Speaker 1: Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
Speaker 1: Say this together, say, heavenly Father, I'm so glad this morning.
Speaker 1: I'm glad for what you've done for me through the blood and I know where the blood is applied the power can flow.
Speaker 1: The power of the Holy Ghost is here today to meet every need of mine, to meet every need of my friends, my church members.
Speaker 1: Lord, we're together in one place and in one accord.
Speaker 1: Thank God for the Holy Ghost, thank God for miracles.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, amen, praise God, Junior High can be dismissed.
Speaker 1: This morning You're gonna have a class and we're gonna have a class.
Speaker 1: Let's look at Psalm 133.
Speaker 1: I read that to open the service.
Speaker 1: Some of you weren't here, so we'll read it again together, psalm 133.
Speaker 1: And also, while you're checking, get Galatians, chapter three, in front of you.
Speaker 1: Psalm 133,.
Speaker 1: David is writing here and he said Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
Speaker 1: It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, that went down to the skirts of his garments as the dew of Hermon and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing even life forevermore.
Speaker 1: So notice how precious unity is.
Speaker 1: You know, years ago God gave me this little formula love plus unity equals miracles.
Speaker 1: And of course it's right here in the scripture.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they didn't have the agape love like we do.
Speaker 1: They didn't have, they weren't spiritually alive.
Speaker 1: In the old covenant they had the blood of bulls and goats.
Speaker 1: That made them acceptable to God.
Speaker 1: It just meant that if they did everything according to the law they wouldn't die, you know.
Speaker 1: So they approached God with trembling and with fear and with trepidation.
Speaker 1: But we've got a better covenant, found upon better promises, and we get yourself mixed up with the old covenant.
Speaker 1: We've got the new covenant, but what God said about it is the same today.
Speaker 1: Unity is so precious it has to be contended for the more people you've got.
Speaker 1: I liked what one Jewish guy said he's saved, he's what they call a completed Jew, a messianic Jew.
Speaker 1: But he said you know, you get 10 Jews together you have 11 opinions.
Speaker 1: He said that about the Jews.
Speaker 1: I'm not Jewish so I wouldn't say that, but I mean he said it, thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: No, unity is so precious it's worth to be contended for.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 1: And then let's turn over to Galatians, chapter three, talking about verse seven.
Speaker 1: No you therefore, that they that are of faith, the same of the children of Abraham, and the Scripture for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel under Abraham, saying indeed, shall all nations or all heathens that are not Jewish, see that's what that means Be blessed, indeed, abraham.
Speaker 1: Shall all the heathen be blessed.
Speaker 1: All right, and then we move down to chapter verse 13.
Speaker 1: Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.
Speaker 1: For it is written blessed is everyone who hangeth on a tree, so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Speaker 1: So I wanted to share a message entitled believe the blessing.
Speaker 1: Believe the blessing, don't believe the curse.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because the curse existed in the old covenant.
Speaker 1: The old covenant had curses associated with their covenant.
Speaker 1: They had blessings and curses, and when they went into the Promised Land, they had the priest stand on Mount Gerizim and on Mount Ebel and from one mountaintop they declared the blessing of the covenant on the other mountaintop.
Speaker 1: But if you don't do the covenant, then this is the curses and Deuteronomy 28,.
Speaker 1: You've got verses one through 14 tell you what the blessings are.
Speaker 1: Blessings are you in the country, blessed in the city?
Speaker 1: Blessed in the coming out?
Speaker 1: Blessed in the coming in?
Speaker 1: Blessed in your basket in your store?
Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1: Well, we love to read those first 14 verses, but then after that, 15 through 66, is the curses.
Speaker 1: And, man boy, there's a whole long list of curses.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got to have another arm extension.
Speaker 1: If you're going to down your arm, you're going to have to have another four foot arm on there, because it's long, lots of curses.
Speaker 1: Christ redeemed us from the curse.
Speaker 1: You don't have any curses.
Speaker 1: Glory to God.
Speaker 1: And of course, here in Psalm 133, speaking about the old covenant, speaking from David's viewpoint, he said where there was the unity there, the Lord commanded the blessing.
Speaker 1: They just did the Father's heart good to see His people walk in unity with each other, which is why they had so much trouble, because they had a hard time walking together.
Speaker 1: They couldn't walk in harmony with each other, much less with God.
Speaker 1: Look at our society today.
Speaker 1: It's broken.
Speaker 1: You've got people that have an.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, did we go crazy overnight or something?
Speaker 1: And everything has totally changed in the last couple of years, since Biden took over.
Speaker 1: I mean it's like an altered reality has sprung up and all of us are being accused of being so crazy.
Speaker 1: And no, we're not crazy.
Speaker 1: And so you know we.
Speaker 1: He's where.
Speaker 1: There's unity there.
Speaker 1: The Lord commanded the blessing.
Speaker 1: The Jewish people had to be highly um, they had.
Speaker 1: They had to have a pattern of that in their lives to reinforce that idea, because, again, they were spiritually lost.
Speaker 1: And so they had their, their Shabbat.
Speaker 1: You know the Sabbath, they kept the Sabbath and, uh, you got churches trying to keep the Sabbath for what?
Speaker 1: We're not under the law?
Speaker 1: Christ is the end of the law for righteous.
Speaker 1: Why in the world would you go to church on Saturday and say you're keeping the Sabbath?
Speaker 1: Number one, you can't do it Cause you don't have a kitchen that's equipped to cook the food correctly, to beat to meet all of the requirements?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you only knew what it took just to eat, you'd give all that up quick.
Speaker 1: If that's what it takes to go to heaven, keeping the law, I mean, they couldn't do it and we can't do it.
Speaker 1: We don't have to do it.
Speaker 1: Jesus redeemed us from the curse.
Speaker 1: He's the end of the law for righteousness.
Speaker 1: So, but anyway, uh, they had to have all these, these traditions.
Speaker 1: Jewish fathers, every Shabbat, every Sabbath day, bless their children, bless their children.
Speaker 1: They pronounced a blessing over their children every, every Sabbath, and that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: I think we ought to bless our kids more often than that.
Speaker 1: Uh, the p patriarchs before they died, at the time of their passing, they would gather their children together and they would bless them.
Speaker 1: To think about Jacob, you know, he, he took the sons of Joseph and he and he put his hands on him and he crossed his hands.
Speaker 1: Remember, oh, no, daddy, it's that the other way.
Speaker 1: No, let it be this son.
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I'm not, I don't have Alzheimer's, I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: This is the way I need to do it, right here.
Speaker 1: And so he did.
Speaker 1: He blessed the sons of Joseph before he died.
Speaker 1: Moses, before he died, blessed the 12 tribes.
Speaker 1: The priests would release the blessing over the people through the laying on of hands.
Speaker 1: Do you know that the laying on of hands conducted and and was a way for the blessing to be transmitted over to God?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that we have the laying on of hands alive and well in this church.
Speaker 1: We lay our hands on everything it moves.
Speaker 1: If it's not moving, we kick it and uh so, uh.
Speaker 1: If the Jews had that, then we have Hebrews eight, six.
Speaker 1: We have a better covenant found upon better promises, and we need to be highly exercised and highly, uh, influenced by the idea that we are blessed.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to get blessed, we have already been blessed.
Speaker 1: The blessing has already been released.
Speaker 1: Where, in the spirit realm, or what I like to say, the call of the Lord, the blessing is available to you and I.
Speaker 1: It's available for our faith to reach up and grab it and bring it into this realm right here, the here and now.
Speaker 1: Some people call it the nasty now and now, but I mean, oh, we don't have to say that, it's the here and now.
Speaker 1: Are you with me now?
Speaker 1: So Jesus took our curse.
Speaker 1: We have the blessing in and through Christ.
Speaker 1: It's in Christ.
Speaker 1: It's not about deserves, it's not about earning it.
Speaker 1: It's not about whether we've been good little kids, good little boys.
Speaker 1: Have you done anything?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 1: Blah, blah, blah and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: No, jesus was good enough for us and we're blessed already.
Speaker 1: We have.
Speaker 1: But, pastor, it says, might that we might, that we might receive.
Speaker 1: You know, we might or we might not, we'll see.
Speaker 1: The might is not on God's side.
Speaker 1: It's not about the good little kids, it's not about God's side.
Speaker 1: It's already done.
Speaker 1: The might is on our side.
Speaker 1: Do we have the faith to appropriate the blessing?
Speaker 1: That's why I'm preaching this and it really ties right in with the last four messages on redemptive realities, because and I well, I could just make this redemptive reality number five if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to separate the, the foundation scriptures and have a different take on the same subject.
Speaker 1: Essentially, why am I doing this?
Speaker 1: Because I'm not living in this world right now where everything is coming apart and many in the church are discouraged.
Speaker 1: Many in the in the church are living far below where they could be living, because they're not fully engaged in the idea that they're blessed.
Speaker 1: And being blessed has nothing to do with the interest rate, it has nothing to do with the inflation rate, it has nothing to do with the foolishness that's going on.
Speaker 1: I'm blessed, oh my God.
Speaker 1: I want I mean I want to get you so filled with that idea that you could get beaten into a greasy spot out on the pad, out on the sidewalk and the breezy spot and say I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: So believe the blessing.
Speaker 1: You know, here we've read this in verse eight.
Speaker 1: I want to go back and look at it, because the blessing is the heart of the gospel, the gospel is the good news.
Speaker 1: Right, and look what Paul said to the Galatians, who you know.
Speaker 1: The Galatians had departed from the faith and went back to Judaism, and so he's having a kind of lay, a foundation all over again that they once had.
Speaker 1: And then somebody went in there and started preaching a bunch of junk to him.
Speaker 1: I know a pastor right now that I mean, I know him very well, I've fellowshiped with him, I know him and he's gone back to just Judaism.
Speaker 1: He's got church on Saturday and trying to keep the Jewish dietary laws.
Speaker 1: Now Just going backward out of what we have.
Speaker 1: Are you nuts?
Speaker 1: What pill did you take?
Speaker 1: What person did you hear that polluted you?
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh, I value what we have, what we believe around here.
Speaker 1: I value what the Word of God is to us.
Speaker 1: So it says here in verse eight and the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached the gospel unto Abraham back then, and what was that gospel?
Speaker 1: In thee shall all nations be blessed, see, blessing that's called the gospel.
Speaker 1: When did that happen?
Speaker 1: Well, you know right, let's turn, just to keep you in place in Galatians.
Speaker 1: Turn back to Genesis 12.
Speaker 1: You know, abraham was the first Hebrew.
Speaker 1: God told him to leave his father and mother and go to a country I'll show you.
Speaker 1: He didn't even and he left not knowing.
Speaker 1: He left or country he was in of the Caldeans and he didn't know where he was going.
Speaker 1: But he obeyed.
Speaker 1: But he did some partly right, partly wrong.
Speaker 1: He took his family with him, his father and lot, his nephew.
Speaker 1: That that was a snare and we're still paying the price for that disobedience.
Speaker 1: But God doesn't remember that part.
Speaker 1: God just gives him credit for, for leaving not knowing.
Speaker 1: He's the apostle of faith.
Speaker 1: Abraham is, I'll tell you, god's merciful, but anyway.
Speaker 1: So he says here, and he said verse two, or verse one the Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, from your kindred, from your father's house, unto a land I will show you and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing, wow.
Speaker 1: So there it is blessing.
Speaker 1: And the next verse I will bless them and bless thee and curse those that curse thee.
Speaker 1: And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed how?
Speaker 1: By faith in Christ.
Speaker 1: See, I'm not Jewish.
Speaker 1: I can't lay hold on that covenant from a Jewish standpoint, but since I trusted Jesus as my Lord and my savior, I'm now the seed of Abraham, and all the, all the blessings and all the promises that God gave to Israel are mine, Plus more.
Speaker 1: Oh, come on, let's praise him.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, you know, when I read in my Bible that that that Isaiah turned the clock back for Hezekiah to let him know that he wasn't going to die, you know how will I know?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to die, I'll turn.
Speaker 1: I'll turn the clock back an hour.
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine the power available in that?
Speaker 1: I mean just just to decree that the sundial, it just stopped going and went back An hour.
Speaker 1: The sun moved Backward.
Speaker 1: I wonder what that did to the tides.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the animals thought Huh, what's going on?
Speaker 1: And how about Joshua?
Speaker 1: I mean, joshua got, he ran out of daylight, killing the enemies, and said you know, moon, stand still, sun, stop, stop.
Speaker 1: He stopped time for a day, stop time.
Speaker 1: Oh, I tell you the power that they had in their covenant.
Speaker 1: We have plus, when are we gonna act like it?
Speaker 1: When are we gonna believe it?
Speaker 1: See, believing is an action verb.
Speaker 1: It's not just mentally saying, oh, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I kinda like no, we gotta act like it, we gotta appropriate it, amen.
Speaker 1: So let's look at Luke 24.
Speaker 1: I wanna show you this one.
Speaker 1: This is cool, talking about the blessing and how it's meant to be transferred.
Speaker 1: I mean, we ought to be blessing people.
Speaker 1: We can bless them with the gospel, we can bless them with healing, we can bless them with information that they don't have.
Speaker 1: Luke 24, this is talking about Jesus.
Speaker 1: He's just about ready to be lifted off the planet, going back to heaven after the resurrection.
Speaker 1: He's spending time with his disciples and verse 50, he led them out as far as to Bethany and he lifted up his hands and blessed them.
Speaker 1: Just get a picture of this.
Speaker 1: Now, here they are.
Speaker 1: He lifted up his hands and he blessed them.
Speaker 1: And then what happened?
Speaker 1: And it came to pass.
Speaker 1: While he blessed them I mean he's still blessed them he was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: I mean, here he is.
Speaker 1: He said I bless you.
Speaker 1: And he just whoo.
Speaker 1: And they're standing there and they start grieving.
Speaker 1: They lay on the ground.
Speaker 1: They just have a pity party.
Speaker 1: Is that what the scripture says?
Speaker 1: No, now before, they were kind of upset John, chapter 14, he had to comfort them.
Speaker 1: Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
Speaker 1: You believe in God, believe also in me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to prepare a place for you.
Speaker 1: Where I am, you can be also.
Speaker 1: So they were real bummed out about Jesus leaving them.
Speaker 1: But here they're.
Speaker 1: What does it say?
Speaker 1: And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.
Speaker 1: They didn't have any separation anxiety, they didn't have any pity party.
Speaker 1: They were so impressed to be blessed.
Speaker 1: Are you blessed or not?
Speaker 1: See, we ought to be rejoicing.
Speaker 1: We'll be rejoicing all the time.
Speaker 1: We ought to have the biggest smiles on our face instead of just the big old frown.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard, it's easy to frown because there's a lot to frown at, but we can be blessed.
Speaker 1: If you think about the blessing, then you're smiling, then you're rejoicing, all right.
Speaker 1: So he left and they rejoiced, all right.
Speaker 1: So blessing defined.
Speaker 1: I looked it up in the Webster's 1828 dictionary Hard cover man.
Speaker 1: It's a big, old, huge book.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of those.
Speaker 1: You just run out of place Space.
Speaker 1: Back in the old days used to have libraries and houses.
Speaker 1: There were big old shelves and everything.
Speaker 1: I've just got a little bit of space.
Speaker 1: So a big old book like that, I can't have a whole bunch of those but I do invest that one.
Speaker 1: That's a good one to have.
Speaker 1: And the modern dictionaries have a whole lot of words in there that are just redefined and I don't believe in that.
Speaker 1: I don't believe God ever lost the idea of language.
Speaker 1: I think the language doesn't change.
Speaker 1: People change, ideas change.
Speaker 1: The spirit of this age changes.
Speaker 1: But anyway it says in there blessing means to consecrate by the sprinkling of blood.
Speaker 1: It comes from a German word, blostjah, that means blood sprinkled.
Speaker 1: So now we know why.
Speaker 1: When Aaron or the priests were consecrated to be high priest we talked about this a few weeks ago that they'd shed the blood of the ram and they'd take that ram's blood and they'd anoint the head and they'd anoint the right thumb and the right great toe and then they would put the anointing oil on there and then they would sprinkle them with the blood and sprinkle them with the oil.
Speaker 1: And I said what was that the blessing?
Speaker 1: See, they were blessed to be a blessing.
Speaker 1: Are you with me now?
Speaker 1: It also means set apart for holy purposes.
Speaker 1: It means to pronounce holy, happy, successful, prosperous, to pronounce divine favor, advantage and promotion.
Speaker 1: I can kind of relate to that.
Speaker 1: Does it have anything to do with the economy?
Speaker 1: Does it have anything to do with the inflation rate?
Speaker 1: See, I mean, you know, we can talk ourselves right out of the blessing by complaining about everything.
Speaker 1: We go to the store oh, this used to be $75 and now it's 150.
Speaker 1: You know what I say?
Speaker 1: I say well, I got plenty of money.
Speaker 1: I'm so blessed.
Speaker 1: My blessing exceeds the rate of inflation.
Speaker 1: I've got more left over now than I did before.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just start saying that?
Speaker 1: Why, because you've got a revelation of the blessing.
Speaker 1: Yes, god's not hindered by this economy, he still owns all of it anyway.
Speaker 1: Some of these people are gonna find that out.
Speaker 1: Maybe some of them will find it out too late.
Speaker 1: So in the Amplified it says highly favored to be envied.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be envied.
Speaker 1: Yes, fortunate, happy.
Speaker 1: Listen to this one.
Speaker 1: Spiritually and materially prosperous, yes, amen.
Speaker 1: You can't separate money from the blessing.
Speaker 1: The blessing means more money.
Speaker 1: Get it into your thick skull.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 1: Quit listening to these people that come against the prosperity message.
Speaker 1: There's no prosperity message.
Speaker 1: It's the gospel, doofus, can you read?
Speaker 1: They can't read.
Speaker 1: I had a guy confront me there a few months ago.
Speaker 1: Are you one of those prosperity preachers?
Speaker 1: I said, well, I preach the gospel, the same gospel that Jesus preached.
Speaker 1: He preached the gospel to the poor.
Speaker 1: What's the good news, fella?
Speaker 1: Good news you're poor.
Speaker 1: Keep at it.
Speaker 1: You're doing a great job.
Speaker 1: Keep eating mud bricks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had children in Haiti after Ike went through there and destroyed their little town and all they had to eat was mud that they put a little salt in and baked it in the sun and they were so hungry.
Speaker 1: They eat mud bricks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's supposed to glorify God.
Speaker 1: No, a thousand times.
Speaker 1: No, I'm gonna do everything I can to stop that.
Speaker 1: And we have Got electricity there, got a school there.
Speaker 1: They've since shut it down because of all the roving gangs.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, you do what you can.
Speaker 1: There's still thousands of churches there.
Speaker 1: I know they're making a difference.
Speaker 1: Brother Max is there.
Speaker 1: I think still might be there now.
Speaker 1: He was going recently.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's come back already or not.
Speaker 1: But Glory to God, I'll tell you, the gospel is the remedy of it.
Speaker 1: So Proverbs 10, 22,.
Speaker 1: The blessing of the Lord, it make us rich, and he added no sorrow with it.
Speaker 1: So let's not, let's get rid of this religious idea that somehow, some way, we have to feel guilty about being rich.
Speaker 1: What is rich?
Speaker 1: Just having an abundant supply, having more than enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that to condemn anybody.
Speaker 1: If you're right now living paycheck to paycheck, doing the best you can, I've been there.
Speaker 1: In fact, I didn't have a paycheck for a long time, so I know what it's like to live with no paycheck.
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not saying or preaching anything.
Speaker 1: I haven't lived through.
Speaker 1: I've lived through it.
Speaker 1: But the point is I lived through it.
Speaker 1: I got on the other side of it, and this word is what got me on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Amen, glory to God.
Speaker 1: So we're blood blessed.
Speaker 1: See, the blessing is tied to the blood.
Speaker 1: The blood of what?
Speaker 1: The blood of Jesus.
Speaker 1: The blood of Jesus speaks better things than that of April.
Speaker 1: So there's a Greek scholar by the name of FF Bosworth.
Speaker 1: I read his book when I first got saved, just a few months old, and the Lord heard about FF Bosworth and it was kind of quite a challenge to read that book.
Speaker 1: It's about that thick and Christ the healer.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you read it, cause there's a whole lot of books out today.
Speaker 1: I mean some of them are good and some of them are not so good, really not worth the read.
Speaker 1: But that book is worth the read.
Speaker 1: I mean it builds a scriptural foundation for healing.
Speaker 1: Christ the healer goes back into the Greek language, the Hebrew language.
Speaker 1: It's powerful and he once said, ff Bosworth, leader of the Pentecostal, simply as of God, it's impossible to claim by faith a blessing You're not sure God is offering.
Speaker 1: It's impossible to claim by faith a blessing that you're not sure that God is offering, see.
Speaker 1: So how do you know that God is offering?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's obvious, healing is already done.
Speaker 1: So you can always claim your healing, always.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wait.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wait for prayer, you don't have to wait for me, you don't have to wait for anybody.
Speaker 1: You can claim your healing.
Speaker 1: If you've got a financial need, you don't have to wait.
Speaker 1: You can claim that need.
Speaker 1: You can speak that need out and say I believe I've received that by such and such date, because my God knows how to take care of me in grand style.
Speaker 1: Where is that in the Bible?
Speaker 1: Well, it's just another version of my God supplies all my needs, according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: Well, it's just the needs.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what?
Speaker 1: According to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1: I want you to read that part of the verse.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: So once you.
Speaker 1: But there are times when you just need to spend some time in prayer to reinforce about things that are not written in the Bible, something maybe you desire but you're not sure.
Speaker 1: So you can get sure by just walking according to the witness of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: He's on an inside of you, amen.
Speaker 1: Years ago I was in a rent house for eight years, building houses and a high rent West University place.
Speaker 1: I had a 670,000 at the time.
Speaker 1: It's probably about 3 million now, but at the time $670,000 house under construction and I'm living in a rent house and I was perfectly satisfied for eight years.
Speaker 1: But there came a day when my landlord didn't pay the maintenance fee and so it was going to get foreclosed on and I had to.
Speaker 1: I was faced with having to move and by that time we had started the church.
Speaker 1: The church was a year and a half old and I'm going to have to go buy a house, and so we I won't go through the whole thing, but I mean I just went out looking, looking, looking, looking.
Speaker 1: I was looking at used houses.
Speaker 1: You know, lived in houses.
Speaker 1: Every one of them stunk.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're going to put your house on the market, make sure it doesn't stink.
Speaker 1: You know, have it fumigated or whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: These are nice houses and they stunk.
Speaker 1: You walk in there and say I ain't living here, not buying this One house.
Speaker 1: I won't say where it's right here in the neighborhood, close by.
Speaker 1: And cause we wanted something close by, we didn't want to drive across town.
Speaker 1: We're pastoring the church, we didn't want to waste time in traffic.
Speaker 1: We had a chance to just live right out here.
Speaker 1: So we looked at a house and says well, I don't know if you're going to like this, it's decorated kind of weird and walked in it's that pink carpet, what they call dusty rose carpet, all over this house.
Speaker 1: And it was already above our budget.
Speaker 1: We had a budget, you know, and it was above our budget.
Speaker 1: I said this place and it stunk to high heavens.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was empty, people had moved out of it, dirty, stinking pink carpet, and Tyle even had a pink tinge to it in the entry hall.
Speaker 1: I mean, what do you do with it?
Speaker 1: You have to remodel the whole way.
Speaker 1: You have to tear everything out and start over.
Speaker 1: Anyway, one day I walked through a house that was just being framed up in an area that I didn't know was even existed.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was a subdivision.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a finished subdivision, but I kept driving past it, driving past it, and one day the Holy Ghost just prompted me to go in and I started driving through the streets.
Speaker 1: I said, well, this is an interesting place, look at this place.
Speaker 1: And I came upon this house that was being framed up and I needed to buy a house.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't dreaming about buying a brand new house.
Speaker 1: I was trying to find something finished we could move into.
Speaker 1: And I got out of the car and I walked up and the slab was about this high on the right-hand corner.
Speaker 1: So I had to kind of grab the studs and step up into what was the master, one of the two master closets.
Speaker 1: And the minute my foot sat on the slab.
Speaker 1: Inside that master closet, the Holy Ghost hit me.
Speaker 1: I almost fell down right there.
Speaker 1: See, god is saying here's your house.
Speaker 1: It was $80,000 above my budget.
Speaker 1: It wound up being a hundred thousand before we were finished.
Speaker 1: Y'all are looking at me like, ooh, I'm talking about the blessing.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about once you know what belongs to you, then you've got faith to claim what God said is yours.
Speaker 1: And we're still living there 25 years later.
Speaker 1: We like it there and, yes, we have changed a bunch of things out too, and it doesn't stink.
Speaker 1: Amen, Praise God.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 1: So I want to give you three facts about the blessing that you take with you today.
Speaker 1: The first one is found in Ephesians, chapter one, verse three.
Speaker 1: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly, in Christ.
Speaker 1: And so the Bible says we're all blessed in Christ.
Speaker 1: We're all blessed.
Speaker 1: Every believer is blessed.
Speaker 1: We're not trying to get it.
Speaker 1: We've already been blessed, just like we've already been healed, just like we've been already been saved.
Speaker 1: Are you with me now?
Speaker 1: I like the Norley translation.
Speaker 1: It says who hath blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that heaven itself enjoys?
Speaker 1: Oh, glory to God.
Speaker 1: I like that one.
Speaker 1: I'm claiming that one right there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there ain't no lack in heaven.
Speaker 1: There's no bargain basement in heaven.
Speaker 1: If you choose to shop at the dollar store, fine, I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: But don't tell yourself that's all you can afford, because you can afford whatever blessing that God gives you.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some things that I can afford that I don't want to spend my money on.
Speaker 1: That's different than saying I can't afford it.
Speaker 1: When I say, when I say I can't afford it, I'm limiting God and I'm saying the blessing can't get it to me.
Speaker 1: But if I really wanted it and God said I could have it, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll get this about mid-afternoon.
Speaker 1: You'll finally get this.
Speaker 1: Praise God, what confidence we have in claiming the blessing.
Speaker 1: And we can claim it over others.
Speaker 1: We can claim it over our families, our kids, or we can claim it over our health, our finances, our church, our pastors.
Speaker 1: We can claim it.
Speaker 1: We can claim the blessing.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah, our nation.
Speaker 1: God's not through with America.
Speaker 1: God bless America.
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot wrong, but there's some right.
Speaker 1: I go to God on a regular basis and plead the case.
Speaker 1: All we're going to do is complain.
Speaker 1: All we're going to do is just curse and scream at all the evil doers?
Speaker 1: Are we going to go in and be a voice for righteousness and then remind God of what good has happened?
Speaker 1: Because anytime there's a disaster anywhere on earth, america is always first on the scene, and still is that way, and it doesn't seem to matter who's the president.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're there when there's an earthquake, we're there when there's a volcano erupting, we're there helping people, feeding people.
Speaker 1: I mean it's amazing what this nation has done and they have to sit here and listen to these politicians.
Speaker 1: Accuses of racism.
Speaker 1: It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.
Speaker 1: When we elected a black president two terms.
Speaker 1: What does it take?
Speaker 1: In fact, if anything, it's worse now.
Speaker 1: No, I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I don't believe this country is an evil country.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: There are evil people here and more are coming across the border than we can count Because we just open.
Speaker 1: What would happen if you opened your front door and you just let us stand open?
Speaker 1: Just think about that.
Speaker 1: 24 hours a day your front door is open, just standing open.
Speaker 1: What do you think would be in your house?
Speaker 1: Well, you'd probably wake up with a possum in there somewhere.
Speaker 1: She'd be curled up in the corner having babies, and they'd be oh possum, oh look, got a little possum.
Speaker 1: Then over the other corner you'd have a coral snake or a copperhead or something, or you might have somebody that wants to do you harm, that wants to steal from you, but they're not satisfied.
Speaker 1: They want to shed some blood, so they're going to stab you or shoot you for no reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: You just leave your front door open.
Speaker 1: No, what do we do?
Speaker 1: Well, back in the 50s, all we had in the summertime is we had a screen door with a little hook on it.
Speaker 1: Did y'all remember those little hooks?
Speaker 1: That's all we had.
Speaker 1: I mean, you didn't have any pr oh, you had to stick your fist through the screen and un-latch it and come right in.
Speaker 1: Well, we didn't worry about that.
Speaker 1: Our car was sitting in the driveway, it wasn't locked.
Speaker 1: It wasn't locked.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the time the keys were in it.
Speaker 1: I know y'all are looking at me funny, but that's where I it was Houston.
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't some it wasn't Refereo, yeah, refereo, but in Houston.
Speaker 1: In fact, it'd be exact Galena Park.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm a channel rat, so grew up that way.
Speaker 1: So things are changed.
Speaker 1: We have since enough to lock the door, close it.
Speaker 1: Amen, all right, so we're blessed in Christ.
Speaker 1: The second one is we're blessed to be a blessing.
Speaker 1: God told Abraham.
Speaker 1: He said I'm gonna bless you and call your name great and you shall be a blessing.
Speaker 1: You're blessed to be a blessing.
Speaker 1: In fact, how can you be a blessing unless you're blessed?
Speaker 1: How can you edify anyone unless you're edified first?
Speaker 1: How can you?
Speaker 1: The answer is you can.
Speaker 1: I've been there where the blessing wasn't manifested in my finances and as much as I wanted to help people, as much as I wanted to give into the offering for missions and all that I was limited to.
Speaker 1: What I could do was basically just tithe, because I'm commanded to do that.
Speaker 1: Anybody can tithe, because a tithe is the first tent.
Speaker 1: But over and above the tithe, it was difficult for us to scrape together a little bit of offering.
Speaker 1: I mean we had to be had to live within our faith.
Speaker 1: I mean we had a certain supply and we would test it from time to time, and then we'd have to start scrambling because you know, when you sow a seed it takes time.
Speaker 1: It's seed time and harvest.
Speaker 1: I mean you don't get an instant harvest off your giving.
Speaker 1: So if you're already living paycheck to paycheck, which we were when I finally started having a paycheck, I was living paycheck to paycheck for a good long time.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: And we never had luck around our village since Lifesape excellent way back when, and that has consequences.
Speaker 1: Thank God I got over missing God.
Speaker 1: I walk by the witness.
Speaker 1: Now I let the witness tell me whether I, when I've got peace, I keep walking.
Speaker 1: When I don't have peace, I stop and find out.
Speaker 1: Why Are y'all with me now?
Speaker 1: We're blessed to be a blessing.
Speaker 1: So every time we release the blessing in words and deeds and giving and sending the gospel and going I just think of all the countries I've been to Been able to give.
Speaker 1: This church sent me here, sent me there.
Speaker 1: I spent all my strength and all my.
Speaker 1: Then I come back and get back in the saddle and lead the worship and preach and do everything.
Speaker 1: When one time I went to India and came back with the mumps, it started on the right side.
Speaker 1: I came right back, started, you know, led worship, I preached and then the you know to go home and grown and lay on the couch the rest of the day, get up and come back Sunday night and do the same thing.
Speaker 1: Then the, and then after about a month, it moved over to the left side.
Speaker 1: Thank you, india.
Speaker 1: Thank you, we have ported gifts for everyone that comes here.
Speaker 1: Here's a parting gift, pastor, I went back.
Speaker 1: I went back to India.
Speaker 1: Amen, I didn't let that stop me.
Speaker 1: Amen, I can't go where they caught me.
Speaker 1: We're blessed to be a blessing and finally, this is a good one.
Speaker 1: Right here.
Speaker 1: No one can call curse what God is blessed.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people get all concerned.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know what people are talking about me.
Speaker 1: People are.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a curse on me.
Speaker 1: Listen, don't get all excited.
Speaker 1: They, they, nobody can curse what God is blessed.
Speaker 1: But where do you get that?
Speaker 1: Galatians 3 13.
Speaker 1: Christ has redeemed you from the curse.
Speaker 1: Is his blood strong enough to turn back anybody's words that are lying about you, making up tales about you, criticizing you unjustly?
Speaker 1: Listen, I'm telling you what.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that are in danger, not you.
Speaker 1: They're the ones that are gonna have to answer for the ugly things that they're saying that are not right.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of scripture that condemns that type of behavior.
Speaker 1: I know one of the really good ones is Aaron, and Miriam got to criticizing Moses because he married a girl that was not.
Speaker 1: She was a girl of color.
Speaker 1: She spent a lot of time in the sun, but I don't think that was it.
Speaker 1: I think she was a girl of color.
Speaker 1: And they were criticized because they're Jewish, you see, they're proud of their race, and they were criticizing her, criticizing him.
Speaker 1: And the next thing, you know, miriam's got leprosy and the whole camp of Israel had to shut down and stop.
Speaker 1: And Aaron comes up to Moses oh, please, please, pray for her, pray for her help, you know.
Speaker 1: And God, moses fell on his face and interceded for his sister and God said all right, but I want her outside the camp.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you spit in her, spit in her daddy's face, she'd have to stay outside the camp a week.
Speaker 1: Make her stay outside the camp a week.
Speaker 1: So God was not happy.
Speaker 1: He healed her.
Speaker 1: He healed her of the leprosy, but she was punished.
Speaker 1: Are you with me now?
Speaker 1: So listen, if people are talking about you, they're the ones in trouble, not you.
Speaker 1: Just lift your hands.
Speaker 1: They all.
Speaker 1: Thank God.
Speaker 1: You can't curse what God has blessed.
Speaker 1: I'm blessed.
Speaker 1: There's no weapon formed against me.
Speaker 1: She'll prosper, every tongue it rises against me and judgment shall be condemned.
Speaker 1: I don't even think about it.
Speaker 1: I forgive them.
Speaker 1: You can't curse what God has blessed.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Believe the blessing.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift your hands right now.
Speaker 1: Believe the blessing.
Speaker 1: Believe the blessing I think about.
Speaker 1: Balaam was hired by Balak.
Speaker 1: Balak was the king of Moab.
Speaker 1: Moab came from Lot.
Speaker 1: Moab and Ammon were two nations that came from Lot.
Speaker 1: What a blessing.
Speaker 1: What a blessing Lot you are.
Speaker 1: You produced two of the main enemies of Israel Moab and Lot.
Speaker 1: And so Moab, the king of Moab, was Balak and he hired Balaam to curse Israel.
Speaker 1: And he took him up there, you know, said see him, curse him.
Speaker 1: And you know, and God just warned him.
Speaker 1: He said you dare do anything, I'm gonna kill you right here on the spot.
Speaker 1: So Balaam blessed him.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 1: Bless him.
Speaker 1: I told you to curse him.
Speaker 1: Come over here.
Speaker 1: And so he, he, he, he blessed him three times.
Speaker 1: And then Deuteronomy this is worth looking at, deuteronomy.
Speaker 1: Look at Deuteronomy 23.
Speaker 1: I don't know somebody needed this this morning.
Speaker 1: I think we all did Deuteronomy.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of cursing going along with the church.
Speaker 1: People are cursing the church.
Speaker 1: Look at this, deuteronomy 23.
Speaker 1: Verse five, talking about this very thing that this false prophet was basically hired Later.
Speaker 1: Later he was killed.
Speaker 1: He did.
Speaker 1: He did suffer death.
Speaker 1: But here it says in verse five nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not harken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee because the Lord thy God loved thee.
Speaker 1: So anytime anybody's cursing you, the Lord is just turning it into a blessing.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift your hands.
Speaker 1: Right now, all the evils been spoken against the church.
Speaker 1: Right now they're cursing us, they're mad at us, they're saying that we're, you know, we're racist, we're right supremacists that were anti this and anti.
Speaker 1: You know what God?
Speaker 1: Just he's blessing us.
Speaker 1: He's blessing us more and more.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah, believe the blessing.
Speaker 1: Come on, praise God.
Speaker 1: Let's rejoice this morning like it's true.
Speaker 1: Let's rejoice like it's true.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah, glory to God.
Speaker 1: Everybody say I'm blessed and I cannot be cursed.
Speaker 1: I'm blessed to be a blessing.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah, glory to God, amen.
Speaker 1: Thank you, jesus.