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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: We're privileged today to have Dan and Terry Hammer with us. Terry's actually with my wife. They're doing a retreat a little bit west of Calgary. So Dan is actually here going to speak to us this morning. I've known Dan and Terry for a long time now. Dan and I went to Bible college together in 1977, and we graduated together. And then later on, we also got our doctorate degrees from the same institution in Seattle. A different school, but the same place at different times. And so Dan has traveled much. He's been in 38 nations. He started a church plant in 1986. We started one in red deer with the number of people here in 1984. So they're going to hit their 40th year in two more years. So, Dan, why don't you come and share what's on your heart this morning?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Good morning.
It's great to be in red deer, Alberta again. Love your province, love your nation, and love to be here. Love your leafs. You're a little ahead of us, so it's really nice.
My wife loves leafs.
It's been great to know Paul and Patty since 1977. That just means we're both old.
I like to say I'm not old, I'm mature. I'm going to be 71 years young on Friday, and I like to. Yeah.
And 49 years ago, Christ came into my life. I was a drug addict and alcoholic.
I had two nervous breakdowns.
They told me I was a paranoid schizophrenic.
That was the nicest thing they said about me.
And it's amazing what Jesus can do to people that are broken.
And I tell people I'm not very impressive, but the one who lives in me is incredibly oppressive. And I hope you see him today. That's my highest desire, is that you will see Jesus.
And I just had a sense in this service there's going to be some healing that takes place.
They talked about the power of the name of Jesus. And I just want to say this before we get into John 14, that when we pray in the name of Jesus, there's power in his name. It's the name above every name that every knee shall bow to. And if there's one thing that I'm 100% convicted of, is the power in the name of Jesus. And I was thinking about a couple stories just to encourage your faith.
I was in. I've been a number of times to the Philippines, and my first time in the Philippines was in a setting where we were preaching and praying different people, and they asked me to lead in praying for healing for people. And we were getting. Towards the end of the evening, a number of people got healed. Some cancers disappeared. Different things happened. But I'll never forget, I'm always an awe and wonder of what Jesus does. And the story will tell you that sometimes us preachers really don't know what we're doing, and God works anyway.
Matter of fact, a lot of times we don't know what we're doing, if we're really honest.
The good news is, I don't know what I'm doing, but God knows what he's doing. So I'm getting ready to pray for this lady. This beautiful filipino lady comes up with her daughter and her son, and she's got this goiter that's about as big as one of those big beehives that's hanging this beautiful woman with this. And I'm trying to imagine what it must have been like to have a goiter that big. And I always like to ask, Lord, Lord, how do you want me to pray? What are you doing in their life? I don't just like to pray. You know, prayers. I like to say, lord, show me how to pray for this person. Show me what you're doing, because I want to work with you. There's too many people focused on what God isn't doing rather than what God is doing. Jesus only did what he saw the father doing implicitly. That's all he did. If the father wasn't doing something, he wasn't doing something. As soon as he saw the father was doing something, he joined him. I don't want God to join what I'm doing. I want to join what God's doing. So I'm asking the Lord how to pray.
And I'm sitting there, I'm trying to think of how to pray, and I'm saying, lord, how should I pray, Father, in the name of Jesus? And I was sitting there like this, and I accidentally touched her goiter and my middle fingers along us, so it touched her goiter, and her goiter shrunk in half. And I went, I don't care how much of a believer you are, when something like that happens in front of your eyes, it kind of gets your attention, and you're kind of in awe of God, and you're sitting there in your natural mind going, God, I didn't even know how to pray. And that was like an accidental touch. And God is so gracious and so kind, so good. He wants to do so many good. The devil is the one that wants to destroy people's lives. God wants to bring life and healing. So I start again. I say, father, in the name of Jesus. And I accidentally touch the goiter again, and the goiter disappears in front of our eyes. I'm sitting there like it's like, you know, one of those cartoons, like, what happened to that beehive? It's gone. I go, it's gone. It's gone. She goes, on the outside, but it's not gone on the inside. I can still feel it on the inside. And I said, well, good. I didn't know how to pray the first two times, but I know how to pray now. In the name of Jesus. And I went like that, and she started screaming, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone. Then my elder from the church that went to school with us, Tom Gibbons, he's still with me 49 years later. He knew me before I was saved. And after I got saved, he goes, this is her daughter. She had a smaller goiter, and she got healed. And her son is standing there. He's about a 13 year old. And he looks at me and goes, I think I need to get saved.
I want to encourage your faith. Before I went to the Philippines, the next time a lady on the phone called me, she was a hispanic woman that was a single mom that had one son. She called me and said, pastor, I've just got back from the University of Washington medical center.
She said, I want to tell you something. She goes, they've told me that my kidney and bladder are rotting inside my body. I have lupus. I have 25 autoimmune diseases. The doctor said, there's nothing more we can do for you. We're going to load you full of painkillers, and we're going to send you home so you can die with your son.
She had a jewish stepfather, an hispanic mother, a mexican mother, and they could be a little bit religious at times. So she said to them, I won't let you pray for me, but I'll let Pastor Dan pray for me. I was getting ready to go to the Philippines, so I was going the next day, so they called. I went down. I just prayed a simple prayer in the name of Jesus and asked God to have mercy. And I'm sitting there. I mean, I started to cry. I thought, God, if she dies, this young man is going to not only not have a father, he's not going to have a mother.
I knew it was like my mother died when I was six years old in a tragic car accident. So it really touched my heart. I prayed, and I went off to the Philippines on a mission trip. I come back, and there's a phone message, and she said, pastor Dan, I have to talk to you. And I thought they told her she had, like, two days to live. This is like 15 days later. She comes into my office, and she said, pastor Dan, I've got to tell you. She said, I went back to the doctor after you left. Something happened. I could feel the presence of goddess. She says, I went back in, and they examined me, and I have a new kidney and a new bladder inside my body.
And she said, all of my autoimmune diseases are not showing up on any of their tests, and my lupus is gone. She's still alive today, over 20 years later.
I just want to encourage you. When Andrea said, there's power in the name of Jesus, there's power in his name to release healing. We've watched cancers disappear. I've watched God put eyeballs in sockets. I've seen God grow body parts. I've seen a big toe grow on someone's foot. Somebody says, do you believe in healing? I said, if I told you stories, I've had my head messed up enough. The more I see him do things, the more I don't understand. I just know all we do is pray, and I want to encourage you. Like Pastor Paul said, don't give up when you see something's not happening the first time. Keep praying. Keep standing in the name of Jesus. If you keep asking, if you keep seeking, you keep knocking. You know, we give up too easy. We need to be courageous people that we stand with people in sickness, we stand with people in difficulties. And, you know, I said to somebody, I don't know what else to do but to fight. The devil tried to destroy my life. I had, you know, nervous breakdowns, and I got to read the cross and the switchblade. When I met with God in my grandparents house after my second, my second nervous breakdown, there was. I heard a voice say, go read a book. I always heard a good voice. I heard a lot of bad voices. I realized later I was demonized. But there was a book. On the top of the shelf was the cross and the switchblade.
My cousin sent it for my grandparents to read it. They never read the book. She wanted them to get saved. I read the book, and I got saved, and I led my grandmother to Christ over the phone. At 92 years of age. She spent her whole life in the congregational church but never got saved. She died shortly after that.
And then my grandfather was dying at 96 years of age in the very high house that I got saved in and my un, I didn't, you know, I had a theology. If you would have said, could an unsaved person lead an unsaved person to Christ? I would have said no. But with God it's possible. With men, but with God, nothing's impossible. So I gave my dad a tract and said, dad, I'm never going to ask you for one more favor in my whole life. He wasn't saved at the time. Now he's in heaven. He got saved. After this, he took a tract back steps to peace with God, read it to my grandfather, led my grandfather to Christ as an unsaved. My unsaved father led my unsaved grandfather to Christ and he got saved.
See, God is so much greater. We have all these limitations that we have all these reasons why something didn't happen. I'll tell you, God happens and God does things. I want to encourage your faith. You're ready for your 41st year. Good things happen in the 41st year in the Bible. You're going to celebrate. And I just love Pastor Paul and Pastor Patty. They've been dear friends, are godly. You have a great godly leaders. Could we give them a hand and say thank you for all that they've done so, Father, I pray in the name of Jesus, I thank you that we release the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the risen resurrected savior who rules and reigns all authorities, all principalities and powers and dominions and mights. All must bow to his authority. And Father, we release healing right now. I'm just going to ask you to raise your hand if you need healing right now.
Look at all these people that need healing.
Thank God he's Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our healer who heals all our diseases. He heals all manner of sickness and disease. Father, I pray right now, as we pray in the name of Jesus, that you'd release healing. I command cancers to wither at the very roots and dry up. God, I pray you'd release healing to people that have back problems and neck problems. They'd feel the presence of God going through their body right now in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that asthma and skin conditions would be healed in Jesus name. The person with the ringing in their right ear and the pressure they feel would be healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the person that's had the knee surgery that didn't take right. I pray that you'd release healing through their knee, Lord, for the one that has Lord bone spurs on their ankles. I pray you'd release healing that those bone spurs would dissolve. In the name of Jesus and Father, we thank you as we come into this service that we can pray in the name of Jesus. And we pray your blessing over living stones church as they lord, come to the end of 40 years and start. Lord, Lord, every time in the scriptures. At the end of 40 years, you did mighty things. God, we thank you. You're going to bring them into the promised land. For every problem that we face, there's a promise in the scriptures. And all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God through us. You want your promises to realize through us. So release your promises into every problem. And I pray there'd be reports of your healing. We will give you all the glory and honor Jesus. In the precious name of Jesus, we honor you, Father, son and holy spirit. Open the scriptures to us. Give us a the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Christ. Today we pray in Jesus name. And all God's people said, amen. Turn with me to John 14.
John 14.
Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. And my father's house or many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know. And the way. You know. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going. And how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, lord, show us the father and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me? Philip, he who has seen me has seen the father. So how can you say show us the father? Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority. But the father who dwells in me does. The works. Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me? Or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.
Most assuredly. I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also. And greater works than these. He will do because I go to my father. And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do. That the father may be glorified in the son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the father. And he will give you another helper or comforter. That he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive. Because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him. For he dwells with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you a little while longer, and the world will see me no more. But you will see me because I live. You will live also.
At that day you will know that I am in the father, and you in me. And I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them. It is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him and manifest myself to him.
Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my father will love him. And we will come to him and make him our home with him.
He who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine. But the fathers who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things. And bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give it to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said, I am going to the father. For my father is greater than I. And now I have told you before, it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe I will no longer talk much with you. For the ruler of the world of this ruler of this world is coming. And he has nothing in me but that you may know that I love the Father. And as the father gave me commandments, so I do. Arise. Let us go from here.
In this passage I just see something that's so important to christian life. And that's the power of the Father's love.
The power of the Father's love. Jesus said to them, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
See any God that doesn't look like Jesus is the wrong God?
Jesus said, if you've seen me, you've seen what the Father's like. It's so important that we see what the father wants to do in and through our lives. He's so powerful, he's so amazing.
He does so many awesome things in our life, and we need to realize that we are sons and daughters of the living God. See, Philip hadn't clued in yet.
Philip had not yet realized that when Jesus was doing the works, the Father was doing the works for him. The good news is we get to be involved with the works of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that we're his sons and daughters. There's too many christians that have an orphan mindset there's too many people that have an orphan mindset that think they have to earn God's love, think they have to do right things or perform to get God to love them or if I don't do this, I don't think God loves me or I failed. God doesn't love me. That's so wrong.
The amazing thing is he loves us so much. If I had a translation, it really wouldn't be a translation. I'd like to put like 17 o's on for God so loved the world. I mean, hasn't God loved you? Hasn't God done so many incredible things in your life? And we get to receive the father's love. I love in Matthew, I love in the gospels, where the heavens opened over Jesus and Luke, and all of us are praying for an open heaven. That means we want revival. We want to see signs and wonders and miracles. But when the heavens opened over Jesus, after 30 years of just waiting, 30 years of being prepared for a little over three years of ministry, the heavens opened over him. And what was said from heaven, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
Do you know that the father wants you to hear today that you're his beloved son, you're his beloved daughter in whom he's well pleased. And right away, what happened. If it would have happened to us, what would we have done? We would have told everybody about our experience. We said, well, I had an open heaven. God's pleased with me. We're gonna start our miracle ministry. What did God do? He sent Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
See, we're either in the process of what God's spoken to us about, or we're in an encounter with God. So in our life we have those moments Paul talked about in prayer. We have those moments where God really does something in our life where we receive like an impartation, or we have an encounter with God. And then what that does, a lot of pentecostal charismatics start telling me, oh, God said, I'm gonna do this. And they think it's gonna happen right then. But what that does, you received an impartation to go into a process like Jesus did in the wilderness. Look through the scriptures. Everybody that received a word from God, there was a process that followed. So you're either on the way to your next impartation or you're receiving impartation. You're on your way through the process to receive the next impartation. So what happened to Jesus? Jesus is in the wilderness. And first is they're dealing with if you're really the son of God or since you're the son of God, he was messing with his sonship, wasn't he?
And he goes into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit. He comes out of the wilderness after being tested in the power of the spirit. There's a release of power when we go through the process. There's the building of our character to carry the promise. But we need to know that we are beloved of God.
We need to know that he loves us so much. I meet so many christians say, well, I think God's angry at me.
You know what? God already poured out his anger on Jesus.
I had a beautiful time this morning. After the first service, a lady came down and said, pastor, thank you for the message. She said, just Tuesday night, and Elf, I gave my life to Jesus. She said, I've been here for a year and I was so angry at God. I said, the good news is you can be angry at the devil. He's the one that messed up everything.
God's the one that restores everything.
And I got so mad at the enemy when I realized what the enemy had done to my life. And I said, I'm going to make my get back at the enemy by seeing everybody that's like me get freed. That's my joy, is to say, guess what? The God who did it for me can do it for you. The God who loved me so much can love you. But, oh, you don't understand, pastor. Sometimes I have people come in my office and say, well, you wouldn't understand, pastor. And you have a godly family. You see all these things happen, and you're a pastor, and I start to tell them about my past. I said, well, I know somebody that you might relate to. And I tell them my whole past. And they go, now, that guy could really help me. Do you think he would talk to me? I said, I think he probably would.
Do you have his phone number? Yeah. I said, I can call him right now. He'll be here immediately. He lives that close to the church? I go, yeah, he does. And I go, Dan.
I go, yes, this person wants to see you. I said, okay. I said, it was me.
You know what? We all came from a mess, didn't we? We all had struggles in our life, but Jesus loves us. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. That's what he was trying to say to Philip. He was saying, philip, you've seen the way I've loved people. You see the way I forgive people. You see the way I touch people. You saw how I washed your feet. This is the heart of the father. I came to show you what the father's like.
In me dwells the fullness of the godhead bodily.
And I want to encourage. You don't have an orphan spirit, because a lot of times we feel like we've been abandoned. We feel like, you know what? We didn't get enough. Or if you can tell if you have an orphan spirit when God blesses someone else, if you get jealous, say, well, if God blessed them, he didn't bless me. That's an orphan mentality. I should be happy my brother or sister got blessed, because he's going to bless all of us.
And the enemy loves to lie to us and say, you're not loved. He doesn't care about you. He didn't answer your prayer. I just say, oh, wait a minute, because I'm going to keep praying. He's going to answer my prayer, and you're going to be under my feet where you belong.
I have a friend in Swaziland, Bishop Zak Stemwallow. You know what he does every time he buys a new pair of shoes? He writes, satan on the bottom of his shoes. S a t a n. He says, I want Satan to know exactly where he belongs.
I don't know if you want to start a footstomping religion, but it says that the God of peace in Romans 1620 will crush the head of Satan under your feet shortly. Because God loves to destroy the works of the enemy, because he destroys people's lives. He's the one that causes havoc. So when I talked to lady, I said, the good news is you can get angry at the devil. He's the one that tries to mess up our families. God restores them. God heals, God delivers. And it's so much fun to have God show up and do what he does. In first John 416, it says, and we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him. And it talked about that as we allow God his love to abide in us, he comes, and Jesus and the father manifest himself to us. God wants us to be so full of the love of God. God is love.
He is so loving. He is so kind. I started this morning down in Paul, in Patty's basement, in the chair, in the guest room, sitting there with my Bible open, saying, father, I receive your love today. You can't achieve his love. There's nothing you can do to achieve his love, but you can receive his love.
I want to be a good receiver. I want to be like a wide receiver, just hauling in God's love everywhere I go and passing it off to anybody who wants it, anybody that'll take it, even to those that don't. And do you realize you carry the love of God in your life, in your heart, you carry the presence and the power of God. When you show up at work, it makes a difference. When you show up in the neighborhood, when you touch somebody with God's love, when you receive God's love, you can give it away. Let's not have an orphan spirit where we feel abandoned, we feel neglected, we feel rejected. I had to go through a whole thing where God had to show me as a pastor how I was ministering out of rejection. And if somebody came in and said something bad about the church, I'd try and make it all right and smooth it out. And through God's dealing with me, I realized that I was ministering out of rejection. I was more concerned about not being rejected than being so accepted by God, that when people said hard things about me or the church, it didn't matter. I realized I wasn't their problem.
And when I was able to receive God's love and have my identity in him, and I became to be so loved by God.
I just became so loved. I became so secure when I was insecure. You lose your mother when you're six, you're kind of insecure. When your dad goes through four different marriages, you get kind of insecure in the natural. But when Jesus came into my life, something happened. The love of God began to be manifest in my heart. And he's the way to the father. Jesus said in this passage, he said, you know what?
I'm the way in the truth and life. And the only way you can know the father's love is to come through me. And he wants you to become his son and daughter. And are you living as a son and daughter or are you living as an orphan?
I find so many christians that pray like orphans. Oh, God, I know you probably won't hear my prayer.
We started a thing called man prayer. And, you know, first started man prayer, you get 20 men in a room, they're kind of sitting there like this, or the pastor made us come here, you know, a couple guys pray and the rest kind of go, when's breakfast starting? You know, so I'd go in the back of the room. I said, God, I don't want to be in a prayer meeting like this. And they're going, well, God, you know, we're not really that great at praying. Maybe you could help us. And I'm all for honesty, but, you know, I want people that pray in faith. I want people that believe God. So. But now what's happened is our man prayer meeting has gone all over the world and people have joined and we get men together. I have like 40 men that come in and they, if you don't pray right away, you don't get to pray. You pray 20 minutes alone. You pray 20 minutes in a large group, and there's prophetic words that come. We have people from all over the world that send prayer requests, and we pray over people and they get fueled every week. We get maybe three, four or five impossible situations. They men pray and we're cheering and we always start it this way. We go, one, two, three. That's one.
You get 40 men in a room doing that, top of their lungs. One man brought his eleven year old son to the prayer meeting, and he got in the car with him after he said, what do you think? And he goes, dad, they're superheroes.
See, young men are looking for men that are men that want to trust God. They want to believe God. You know what I started and wife started coming, what did you do to my husband? I said, nothing. We're just praying. And they started doing things I've been trying to get them to do for years. But they got in the presence of God. They began to realize they were loved, that their prayers were valuable, that they make a difference in life. And they got off all this orphan spirit stuff and all that. I'm not this, and I'm not that. And they saw that God abides in them, that you carry the presence of God, you carry the love of God, and people get attracted to you.
That's why they come up and want to talk to you and why they ask you things and how God leads you. My steps are ordered by God. So when someone comes across my path, they're a target for me to release the father's love I shared in the first service.
If my steps are really ordered to the Lord, it means they're ordered by God. It's not just a nice thing to say and pray to. So when you step, you better make sure when that person steps in front of you that God, what do you want to do? So I go to speak in North Carolina, and the associate pastor says, can I talk to you? He meets with me four times, and all he does is cry. He says, I need to talk to you. And he starts crying in restaurants. He cries in all kinds of places. And then he says, can I talk to you tomorrow? Again, I'm thinking we didn't talk.
And he drives me in his car out to this, you know, this two lane out in the middle of North Carolina in the rural area. And there's two lanes and there's like grass and woods, like right next to. There's no. He pulls off into the grass and he goes, well, this is it. And I'm looking at him and I'm going, this is it. I'm thinking, is he going to do something or. And he starts crying. And he goes. He says, pastor, he said, I've never brought anybody here.
He says, what is it about you? Whenever I get around you, I cry. I haven't cried for years.
Why do I feel loved when I'm around you?
He said, this is where my daughter was killed. My only daughter was killed in a tragic car accident. And her friend, they died right here as teenagers. He said, when she died, my wife wailed for 72 hours. She was my wife's best friend. She said she cried and wailed. She hasn't been in church since then. But when she saw you and doctor Liss come, she's come. This is the first time she's been in church in years.
She says she feels God's love when she's around you. You don't even realize you're more than you think you are because you have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit living in you. And I've got good news. The Holy Spirit gives holy spirit cabin fever. Sometimes. He got in you because he wants to get out of you. He wants you to share the love that you receive. And you might want to write this down if you don't write anything else down. Who he is to you, he will be through you.
Who he is to you and how you see him, he will be through you. That's why I had to be delivered from rejection, because if I'm ministering out of rejection, I'm not ministering out of the love of the Father. And he allowed these terrible circumstances that made me cry and feel bad, but I'm glad that he did it. He said, I allowed this to happen so you could be delivered, so you could be accepted by my love.
So start every day. Father, I receive your love, Lord Jesus. I receive your love and your grace. Holy Spirit. I receive your love and communion and fellowship. So powerful.
He who has my commandments and keeps them is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father.
You're loved by the father.
You're a son and a daughter of living God. And if you're not a son or daughter of living God yet I invite you to become a son or daughter of the living God today to receive his love.
I cried for three days. I said, lord, I got so broken. You know what my philosophy of life was? I'm going to use the people in my life before they use me.
I'm going to get out of them whatever I need to get, because I know they're going to mess up or something. So my agenda was to get everything out of them before they mess me up. It's a terrible way to live. You get very lonely when you live like an orphan. You're just trying to grab whatever you can grab, and you get mad at other people when they get blessed or helped. But when you receive the love of the father, it's so freeing, it's almost criminal. I said, it's almost sinful how free I am after 49 years.
I get to go all over the world and tell people about Jesus.
Isn't that awesome?
That's good news. The world needs the good news of Jesus. He came to show us the father, to show us his love and to receive his love and then give his love away. And it's so much fun to give his love away. It's so much fun to watch people get healed and people get delivered and people get touched and just bask in the love of the father.
Song of Solomon. He said, Lord Jesus says to his bride, with one look of your necklace, you ravish my heart. Do you know when you came in to worship him this morning, you ravished the heart of Goddesse. I said, Lord, I've come to ravish your heart. Lavish your love upon me. I've come to ravish you. I've come to receive your love. Some of my greatest moments are just being alone with him and worshiping, just telling him I love him and just receiving his love. His love is so powerful. The only thing that can change people is God's love. We try hard, but it doesn't work.
I was sharing with a lady this morning. She said, do you want to see your daughter get saved?
I said, I'll never forget. I was in a prayer time all alone, right in the front of the altar. And all of a sudden there was a big thud next to me. I thought one of our speakers had fallen from me. Really? A big thud. There was a man in our congregation and he was crying. He said, oh, pastor God, I've tried everything to get my kids saved. I've tried everything. I quit. I can't do it anymore. I'm frustrated. You haven't saved any of them. I've been praying for years. I quit and I was just. I'm still kind of over, you know, what's going on here. He didn't come and say, hey, pastor, or anything. He just fell down. And the Lord spoke to me and said, tell him now that he's quit, I'm going to take over.
Within 30 days, all five of his kids were saved.
It's not what I did. All I did is hear what God said. See, when you hear what God says and you say what God says, it's amazing what happens if it's just you and I talking. Nothing happens. That's why it's important that we hear God's voice, that we hear the voice of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We need to be led by the spirit, as many as are led by the spirit, they are the sons, daughters of God. The mature ones is what it means in the original language. So we see the powerful love of God all throughout this passage.
And Jesus said, I want you to know the love that the father and I share. And as you obey me and love me and receive my love and keep my word, my father will love you. You are so loved.
You are so loved. All God's thoughts towards you are loving thoughts. He's not going, oh, boy, look at what they're doing today.
Oh, no, they messed up again. He loves you.
And when you mess up, he's there to help you clean your messes up.
You know what we did? We did a series in the summer called my mess, my messiah.
My son thought it up. He's the senior pastor for the last almost six years.
My son's my senior pastor.
I get to serve him. It's awesome to watch.
And so he goes, yeah, we're going to have this series all different people are going to share. We're going to talk about a 16 year old that was homeless and ran through the streets and wanted to kill his mother and his stepfather and was a vagrant. And we're going to talk about the person who was a drug addict and addicted and had two nervous breakdowns. And we're going to talk about the person who was bound by pornography most of their life, got set free, wrote a book about pornography, went on about six or seven people said, I'm just talking about our pastoral staff.
It was all the lives of our pastors that are now pastors in our church. I don't care how broken you are. I don't care what you've been through. The love of God can capture your heart. The love of God can transform your thinking. The love of God can cause you to be someone you never dreamed you could be.
So let's see the power of the love of God in this passage. And then he talks about the person of the Holy Spirit. It's so awesome. I love that. He says, first of all, he's the comforter. I realized I don't need to be comfortable when I'm comfortable. I don't need to be comforted when I'm comfortable. When it's warm in my house and I got my old sleeping bag. I've had for over 40 years that my grandkids life. I don't even know why they like it. It's partly torn, but it's papa's. That's papa's blanket. They like to sit in my chair and pull their, pull up their.
My old 40 some year old sleeping mate sat probably over 50 years old. It's got rips in it. I don't know how it survived. Probably even smells like me. I don't even know why they would like that. Although I do use Hugo Boscalone.
Gotta smell something good from me. And so, you know, it's amazing what happens when you go through uncomfortable things. The Holy Spirit's there to comfort you. I had a sense that there's a lot of people in this church. Paul shared a little bit, but God wants to comfort you. The Holy Spirit is one who comes alongside and comforts you. Some of the best things you can do when people go through grief and go through trouble is don't say the stupid things I've heard people say to people. Just be there for them and put your arms around them and tell them you're there for them. And what do you need? I love you. I care for you. Let them pour out their hearts. Be the family of God to them. Just allow the Holy Spirit the comforter. It says in second to comfort through you. Second Corinthians, chapter one, says that the God of all comfort, he's better than southern comfort. He's better than drugs. You know why people take drugs and alcohol? Because they need comforting. And it comforts them for a little while, but it comes back and bites them. But the Holy Spirit, when he comforts us, he transforms us. He loves us. Then we can share the same comfort with other people by the ways we've been comforted. It's so powerful when he does that. He's so awesome the way he does it. He's not only the comforter, but it says that he's the spirit of truth. He only tells the truth. Isn't it amazing how the Holy Spirit just kind of brings you up short sometime in the most loving possible way you ever had? The Holy Spirit just speak to you and just stop you in your tracks.
You're ready to say something to somebody, and then the Holy Spirit will say, you want to know what I think about that?
Uh oh. I can tell from his tone of voice he thinks different than I think.
But he gives us the truth. He speaks the truth. See, the devil lies to people.
The devil was lying to the disciples. He was saying, it's not good for you to let jesus go away. They didn't want him to leave. I wouldn't have wanted Jesus to leave if I was in that situation. I would have said, what do you mean you're going to leave? We want you to stay here. But what is better than having Jesus with you is having Jesus in you.
Our pastor used to, Pastor Johnson. We were in Bible school in 1977. He spoke out of this passage, and he said, there's nothing in Jesus that should be out of him, and there's nothing out of him that should be in him.
And when you allow the Holy Spirit to just work in you and through you, and he'll speak the truth to you in good things and bad things, but he's always doing it in such a loving way. He always gives us a way out. Is that awesome?
Because all my life I thought I had to perform. I thought if I performed well enough, if I won the championship, I scored the most points in the basketball game. I excelled in all those things, but pretty soon they became empty. So when I got 97s on Bible school scores, it wasn't I got 97, it was I got minus three.
Guess what? My friend Leif Hedlin says this all the time. You have an a before you take the test.
In God's eyes, you have an a before you take the test. You're already loved.
We're all graded on the curve, the curve of his love. And we all pass the test because he loves us so much. And many people in the world don't know how loving God is.
And when we believe the lies of the enemy, then we empower the liar to confuse us and do things to us.
He's also the manifester.
He manifests himself.
Isn't that amazing? How he manifests himself, how he shows up and does things, how the Holy Spirit comes on. I remember being in Indonesia and watching the Holy Spirit fall on all these muslim children.
They snuck me into this muslim place. I started to preach about Jesus, and I love the muslim people. And all of a sudden, these little children started weeping. Uncontrolled. I lost total control. When the Holy Spirit shows up, you lose. I mean, not that you were ever in control in the first place, but you know what I mean? He showed up, and there was a little fifth grade boy that I was staying in their home, and he raised his hand to receive Jesus, and I knew he was. I said, kenneth, you're already a Christian. He said. He called me papa. He said, papa. I've never felt the presence of God like this in my. He's weeping, and little children are crying out to Jesus, and I haven't even heard. They got to say anything.
When you see how he manifests his love, his power, his presence, how he manifests his comforts. And he watched people that are under great pressure all of a sudden not be under pressure. He's the manifester. He's also the teacher.
It says that he will teach us and show us things in the passage.
He will teach you all things. And he'll bring things to your memories that I said to you. Isn't it amazing how often he brings a scripture to your mind? How he reminds you of something you heard or something? He's so good at reminding us? He brings things to our memory. He brings things to our heart. I love when we were in prayer this morning, the early morning prayer meeting here, and the men were praying scriptures. I love to pray scriptures. They start praying the scripture, and automatically it just. I just start quoting the scripture because the scriptures become your life.
You're a church that has a pastor that teaches the word of God. That's very rare nowadays. That's really sad. A lot of people teach pop messages, not the scriptures.
You have a pastor that preaches the scriptures. And I'm thankful for. I like to be around people who preach and teach the word of God. It's the word that changes people. It's his word that's so powerful.
And then he goes on not only to talk about the person of the Holy Spirit, but Jesus talks about the peace that he wants to give.
Do you know how much people would give to have peace in their life?
You know how many people are tormented all day and all night? I was tormented for most of my life. From the time I was six till I was 21, I was tormented. I went to sleep every night, tormented, wondering if I was going to die in my sleep like my mom died. I was tormented right before I got saved. I just said, if there's a God, would you just please unplug my brain? I don't want to be fearful anymore. I don't want to see things in my room. I don't want to live any longer like this. I can't stand it anymore. I can't take it.
But, oh, when I met Jesus, the peace that came, he said, I'm going to give you peace. Not like the world gives, but I'm going to give you the peace that comes from me. And you get so much peace. I've tried to make myself anxious, and I can't.
I can't get anxious anymore. People say, what's the matter? I said, I'm a Christian, and I've received his peace.
I had a man that used to come to my office, and he'd come to my office and he'd go.
The first time I thought, does he have asthma or.
It's kind of. So the second time, he came and did the same thing. He said, you might wonder what I'm doing. I said, yeah, I kind of wondered from the first time what you were doing. He said, I'm drinking your peace. He said, do you realize the peace that's in this room? I said, yeah, the prince of peace. When I go to someone's home before we leave Paul and Patty's home, the Bible says that I can release my peace because he's a person of prayer. So I release a blessing of peace over every home because people say, I do that because the Bible says to do it. What other reasons there need to be? If the Bible says to do it, you just do it. I don't need 47 reasons why.
So I released my peace, and you carry the peace of God. That man that felt the love of God, it wasn't me. He sends Jesus in me.
He still calls me, say, pastor, guess what's happening in my life? And I'm watching God just heal him of all the grief, all the pain, and they're starting to be released to set other people free. That's what it's all about, isn't it?
And pieces are because Jesus said, I'm going to go to the father.
Because when he goes to the father, he said, guess what? There's going to be a greater revelation of who the father is to you, and there's nothing that the enemy can do. He says, you know what? The prince of this world comes. He doesn't have anything in me. There was no hooks in Jesus he could get ahold of.
I mean, you look at what the enemies of Jesus said about him.
Remember the man that put the spear in his side? Truly, this man was the son of God. When your enemies speak well of you, or they went to arrest him and they said, never a man spoke like this. Why didn't you bring Jesus back? Well, his words captured us, and we forgot we were there to arrest him. It's amazing what the anointing of God does or the presence of God. You carry the presence of God everywhere you go. You bless people, you touch people.
And peace is ours because of Jesus obedience to the father, that he went to the cross, that he shed his blood, that he died, and he rose again. And our peace comes as we obey him.
And our love is really just proven by obeying him. But why would you not want to obey the one that loves you so much? It's not about performance. It's about just the gratitude that he loves us, that he forgives us, that he's chosen us. I mean, I was a drug addict, alcoholic scuzzball. You would have not invited me to your house. I would have stole the medicine out of your cabinet. I would have stole your money. I would have used you and taken advantage of you.
But, oh, I had an encounter with Jesus. I had an encounter with his peace. I had an encounter with God, the father's love. I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that brought comfort to my life. And, boy, what a joy it is to live. What a joy it is to be alive in God. What a joy it is to live for Jesus. You know, the world out there is looking for christians.
They're looking for people who magnify Jesus, who touch people with the love of Jesus, who minister to people. Last week in church, my son was preaching, and this lady walks up and she says, Pastor Dan, do you remember me?
And I look at this lady and she goes, she says, I'm in Texas. 30 years ago, I gave my life to Christ and I came back here to say thank you from Texas. I wanted you to know that I've followed Jesus ever since you led me to Christ. And I just wanted to say thank you.
And then there's the altar call. The altar call. A young man comes up and he goes, pastor, I haven't been in church since I was six years old. I'm 36 years old. I haven't been in church in 30 years. I was forced to go the first time. I've never wanted to go to church. Somebody showed me the livestream. He said, I came today. I want to give my heart to Jesus.
Isn't that living, sharing the love of God with people, touching people with the love of God? Because you know what?
Remember what I said? I'll say it again. Who he is to you, he will be through you.
If you received his love, you can give his love away. If he's comforted you, you can comfort. And I don't care if none of those things have happened in your life. They can start today or if they've happened in different ways. God's ready to do something special. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you.
He loves you.
He loves when you wake up. He loves to hear your voice.
He even loves your jokes.
Well, most of them, Father, we just thank you for your presence. Thank you for this great church. Living stones. Thank you for the anointing of God. Thank you for your presence here. Thank you for what you're going to do in the next 40 years. I pray you'd release your peace in this house. You'd release the Holy Spirit to manifest as a comforter, as a manifester, as the spirit of truth and God, that you'd reveal the scriptures to people, that people would have encounters with the living God through the people, that they would be so in love with you, they would be so full of your love, they would so receive your love. We break off any sense of the spirit of performance, of the orphan spirit. We break its power off your people.
We pray that they would receive the love of the Father. They would know they're a son or daughter of the living God that you'd bring such comfort to those that are going through trials to know that you're going to help them through the trial, just like you helped your son go through the wilderness. He came out of the trial not only full of the spirit, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I pray for a release of power through this great group of people, that you'd release your love and your power in supernatural ways.
And as we're closing today, I just want to ask if you've never received Christ, if you've never received the love of God, maybe you think God's been angry at you. Maybe you've had thoughts like, well, God would never accept me or, you don't know what I've been through. I'll tell you, I've been through a lot myself. But there's a God who loves you. There's a God who sent his son Jesus. Even when you didn't want him, he sent his son to die for you.
And the Bible says, if you'll confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness. And with the confession of your mouth as you declare what the Bible says about what Jesus did, and believe it in your heart and repent and turn from your sin, he'll come into your heart and life, and he'll change you. You'll experience the same love I've experienced for 49 years.
You'll experience the forgiveness.
See if you won't forgive yourself. You're not letting God love you. If you're going to let God love you, you'll forgive yourself.
You'll let go of the past. You'll realize that Jesus died for all those things. Says he was born of the virgin.
I love the way the book of acts, the preaching of the book of acts is so powerful that the gospel is so. There's not more than the gospel. There's more in the gospel that most christians don't realize. The gospel is the good news. It's all about Jesus.
If that's you and you say, pastor, I need to receive Christ. I need to give my heart to Jesus. Would you just wave your hand and let me see it? You're saying, I want to receive Christ. I want him to be my lord and savior. Thank you. Thank you. My left side, there's two people raising their hands. Anyone else? Thank you. In the middle, I see your hand. Thank you. In the back there's three in the middle section here. There's others. You'd like to receive Christ.
You'd like to surrender to Jesus, and you'd like to receive his love. You know what? You're no longer an orphan.
You're becoming a part of a family. You're being adopted by God. And the adoption by God. It's a roman adoption that Paul was speaking about. It means you have all the rights of a natural son or daughter, and you're going to be born again. Your spirit's going to be changed, your heart's going to be changed, and you're going to begin to walk. And there's plenty of people in this church that are going to help you.
Can we all pray out loud this and ask Pastor Paul to come up. Can we pray out loud? Let's pray out loud for those that raise their hand. If this is your prayer, I'll pray with me. Pray out loud. If this is your prayer and you confess this with your mouth and believe it in your heart, Jesus promised that he would come into your heart and forgive your life. Forgive your sin and change your life. And we repent. We turn from our sinful ways and say, Jesus, take over my life.
Just pray with me. Dear Father, I thank you for Jesus.
I know that I've sinned.
I ask you to forgive my sin.
I thank you that Jesus died for my sin, that he shed his blood for my sin, that he rose from the dead on the third day.
And I invite you, Lord Jesus, into my heart.
Forgive my sin.
Make me your son or daughter.
I confess that Jesus Christ is my lord and savior.
Amen.
Pastor Paul.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: Responded to that invitation. There's a card in front of you in the pew that says, connect. If you'd fill your name on that and just said, I made a decision. I'm gonna tell what's gonna happen. Then we'll contact you.
We'll help you start the journey. Because let me explain something about being a Christian. Coming to Jesus means you've been introduced.
How many know you to have a relationship, you have to continue in that relationship. Otherwise you won't grow in it, and it won't help you. And can you imagine if a baby's born and we neglected that baby, what would happen to that baby?
It would die. And so what we want to do is help you grow. That's the goal. It's not to make you do things you don't want to do. We won't do that. We're going to come alongside of you. We're going to explain to you what's really happening. And you're going to start growing and developing, and it's going to bring about that transformation, because the transformation is instantaneous. When you give your life to Jesus, your heart has changed. Now you have a new desire. It's called being regenerated. Something supernatural happened to you today, but to move forward and grow, that's another element. So it's not like you're trying to please God. It's just like you're trying to get to know him better. That's what's going on. And we want to help you with that. So fill that card out. Let's stand as we close the service. Thank you, Dan, for sharing. Appreciate it. It's good to have good friends. You know, I always say this. Choose your friends wisely. Makes a big difference.
So, Lord, I thank you this morning.
We're your children.
We are your sons and daughters, and we know you love us. And I just pray, Father, that we will leave this place with a deep sense of affirmation and encouragement in our hearts. I pray, Father, that we will be excited about serving you. It's the greatest privilege and joy in life is to know you, the true and the living God, to allow you to rule and reign in us and to allow you to live through us. There's nothing greater than that. And, Father, I pray today as we leave this place, Lord, may we. May we have created a new defining moment in our life. If we were struggling with addictions, fears, all the things that we struggle with as human beings, I pray today that today would have been a defining moment. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave.
