We welcome you to the VI Zion Sermon Podcast.
We are a church based out of Chennai, India.
We are thrilled that you tuned in today and hope that you will
be refreshed, revived and energized by what you hear.
Our desire is that you will live life with a renewed sense of
purpose that stems from a vibrant faith in Jesus.
The year 2025 is 1 where we will be positioned by God to possess
our promise. We start a new sermon series
called Rekindled where we look closer at our own lives and ask
the Holy Spirit to revive and restore things that have gone
dormant in the dry seasons of our souls.
We pray that this series will help you dive deeper into
yourself and see where you need more of God.
I didn't expect to be under the bus so quickly in the day.
Gaishan just threw me under the bus.
So he spoke on honest hope and decided to be very honest.
So I'm going to be speaking today on the topic of healed
hope. And I knew when we were crafting
the sermon that I will get stuck with this and that God will
first train me in it before I can speak on it because I'm not
an expert on it. I'm a person who feels a lot.
I get heavily held up with my feelings, with the struggles of
relationships. And so for me, my hope had died
out over the past few months. My hope had got a beating.
And I didn't know it until two weeks back, God literally
unraveled the strings of my heart.
He showed. So when I spoke on fertile
faith, I was speaking from a place of where my heart had had
barren places that God was pointing out.
And today I'm speaking to you as someone who has had to walk the
journey of my hope healing. And I hope that as we we go
through the text today that you will identify the parts of your
life where your hope has died. Let's not kid ourselves.
These are all Christianese words, hope, faith, love, and
all of that. But many times we're lacking it
as followers of Jesus. And I really want to bring us to
a place of saying, Lord, my hope kind of died, and I want you to
revive it, right? So can we just say a quick word
of prayer? Father, we pray that you will
make us very aware of our need this morning.
And Holy Spirit, I pray that you will meet each person at the
point of their need. You are so individual, you are
so personal and I pray that you will meet each of us right where
we are at. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Amen. So while we know hope is not
tangible, we don't see it physically.
It's very real. It's what keeps us going.
It's like the under girder of our lives, right?
But unfortunately, many times we find our hopes dashed to the
ground. Maybe you didn't get the job you
wanted. Maybe you didn't get the results
you wanted in that health checkup.
Maybe your marriage is not going as you had hoped.
Maybe your children are disappointing you more than your
wildest dreams. And then you find suddenly hope
is just something that people are talking about, but you're
not able to relate to it. And that is where the writer of
Proverbs, right, is Proverbs 13, verse 12.
He says hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing
fulfilled is a tree of life. What is hope deferred?
When you study that word deferred, it is basically hope
that is drawn out like a rubber band that is stretched to no end
and you're waiting and waiting and waiting.
That is what hope deferred is. How many of you are in that
season right now? Yes.
And so that's what hope deferred is.
And what does it say? It makes the heart sick.
So you won't know that the condition of your heart is sick,
but you will know the feeling of hope being deferred.
And God wants to meet us there. And you know, when I was
thinking about why does our hope get deferred, the three reasons
that I kind of broadly classified as one is we get our
hands burnt in relationships. Am I right?
People can be difficult, and So what happens when people let us
down, our hope diminishes. The second thing is when the
circumstances of life let us down, that that firing, that
being excluded, those situations can Causeway hope to feel
deferred. Now, the third thing is when our
prayers, you know, our spiritual life, when prayers go
unanswered, that's another reason when our hopes get
dashed. But the beautiful thing is that
we're not alone in this journey. We have an incredible example in
the Bible, someone who walked very closely with Jesus, who
also experienced hope and effort, and we're going to look
into his life today. I'm talking about John the
Baptist. Picture this.
He's the cousin of Jesus. He was brought to earth to
foretell what he was going to do.
And he's not a prophet like Elijah, who lived thousands of
years before. He is a contemporary.
He is. He was birthed just before
Jesus. He's being launched into
ministry. He's doing things, and yet
somehow he finds himself in jail.
And that's where we're going to pick up Matthew Chapter 11,
verses 1 to 6. It says when Jesus had finished
his charge to his 12 disciples, he left there to teach and to
preach in their cities. Now, when John in prison heard
about the activities of Christ, he sent a message by his
disciples and asked him, are you the one who was to come?
Or should we keep on expecting a different one?
And Jesus replied to them, Go and report to John what you hear
and see. The blind receive their sight,
the lame walk. Leopards are cleansed by healing
and the deaf here the dead are raised up, and the poor have
good news breached to them. And blessed is he who takes no
offence at me and finds no Causeway for stumbling in or
through me, and is not hindered from seeing the truth.
Look at this line in verse 3. Are you the one who should come,
or should we expect someone else?
The word expect, there's the word for hope and the, the Greek
connotation is basically this stretching your neck out and
anticipating and waiting. Imagine you're in a, you're in
the airport, you're waiting for someone who you love to get off
and come out of that gate. You're stretching your head over
the crowds to look at them. That is the posture of
anticipation. And, and John is saying, I have
been waiting, but somehow Jesus seemed like a disappointment to
him. Why?
Because who did John preach about?
John preached about this man who was coming, who is God in the
flesh, who whose sandals he would not be worthy to untie,
who was going to baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire?
And yet Herod Antipas and his wife had got John put in jail
because John had come face to face with his immorality and
said what you're doing is wrong. So John the Baptist probably
assumed, hey, Jesus is probably going to bust me out of jail.
There's going to be this miraculous jailbreak.
I'm going to be out. I'm going to be preaching again
and preparing the way for him. And yet it felt like his
assignment was over and there was no breakthrough insight.
How many of you have felt that way?
And Jesus is addressing him straight and saying, blessed is
he who is not offended by me. How many of you have been
offended by Jesus in the recent past?
The gospel is offensive. Jesus can be offensive when he
comes straight up to us and in love, points out what's wrong
with us. And he says blessed is he who is
not offended and is not hindered from seeing the truth.
One of the translations says that Jesus didn't answer John's
disciples immediately. He said he kept them with them
the whole day. He went about his day of healing
people, restoring them, delivering them, and then says,
did you see this? Tell John what you saw.
But yet John is sitting in this dungeon with no miraculous
things happening to him. No wonder he's saying God.
But what about me? Have you forgotten me?
Have you felt that we got? Everyone else is having their
breakthrough. What about me, God?
When will my turn be? That's what the definition of
hope deford looks like. And I want to tell you because a
lot of us punish ourselves in that position.
Or maybe I'm a worthless Christian because I'm not able
to feel hopeful at this moment. I want to encourage you that if
John went through it, those of us who are seated here, it says
we are greater than him. Those least in the Kingdom are
greater than John the Baptist, it says.
What is your assumption of Jesus that has offended you today?
It's OK to come clean with it. It's OK to say, Jesus, I thought
you were going to answer it in this way.
I thought you were going to come and give me the breakthrough at
this time because I was ready at that time.
But I want to just give you this breakdown that Jesus is giving
us a heads up of what the Christian life looks like.
He's basically saying you will not get every prayer answered,
but every prayer will be heard. You will not always be able to
make sense of what's happening to you, but I see everything
that is done to you. Our timeline and his will not
match, but he's always on Cairo's time.
We run on Kronos. Well, like God, I'm getting
older. My biological clock is ticking.
My husband's not getting younger.
We're saying, God, I'm in the right position for this
promotion. Now would be a great time.
But he's thinking of Kairos. He's not thinking of Kronos and
God is calling us into a place of being realistic about what we
are hoping for. Matthew 11, verse 7, continuing
to read it says as they departed, Jesus began to say to
the multitudes concerning John, What did you go out into the
wilderness to see? A Reed shaken by the wind.
But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments.
Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in King's houses.
But what did you go out to see? A profit, yes, I say it to you
in more than a prophet, for this is he of whom it is written.
Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will
prepare your way before you. Fundamentally, Jesus and John
had different assignments. John knew the assignment.
He knew I'm only preparing the way.
I must become lesser. He must become greater.
He knew that here, but it's somehow this is the longest
distance, right? And therefore, he was struggling
with it. And fundamentally, before we go
further, I want to ask you, do you know your life's purpose?
Do you know your assignment? Because that makes the weight a
little bit better. A little bit, not much, but lots
more better if you know the purpose.
And the interesting thing about here, it shows why John was
actually persecuted. Did you see that thing?
What did you go out to see? Did you see a read in the wind?
What does a read in the wind do? It bends.
John was unrelenting in his integrity.
He went up to Herod, who is a ruler of Galilee and told him
what you're doing is wrong. You have taken in your brother's
wife. This is incest.
God is not happy. Herod and his wife.
Herod, yes, not really wife, brother.
Philip's wife whom he has brought in was so mad at him
because he is demeaning his leadership publicly.
And John had a loud voice and so they took him and put him in
jail to silence him and eventually they beheaded him.
I was reading up on a Herod Antipas and Herodias.
What happened to them? I was like, there should be some
justice, right? So what happened was this power
hungry couple, according to history, tried usurping a
greater throne and Caesar heard of it.
And Caesar eventually exiled both of them to the land of
Gaul. Was justice meted out?
Yes, but not on John's timeline. John didn't see it with his
eyes, but God was right, and this is a man for his voice, for
his unrelenting, uncompromising position was called out, was set
apart, and yet suffered for it. It's no surprise that John went
through what he went through. If you're going through a season
of hardship, persecution, if you are like John, unmoved by things
that are around you, you know this.
We live in the time of the new age.
We live in the time when anything goes.
Are you living like a Reed, bending with every wind of
doctrine and thought, or are you looking at the word of God and
Jesus and saying, I will live like this for you?
Continuing to read verse 11, assuredly I say to you, among
those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John
the Baptist, but he who is least in the Kingdom of heaven is
greater than he. And from the days of John the
Baptist until now, the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and
the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law
prophesied until John. And if you are willing to
receive it, he is Elijah who is to come, He who has ears to
hear, let him hear. But to what shall I like in this
generation? It is like children sitting in
the marketplaces, calling to their companions and saying, We
played the flute for you, and you did not dance.
We mourn to you, and you did not lament, For John came neither
eating nor drinking. And they say he has a demon, the
Son of man came eating and drinking.
And they say, look, a glutton, a wine bibber, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners. But wisdom is justified by her
children. Every verse in this passage can
be preached on. It's so heavy.
But we're just going to look at one thing.
He says, what shall I like in this generation?
I believe he's speaking to us today.
Jesus is talking to us because we come under this generation.
You know what we are like. Let me see, Let me what I'm
like. I think because I pray for my
family that God must dance to my tunes.
God, I'm telling, you know, give my husband the job.
We need the money. God, I'm playing the flute.
God has to do what I'm saying. But God is not here to dance to
my tunes. I serve at his pleasure.
I have somehow got this mixed up.
I think that because I'm a child of God, I can control Father.
But the point is not that he says this generation basically
needs to be entertained. This generation needs things to
happen on their time in their way.
But it doesn't work like that. This generation finds it very
hard to be satisfied. So when I think about my life, I
want a miracle now, but I somehow have forgotten that last
year I experienced a miracle in this very same realm and I have
forgotten. And God is calling me into this
place of stop being so critical of God.
I'm so critical that He's not doing what I think He is.
When I pray with people, sometimes I go, God, when are
you going to give them their breakthrough?
I don't see you doing anything, Lord.
But his job is not to dance to my tunes.
My job is to be submitted to Him, to see Him as He truly is.
These sets of people that were around John and Jesus were
judging them completely wrongly. One lived a minimalistic life.
One sat and ate a lot with friends.
They had misjudged both. He says wisdom is proven by our
actions. What I speak of will be
demonstrated and how I live 9:00 to 9:00 every single day by my
family. I can preach up a storm, but if
I live a double life at home, it's a big zero.
You can give this impression impression at church to others
that you and your wife have got it together, but what happens
behind closed doors? God knows that and God is
calling us to a place of living in such a way that what we
preach, what we speak as our wisdom, and how we behave add
up. God is calling me to a place
where I'm preparing the way for myself to receive Jesus, to meet
Jesus and also prepare a watching world for him.
God is calling us into that place of being preparers of the
way, making a people ready for God.
You believe Jesus is coming back.
How many of you want Jesus to come back ASAP?
He will come when he chooses to come, but what we can do is to
prepare the way for him. And this interesting thing that
he says, Jesus says the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence.
Now you have to understand, John was preaching the Kingdom of
heaven is near, repent. He was preaching a baptism of
repentance. They would come to him and
repent and then John wouldn't keep quiet.
Even then when the Pharisees come, what did he say?
You brood of Vipers, why have you come?
Are you scared? Now go keep fruit in keeping
with your repentance. He was saying your repentance
has to show and he gives them practical outworkings.
He said you have an extra coat, give it to the poor.
Stop extorting money. Be content with what you have
and the practical outworkings of living in this repentance will
be seen by all. And John was calling us into
this place. He was inviting us.
But Jesus, when he arrived, the Kingdom of God arrived, and the
minute Jesus came in and proved everything that John was saying,
the Kingdom of God had come and taken its place.
And the thing about the Kingdom of God is as much as it is all
good, it's the Kingdom of light. It invites the Kingdom of
darkness like nothing else. How many of you have seen the
minute you leave here and you're thinking this week, I want to
really work on this particular aspect.
You feel like hell breaks out in that particular aspect.
I decide to be more peaceable with my husband.
He'll say the wrong thing on the way home.
I decide not to lose it with my kids, but boy do they trigger us
that very day. It is interesting because the
Kingdom of heaven comes in, but so does the enemy.
He doesn't let us go. So The thing is, John became a
victim, it looked like of an assassination attempt.
He was killed. It felt like the Kingdom of
darkness had won, but that was not finished because Jesus had
arrived on the scene and he was bringing in a huge change.
He was bringing in grace. He was bringing in redemption.
He was bringing in restoration and renewing.
And so it didn't end there. Jesus knew had hadn't ended
there. John didn't know that.
And so it comes to us now, if you want to experience the
fullness of the Kingdom, you need to take it by force.
And when we say that doesn't mean we take a gun, it doesn't
mean we take a knife. No, we take it by force, meaning
we stand up and get intentional about our Christian life.
We can no longer sleep on the job.
We can no longer be like, it's OK, eternity is sorted.
I'm going to just sneak into the narrow gate at the last minute.
No, God is calling us to intentional living every day
because we don't know when our last minute is.
I remember in, in when we lived in the US, there was a car that
went ahead of us which had a sticker which said for those of
you waiting to pray, that waiting for the 12th hour to
accept Jesus, he may come at 11:59.
We cannot hope to get by. We need to be living every
minute very intentionally if we're following Jesus.
And so the violent will take by force.
What does that look like practically for us?
What does it look like as we mature in our walk with God?
I believe that as we look at Hebrews chapter 12, we're going
to dwell there for a bit. If we want to take the Kingdom
by force, our broken, destroyed hope has to be restored to a
healed hope. I'll tell you why.
If I try to take the Kingdom by force, if I try to live this
life in my own strength with a broken heart, I'm not able to
actually accept the things that God does.
I'm not able to accept the weight.
I'm not able to accept the stuff that He allows into my life
because I think He should do things on my terms.
But when I start to allow my heart to heal, I'm saying, God,
you know what? I'm just going to let you heal
my hope. This is my hope.
It's in shambles. I'm bringing it to you.
Can you heal it? It enables us to move into
greater maturity. And here's the thing, if the
violin take the Kingdom by force, right, we are going to
take back what the enemy stole. How many of you know for a fact
the enemy has stolen joy from us?
I remember my my granddad in his 60s would watch me and my
brother giggle a lot and he would tell my mum they have so
much to laugh. No I do, I'm not able to laugh.
And now at 40 some days when the kids are doing funny things and
laughing I I laugh intermittently but I realize I
don't laugh as much as I did in my 30s.
He has stolen our joy and we need to get it back.
How many of you believe he's stolen your peace?
Yes, we want to be in a place of tranquility, but the stuff that
life is throwing at us, well, just catching our breath.
And God is saying, I want to restore peace.
The only way we can receive this if our hope begins to heal and
we're never going to arrive yet. So we're going to go into our
80s also saying this part of my hope is still wounded.
I need healing, but I think we can start today, am I right?
Amen. So we're going to go on this
journey together right now. Three things that I believe God
wants to do in us to heal our hope so that we take back
everything the enemy stole. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 12 to
13. Therefore, lift your drooping
hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths
for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of
joint, but rather be healed. Did you notice the three
different things that they're showing us?
Therefore, lift your drooping hands, strengthen your weak
knees, and make straight parts for your feet so that what is
lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
It's interesting. The same connotation of prepare
the way for your feet is mentioned here, just like what
John the Baptist did. But the little bit of an
introduction to Hebrews 12 Hebrews tells starts with the
writer saying, cast off every sin that entangles you, throw it
aside and run the race marked. And then it says, those of you
who are enduring hostility, hostility from fellow people,
believers and non believers, the hostility we receive, you have
endured nothing compared to what Jesus endured.
So he points our focus to Jesus. He says because you have not
resisted it to the point of blood shedding.
And then he moves into this next part where he's talking about
the discipline of God. He says end your discipline, God
loves you, therefore he corrects you.
We have a joke in our family, Geshom and I, we sometimes see
other people doing such weird stuff and getting away with it
and we say, my God, we do one stupid thing.
God gives 1 fatak very fast. I think he loves us that much.
Have you felt that like the discipline is so quick some days
that's a sign of your maturity because he loves you so much, He
can hold you to account so quick.
And so I talk. This is the preamble to Hebrews
1212 to 13. He's basically outlining the
very same three things I told you, the reason our hope dies.
People are sin, unanswered prayers.
He's addressing the very thing. Sometimes God disciplines us in
the way he just allows us to wait in the hallway while just
around the door is our answer. But he's like, you wait for a
little more, my darling, just wait a bit.
God disciplines us through people, He disciplines us
through our situations, but the beautiful thing is that there is
that this follow up, while this is our reality, He's saying now
I want you to do something. This involves our
intentionality. Therefore, lift your drooping
hands. The first thing I want you to do
is if you want to take back what the enemy has stolen, first you
need to lift up your drooping hands.
If you watched people in an airport for very long, if you're
there for a long layover, when people come in first sit from
their one flight, they look really energetic.
They're all brisk. Watch them.
After five hours, what has happened?
Body has drooped, exhausted, tired.
Some have just slept. Our Indians and foreign airports
will lie down on the floor and sleep because we think it's like
one of our train stations. But you notice that the long
wait causes a drooping of our posture.
But God is saying enough, enough.
I we don't know how long the wait is, but your posture
matters. And the first thing he's saying
is you need to lift up your drooping hands.
Drooping hands are hands that have forgotten how to worship
God. Why do I say this?
When the Nazi Party came into power, right, they had this one
gesture which they created, which was this, What do they
say? Heil, Hitler, Zieg, Hell, that's
what they would say. Now when they do this, what they
were saying was they were basically saying we attest to
your party's values. We are coming in alignment with
it. And there's books written about
this one gesture because they say it literally marked nations,
right? If a gesture is so powerful in
our seasons of hopelessness, why are we not raising our hands in
worship? We have both been part of the
Pentecostal church for years on end.
The one thing I'm so grateful I learnt was to worship because it
has been my weapon. I don't have many more weapons,
but worship has got me through everything.
It continues to get me through stuff.
If you're unwilling to lift your hands, you need to go back to
the root of what that is, because it is important, because
the gesture tells the heavenly realms, wow, I the enemy is
looking at you and going. I thought I squashed her hope.
What is she doing lifting her hands?
Still, the enemy is confounded when you clap your hands.
There's a passage in in the Psalms which says every clap is
to the drum of the the army against the enemy.
This is how powerful and yet can you see how hopelessness moves
and paralyzes us and cripples our movements?
It's time to start to worship the beautiful thing.
When you look at Ephesians 6, it talks about the armor of God,
and there are two things in the hands of the warrior.
What are the two things swear to the Spirit Shield of faith.
When you lift your hands, you're basically lifting up the shield
and saying you can throw anything at me, but nothing's
going to get to me. The second thing you're doing is
you're declaring God's Word into situations even though you don't
know how it's going to turn out. It it actually shows abandoned.
It actually shows abandoned. And the beautiful thing is that
arms that are lifted are arms that are strong.
If you ever do functional fitness, a lot of the fitness
they teach you is with your arms lifted.
Why? Because it's above the heart.
It's being strengthened. Your heart is more strengthened,
but more than that, it gets stronger.
Have you been wondering why you've been so hopeless?
Maybe it's time that you lift your hands in worship.
Maybe it's time you start declaring God.
I don't know when this is going to change, but I believe that
you are good. Your love endures forever.
You're going to believe that Lord, you will sustain me.
If you've been worried about your old age, you have said you
will sustain me. Even to my grey hairs, this is
what it does. Worship is powerful.
And when I was thinking of this image, I've decided to use AI
finally, and Caleb and I came up with this image.
Can you play that for us? Just put that image of the.
Do you have it? Yeah.
No, no. First one.
Sorry. The sword and yes, women.
Your arms are this powerful. It's not just men.
The warrior's hands, which are lifted.
We can do so much. Hope begins to heal when the
right things are in our hands. For too long we have been unable
to praise and worship because the hopelessness of our
situation, the length of the weight has got us drooping.
But God is saying, will you have this life altering stance and
justice? Lift it all up.
Nothing can be held in hands that are opened like this.
Notice that nothing. My finances have to be emptied
out, my expectations. Instead I'm saying God, I will
stand here. I will worship till I drop.
I will worship till things change.
It's a powerful technique in receiving your healing for your
hope. Thank you.
Thank you for that image. The second thing that I believe
God is calling us to strengthen our knees.
Max Lucardo says this about worship.
He says worship is the act of magnifying God, enlarging our
vision of him stepping into the cockpit to see where he sits and
observe how he works. Too many of us are so slouched
in our spiritual position that we have let the enemy control
the details in our mind and we have forgotten to see what God
is doing in every situation. The position you stand in
matters. It's so interesting how marriage
is so good. I'm generally a downer, so when
I look back, I look at all the negative things that have
happened. Geshuma, on the other hand, look
consistently at the light at the end of every tunnel.
And you need perspective like that because that shows the
postures in the right place. How many of you, when you're
very discouraged, the first thing you do is go sleep?
Thank you. You make me feel less alone.
Just the family will know if I'm knocked out or she's dealing
with something. And off late, as you get older,
have you noticed when you get up, you don't have more clarity?
You're still waking up confused. But I realized, while sleep is
good, rest is important. When you need to be standing at
alert position, you need to be. Some of us are called to the
ramparts. We are called to the top of the
watchdogs to keep watch on our families, on the church, on the
things of God. Because as much as we have
overemphasized looking at what the enemy is doing, I want to
see what God is doing. I want to see what God is doing
in your lives. I want to see what God is doing
in my children's lives, in my husband's life.
How will I do that if I'm asleep on the job?
How will I do that if my knees are not strengthened to be
standing? Because the knees support
everything. We underestimate how great our
knee. How unimportant our knees are.
Sometimes we say, Oh well, you know what, the knees are weak.
But it's all right, no. So a couple of years back I had
a huge knee injury. I was cleaning the patio doors
and knelt down on the runner of the door and smashed my kneecap
and was so bad the pain I couldn't walk.
So I went to the doctor. He said if if you don't get it
treated, you might need a surgery, but it's up to you.
My mom told me there was another place on ECR called Spark and
she said why don't you just go there without surgery, They'll
treat it. So I went there and they just
looked at my X-ray. They checked my leg.
They did nothing. You know what they did?
They would make me lie down and they would do this thing called
deep tissue massage, which is they will press through the
thigh muscle, through the leg muscle, through the the glutes,
every every muscle other than the knee, they would press and
knead it. They would actually tear a
couple of those fibers which were so tight and repair the
wound. I went through that for a week.
You won't believe my knees are so strong because sometimes we
think the knee is. It's not impulse, it's not
everything. It is everything.
To stand in this posture, to be alert to what God is doing, you
need to strengthen your weak knees.
Too many of us have given up on the watch and gone back inside.
The enemy has run havoc on your life.
Wondering why your family is in shambles.
Did you give up your post? Can you put up that image of the
person standing on the watchtower?
It doesn't matter if nobody before you watched out for you.
Are you standing on the rampart? Habukuk says in Habukuk chapter
2. I will go and stand on the
rampart and see what God says to me and how He will answer my
complaint. You can stand on the rampart,
complain, but listen for what God wants to tell you.
Because like Max Lucardo says, it's when we step into the
cockpit of our lives and see the one who's driving the leading
the charge, you'll be amazed at what God is doing in you, what
God is doing through you, what God has been doing for you.
Even though it felt he was against you, he was actually
working for you. It's so important that when you
have this posture of standing that you don't sleep on the job.
Have you been sleeping on the job?
You're a single person. You think I don't need to pray
as much as these married people, like Pastor Geshram said, well,
married people need a lot of help.
No, the single people also need a lot of help.
But are you in that posture of waiting in prayer and petition
and listening for what God wants to tell you?
Strong knees can be bent in prayer as well.
I remember seeing my granddad and grandma every afternoon in
their retirement being on their knees.
Eventually my grandma had such bad arthritis she couldn't
kneel. She would sit, but their prayer
journals were all around them. Until today, we're seeing
prayers answered for what they prayed.
If you don't kneel in prayer, how will you stand before
people? You're worried how you'll go and
face that boss, Get in your prayer closet and start praying.
You're worried how you will deal with that unpleasant situation.
Go and pray. Position yourself on your knees
so that you can stand before whoever God leads you to stand
before. That's the second thing.
The third thing of how we are consciously taking back our hope
is to make straight paths for our feet.
It's so interesting that if you go trekking in any place, the
path looks littered with stones and weeds and things like that.
And if you are the first one to go on a trek in a particular
place, it is your job to clean the clear the path out.
And as you clear the path with say a stick or whatever, as
you're clearing it, you will uncover snakes along the way.
You could uncover beehives, you could uncover pits that someone
else could fall into. Many of you are pioneers in this
room in the sense that you are standing for your generation for
the first time. No one stood before you, but God
values that you're standing there.
But as much as we must worship, as much as we must be stanced in
prayer, God is calling us to take those steps out and to keep
clearing the path ahead of us. Not just for ourselves, for the
ones who come after. It's so important that we begin
to make straight paths for our feet.
What happens when a path is not straight?
Because let's face it, when we all describe our lives, how do
we describe it? Oh you know, it's like a windy
Rd. UPS, downs.
But Jesus was completely the way he was prophesied about in the
Old Testament says it's a highway to the Lord.
It's highway to Zion, a straight Rd.
Why? Because the way is Jesus
himself. Jesus is not a windy Rd.
Jesus is a straight Rd. The gate to that road is Jesus
again. He's the door.
But what happened was in the Garden of Eden, it was this
beautiful heaven like set up where man and God were in
perfect communion. There was complete access.
Sin marred it. And throughout the Bible we see
how the sins of mankind, our brokenness, our flawed nature
kept creating bends in the road. The road didn't get bendy
because of God. The road got bendy because of
you and me, because of our complete ability to mess things
up, because of our tendency to sin.
And therefore the road got more bendy.
And then with the Jews and their teachers and their the Herodians
and the Pharisees and the Sadducees, they added weights on
people. They called something that teach
elders teaching in addition to the Torah.
They had given them this. So people were burdened by man
made laws and the road got more windy.
And so when Jesus comes, there's 400 years of silence.
God has not spoken. John the Baptist comes on the
scene and he starts saying, guys, it's very easy.
Repent, be baptized, keep fruit and bear fruit in keeping with
repentance. Jesus comes, he makes it even
easier. He says I'm the way, the truth
and the life choose me. You have it on a life.
The problem is when we all come to Jesus, most of us in this
room know Jesus as our personal saviour.
Our roads are still a bit windy because of our tendencies to
sin, because of our tendency to complicate our lives.
And God is coming to us in this moment and saying, will you
start making the path easier for yourself?
There are some some of us who live to make other others
comfortable. And God has been talking to me
about that. He's been, you know what?
You don't do anything to make anyone else comfortable.
I love you so much, you can chill.
He's taken a huge load off my back to be honest.
What is it that you have been putting in your life that has
been inducing stress? Simple thing, some of you have
complicated your housekeeping to the level where everything has
to be so perfect. If someone sits on the wrong
cushion, they had it. Make it easy.
Host the presence of God more than you.
Host your questions and your portraits.
What have you been doing in your marriage that has been a
stumbling block to your spouse or your children after you?
Very simple. It means addressing the
blockages. It means deleting an app, which
is possibly leading you astray. I was thinking about last year,
May Kesham turned 40. So I decided to throw him a
birthday party. And I used to do surprise
birthdays very well, and I think I still do.
So I surprised him. He had no clue, planned up with
a bunch of his friends and our family and got everyone to
secretly come home. And I told him, let's go to
Starbucks and let's just, you know, have coffee.
And he was not even suspicious. Like, I've been texting people
from his phone and deleting the chat so that he knows his
friends are on his phone, right? So two weeks of planning,
everybody's come home. Guys are coordinating with me
and saying, Akka, this is reached.
That is reached. And we're actually, he's
actually telling me at Starbucks, hey, it's time.
The kids will be alone. It's getting dark, let's go.
I said, no, it's OK, chill, let's have a little more coffee.
And he didn't even believe it. He, I mean, he didn't even doubt
me. We get into the car and the
worst is we're driving back home and my brother's in the car next
to us. He's coming to our house and he
said, what is Vivian doing here? I'm like, oh, I have no idea.
Be very careful if you marry someone who teaches drama.
They're very dramatic. So I don't know.
Thankfully, we got stuck in traffic.
My brother went ahead and went home.
But that night he said how did you plan it?
How did I not know a thing? And I realized I'm being very
upfront with you here. If we were to cheat on each
other, it's the easiest thing in the world.
With delete chat, just archive things.
Neither of us are suspicious of the other, so we never check
each other's phones. And I told him that day, babe, I
pray I never, ever cheat because it's so easy.
You would not. You trust me to that extent.
But the beauty of it is this. I have safeguards in my life
here, safeguards in his. Those are the things that could
potentially be a pitfall to our lives.
Have you been mindful about the pitfalls?
You have a tendency to text someone.
Delete the app. Jesus said cut the eye out if
it's causing you to sin in today's world, throw the app
out. You don't need the app.
Have you been overtly shopping? Delete Myntra.
Delete Amazon. Go to the shop and buy stuff.
It's still there's such a charm. Yesterday we went to this pooja
and we just bought stuff. So nice to look at racks and
pick things and put it in the cart.
Find out what is causing you to stray.
I love that song that says prone to wander.
Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I trust.
That is our human condition. Everyone of us, us included, are
prone to wander. And how much do we need God's
grace to identify the pitfall before I fall into it?
You know your weakness, so does your Maker.
Will you be very mindful of preparing the way, knowing
beforehand? It comes with, you know, as you
start to grow in the Lord, He will show you a pitfall before
it happens. He will alert you to a weakness
and you'll be more real with yourself.
You'll be more real with your spouse.
You'll be real with your children.
It's so important that we begin to clear up what could
potentially cause us to stumble. So while we head into this place
of restoring our hope, healed hope, that's the desire, my
desire when I came prepared today, that was what I told God.
I said, Lord, as much as you've healed my hope, I want others
hope to heal today because I believe a lot of you are
wounded. A lot of you are going God, but
for me, when you're like John, you're feeling a bit offended.
Isaiah chapter 62 verse 10 says go through, go through the
gates, prepare the way for the people, build up, build up the
highway, clear it of stones, lift up a signal over the
peoples. God is calling you not just to
work on your heart's pathways, but to begin to lay the ground
for others behind you. Who are you working with?
Who are the children you minister to?
Who are the young people you minister to or work with?
Will you begin to clear the path for them so that they don't trip
over stuff, so that your lifestyle doesn't cause someone
else to fall? Would you begin to be so
intentional even as we close? I was just thinking of how
sometimes, you know, with the things that happened to us in
our lives, hope, like I said, gets battered.
The reason, fundamentally, this is my discovery and you probably
already know this, but bear with me.
The reason our hope gets so battered is because our hope is
anchored to the wrong person or the wrong things.
How many of you have known that? Our hope, sometimes when it's
anchored to a human, gets jacked the minute the person lets you
down, correct? If your hope is anchored to this
particular event happening, when the event doesn't happen, your
hope goes under. But today my desire is that like
Hebrews 6 verse 19 says, can you put up the image?
I'm going to read the words so that you look at this and
understand what I'm saying. We have this certain hope like a
strong unbreakable anchor holding our souls to God
Himself. Our anchor of hope is fastened
to the mercy seat in the heavenly realm beyond the sacred
threshold. Like I said, you know God has
brought me to the season of unraveling the brokenness of my
own heart and has given me this very simple declaration that I
make every morning. Lord, no matter who lets me
down, because I know people will let me down no matter what bad
things happen. You are my hope, Jesus, You are
my hope. Do you know how it has changed
my heart? You know how it has brought back
love in my heart for people? Because I can walk into rooms
now knowing it's OK if things don't go as planned.
My hope is not in them or in or in what happens.
It's in Jesus. It's in Jesus and many times the
anchor has been in the wrong places.
I want my heart and soul to be buoyant.
You know what buoyant is light. Too often the anchor is in the
wrong place. The boy doesn't float, but God
is calling me back to a place of saying, hey, if your anchor is
in me, your soul is going to be light, your spirit will soar.
If you're in this room and you've been saying my hope is so
injured, I want my hope to heal, could you just slip up your
hand? I want to pray for you.
Amen. Amen.
Father, I just pray right now, Spirit of God that you would
touch their hearts, touch their minds, that you would heal them
in the deepest parts of their lives.
I pray where hope deferred has caused sickness of the heart.
I pray that you would heal their hearts in Jesus name.
Thank you God, we receive your healing.
If you said that I am so offended by Jesus because his
ways have hurt me, His ways of disciplining has hurt, can you
just lift your hand? I want to pray for you.
Amen. Amen.
Lord, I just pray for a deeper revelation.
Each of these brothers and sisters will have an
understanding that wisdom and knowledge will be given to them
to see you as you are, to understand you God, to know your
ways. We thank you that your ways and
thoughts are higher, but I pray that God, you would give them
vision and clarity to see your hand at work, to understand your
ways. God, for those of you who have
been unable to worship, I just want to decree over you, God is
removing those shackles. You are going to be able to
worship again. You're going to be able to sing
and praise and move because that is where your victory will lie.
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