteous shall be blessed, I claim that promise today, that they will be mighty in the earth.

One of my kids is over at our church planting arm of Surge. He planted 465 churches last year. One of them is the pastor of the church. They had 4,000 people saved last year. One is the CFO, one is the worship pastor of Bethany, and on and on. One is a campus pastor. And then my youngest has started a business that he wants to fund all of the above. It's amazing what God can do just in one generation, but I'm fully expecting 1200 to be mighty in the earth. Raise your hand if you'll agree that's going to happen to you too. Yes. A second blessing, just I'm touching on these, is your finances will be blessed. Isn't it interesting that he would just go right down the line prioritizing family, but then finances. It says in verse three wealth and riches are in his house. Now I'm not one that says God wants everybody to have 50 homes and 25 cars and everything.

Jaylen, bless his heart, has already has 75 cars in a warehouse. I don't want 75 cars. I can barely get the inspection sticker changed on my two cars. It comes around so fast. Or changing the oil and all that. I don't want 75 cars. I don't want a home that's 50,000 square feet and I have to run around cleaning 25 bathrooms. Man, we barely can get the one we have clean. Say amen, come on now. But what I am saying is that I know that if I live in poverty and in bondage to debt, I'll never be able to bless anybody else. God told Abraham I will bless you. Okay. Then he said I'll make you a blessing. If you've not been blessed financially, you can't be a blessing to others. Duh. That revelation came to me. So I have been asking, not for more properties or more money or more anything for myself. I'm good, man.

Hey, I could live off the land for quite some time like most of you, we got plenty. But what about the needs of the world? What about those two and a half billion people that have never heard the name of Jesus Christ? Two and a half billion. And it takes finances to build those radio stations and buy those Bibles and all that it takes to finish the great commission. David Green, Hobby Lobby, they're really amazing people. In fact, they have a model store in Oklahoma City that no one ever shops in except David Green goes in there every Saturday and prays. And he walks up and down the aisles of a model Hobby Lobby and prays for God to show him how to generate wealth. And they are multi-billionaires because the next week he changes prices and moves around displays and they implement it in all the stores that they make hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars with the changes he makes every Saturday.

He walked into my Alma mater, ORU, that was being sold that week to OU, Oklahoma University. For the first time they couldn't make their payroll in 40 years. He walked in there to a board meeting. God spoke to him to go there. And he said, "What do y'all need?" They said, "We need $50 million. We're in debt. We're losing the university this week." He sat down and wrote a check for 50 million. He said, "What else you need?" He said, "We need 50 million for deferred maintenance. We haven't fixed our buildings in 15 years. We didn't have the money." He wrote a check for 50 million. He said, "What else you need?" They said, "We need 150 million for a trust fund, a legacy fund so that we can have that for the future." He said, "I'll have to ask my family about that." And he ultimately wrote a check for 150 million.

The man has given them 250 million. And he coughed and that fell out of his pocket. Come on, somebody in this room. I'm just saying, how many of you would love to have financial resources that when there's a need, you can write the check and meet that need for somebody else? Come on, wave your hand out here. That's right. And this is a verse. And the devil will tell you, "Well, no, not you. You're not supposed to have anything," but the children of Israel were slaves. And they came out, psalm says with silver and gold. God so put fear in the Egyptians that they gave them all their wealth. They transferred the wealth of Egypt onto the slaves of Israel. And they had enough to build a tabernacle out of solid gold. Let me tell you, I don't know what God's going to do to bless you, but you need to tell the devil, get off of my plane in the financial area in this year. Come on, say amen.

Hey, we just need to marinate on that just a moment. But here's number three. All of these miracles and blessings are for you. They're they're provided. The next verse says about your relationships. He says in verse four, "He or that righteous person or woman or man is gracious, merciful, and he forgives and is righteous." What is that talking about? It's talking about how you relate to people because people are getting pretty ornery these days. And I've been flying for many years. And I fly 110 flights a year usually and blah, blah, blah. But man, people are getting hair, teeth and eyeballs on these airplanes now. That overhead bin for people to try to get their bag in there and all that, they'll they'll come to blows. Man, they'll come to fist fights over who gets their bag in there and all. And we see so much division and tension between groups that were always fine with each other. Now, all of a sudden, there's this animosity in America, there's this hatred, there's this division.

You know what I'm talking about? So how do we reverse it? We tell the devil to get off of our relationships. Even our family members are divided over silly, insignificant things that we hear on some news station. Well, I've decided that in this year, I'm going to have a drama free year. Doesn't that sound delicious? Look at your neighbor and say, "Drama free year." "Oh, how good and pleasant," the Psalmist says, "It is when brothers dwell together in unity." Unity, it's like the precious oil on the head of Aaron that ran down his garment to the skirts of his garments. They're the Lord commanded the blessing. If the devil can just get you cross threaded with people, he steals your blessing. I've decided there's no relationship worth sacrificing my blessing over. I'm going to forgive people. I even get up in the morning and say, "Lord, I forgive them in advance."

If you ever had anybody that you were maybe on your phone for a second at a red light and they started blowing their horn at you, man, that's one of my pet peeves. So many things can happen during a day, but I forgive them in advance. I say, "Lord, put your love inside of me." And I just have to say, I love Facebook. I'm on Facebook. I have a blog, 50,000 people read that blog sometime. But guess what? People are, they say they're friends, but they suddenly turn into enemies on Facebook. We could call them frenemies. It's a new term you can say now. And so the Lord told me why don't you just get off of Facebook and get your face back in the book? How about it in 2022?

And I'm not opposed Facebook. But I'm just saying, we've had enough drama. And I don't need to hear anymore about who's upset and why. I'm not upset. I'm blessed. Come on, say it out loud. I'm blessed. Okay. How about number four? We are touching on some vital areas here. And in verse six, it's all in this one little Psalm, great template to pray Tuesday night and Sunday. The righteous, that's you and me when we're saved, will never be moved. Do you know how easy it is to just your heart to be moved about stuff? That means scared, frightened. And this is talking about emotions. If anything has been turned upside down in the last two years in our nation, it's the emotional wellbeing of people. Now they're saying that the biggest problem in churches, even in churches, is mental health. And as a pastor who's pastored 53 years, I can tell you, I have never dealt with the upheaval people or feeling the anxiety, the worry about what's coming. The nervousness that people cannot calm down. Stress, fear, that's not your promise land.

The devil is sitting on your peace. Take a deep breath and go, ah. Somebody needs to calm down. Inwardly. Somebody needs to get a good night's sleep. Somebody needs to take their worries and hand them to God because the Bible says, and I'll read this to you from the book of first Peter, cast the whole of your care. If they'd put that verse up there for me, cast the whole of your care once and for all. That's how the Greek term is. Don't take it back upon him for he cares for you. Now I'm a fisherman and I love to cast and get a red fish on the line, down in the marsh in Louisiana, and cast over there and cast. But that cast is the word, it means to throw. [inaudible 00:25:39], it means throw it to God, throw him the baseball, throw him the football, and leave it in his hands. Do not demand the problem back. And we come to church and we cast it on the Lord.

But by the time we get home, we have already said, "Lord, can I just borrow it for a few more minutes?" Either he has it and you don't, or you have it and he doesn't. Because he can't have your problem and God have it at the same time. That's what that verse is saying. Cast it. Today in the end of the service, we are going to take every worry, anxiety, anything that is stressing you out in a huge way, we are going to cast it to the Lord and we're going to let him have it. I'm going to finish the rest of this verse. It says his heart will never be moved. He's not afraid of bad news. Bad news that comes over every news agency. His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is firm. God's going to settle you. God's going to establish you. God is going to take that worry from me.

I had a pretty shocking piece of development in my truck. I have a Ford F-150, 2014. It's worked great, everything about it. And I bring it to get the oil changed and my Christian buddy that does all my mechanic work. He said, "Larry," he said, "Two pistons are going out in your truck." And I thought, well it is a Ford, fix or repair daily. I'd heard that before. And then he said, "No," he said, "I mean, I'm talking about, it's not going to go very much further." And he sent me to the dealership, they confirmed it, $7,500 for a new engine. They told me that. I said, "You're what hurts, man? What did you just say to me? $7,500?" So I say, "Can I get home?" I get home. I tell Melanie about it. And we prayed about it. We gave it over to the Lord. We didn't know what to do. That's a lot of money. And my wife looks up for our prayer and she says, "I feel like you ought to call Geico."

I said, "Geico, they fix automobiles after accidents. They don't deal with car engines." She said, "I know that, but the Lord just impressed me, why don't you call Geico?" So just to get rid of her asking me to do it, I called and get a lady on the line. She says, "How many miles do you have?" I said "103,000." She said, "Oh, I'm so sorry." She said, "You had a major breakdown clause in your policy that went through 100,000 miles." Isn't that the way it always works? So she said, "Did we send you an email about that?" I said, "Well, not that I remember, but I get a lot of emails." She said, "Let me check." And I thought, "Hmm." She gets back on the phone, said, "We failed to send you that email. And because of that, we have to pay for the new engine." Come on, somebody ought to say amen.

Now that may not sound like a big deal to you, but I dropped my phone and ran around my house like a Comanche Indian. I'm not kidding. And I picked the phone up and said, "Did you just say?" Cast your cares on the Lord. Cast your cares on the Lord. And now, okay, we've handled our first four things. Our kids, our finances, our relationships, our emotional health. But let's come to the most important one, the last one. He has distributed freely verse nine. Let's talk about this guy that's blessed. He has given to the poor. That's what we all would love to do. That's this man that's blessed, this woman. His righteousness endures forever. His horn is exalted in honor. Now I'm a stickler about the Bible. I like to do cross references. And I ran a cross reference on this and it's interesting because over in the new Testament, Paul quoted this very verse.

This one right here, verse nine, in the context of missions. And offering, going to the poor science in Jerusalem. He quoted that verse, which you never would neglect to notice that an Old Testament, obscure verse being quoted in the New Testament, it goes up about 10 times in importance. And what that's saying to me is that my mission is tied up in my blessing. If I'm walking in the blessing, I have a mission to accomplish. A purpose, a calling. It happened to me at 16, empty in a garbage can in the back of our church building, little church building my dad was pastor of. I opened the back door. I had the garbage can in my hand. And something said to me inwardly, "You know I've called you to preach, don't you?" Just as clear out of nowhere. And I surrendered to that call, told my parents when I walked across the driveway home. Daddy said, "Why don't you preach this Sunday?"

I preached my only message. The rich, young ruler, 10 minutes. I admit I was making some stuff up at the end of the message. That was 53 years ago. I preached at least 5,000 times. All over the world people have given their hearts to Christ. But I'm in my calling, you have your calling. It's every bit is critical. It might be a legacy calling financially that you want God to use you to bless the world. He will do it. He's not a respecter of persons for David Green or anybody else. It might be that you want to be merciful to the poor. You want to help the homeless. You want to go to hospitals and visit people and love on them and pray for them. Children's ward, all kinds of things. That's your calling, your purpose. It might be you like to lead. You would love to lead a small group and just every week, just kind of start a discussion.

Help people grow in Christ. I don't know. But what I know is Satan does not mind you getting the other four if you can just leave out number five. Because you can have all the money in the world, all of your children be blessed, wonderful relationships, wonderful emotions. But if you stumble around like a blind dog in a meat house and never find your calling in life, you actually wasted the whole thing. I pray that in this year, in 2023, you ask God to show you your place in his kingdom. He told Jeremiah before I formed you in the womb, I knew you and I ordained you as a prophet to the nations. He knows us in the womb. He's called us. He's outfitted us for something. Surely we can find it. But Satan doesn't want you to know that he's sitting on it. You tell him, get off my destiny. Get off my ministry, get off my calling, my purpose. I'm going to fulfill it for the Lord. So now we come back to our two men, Jonathan Edwards and Max Dukes.

There's going to be a lot of people come from you, most of us. The question is what water are they going to be drinking from five generations from now? Is it going to be that clear stream of pure love for Jesus Christ and they go off and fulfill amazing destiny around the world? Or is it that polluted sin nature we were all born with? And without being born again, we carry it and pass it on to 1200 people after us. I want you to close your eyes with me just a moment. And out of your heart, I want you to see one of those rivers is coming. Is it clear? Is it clean? Have you received Christ? Or is it dirty and polluted? Sinners and Satan really is the master of all of the mess of your life. I'm going to in a moment, look around this room, and our campus Pastor up in Westminster is going to do the same.

And you may have come just for this short service, but you didn't know that God drew you here, because he's got a purpose for you. A destiny, a calling, a blessing. And it starts today with you simply surrendering to that call. If you're here and if you died tonight in your sleep, God forbid, you didn't even have time to make any amends of your life, but you're sitting here now and you have that chance, you would say I need forgiveness. That's what I came for really. I need forgiveness. And I want to go get in my car knowing that my past is completely forgiven. And I've changed my future five generations out. If that's you, sir, ma'am, young person, whoever you may be, God sees you here. He knows you're here. He loves you. He's not judging you. I'm not judging you. I'm of all people did not deserve to be called of God at 16. Messed up, totally messed up in my life.

If that's you and you would say I surrender today to the Lord. Now here's what I want you to do. If you'd like to be included in a simple prayer right in your seat, here's all I want you to do. Without hesitation, if that's you, I want you to just slip up your hand and hold it up high and say include me in that prayer. Do it right now. Just shoot it straight up in your seat. All right, there. My goodness, maybe 25 people in one section all across this room, people are raising their hands. Up in the bleachers, I see your hands. God bless you over there. God bless you all the way over there. Now you can take that hand and just put it over your heart if you don't mind, because that's the fountain with which comes pure life or polluted life. And let's ask God to change it. How about it? Let's ask God to do a miracle down in your heart. Pray this out loud. And then I'm going to pray over the whole group of us.

Say heavenly father, forgive me. Wash me in the blood of Jesus. Forgive my past, take away the pain and the shame. Forgive me, Lord. I forgive others who have hurt me. Change my destiny, my family, as I give you my life today. Now I'd like to ask if everyone would let me pray over you concerning these five areas. Would you just turn your hands over like a funnel? Everybody in this room, just put them out in front of you and kind of like I'm handing you a gift. But it's grace. And remember that grace is a gift, but faith takes the gift. I want you to take this morning, this blessing that I'm going to pray over you. First of all, over your children. I pray the blessing over even prodigal children that they're praying for on Sunday night at six o'clock. I'm praying for your children to be saved and to serve God and to turn many to righteousness, thousands of people to be saved. Lord, let them be mighty in the earth.

I pray then for the financial resources that they desire to bless the world. That those in Africa, those in Asia, those in South America, even those here right in the United States who do not have what they need, that you would use us to be a great blessing as a church. Here in the city of Denver, I pray a blessing on their business, on their house, upon their contracts, upon their every part of their financial life. And then I pray for their relationships. Oh holy spirit, if the enemy has severed a relationship and they hadn't spoken to somebody in a while, I pray for a miracle to heal those relationships and restore the circuit of blessing. I pray for their emotional health, Lord. If there's a worry, a care an anxiety that keeps them from sleeping, today we wind up and cast it over on you. And we are not taking it back.

We're leaving it right here in this service. And we are every day going to thank you that you are in charge of that problem. Our hearts are fixed and established on you. And then finally, Lord give them their purpose. Show them what they were called and meant to do in this world. And then use them for your glory, father. And we thank you for it. We give you all praise. You can even raise your hands and just say thanks to the Lord for this blessing and this miracle every month in these five areas that we talked about today. We thank you for it, Father in Jesus' mighty name. Come on, let's give the Lord praise together. Amen. Amen. I want to ask you to stand. Our team is going to lead you in worship. We also have some leaders that are coming forward that will pray with you while we're singing. You feel free to come down and let them have a word of prayer with you. Amen.