Speaker 1: So, as our custom is, let's lift our bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.
Speaker 1: Let's say this together say, heavenly Father, I've tuned in on Wednesday night because I'm hungry and thirsty to hear what the Spirit is saying to me about the year of 2023.
Speaker 1: It's still the first month of the year.
Speaker 1: I have the rest of the year unfolding before me and I want to have your plan for my life this year.
Speaker 1: I want to be fully obedient and bring forth fruit for your glory in Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Amen, amen.
Speaker 1: Let's turn in our bibles tonight to John, chapter 14, and also Ephesians, chapter three, and we'll read there in John 14.
Speaker 1: This is Jesus speaking to the disciples on the night before he was crucified at the last supper, and he said in verse 12, verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father, and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Speaker 1: If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Speaker 1: What a powerful, powerful statement, and Jesus himself made it.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: But let's turn over to Ephesians, chapter three.
Speaker 1: Chapter three, the Apostle Paul is concluding a prayer, a Holy Ghost prayer, that he prayed for them to know and be strengthened with God's might in their inner man.
Speaker 1: And then he said in verse 20, now, unto him that is able to do, exceeding, abundantly, above all that we ask or think.
Speaker 1: One version says all that we dare ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.
Speaker 1: Unto him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end, amen.
Speaker 1: So notice, this exceeding abundantly, above all we dare ask or think is linked to the power that we allow to work in and through us.
Speaker 1: And we've been talking about 2023, the year of God's power.
Speaker 1: And tonight I wanted to continue on the idea about finances, and tonight I wanted to share a message entitled demand your kingdom supply.
Speaker 1: On Sunday morning, and again on Sunday night, we got into the power to get wealth due to Eronomy 818.
Speaker 1: And, of course, 2 Corinthians 8, 9, that Jesus was made poor, that we might be rich.
Speaker 1: Might's on our side.
Speaker 1: And tonight I wanted to emphasize this greatness, this magnitude of what God is able to do, exceeding abundantly above all that we can dare ask or even think.
Speaker 1: We need to expand our thinking.
Speaker 1: And when Jesus said, the works that I do shall you do also, and greater works than they shall you do, I believe it has to do with finances as well as healing.
Speaker 1: Some of the most amazing financial miracles happened in Jesus' ministry.
Speaker 1: He fed the 5,000, he fed the 4,000 men.
Speaker 1: It was a financial miracle.
Speaker 1: And you know, he said in my name, you shall ask anything.
Speaker 1: In my name, it shall be done.
Speaker 1: These are not prayer scriptures.
Speaker 1: Really doesn't have anything to do with prayer.
Speaker 1: It has to do with making a demand on your covenant in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: You see, the name of Jesus, it's our power of attorney.
Speaker 1: It brings Jesus himself on the scene, even though he's still at the right hand of the father.
Speaker 1: When we use the name of Jesus as believers, nobody else has the right the world doesn't have the right to use the name of Jesus, but we do.
Speaker 1: We have the power of attorney.
Speaker 1: For instance, one thing I wanted to show you remember when they came to Jesus said he owed taxes and he said well, you know we don't really owe them, but we're, so we don't offend them, we're gonna go ahead and pay them.
Speaker 1: So, peter, you go, and you go fishing and the first fish, get the coin, the gold coin, out of the first fish's mouth and pay your taxes in mind.
Speaker 1: And so what did Peter do?
Speaker 1: Doubt, no, he went.
Speaker 1: Well, how did he go?
Speaker 1: He went in the name of Jesus, he went in Jesus place.
Speaker 1: Now, jesus never had to use his own name, he was here on earth.
Speaker 1: But he's telling them I'm leaving, but I'm gonna leave you something that is the key to your power and that's my name.
Speaker 1: My name is above every name.
Speaker 1: Let's look at Acts 3.16.
Speaker 1: You know, we just recently preached on the power of healing and we use this mighty miracle, a notable miracle, of the lame man at the gate, beautiful, who was over 40 years old, had never walked, and you know the story in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
Speaker 1: And Peter jerked him up by the hand and immediately strength his feet and ankle bones, received strength and he went walking and leaping and praising God into the temple.
Speaker 1: And all the Jews there that saw them, about 20,000 people saw him.
Speaker 1: And notice here in verse 16, this is what Peter was telling that Jewish crowd.
Speaker 1: He said in his name, through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom you see and know.
Speaker 1: Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
Speaker 1: Pastor, we're not talking on healing, I know.
Speaker 1: We're talking on the name of Jesus, and we have the name of Jesus that we can use to make a demand on our covenant.
Speaker 1: We can use that name to demand the devil to take his hands off of our money.
Speaker 1: We can use the name of Jesus to demand our provision or our supply to come forth, because Jesus said you know, we have the power to bind and the power to lose.
Speaker 1: Whatever we bind on earth is bound in the heavens.
Speaker 1: We can bind the devil over our money and we can lose our money to come to us.
Speaker 1: And so I've been making a point about the power to get wealth.
Speaker 1: Yes, we believe in giving, we believe in tithing.
Speaker 1: Those are very much key, but the missing part many times is our faith in the name of Jesus and our faith in our own ability.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's telling us to make a demand on this covenant that we have with God.
Speaker 1: It's a better covenant found upon better promises.
Speaker 1: You know, in Psalm 34, david wrote the Psalm, psalm 34.
Speaker 1: And in verse Psalm 34, nine, he says there's no want to them that fear him.
Speaker 1: He didn't say there's no need, he said there's no want.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, god doesn't just supply our needs, he supplies our wants.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because we stay so close to him that he just puts in us God's desire for us and he wanted more for Israel than they desired.
Speaker 1: They couldn't ever get their desire lined up with God's desire.
Speaker 1: They got caught up in the circumstances, remember.
Speaker 1: I mean they forgot the God that did the miracle to get them out of Egypt.
Speaker 1: And somewhere on the road between Egypt and the promised land they got out there and there wasn't enough water.
Speaker 1: A time or two there wasn't, you know tough conditions.
Speaker 1: A time or two, and you know they just got.
Speaker 1: And then, when they spied the land out, they saw the giants and they saw the wall cities and they started believing their five senses more than they did God.
Speaker 1: So the fear they didn't have the fear of God, they had the fear of man and there's no want to them that fear him.
Speaker 1: See, trusting God is the is the fear of God.
Speaker 1: It's the trust that God has said something right here that supersedes what your eyes and ears and nose and everything else, can tell you your, your five senses.
Speaker 1: You know they only give you what's natural.
Speaker 1: Listen, we have the supernatural, and I want to tie this in to our finances because many times I think we do without, because we're not doing what Jesus said.
Speaker 1: He said the works that I do show you do also greater works than these.
Speaker 1: I mean he had held his needs met.
Speaker 1: We should have not only our needs but our wants, our desires.
Speaker 1: We ought to be a, we ought to be an example to the entire world of a blessed people.
Speaker 1: We're the children of the most high God.
Speaker 1: We're in covenant with the healer.
Speaker 1: We're in covenant with the provider.
Speaker 1: We're in covenant, amen, with him.
Speaker 1: And so we have that power of turning.
Speaker 1: You know the name, I you know.
Speaker 1: I know the disciples didn't know everything.
Speaker 1: They said this this miracle in Acts, chapter three.
Speaker 1: This was right first rattle out of the box.
Speaker 1: It only been a couple of weeks since Jesus had died on the cross.
Speaker 1: And what did Peter take away from that last supper meal?
Speaker 1: He took away the fact that they had that name.
Speaker 1: See, people of the East, in those days, bible times had a greater revelation of covenant, because that's how they live their lives.
Speaker 1: They lived their lives in covenant.
Speaker 1: Covenants were very common back then.
Speaker 1: You know, one tribe would have a covenant with another tribe.
Speaker 1: It was always a stronger and a weaker.
Speaker 1: I would be strong in one area and you'd be weak in that area.
Speaker 1: And then flip, flip back around I'm weak in one area and you're strong in the other area.
Speaker 1: So we get together and we pool our resources and we both have power of attorney.
Speaker 1: Whatever's mine is yours, whatever's yours is mine.
Speaker 1: That's a covenant.
Speaker 1: And they understood that.
Speaker 1: So when Jesus said in my name, you ask whatever you will and it'll be done unto you.
Speaker 1: See, that's exactly what happened at the gate.
Speaker 1: Beautiful, he made a demand on that sickness and he didn't even talk about the sickness, he just had the guy stand up in spite of his lameness, and he'd been there all those years, decades, laying there as a beggar.
Speaker 1: And not only was his physical man impacted, he no longer had to beg.
Speaker 1: I mean, his financial position changed instantly.
Speaker 1: He no longer a beggar.
Speaker 1: See, that's the definition of poor is a beggar.
Speaker 1: And so no longer is he poor.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because he's able to walk, he's able to do for himself, he's able to travel, he's able to work.
Speaker 1: I mean amazing transformation.
Speaker 1: So we see in the Bible this name of Jesus plus faith in that name.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you have the knowledge of the Word of God, then faith comes.
Speaker 1: And what I want you to see, I think we're more comfortable using the name of Jesus when we lay hands on people for healing.
Speaker 1: We're more comfortable in the name of Jesus when we pray.
Speaker 1: But listen, this scripture that I read in John tonight.
Speaker 1: It's talking about making a demand on your covenant.
Speaker 1: So your prayer life.
Speaker 1: We started all these messages off on the power of prayer and it's in your prayer life that you begin to find out what really belongs to you.
Speaker 1: The Word of God tells you what belongs to you, but nowhere in this Bible did it ever tell me that 6827 FM, 1960 West Houston, texas 7706, was gonna be our first building in the first place that God had given us to meet after I started.
Speaker 1: Where did I get that?
Speaker 1: I got that by the witness.
Speaker 1: And how did I get that?
Speaker 1: I got it through prayer.
Speaker 1: I got.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just communicated with God, I was seeking God and you will find him.
Speaker 1: And you start praying, you're gonna, you're gonna start asking and receiving, seeking finding knocking.
Speaker 1: It'll be open unto you and you're gonna have a knowing in your heart what belongs to you.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily written here in black and white, and that's just as valid as what's written just in black and white.
Speaker 1: That's just as valid.
Speaker 1: When your faith begins to kick in, it will allow you to lift up your sights and realize that God's got so much more for you.
Speaker 1: He's got exceeding abundantly, above all, that you have dared ask or think.
Speaker 1: There's more, there's always more, and we've got to get over this idea of being that.
Speaker 1: The Bible says oh, don't love money.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't love money.
Speaker 1: We love what money can do.
Speaker 1: We love the fact that we can reap a harvest with that money.
Speaker 1: It's a tool of the harvest and we don't yet have enough of it.
Speaker 1: The church needs to have more of it.
Speaker 1: Amen, I want to get you stirred up at the beginning of this year because I believe what God's Word said to me.
Speaker 1: You know he's not the God of the little bitty, he's not the God of a little bit.
Speaker 1: How do you feel?
Speaker 1: Well, I feel a little.
Speaker 1: I think I feel a little bit better.
Speaker 1: You know what he wants to do a whole lot better than make you feel a little bit better, how you, how you find that.
Speaker 1: Well, I think they're a little bit better.
Speaker 1: No, they he wants to be, he wants them to be exceeding abundantly above all that you've dared dream of.
Speaker 1: See, we've just limited God like the children of Israel.
Speaker 1: Many times in the church we've got this religious idea.
Speaker 1: I've been saying this ever since I heard a guy, dennis Prager, who's a Jewish rabbi, is on.
Speaker 1: Many of you probably heard his talk show on radio.
Speaker 1: But he said you know, my Christian friends have a hang up about money.
Speaker 1: And when I heard that I laughed, but I knew he was talking about the truth.
Speaker 1: Because you know, people are double minded about money.
Speaker 1: They know they need it, but then they feel guilty when they want more of it.
Speaker 1: Well, why do you want more of it?
Speaker 1: Listen, when you've sold your life and attached it to the kingdom.
Speaker 1: See, that's what we've done.
Speaker 1: We're not wanting the money for money's sake, we're not wanting the money to show off, we're wanting the money to help us reap a harvest.
Speaker 1: We want the money for the kingdom's sake and certainly we're gonna have to get to keep all a lot of extra Because God it doesn't bankrupt heaven for us to drive nice, live in nice, wear nice.
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody that was living in one of these shacks in Pasadena that got destroyed by the hurricane, by the tornado yesterday, which they had lived in a little better neighborhood, a little bit stronger house and maybe a little bit, you know, man?
Speaker 1: I mean it's terrible what happened there and a lot of people are homeless now.
Speaker 1: A lot of people lost their home.
Speaker 1: I saw one lady on television.
Speaker 1: She'd been living there 38 years in her home and she didn't have any insurance and it's a total loss.
Speaker 1: Her fireplace is laying in the yard or her roof is gone.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just demolished and I tell you God's got better Then we have to live like that.
Speaker 1: And if we do get attacked by some tornado because I realize a tornado can tear down a nice home as well as a cheap home, but at the same time, if it did, you know we're well enough off to not have it affect us financially.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because we're gonna have insurance and we're gonna have money in the bank to take care of ourselves.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's God's will for us to just barely exist?
Speaker 1: No, and you know I really.
Speaker 1: This is one of those times when I saw that lady.
Speaker 1: I would just.
Speaker 1: I just saw myself just sit down and write her a $100,000 check.
Speaker 1: That'd be the kind of money I'd like to have, just just okay, you don't have any insurance, I'll be your insurance company here.
Speaker 1: Jesus gives this to you.
Speaker 1: That's what money's for?
Speaker 1: Get people saved, get people to understand the gospel, get them saved in.
Speaker 1: And so again, this word ask is it literally means Jesus said it, I didn't say it, jesus said it right here in John 14.
Speaker 1: The word ask, the Greek word, means to call for, to require and to demand your due.
Speaker 1: Well, you gotta know what's due you.
Speaker 1: You gotta know what belongs to you before you can require it in faith.
Speaker 1: You know, you've gotta know that.
Speaker 1: So that means you have a prayer life.
Speaker 1: That means you read your Bible.
Speaker 1: That means you get educated on what the covenant says.
Speaker 1: We have to know what our covenant says and then we have to believe it and then we have to use that name, that power of attorney.
Speaker 1: People in the East, in Bible days, as I said, they had an understanding of the power of attorney and the power of covenant that we in the West, in Christians modern day, we just don't have that understanding.
Speaker 1: Well, we can get it.
Speaker 1: Read your Bible until it becomes real to you.
Speaker 1: One time I had been laid off these were in the years, you know, after I lost my home building business and I was bumping around.
Speaker 1: I was ran a remodeling firm for about a year and a half.
Speaker 1: I hated every day that I went to work because I just didn't like the job that I was stuck with and it was a job I didn't own anything.
Speaker 1: I was working for another home builder and kind of in the back of my mind I thought he might be impressed enough with me to maybe wanna back me in another project.
Speaker 1: But that just wasn't God's plan.
Speaker 1: Instead he laid me off and I said well, god, you know, I just got laid off, I'm just gonna plan.
Speaker 1: I just believe it's a promotion in disguise.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I would have to think the devil stole my job.
Speaker 1: I know he can't do it, so I'm just gonna say this is a promotion in disguise.
Speaker 1: Went to church on a Wednesday night.
Speaker 1: A lady that I respect as a prayer, one of the prayer warriors there at Lakewood in those years.
Speaker 1: She came up to me, I was sitting down there and she said oh, brother John, I was just praying for you this morning, you know I got one word promotion.
Speaker 1: Well, see, there you go.
Speaker 1: It matters where you go to church.
Speaker 1: I like to go to church where people encourage you.
Speaker 1: You know that was an encouragement because we needed it.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was reading my Bible and we sowed a seed out of our need.
Speaker 1: We had $35 in the bank and I put 25 of it in the offering.
Speaker 1: We left us $10 in our bank account.
Speaker 1: I still don't know how they kept it open and I had a dream of maybe how to get back in the business and I was believing for $25,000.
Speaker 1: That's a thousand fold return.
Speaker 1: You know that's based in Deuteronomy.
Speaker 1: The Lord make you a thousand more numerous, as he has today.
Speaker 1: That's Moses saying that to Israel.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of return I needed.
Speaker 1: A hundred fold wouldn't do it.
Speaker 1: You're crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know I'm going to a heavily insane asylum and listen, let's lift our sights.
Speaker 1: I mean, you corner an animal, he's gonna come out fighting.
Speaker 1: And that's where I was.
Speaker 1: I was cornered and I came out fighting.
Speaker 1: But let me read to you the scripture that God gave me right there in that point of time.
Speaker 1: In Isaiah, chapter 45 is my normal reading at that time.
Speaker 1: In verse one.
Speaker 1: It says Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus.
Speaker 1: Well, when I began reading that, it was just like the Holy Ghost said to his anointed John Griner I just put my name there, I just knew it.
Speaker 1: The Holy Ghost said this is your word.
Speaker 1: Thus saith the Lord to his anointed John Griner, whose right hand I have held, and are strengthened to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings to open before thee the two-leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut.
Speaker 1: And I will go before thee and make the crooked places straight and I will break in pieces the gates of brass and cut asunder the bars of iron.
Speaker 1: And I listen to this verse three, and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, the hidden riches of secret places, so that you may know that I, the Lord which call thee by thy name, and the God of John Griner.
Speaker 1: See, god wants to prove himself to you.
Speaker 1: He said in Deuteronomy prove me now, here, with your tithe, I won't open up the windows of heaven for you.
Speaker 1: Out of blessing God's not above proving himself, he'll prove to you what he's saying.
Speaker 1: And this was such a fantastical word I mean golly you talk about just grandiose.
Speaker 1: So I began to speak it, I began to confess it in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: I walked up and down my house Actually it wasn't my house, but anyways my sister's house.
Speaker 1: We lived with my sister.
Speaker 1: Still, I couldn't even pay rent when this word came and I walked up and down and I quoted it and I said God, that's mine.
Speaker 1: Again, god's not the God of the little bit, he doesn't want to just do a little bit, he wants to do exceeding, abundantly above.
Speaker 1: I hope you're getting something out of this tonight.
Speaker 1: I feel energized to preach it to you.
Speaker 1: And so, to make a long story short, I won't go into the entire thing, but within 35, 40 days of that particular date, I had $100,000 in the bank and we started our brand new home building firm and we started on the road building in one of the nicest, most upscale places in Houston, which at that time was West University Place.
Speaker 1: And there was only one way that that could happen, and God had to loose the loins of kings.
Speaker 1: He opened before me the two leave gates and I mean my angels had been dispatched and they had made my name favorable to this man.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you, he came and became my partner and we had a very prosperous relationship.
Speaker 1: So you know, he's not the God of the little bit, he's the God of too much and too nice.
Speaker 1: That's what life, and life more abundantly means.
Speaker 1: It essentially just means too much and too nice.
Speaker 1: And can you stand something?
Speaker 1: A little bit overkill, maybe too much?
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, stop.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 1: Isn't that what he said about open the windows of heaven or not room enough to receive it?
Speaker 1: And he's talking about ideas there, but he's also talking about supply.
Speaker 1: He wants us to have an abundant, too much, too nice supply that we can reap the harvest with.
Speaker 1: So let's use our authority in the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Let's make demands on the covenant that we have with God, because he is Jehovah Jireh, the Lord that supplies, and he wants to get that supply in our hands.
Speaker 1: And I believe in 2023, there's gonna be an unprecedented demonstration of the power to get wealth in the church.
Speaker 1: Lift your hands and receive Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Glory to God, be encouraged tonight.
Speaker 1: No matter what you're going through, there's a way out and it's an abundant way.
Speaker 1: Amen, amen, amen.
Speaker 1: I trust you got something out of this tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're bringing it to you and I've lived it and I've proven it and it works.