Welcome to the Illuminate Church podcast.
We hope today's message is encouraging to you.
And in this series, hope and healing have been arising.
Where are you grateful that God has given us a serious I am, I'm
very grateful. Are you grateful?
Pastor Kim's grateful. And healing has been happening.
But as you know, when you dive into the corners of mental
health, it's like there's a sheet of wood on the ground and
it's been there for years. And you finally lift up the
sheet of wood. What's under there?
A bunch of creepy crawly things. And that's what's happening here
at Illuminate Church. And it's a good thing.
It's better to reveal it and deal with it than to leave it
there, growing in its power. So we've seen demonic activity
in the church in the last couple weeks and we expected it.
We've seen deliverances and we've seen attacks.
We've seen strange things that don't normally happen here that
are happening and we knew it was coming.
So what we're going to do today is make a stand against the
demonic in Jesus name. Today is deliverance day.
Amen. Believe it.
Let me just say a warm welcome to anyone who's here for the
first time. If you're brand new, we say
hello to you. I'm going to tell you that you
can make one decision that will change the rest of your life.
And it's this simple. At the end of service, stop by
connect central. If you stop by connect Central,
they can connect you to the heart and the message of the
church and what to do next. And suddenly you will find as
many, many, many, many, many people before you have found I
just needed to do one thing. Go to connect central, get
connected. Go to lifestyle one, lifestyle 2
and a things just changed, as you hear me say in the lifestyle
one video over and over. The trajectory of your life will
be absolutely changed if you make that one decision.
So please go. If you're brand new or if you've
been here for years and just been stubborn, I mean, not able
to go, whoops, Please go. We are in a series called Weeds
in My Garden. We're in week 4.
This is a series about being honest about mental health.
If we're honest, we haven't been honest about mental health.
In week one, we learned that in order to live out the second
greatest commandment, we needed to love well by destigmatizing
the issues surrounding mental health and making it easy for
people to understand. It's OK to admit that you're not
OK to create a hospital where the doctor, his name is Jesus,
can come and do his work. Jesus said out of his own mouth.
The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And then he said the second is to love your neighbor as
yourself, right behind it. When we fail to love people
well, when we fail to help people through mental health
issues, one of four things happens, maybe all of them.
Number one, it impacts our relationship with God.
If we don't help people, it impacts our relationship with
other people. And on the flip side, it impacts
their relationship with God and it impacts their relationship
with people. What do I mean?
Well, if we don't love people well and deal with mental
health, then we're saying to God, we don't love what you love
because you love people and you came to heal people, but we're
too busy or too bothered or that's too creepy or too hard,
so we're not going to deal with it.
It impacts our relationship with God.
Beyond that, it also impacts our relationship with them.
Like what are you talking about? Well, it's going to be harder
for people to come to us and be honest with us if we don't help
people who are in the this sort of battle.
And what they end up doing is we condition them.
We train them to not be candid with us.
We train them to give us roses and hide the weeds in their
garden because we're not a safe space for them to come and be
honest because they're like, oh, that's too hard, too weird.
You're creepy. You've had this issue.
Go deal with it some other way. Not by me.
This is the message we can give. And it what happens is we leave
them isolated, we leave them vulnerable, we leave them as
sheep without a shepherd. The very help they need, we
drive them away. Them being all of us, by the
way, it can impact also their relationship with God.
Why? Because they're going to judge
God by our actions. Did you hear me?
They will judge God by our actions.
We are both the hands and feet of Jesus.
We are the expression of God to the hurting world, and when we
handle poorly the glorious mission that has been given to
us, it changes how people see God.
This culminates in them having a hard time in relationships with
others as well. Because if Christians can't be
trusted, if God can't be trusted, then who can?
Nowhere is safe. No one is safe.
I retreat all the more. Again, isolation, vulnerability,
loneliness, sheep without a shepherd.
That's not the kind of Church of the kind of people that we want
to be, we want to love. Well, as I said in week 1, I
want to recapture the idea of what mental health is so that
we're all on the same page. And here at Illuminate Church,
we're using incredibly broad strokes to define mental health.
When most people typically think of mental health, you usually
doesn't always happen, but you usually go to clinical
diagnosis, meaning somebody has OCD or schizophrenia or clinical
depression or clinical anxiety and that's mental health.
And I'm not that to be clear, in this series, we are dealing with
those clinical diagnosed issues as well as we're handling mental
health in any sort of capacity as it relates to the
overwhelming emotions that come to us because of life loss,
wounds, worry, unhealed wounds, crushing stress, perpetuated
brokenness. It causes us to suffer mentally.
We're not operating as God intended us to operate.
Mental health issues, I said in week one, are comprised of
multiple components all relating to each other.
One impacts the other. There's situational issues.
Everyone say situational. Yeah, what's going on in you and
around you, actions you were doing, actions of others.
There's physiological issues, say physiological.
Yes, the brain wiring. You can literally rewrite how
your brain is wired. There's chemical malfunction,
something not operating just right with your pituitary gland
and all the ways the amygdala and the way that the brain
works. There's clinical issues that I
just mentioned. There's also spiritual issues,
say spiritual, and this is what we've been drilling down on the
last two weeks. There is an enemy who is against
you. And here's what I want to
stress. In the end, when we're talking
about spiritual issues, everything is spiritual.
Though there may be situational issues, clinical, medical,
physiological issues going on, everything is spiritual.
But when we list out all of these components and say they
relate together, what we're trying to do is help everyone
understand, though everything is spiritual, everything is not
exclusively spiritual. Meaning that the you may need
clinical medical help and there's no shame in that, but
you also may need situational help.
Lord, deliver me from this brokenness.
And then I return to the brokenness by the way that I act
or the people that I continue to share life with.
And guys like I want to deliver you, but you keep running back
to prison. So I want to show you how this
all works together. Pastor Kim shared so brilliantly
last week. So honestly, I'm so grateful
that you did that, Pastor Kim. There's so much help that came
from that. And he shared his testimony, as
he called it a message testimony or a mess that became a
testimony, whichever one works. And what he said is that his
situation as a young boy caused him to physiologically change.
If you weren't here, by the way, go back and listen to last
week's message. Profoundly beautiful.
The physiological change from because his brain got hardwired
to believe that he could not ever let his defenses down.
He was always switched on guard. Did you hear what he said last
week? To relax was dangerous to him.
Dangerous. If I let down my defenses, I may
get hurt. Not only that, but his
Physiology change. He said in his nifty 50s, he's
got started to react to the amount of strain and unhealth
mentally that he was experiencing.
But eventually, praise be the Lord, he went and sought
biblical Christian counseling and Jesus met him in that and
gave him freedom from this Hallelujah, Amen.
And it all, you see how all of it works together.
The situation with the physical, the spiritual, all of it is kind
of combined together. And I just don't want to pause
here and say this as well. Pastor Kim and Heather this
Saturday leave on a six week sabbatical.
Yep. Come on, sabbaticals that are
Illuminate Church are a rest for ministry for our pastoral staff.
And it happens once every seven years.
Only once every seven years do you get the rest.
That's not the truth, but it's an extended rest for ministry.
And I'm so excited for the two of you to get away and to do
this. And we're going to miss you
while you're traveling. They're traveling here and there
and whatever. You might see him occasionally,
but leave him alone, he said. Amen.
But nothing wrong is happening, nothing bad if you don't see
Pastor Kim that is. Some people have always hopping
to Kim. He's doing great.
He and Heather are great. Amen.
All right, well, here's the main issue of this series.
I think it's becoming clearer as we go into this series.
The devil is trying to steal, kill and destroy us via our
mental health issues, using the cloudiness and the unhealth
mentally to steal, kill, and destroy.
This verse should sound familiar because we've been quoting it
almost every week. John chapter 8, don't turn
there. If you want to turn somewhere,
turn to Mark chapter 2. If you need a Bible, raise your
hand and we'll bring one to you. Mark chapter 2, We're going to
be there in just a moment. But in John chapter 8, Jesus is
speaking about the devil. He says you belong to your
father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's
desires. I'm going to take out all the
pronouns and just use the devil's name.
The devil was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to
the truth, for there is no truth in the devil.
When the devil lies, the devil speaks the devil's native
language, for the devil is a liar and the father of lies.
This is who he is. We're coming to you.
We see hands. We're coming with Bibles in Week
2 that I share that there are three main lies that the enemy
speaks to us to diminish our mental health and these three
main lies if believe long enough eventually lead to for some
suicide, which we're going to address in two weeks, week 6.
I hope that you are here so we can address this very it's so
essential that we address this topic in the church suicide
that's in two weeks. But in week one we said that the
first slide that Satan tells us that we are meaningless or we
are without worth worthless because of battles we face, the
feelings we feel, our value, our meaning and our significance
have been reduced. It's been diminished and for
some extinguished completely. But the truth is it's the God
himself that made you, which means that God himself knows
you, which means that God has personally and significantly
created you. And in this way, we have
relationship with them. We are known by him.
We're not meaningless, we're not random, we're not insignificant.
Last week, Pastor Kim talked about the lie that the devil
tells us, which is you're not lovable.
Who would love you? You.
Through his story, he was telling us the truth, which is
there's nothing you can do to unearn the love of God, and
there's nothing you can do to earn the love of God, Love of
God. The Lord's love is irrevocable.
Think about that word. The love, the Lord's love is
unconditional. Think about that word.
This week I want to talk to you about the third lie that Satan
tries to whisper to us, and it's not great, but see if you've
heard it before. You are ruined.
You're ruined. It's too late.
There's no coming back from this.
I think of the lady in the Phillies jersey at the Marlins
game. Maybe you've seen this on social
media. Home run gets hit, ladies there.
It hits near her feet, then it rolls down and in baseball
rules, it's fair game. Whoever gets the ball gets the
ball. Well, this other dude, dad grabs
the ball, takes it to his birthday boy son gives it to
him. They hugged like this is
amazing. And then Phillies lady comes
over and like rings them mine, mine, mine.
And the guys like, listen here, you take it clearly you need it.
Well, she's all over the Internet and basically there's
no coming back from this for her.
She's been fired from her job. She's ruined.
Now I think, what if all of my mistakes were on social media?
What if my mental health was posted on social media and
everyone decided let's cancel him?
There's no coming back from that, Ingram.
This is what the enemy tells us. There's no coming back for you.
The lie of the fact that we are ruined comes in the various
forms of mental health that I've been sharing with you.
Let me just go through them. It could show up in the
physiological as you come to grips with the facts, the
reality that you were put together physically different.
Your brain is wired different. Your chemicals pump into your
body different. Your physical struggles have
ruined you. This is what the devil says.
You will never be able to be the person God created to be.
You'll never be able to live your lifeout the way that God
intended it. The way that other people get to
live it is different for you. It could show up also.
This lie. You are ruined in the clinical
as you deal with the weight of a diagnosis, the life you were
hoping to have, the dream life you've been just chasing slips
through your fingers. That's what Satan does.
He tries to get you to believe that your diagnosis is bigger
than your choices. Hopelessness.
You have no choice. This is the end.
And he also gets you to believe that your diagnosis is bigger
than your God. And worse than that, he tries to
get you to take ownership of the diagnosis so that your diagnosis
is your identity. When we're going through a
battle like this, we'll say stuff like my depression, I used
to say, my anxiety, my OCD, whatever.
Think about what that means. Like my wallet, my car, my
pants, whatever. You are not your wallet and you
are not your diagnosis. You may have a diagnosis, but
the diagnosis doesn't have you in Jesus name.
But if you believe the lie that you're ruined, then you are your
diagnosis. Go ahead.
Yeah, it can also show up in the situational in two ways.
The first way is when you begin to reveal your actions to
others, because our actions are tied to our mental health.
Some of our mental health issues are the result of our own hands.
You've done something so long under the cover of darkness, but
now it's coming to light and the devil will tell you that people
are going to look at you differently.
They're going to judge you. The mask is being removed and
now they're going to see you for who you really are.
You're ruined. Then there's also the actions of
others, which come with an incredible pain and damage.
And the longer that people damage you, the more you think
you are damaged. Meaning if you think so lowly of
me that you're willing to treat me this way, I must be a lowly
person. Because I know you don't treat
poorly that which you value. You treat your vehicle better
than you treat your spouse, and that says something to your
spouse. I just made-up an example, not
pointing fingers, by the way. All of this is the devil's
playground, because the devil wants to come into you and
remove all the light. He wants to remove all the help,
all the hope. He pushes in.
He double s down. He says to you would be better
off for you, and it'd be better off for the people around you if
you weren't here anymore. No one's ever going to allow you
to get over this. There is no coming back.
You are ruined. You were going to have a great
life, but now too late. Now just in the listing of the
physiological, the clinical, in the situational, look how much
ground Satan has taken, and we haven't even talked about the
spiritual. Satan begins to tell you that
God couldn't love you. Satan begins to tell you're too
far gone, you're too messed up, you are ruined.
And as a result, we come to some conclusions.
Three of them. Number one, we come to this
conclusion that God isn't big enough for my problem.
Meaning my problem is too big for God, He can't handle it.
Or on the flip side, we say my problem is too small for God,
He's too big and important for little me.
Or thirdly, we come to the conclusion of well, I've been in
church this whole time and I still have these problems.
I guess church doesn't work or I'm not doing church right.
Something's wrong with me. I don't have enough faith.
I'm not praying right? So I'm not putting the pieces
together, pulling this the the slot machine of God, So
something pops out, right? This is the spirit behind
deconstruction. If you've heard this term in the
church, people leaving the faith, deconstructing what God
had built to them because they've come to the conclusion
it doesn't work. It's not real.
It must not be real deconstructionism.
The hardest part of all of this is that the very part of your
body that is being attacked is also the very same part of the
body that is making all the decisions about what to do going
forward. How can I make healthy decisions
if my mind is unhealthy? Think about that.
If the devil has 1 foot on the gas, 1 foot on the brake and 1
foot on one hand on the wheel, I still have to get in the car and
go places. Just when I go those places, I
always end up somewhere unhealthy, lonely, ruined,
hopeless. So this is the lie you are
ruined. What is the truth?
If you're here today and want help and hope, then what I'm
about to share is critical as we walk this path forward with
Jesus towards mental health. 5 truths to combat the lie that
you are ruined. Truth number one.
Are you ready to say yes? God is not surprised by our
struggles. What?
I was asleep. I didn't know that Tim had done
that. What?
Right? No.
He knows our situations. He's not afraid of our
brokenness. He's not allergic to our pain.
He's not allergic to our misery. When Jesus came to the earth, he
came to help and to heal. If you read to the Gospels,
you're going to see over and over again how much time Jesus
took to minister to people in pain.
All sorts of pain. Physiological pain, situational
pain, clinical pain, spiritual pain.
I mean, he healed a woman caught in adultery, healed the demon
possessed man, He healed the man on the mat, He healed the woman
with the flow of blood. And these are just a few of many
times that Jesus says I've come to handle the problem.
Luke chapter 4, we've looked at a few times in this series and
it's important to remember because it essentially shows us
the reason Jesus came. He said in verse 16 of Luke
chapter 4, he went to Nazareth, Jesus, where he'd been brought
up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue as was
his custom. Note this, Jesus went to church
every week. This is custom.
He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was
handed him. Unrolling it, he found the place
where it is written. The Spirit of the sovereign Lord
is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good
news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor. Then you roll with a scroll,
give it back to the tenants, sat down and says everyone in the
room had their eyes fastened on Jesus.
And then he began by saying to them, to them, today the
Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, meaning Jesus is saying
that time that you have been waiting for as you've awaited
the one who would come to heal, that time has arrived.
The time is now. I am Him, I am here.
Amen. Which means very, very simply,
He's not surprised by our struggle.
He came because he knew we were struggling.
That's what he just said. I came to set the oppressed
free, set the prisoners free. I knew you were struggling.
That's why I showed up. Truth #2 God is not surprised by
our sin. From a spiritual perspective,
God knew that we were all ruined.
That's why I sent Jesus. Romans chapter 3 says it
plainly. For we all have sinned and
fallen short of the glory of God.
Raise your hand if you're included in the all.
If you're not raising your hand, you're a Sinner.
Sorry. From a spiritual perspective,
think about this. Some of us are tall, some of us
are not. Some of us are thin, some of us
are not. Some of us can Dunkin
basketball, Some of us can crochet.
Some of us can paint, some of us can't.
If you look around, God has made us so different in so many
wonderful ways, A kaleidoscope of His glory, so different.
But there is one way that we are not different at all, that every
single person in this room, every single person you see when
you walk outside, drive the roads, walk around Disney, you
can look around, say, hey, we all have this in common.
We are all ruined by sin, every single human being ruined by
sin. But God in his mercy stepped
into that space to deliver us from evil to the sacrifice of
his Son Jesus. Jesus, it turns out, came down
to deal with lots of needs, but he came down to deal with our
greatest need, our biggest need. And Mark, chapter 2, if you have
the Bible open there, it's one of the my favorite Bible
stories. If you've never heard this story
before, I feel like I'm showing you Disney for the first time
was like, what? Wow, amazing, right?
And so Jesus returns to his hometown, which isn't Nazareth.
That's where he was raised. But he lived most of his life in
the town of Capernaum, right on the Sea of Galilee, tiny little
village that he lived in. And he goes to his home and it
says that like the whole world seems to show up.
It's not true, but so many people show up that the house is
completely filled. People are standing all around
the house trying to get in to see Jesus.
Don't you know that every church should be filled to the brim
every single Sunday because Jesus is there?
Don't you know that this church should be filled with the brim
every single Sunday because Jesus, he's here.
There's some people in town who have a friend who's paralyzed.
Hope you have friends like this. They say, hey, friend, hope and
healing is here. We're going to take you to
Jesus. And if you learn anything about
God, I'm not sure what to do when you run into somebody who's
hurting, just take him to Jesus, right?
So they get this guy on a mat and they begin to carry him to
the house, like we're going to see Jesus.
And then they get to the house and so many people are there
like they can't even get in the house and they're like deuces.
They peace out and they take them home, drop them down.
Be like, sorry, that 'd be a terrible story.
It wouldn't even be in the Bible.
No, these friends are like, OK, Plan B up to the roof, like
Santa, sorry. Now think about the
determination of these people to get to Jesus and like we have
trouble out in the parking lot because I can't find a spot and
I got to park over there and they're like, all right, we're
going to dig a hole in the roof and lower homeboy down.
That's the Huber word, homeboy. Now the precision is amazing
because they're on top of the roof and they dig a hole big
enough for a man and they lower him down right in front of
Jesus. Imagine if they're like, oh,
estadad El bano de bano UN bano the bathroom, like whoops, no,
over here, down he goes right in front of Jesus.
Look in your scriptures, verse 5, when Jesus saw their faith,
he said to the paralyzed man, I heal your body.
Is that what it says? It Doesn't it make sense though?
He's on a mat, he can't use his arms and legs.
He's in front of Jesus, Jesus healing body.
And Jesus says, Son, your sins are forgiven.
What? Now Some teachers of law were
sitting there thinking to themselves, no, they didn't
speak. They thought, why does this
fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming.
Who can forgive sins but God alone.
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they
were thinking in their hearts. Imagine that when you hang out
with Jesus, he's thinking what you're thinking.
And he said to them, why are you thinking these things?
And he asked him a question that I want to ask you.
Don't answer out loud, just ponder it.
Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, your sins are
forgiven, Or to say get up, take your mat and walk.
Don't answer out loud. But which is easier to say?
Isn't it easier to say the one that won't have any physical
proof? Like I can't prove it y'all just
trust me. And isn't it harder to say the
one that requires demands physical evidence here and now?
Verse 10. But I want you to know that what
the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
I don't know that I read that right.
But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins. In other words, Jesus saying,
oh, you don't think I can forgive?
Would you believe that I can forgive if I could heal this
man? And you're like, uh huh.
So he said to the man, I tell you, get up, take your mat and
go home. He got up, took his mat and
walked out in full view of them all.
This amazed everyone and they praise God saying we have never
seen anything like this. They lower the man in front of
Jesus and Jesus heart immediately goes to the sin, not
to the physical body. Because we must imagine Jesus is
thinking, what good is it to make a man walk if he's walking
straight to hell? What good?
So let me deal with the actual problem, the greatest need,
which is the sin. Mark chapter 2, verse 17.
Look just a few verses down. On hearing this, Jesus said to
them, is it not the healthy who need a doctor?
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.
In other words, there is nothing that is too big for God.
If He handled the biggest issue of all of humanity for all of
time, certainly He can handle any other issue.
He came on purpose to save you from what?
Attempts to ruin us in Jesus name.
Truth #3 Nothing is too small for God.
Say when have you believe that God is only good for the big
things but not the small things? Don't busy him only call when
things get really out of hand. In light of all that is
happening in the world. Middle East, rumors of wars,
China, all of this. Do you think he's got time for
you? It's just a flesh wound.
Minimize it. It's nothing.
I need to confess to you something.
I am not a handyman. Anyone else want to confess this
handywoman? Any.
I'm. Yep.
I once noticed in our shower that the line of caulk that's
down at the bottom, that kind of keeps the water in and from when
you know what I'm talking about, the bead of caulk that goes all
around everywhere. Yeah, I noticed it was like, not
good to look dried out. And some of it was not the right
color anymore. And I like, I need to fix this.
Certainly I can do this small little bitty, insignificant
house thing. And so I got the right tools to
dig out and the, the white caulk, they're going to zoom
here all around, you know, And four hours later, I'm literally
covered head to toe and white cock.
It's on my arms, it's in my face, it's in my hair, it's on
my knees, it's on my feet. And the lines looked like
they've been drawn by a kindergarten hyped up on 6 bags
of Skittles. And I just sat down and turned
out of the shower and wept. No, I didn't do that, but I felt
like doing it. Here's the point, why didn't I
just call the professional? But it's so much easier.
But it's just small job. I should be able to handle the
small thing, don't need to call a professional.
So I did. I call a professional, they come
over, 30 minutes later, they're done.
It looks amazing. And I look at them and say how
much do I hate you? Jealous.
The point again, why didn't I just call the professional?
It's not too small a job for them.
Luke chapter 12 verse 6 says are not 5 sparrows sold for 2
pennies, yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Tiny little Sparrow, he knows about it.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are numbered, all of them.
Don't be afraid. You're worth more than many
sparrows. I don't know if you ever cleaned
out a drain at your house and you pull it up and there's a
bunch of hairs there. I think to myself, God knows all
of these. He knows every single one.
He named this one Betty, that one Mabel, He's got them all.
He's aware. Yep.
This is the way my brain works. I want you to know that when you
pray, you're praying to a God who sees, to a God who knows
every intimate detail. Nothing escapes his notice, and
he cares about everything that you're going through, whether
it's big or small. The problem is we don't tend to
go to God until the small things become the big things.
Now, to be clear, the big things aren't hard for God, but they're
hard for us. Why?
Inertia, Momentum. The ship has sailed, it has
gotten heavier, and it is speeding up.
Think about turning a tiny boat and think about turning Icon of
the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, going fast to
the sea, weighted down. And what happens to us as we
begin to believe like, wow, you're right, I'm too far down.
This is too hard to turn around. The healing that it would take
requires too much. I can't go back.
I just going to set sail on this course and there's going to be
no change for me. Not true.
Better to deal with something early and often.
By the way, This is why we are a kids ministry.
This is why we are a youth ministry and a young adult
ministry. The Bible says if you train up a
child in the way that they should go when they are old,
they will not depart from it. Why not help them learn the love
and ethics of Jesus at an early age so they don't have the
inertia of the enemy to have to overcome later in life?
Amen. Truth #4 God has the power to
restore that which is broken and ruined.
He does this in one of three ways.
Listen to me carefully everyone. Take a big breath.
Sometimes. God restores and heals.
Today in the here and now we pray and medically, mentally
there is relief and healing. I have seen it, I am part of it.
I have been healed of anxiety in Jesus name but moves me to the
second part. It didn't happen today, it
happened someday. Meaning I began praying for my
healing at the beginning and it didn't happen from Sunday to
Monday, it happened from 2016 to 2020 ish.
I don't even know. It took time, it took process.
There are things that I needed to walk through.
There are things that I needed to learn.
There are things that I needed to let go.
A foundation that the Lord wanted to build under me that
couldn't have happened the same way if you just been taken away
from me. That resistance, that waiting to
be healed, built something in me that the enemy cannot steal.
So sometimes the healing happens today.
Sometimes the healing happens someday and sometimes the
healing happens one day and that one day is the 2nd coming of
Jesus Christ where he says behold I will make all things
new. This is a frustrating teaching
because everyone desires the two day healing.
Who would want to wait for someday or the one day God?
Give me the 2 day healing. But as I've just shared with
myself and I've seen happen time and time again, people who are
walking through the struggle, waiting on their healing,
processing, walking through healing, making right
relationships, walking towards their healing.
They turn their struggle into a story.
They turn what's called a tragedy into a testimony.
While other people might have a shallow understanding of the
power of God, these people have learned to depend on the living
God with their every breath. As they're waiting the healing,
they might say something like, even in my worry, I will trust.
Even in my anxiety, I choose to follow.
Even in my depression, I will still give him glory.
Even to my pain, I will raise my hands and praise.
I think of Joe when he said, Though you slay me, yet will I
trust in you. Though he slay me yet will I
trust in him today, someday, one day the healing is coming in
Jesus name. Which brings me to the close and
the last. Truth is an invitation.
Truth #5 God delivers from evil. I told you at the beginning,
today is deliverance day. What does that mean?
I want to speak to something that has been sensationalized in
the church to the extent that we turn a blind eye to and like I
don't want to deal with that. It's too kooky, spooky or weird.
But Jesus dealt with this. And if Jesus dealt with it, the
church should be dealing with it.
Amen. Do you really believe that?
Say Amen. When we hear the word demon,
we're not sure what to think. We think of horror movies,
Halloween Horror Nights. Certainly demons are attending
there. So if you attend that, you're
going to party with demons. Just letting you know, don't
mean that as judgment, just mean that as a shepherd.
Here's what the Bible tells us about demons.
Ephesians chapter 6. You've heard me say this before,
that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood each other we
get, we wrestle against the rulers, the authorities, the
powers, the spiritual forces of wickedness raps, RAPS that exist
in the dark realm. It's a reality that we must be
aware of. Be alert and sober minded.
Your enemy seeks to devour you for lunch and this is what the
enemy looks like. Unseen spirits, rulers,
authorities, power, they exist. You see their evidence every
time you open your social media feed, every time you turn on the
news, you see the evidence of demonic activity.
Luke chapter 4 that I just read, Jesus says I've come to set the
prisoners free. The oppressed Free from what?
Demonic activity, Mark chapter 16, Jesus says I'm giving you
power to cast out demons multiple times in the book of
Matthew, multiple times in the book of Mark, one time in Luke
chapter 13, Jesus is casting out demons.
The body of Christ should be doing what Jesus did when he was
in his body and he cast out demons.
We're going to cast out demons today and I don't want you to be
fearful. Demons are under the authority
of Jesus. Let me read to you.
So just in case you're not sure of that.
Let me read to you a few scriptures.
Ephesians chapter one, verse 19. Let me give us some light here.
And his incomparably great power for us to believe.
That power is the same as the mighty strength that Jesus
exerted when he said that God exerted when he raised Christ
from the dead and seated him at the right hand.
In the heavenly realms far above all rule and authority, power
and dominion, far above, and every name that is invoked, not
only in the present age, but also in the one to come.
And God placed all things, even demons, under his feet, and
appointed him to be the head over everything for the church,
which is His body, the fullness of him who fills everything in
every way. First John chapter 4, verse 3.
But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from
God. This is the Spirit of the
Antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is
already in the world. You do.
Children are from God and you have overcome them because the
one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the
world. What I'm going to do today is
just Prairie in the authority of Jesus.
This is the way you can think of it.
Jesus we just read in Ephesians has authority over everything.
And when Jesus speaks in Luke chapter 4 saying I'm going to
free you from everything, he says I'm doing this in the power
of the Spirit. The Spirit has anointed me to go
and set people free. So you have Jesus and the
Spirit. Jesus is the badge, the Spirit
is the gun. Jesus is the authority, the
Spirit is the power, and so we're going to pray in Jesus
name for the Spirit to come and work and to remove every demonic
activity that is on any person in this room, any possession or
any oppression. Possession is of the unbeliever,
oppression is of the believer. If you can understand that the
devil cannot possess you if you belong to Jesus because you are
territorially bought by the blood of Jesus, your body is a
temple to him. The oppression comes when the
devil tries to convince you that you don't belong to Jesus.
He says you've been set free from this prison, but the
devil's like, no, no, no, you're still in the prison.
Shove, shove, shove, though you're not there.
So we want to speak freedom today and pray.
Let's do this. Would you all stand with me?
I'm going to ask our prayer ministers to come forward, our
pastors, our elders. Some of them will be up in the
mezzanine. And what I'm going to do is do
what Jesus did. He prayed in his authority to
rebuke and to cast out every demon.
And while we do this, it doesn't have to happen, but sometimes it
happens that a demon will manifest.
Don't be shocked or alarmed. Know that Jesus is dealing with
this and setting somebody free because that's what He came to
do Amen. As we deal with this, your job
is agreement. I agree that the authority of
Jesus and the power of the Spirit is setting people free,
is setting me free. Receive it into your heart and
into your spirit. If you just bow your heads and
close your eyes in the name of Jesus, we say demons come out.
We say that Jesus is here to deal with you.
Father God. It is by your authority that we
proceed to deliver all those here that have gathered by the
power of the Lord Jesus Christ to every demon in the room.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by His authority, I
join with everyone here in commanding you to leave now.
You have no right to be here. You are trespassing upon God's
property. Get away now.
Father, we pray that you will empower this rebuke that we have
just issued in Jesus name. We acknowledge that some of our
behaviors may have been empowered by demons and evil
spirits. If it is Lord, we declare, I
want nothing to do with it. If you agree with it, say I
agree. Lord Jesus, we confess that you
triumph over these demons and evil spirits by the power of
your cross that purchase forgiveness for all of our sins
by your death, burial, and resurrection that provided my
new life in Christ. If you agree, say I agree,
demon, in the name of Jesus and the authority of Jesus, I
command you to get away from me now.
If you agree, say I agree. Lord Jesus Christ, I ask that
you send these demons and evil spirits away from me now.
If you agree, say Amen. Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you
for hearing our prayers and answering our prayers.
Please, by your grace and mercy, reveal anything in my life that
might give demons and evil spirits opportunity within me,
and please fill me anew with Your Holy Spirit so that I will
be empowered to live out your life and joyful obedience to You
and freedom from sin and harassment.
In Jesus name we command general generational curses to go.
In Jesus name we command the demon of poverty, the
impoverished spirit, to go. In Jesus name we command the
orphan spirit to be vanquished from this house.
In Jesus name the spirit of abuse must go, The spirit of
addiction must go. The spirit of pornography must
go, The spirit of alcohol must go, the spirit mammon over money
must go. In Jesus name, the spirit of
pride, ego, the spirit of vanity, driven out by the power
of Jesus, the spirit of infirmity, we cast it out in
Jesus name. Bring your healing and your
power because of who you are. And we thank you for your good
work. Before I say Amen, would you
just look up here? The altar is open.
If God is stirring something in you, let him finish the work.
Everything else can wait. Come forward, be prayed for.
Our whole group is up here ready for you.
Jesus knew you were struggling, so he came to earth and He's
empowered people to pray with you for deliverance.
Thanks for joining us today. We hope God is speaking to your
heart through this message. If you'd like to connect with
us, you can text connect to 407-588-0115 or visit Illuminate
dot church. Have a great week.