Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. Oh man, settle down.
I hadn't even said anything yet. Right?
Happy to be here. You guys know I'm not from
Florida because I obey the speed limit, but anyway, I've still
got here on time. I think that speed limit is more
of a suggestion for y'all. But anyway, glad to be here.
What a privilege it is to be here, man.
You guys have church on Wednesday night and y'all don't
just come together for something little, man.
You guys have full blown church, you know?
And you guys have. I mean that's normal to y'all,
but that's not normal. We travel a lot.
We go to different churches all the time.
And man, that's awesome. Just to be able to come
somewhere like this. I mean that's you guys are
blessed, you know we've known your pastors.
Yeah, give something to have. Hallelujah.
You guys are blessed. I've known your pastors for
years and man, they're awesome people.
Just what a wonderful place to be able to come here.
But you know, as Kara said, we're going to, we're going to
get into some of this tonight. Go to Matthew Chapter 9.
That's we're turning there. I'll share a couple of things
with you. The book, Simplify soul winning.
You hear that You know you know, maybe a little confusing.
What that is, is just a real simple book with simple
principles that will help you share your faith with someone
else in your life. Right.
This is not. We have a mutual friend, Roddy
Schaefer. You got he's probably ministered
here before. You know he's a crusade
evangelist man. I try to do a crusade one time
and failed miserably. So I'm not a crusade evangelist.
This. This book is not about that.
But this book will help you to share your faith.
Sure. Jesus, with those in your life,
those that you have contact with.
And so I encourage you to get a copy of that.
Again, I apologize we missed our shipment by an hour and a half.
Spent two hours on the phone with UPS trying to get him to
let me come pick it up and they wouldn't.
So anyway. But you know, we can get the.
Books shipped to you. But if you'd like an E copy of
the book, if you'll give us your your e-mail address, I'll send
you a free E copy of it or be on PDF and you can read it on your
phone or your tablet or computer or anything.
But our goal is just to get the word out there.
Amen. Just to get the word in there.
As as we shared earlier, you know, our mission that God kind
of gave us several years ago was to harvest harvesters.
And that's what we want to do. Amen is harvest is plentiful
here in Saint Augustine. Guess what?
I'll only be here for a couple days.
So it doesn't really help St. Augustine for me to know how to
win souls, right? But he's got a whole bunch of
people that are crazy enough about Jesus to come out to
church on a Wednesday night. Hallelujah.
Hey man. But so grab you a grab you a
copy of that book. As Kara said, we're looking to
double our partnership. And So what that means is we
need to raise an additional $100,000 per year in support and
an additional 100 partners per month.
So if one person wants to write a check for 100,000, make my job
much easier. But if you can't do that, we say
for as little as $10 a month you can help feed hungry children in
France. Mine, I have three boys and they
eat all the time and they keep growing.
I got to buy them clothes. So if y'all wouldn't eat so much
and grow so much, I wanted to raise so much money.
And Europe is expensive. That's the other thing.
I talked to other missionaries and they tell me their budget
was like, you couldn't rent a car over there for that much.
And But anyway, God, I said this Sunday morning, I said, you
know, in the Old Testament, one time the Lord said, is my arm
too short? I mean, you know what I'm
saying? His arm will reach all the way
over there to France. His arm will reach wherever
you're at in Saint Augustine. Amen.
Hallelujah. God is good.
Amen. So let's see.
Yeah, we got that. All right.
So sign up to partner, sign up to get our newsletter and find
out what's going on with us. You know, as European
missionaries, a lot of times what our job when we're here in
the States is to kind of educate people as people say, Europe,
you're you're a missionary to Europe.
That's kind of weird because I thought that's where the gospel
came to America. It was.
But if you've ever heard the phrase, America is only one
generation away from being a godless society.
You can get on a plane and go with me to Europe and I'll show
you first hand. Amen.
It really is. Europe as a whole is about 3%
born again. France one of the less that the
least at 1%, less than 1% born again.
And really, as we began to step into France, you know, our heart
began to, as we began to pray and we began to research and
take steps and go in and administer and pray and kind of
spy it out, our hearts went to the towns and villages because
we found out that's where nobody wanted to go, that's where none
of the ministers wanted to go is and where none of the
missionaries wanted to go. And we said let's go.
And so, you know, we went. God led us and helped us to, you
know, at by, at Rama. They told us if you're going to
do something you've never done before, go find somebody else
that's doing it and work with them.
It's great. There's nobody doing that in
France. So we said, Lord, what are we
supposed to do? We said, well, let's go to
language school. And the Lord said no.
And I said, Lord, this is not a good idea.
We'll do it. If I don't know how hard it was
going to be, I probably would have said no.
We're asked for another a transfer.
But praise God, we got there. We learned a lot the last six
years. And, you know, but we couldn't
have done it without partner churches like you guys.
I mean, just seriously, there's there's no other way.
You know, as missionaries there were totally dependent upon
support and so we can't, you know, can't work over there.
I don't have any skills anyway, other than looking good and
preaching and those don't pay a lot in France.
So anyway, let's go to Matthew, Chapter 9, as I already told
you, and we'll get into the word here tonight.
You got something? I'm only here with you for a few
moments, but I've got something that these things that I'm going
to share with you tonight. I didn't read them on in a book.
I didn't find them on somebody's blog or find a video on YouTube.
This is stuff I walked out myself and it'll help you.
Amen. I believe some of the things
that I faced and overcome the last three or four years, that
I'm not the only one in the body of Christ that are dealing with
some of these things. Amen.
And so I trust some of these things will be a blessing to you
tonight. But let's pray, Father, we just
thank you so much for the privilege of being here tonight.
Father was such precious and wonderful people.
Father, what a privilege it is to be here in St.
Augustine with Pastor Earl and Marcy and their wonderful,
wonderful congregation. We thank you tonight, Father,
for the Holy Spirit. We think that he's giving
revelation to each and everyone that's here or watching online,
or we're listening later on. Father, We thank you, Lord, that
you're opening our eyes. It would see wondrous things
from your law opening our ears to hear what your word would
saying to us, giving us wisdom, understanding and revelation of
your word. Father.
Helping us, Lord God, to have peace and freedom in our lives
so that we can get our eyes off of ourselves and look to the
harvest that's plentiful all around us.
Father. You've given us a mission,
Father, But it's. Hard to do that mission when
we're dealing with so much junk ourselves.
And so, Father, I thank you, Lord God, that you've given us
the tools. And I thank you, Lord, that
you're showing us how to use those tools, Father,
effectively, efficiently, so we can.
Run our race. So that we can reach the law.
So we can bring in the harvest and see Jesus come back and take
away a glorious church and be get to be a part of it.
What a privilege, Lord God to Live Today.
And so, Father, we thank you for that.
Tonight we thank you for your word.
We place a demand upon the anointing and just draw out of
that exactly what you have for us to receive tonight.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
We'll talk to you tonight. Tonight about 3 words talked
about mission, position and condition.
All right. So the first thing we're going
to see here, well, the first thing I'm just going to kind of
introduce and I thought out there, we're not going to spend
much time on it because I know that y'all got a special treat
for y'all. It's right outside.
But anyway, the first thing we're talking about is our
position when we receive Christ, When we come into the Kingdom of
God, we all have the same position that make sense.
So when we're in Christed as the way Mark Hankin said, I love
that phrase in Christed. When we get in Christed or Born
again, we are right with the Father.
Same position as Jesus. I can't improve that position.
I can't, you know, work extra or earn extra.
Do anything else to change that position.
That position is fixed. I'm born again.
I'm righteous once I get filled with the Spirit of God.
I've got you've got the same spirit if you've been filled
with the Holy Spirit that the pastor.
Earl and I get with the same one, you know, we don't have a
different spirit because we got to sit under Brother Hagan, You
know what I'm saying? It's not like the Lord said,
hey, you got to sit under Brother Hagan.
So here's a little difference. No, it's the same Holy Ghost.
Same position, all right. You and I've.
Got the same promises for us. In the word of God, there's not
a separate book. For for ministers, there's not a
separate book. You know, for one.
We've all got the same promises. Amen.
Now we've got different assignments.
And we may have specifically different missions in our lives.
You may not be called to go to France.
I'm not called the pastor here in St.
Augustine or go all the places that your pastor goes.
But so we may have different assignments, But the basic
mission, which is the second thing we're gonna spend a little
time talking about, we all have the same thing.
And that's. Harvest What do mean we?
Sharing the love of God with those around us.
They meant harvest. So let's look my lovely wife
already talked about John 435 and I love when she when she
shares that, you know you got to get your eyes off of yourself.
We were teaching one time in England when we first got in
there on on harvest and the Lord said the 1st wall we have to
overcome to share the gospel with someone is the wall we've
built around ourselves. So again, we got to get our eyes
off of ourself. Right, so Matthew Chapter 9.
Let's look here real quickly. Matthew Chapter 9, verse 35 says
Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their
synagogues and preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and
healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on
them. Because they were, they fainted
and were scattered abroad, a sheep having no shepherd that
says he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but
the laborers are few. Now, three times Jesus uses this
phrase. The first one is in John 435,
the second one here is Matthew here in Matthew Chapter 9, verse
37. And the third one is over in
Luke chapter 10, verse two. Same thing, he says.
Anybody y'all ever told your kids something?
Three times? Everybody kids, me.
Are you growing up and your parents ever told you something?
Three times where I grew up in Louisiana.
But the third time, if I've not done what I've been asked to do,
there's usually a whooping that went along with it.
So I don't know if y'all can do that in St.
Augustine or not anymore, but. They could in Louisiana in the
80s, I'll tell you that. And so three times, Jesus makes
the same statement. Now he's using an agricultural,
a growing, a garden. You know, an agricultural
analogy here, but we know, you know, I farmed.
I grew. Up way out in the country,
Louisiana. And I farmed just enough as a
kid to know I didn't want to farm, didn't like it.
Didn't have fun. During COVID, you know, we were
locked down there in France and we had a lot of time on our
hands. And so I said, you know what,
I'm going to grow a garden. And so I went and bought some
seeds and I killed some lettuce. I killed some, I think radishes
and cucumbers. Brian's not a farmer.
Brian doesn't grow a garden. Brian will eat the vegetables,
but Brian doesn't grow. But even from my limited
agricultural experience, I know enough to know that it's not
just harvest, that there's other steps.
Right, but that's not what Jesus said was plentiful.
He said harvest is plentiful. What does that mean?
That means when we're out there, our mission is harvest to bring
him in. You know, when I was talking to
Karen and I looked out there and I saw Isaac, I'd already talked
to Isaac a couple times, tried to bring him in.
It was it quite right yet? And the Kara said that's a
divine appointment. She said go out there.
So I was able to go out there and bring him in next time I saw
him, was able to get him filled with the Holy Ghost.
Right? What am I saying?
We're out there to harvest. That's the mission, all right.
But but look here, Let's look the first thing Jesus said to
do. So this is.
All of our mission, mine, yours, pastorals, Pastor Marcy's cares.
Anybody that's a Christian God wants to use them to reach
theirs, those that are in their neighborhood, those that are in
around them. Amen.
For some of you, it may be going to a neighbor.
For others it may be just God. Just just learning how to hear
the spirit of God when God says go talk to that person.
Remember with Phillip, Phillip over there, the book of Acts.
We don't have time to look there this evening.
But you know, I loved because Phillip goes and he preaches to
them. You know, I'm saying he goes and
he gets a whole city born again, I mean, and then and then they
send Peter and John down there and all the stuff, this cool
stuff happens. So he goes to them.
But then the spirit of God says go to him, sends him to one guy.
He says go join yourself to that chair.
Not just any chariot, he's not just up there knocking on
chariot doors. Hey you, anybody ready to get
born if you say go to that chariot?
I said divine appointment. He goes to that chariot, and the
guy in that chariot was reading from Isaiah.
See, this guy's ready. If you read over there in John
Ford, Jesus actually says heart. He He says lift up your eyes and
sees harvest is plentiful. I've sent you to reap that for
which you've not even labored. But in order to reap that for
which we've not even labored, we're going to have to First off
realize harvest is plentiful. Secondly, we're going to have to
begin to pray. That's the the very next thing
Jesus says here in verse 38. Pray ye therefore the Lord of
the harvest that he would send forth laborers into his harvest.
Now we're going to keep reading here.
Matthew chapter 10, Matthew chapter 10 and many translations
starts with an and and joins 2 things together.
So this is the continuation here, but I'm going to read it
from the message. The message.
Version here if I can find it. Yeah, Matthew 10 verse one.
It says the prayer was no sooner prayed than it was answered.
Jesus tells him to pray and then it says he answers the prayer
how he called. Twelve of his followers and sent
them into the right fields. He gave them power to kick out
evil spirits and to tenderly care for the bruised and hurt.
So we're talking about mission. Mission.
We've all got the same mission, all right.
We've all got the same position. We come into Christ.
Same position. Now, me walking in the mission
does not improve my condition. My positions.
That makes sense because, all right, here, here, Brown,
there's an extra little Gold Star for you there, you know?
No, it does. We're still, we've got the same
position. All right.
OK. Submission.
All right. Skip down to verse five.
It says Jesus gives some further instructions.
He says Jesus sent his 12 harvest hands out with this
charge. Don't begin by traveling to some
far off place to convert unbelievers.
Don't try to be dramatic by tackling some Public Enemy.
Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood.
Tell them that the Kingdom is here.
Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead.
Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons.
You've been treated generously, so live generously.
Don't think you have to put on a fundraising campaign before you
start. You don't need a lot of
equipment. You are the equipment.
He says and all you need to keep going is 3 meals a day travel
light right? So here we go.
Jesus says harvest is plentiful. He says pray and then he says go
to to put that in the redneck version he would say, Jesus
said. Y'all pray and then y'all go
Amen. Kind of reminds me of a boss I
had in Texas when I first started working for this guy.
He would say, Brian, do you want to go clean the stockroom?
And I would say Nope. Little bit later he'd say, Brian
go clean the stockroom, so. Finally I learned.
That when he said we or he said do you want to?
That meant yes, I did want to. It's kind of like a woman and my
wife says, do you want to do this?
Well, I didn't want to stop for coffee, but I will now.
Evidently I just had that desire.
I'm going to stop and get a cup of coffee for you.
I drank my own coffee. I don't like to pay for coffee.
So Jesus said, y'all pray and then y'all go all right.
That's the mission. See, the assignment may be
different. Whether you call the pastor,
whether you're called to be a missionary, whether you're
called to be an auto mechanic or a bus driver, whatever we're
called to do, we've got the same mission.
Okay. But here's the problem that I
ran into. Maybe you don't have this
problem, but I ran into this problem that my condition was
messed up. Said Lord gave me this example.
Say you're not like to run and so, but imagine that I wake up
tomorrow and I haven't run, you know, for 30 years and I just
wake up one morning and say as a 48 year old man, I'm going to go
out and run a marathon. Well, if you've got any sense,
the first thing you see that's a mission.
You got a mission, You want to run a marathon, that's 26.2
miles for those of y'all that don't know.
So you say I want to run a marathon.
If you got any sense, the first thing you do is you go to the.
Doctor to find out if you're. Have the right position, OK.
Go, the doctor said. Hey, I want to make sure my
heart's not going to explode at mile three or four or five or 10
or 19 or 20 or 21 or 22 or 20. It's 26 point.
That's a lot of miles. Y'all the longest I've run is 14
miles and I only did that because I did my route wrong.
And when I got to 12, which was supposed to been a 12 mile run,
I still had two miles to go to the motorcycle.
So when nobody coming to pick me up, there's no Ubers in the
middle of nowhere in France, so. So anyway, so you know, you go
to the doctor and the doctor checks you out and says all
right, you got the you've got the seal of approval, you can go
and do it. So you've got a mission now
you've got a position you can do it. #3 though what we got to
work on is the condition I. Could run 10 miles tonight.
I can run the first three in my cowboy boots.
I couldn't run 26.2 tonight. Why?
Because I'm not in the right condition.
All right. So this is what we're going to
talk about here, all right? We're going to fly.
By Luke Chapter 10. Just so I can just so we can
show it to you. Luke chapter 10 verse one.
So we got Jesus and John 435 says harvest is plentiful over
here. Luke, Matthew 9.
He says he says the same thing to the 12 sends them out.
Now here again he's going to say the same thing.
And Luke chapter 10 verse one. After these things the Lord
appointed 70 others also and sent them two by two before his
face into every city and place whether he himself would come.
Therefore he said to them, harvest truly is great.
Third time, third time. The head of the church has made
this statement. Harvest truly is plentiful.
And the reason I've been labored this point is a lot of times we
take a scripture and we kind of misquote it and we say, well,
you know, I just like to plant seeds and somebody else waters.
That's not the context of that scripture.
That scripture is Paul talking to the church in Corinth.
And what that's saying is, hey, as a pastor, Paul laid a
foundation and he said Apollos came in and watered it or built
on it. He said he's planted seeds.
So your pastors have planted seeds that I as a traveling
minister and watering, that's the context of that.
Why do I say that? Because when we're out there,
we're there to harvest. Why?
Because somebody's killed going to hell.
Until they receive Jesus, until they've been harvested, until
they've been brought in, they're still going to hell.
That's why I spend a little bit of time belaboring that point.
But let's get to Romans chapter 12, Romans chapter 12.
As we're getting here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm I'm a
little vulnerable when I preach and I'll talk about other
people, I'll talk about myself. Aren't you glad I don't talk
about you looking up your Facebook and stalking you?
And hey, did you know that Bill's been over?
I'm just kidding, all right? So here we are three years ago.
We come up to, you know, with Covet Hit and man just, I mean,
I remember calling Tad Greg Rich and I was like, if y'all said
what to do, that's the Dean of Raymond there in the States.
I said if Y'all said what to do if the whole world loses its
ever loving mind. I was absent that day because I
don't know, you know, so Covet hit and it was just crazy.
And that when we began to see it as missionaries, you know, we
began to see missionaries all over the world were recalled
from the field. The whole organizations were
pulling their people off the field.
And so we said, Lord. What do we do?
And he said, stay. And again I said, Lord, I don't
think this is a good idea, but I'll do it.
So. So we stayed.
But during this time, our first lockdown, we could only go 1
kilometer outside of our home. All right.
For those of y'all that don't speak kilometers, that's eight
tenths of a mile We could go outside of our home Now.
Thank God we lived in the country 8 tenths of a mile from
my house. I can be in the woods.
Because if I'd had to do lockdown like that in Paris, I'd
have killed somebody. So I'd have been starting a
prison ministry in France. Jesus, so we're there.
We got a lot of time on our hands already told you I tried
to grow a garden and realized you know, I can't garden either.
And so, but during this time now prior to this.
I. Had been dealing with stuff in
in my heart, in my, in my soul, in my mind.
One of them was anxiety. When we stepped out to be
missionaries, man, anxiety, like a person, just was constant with
me. Every time we'd have to go do
something with the government or apply for something.
I mean, I was a nervous wreck. And the problem with that is not
only how it affected me, but how it affected my family and those
around me. Anxiety was one, depression was
another one. I mean, just going through bouts
of depression because, you know, we'd go in and we'd come in with
a great vision. We're coming.
We're going to change France and we get there and see how hard it
is and see betrayals and see false brethren.
The longer my missionary, the more I understand the Apostle
Paul when he writes stuff. For instance, you ever read over
there where he said we've we've been in fastings often.
That don't mean he's spiritual. That means the money ran out and
they didn't have an ATM card. There was no Venmo or PayPal or
any of this stuff like that. They just said, what are we
eating tonight boys? Nothing we're going to.
Fast tonight, all right. I understand a lot of these
things, so we deal with all the stuff in it and I would just get
depressed. And again, how it affects me is
one thing, but how it affects my family, those around me is
another thing. Here's the other thing too.
All of this that I'm dealing with looking down at myself as
affecting my mission. See, my assignment is called to
go to France, to harvest harvesters, to win souls, to
bring people into the Kingdom. But I'm not doing a very good
job. Now assignment wise, I'm I'm
living the dream I've I've lived you know in two different
countries. I'm traveling I'm, I'm you know
I'm pastoring at the time getting to preach in French only
because I had to because our translators quit.
Did it again. I said Lord this is not a good
idea but I'll go do it. So so I'm dealing with all of
this stuff and now over the years guys I tried everything
that every, every preacher I've ever heard talk about you know
try to get rid of this stuff. I had tried all kind of things
and and it didn't work to the point that I just got to the
place where I said, I guess this is the way it'll always be.
Just kind of resigned myself to this.
And during COVID, you know, I mean, like I said, it was just a
crazy time. We had so much time on our
hands. And I just said, Lord, I just
want some more of you during this time.
But during this time I was already reading my Bible, you
know, and doing it devotional every day.
And you know, I was getting things from God and I was
preaching, you know, and and doing things.
But I just said I want some more of you now as a missionary
living overseas. I fast tacos.
Every day of my life. So fasting food, not really that
big a deal for me, you know what I'm saying?
And I fast Culvers. Anybody discovered Culvers and
custard? Oh, Jesus, there's going to be
custard in heaven, I can tell you that.
But anyway, we don't have that stuff in France, so fasting food
was not it. But I said, Lord, what I'm going
to do during this time is I like to read fiction books.
And I said what I'm going to do is I'm just go fast fiction
during this time. I said instead of reading the,
you know, instead of reading a book, I'm just gonna read the
Bible. I'm just gonna start, you know,
I just started over there. I love to read about David and
the old, you know, on the the stories of the Kings and all
those. I just started reading over
there. Now again, I've already told you
I'm a runner. I like to run.
So for years as a runner when I would be out and when I run, I
don't want to be around anybody. I don't want to run with
anybody. I want to.
The only man made thing I want to hear is my footsteps.
You know, I'm saying I like to run in the woods, I like to run
by the river. And so when I would be out
running though the whole time I'm running, I'm fighting
thoughts, I've got stuff coming in where there's anxiety, where
there's depression, whether it's this out or the other.
And the whole time I'd be running, I'd be praying in
tongues and be bind and loosened trying to do all this stuff,
putting on worship music. And again, nothing worked.
So here we are about three years ago during COVID and I said I'm
a fast fiction, so I started reading maybe six or seven
chapters from the Old Testament. Just I wasn't studying it in
depth. I wasn't looking up the Hebrew,
you know what I mean? Just reading it.
And after about 3 weeks go by and I was out on the run.
Never forget it. I was out running through a
vineyard. There's vineyards everywhere in
France. I was running through a vineyard
about by our by our town and I was running along.
I've been running for 45 minutes.
I will send it down to me. I've not had one single anxious
thought. For 45 minutes, I've not had one
single. I've not had to buy anything or
loose anything or do anything else.
And I'm like, what? What's going on?
I've described it like this. Imagine you had a jackhammer
operating outside your bedroom window or your office window for
40 years. Some of this stuff I've been
dealing with for 40 years. And all of a sudden, one day it
stopped it taking a while to figure out what's going on.
You know, I'm saying it just what's different?
What's changed? And I said, what has changed?
I began to have a piece of the freedom that I'd only had in
small moments. Of my life.
Never been able to reproduce it. Never been able to find out how
I got there. Does it make sense?
Like little glimpses of it. And I began to have a peace and
a freedom. I went and I went.
Lord, the only thing I've changed.
I'm still praying in tongues. I'm still living over here
fasting tacos and fasting custard.
You know I mean, nothing else has changed.
The only thing that's changed is I I'm reading more the word.
Just reading more the word. Almost Chapter 12, verse one,
since I beseech you there for brethren, by the mercies of God,
that you present your bodies and living sacrifice, holding
acceptable and unto God, which is your reasonable service.
We see something here. Just with a few moments we've
got left. We see the Apostle Paul telling
us we're going to have to do something with our bodies, with
ourself. We're going to have to lay aside
the negative. So that makes sense.
We're going to leave the negative on this side of the
pulpit. OK, but how?
How? How do we, chapter 2 or verse 2,
be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind that you may prove?
What is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?
All right, let's flip over to Ephesians chapter 4.
We can go to four places real fast.
You know, there's two different types of people from the South.
There's ones that talk real slow and there's me, I'm the fast
talking one. So like Mark Hankin says, if you
can listen fast, I can talk fast and we can get the rest of this
out. Ephesians Chapter 4, verse 21.
If so be that you have heard him and been taught by him, as the
truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning the former
conversation. The old man, which is corrupt,
anxiety, depression. That's part of the old man.
That's not part of the new package.
I'm just going to tell you like that if we come into Christ and
we're dealing with some of this junk or other junk like that,
that's not part of the new package, we're supposed to lay
that aside. And I tried for years some stuff
for decades. Couldn't do it.
All right, let's see here it
says verse 22 that. You put off concerning the
former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to
the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind. And then here's the new man.
Then we put on the new man, which after God has created in
righteousness and true holiness. So I began to read 678 chapters
extra in the Word, and I said, Lord, I had tears in my eyes.
I want to look God, I said. Lord, I've tried for years.
To get this level of peace and freedom that I'm walking in
these last few weeks, the only thing I've changed is I've read
more the word. Are you telling me it was that
simple all along? And he said yes.
And I said, Lord, I've fasted, I've prayed in tongues, I've
listened to preaching, I've worshiped, I've had hands laid
on me. You can tell I've had a lot of
hands laid on my head. But none of that.
Worked with this as far as this goes these problems.
Are you telling me all I had to do was read more of the words?
And he said yes. And I said, why?
Why didn't all the other things that I did fix that?
Why didn't anything else change my condition?
And he said you were trying to do with other good spiritual
things would only mind renewal will do.
And he, he gave me this example. I like to watch those survival
shows, you know, on TV where they drop somebody off and they
got to go. So I don't like the ones where
they're naked, but the ones where their clothes are normal.
You know what I'm saying? You got to clarify that, so.
But you when you watch these shows, there's four different
needs. Really.
Five there. Four or five different needs
that every human being, no matter who we voted for in the
election, no matter who we root for on Saturday at the the
football game, nothing, no matter our color or race or
creed, we all as human beings have to have four basic needs
met or we die as human. That's a pretty big problem.
Dying's a pretty big problem as a human being.
So the first one is oxygen. Got to have oxygen?
Take the oxygen away. We're dead moments.
The 2nd is water. Depending on conditions we can
make it days or maybe a week or two with no water.
The third though is lack of food.
We take the food away. Again, depending on the
condition, I've got a little bit of extra, you know, margin here
and some of you people might, some might be able to last a
little bit longer, but still, you know, weeks, no food, we're
dead. But the 4th would be protection
from the elements. You know, again, if I wear this
light shirt and just these cowboy boots and I go up on Mont
Blanc, the highest point in Europe in a snowstorm, I'm dead
in hours saying then the fifth one would be rest.
And the Lord said, you can't substitute one for the other.
That's what I've done for years is I just tried to worship and I
tried to pray and I tried to fast and I tried to do all of
these other things that are good things, that are necessary
things, but they don't renew my mind.
They don't enact or enable transformational power in my
life that I desperately needed. I was ready to quit, was living
the. I had the dream of the
assignment that I wanted and and and wanted for years, but I
disdained it because of my condition.
Didn't want to do it anymore. So, Lord, I can't do this.
I can't do it. I can't do it.
And again using this, you know that using analogy, there's
oxygen in this water. But if there's no oxygen in this
room, we're dead because we can't get it out of there.
So it makes sense. You can't substitute one for the
other. Let me show you two more
scriptures. So as I began to do this, as I
saw that as I increased, just taken in the word, just reading
the Bible. Continue to do the other things
but could but increasing my word intake, I began to walk in a
level of peace and freedom. It began to increase.
Not only that, the negative was gone.
Does that make sense? I found that if I read 8
chapters a day, at least minimum, the negative was was
they had no power and that's great.
But the greatest thing, gosh, was the revelation that began to
flow. The understanding, the things
that God began to illuminate to me, to get things that God began
to speak to me. Other things that he began to be
able to do in my life because I was renewing my mind, Because I
was. See, here's the thing the Lord
said. We've been caught up fighting
unnecessary battles and carrying unnecessary burdens, and the
devil keeps us distracted fighting with all of this junk
and doing all these other things that that don't work.
All right, so I've just got a couple minutes left.
Let's let's look real quickly over here to to James, Chapter
one. Same thing.
We're going to see this. We see this over and over and
over again. This affects my condition, not
my position. Makes sense.
My my position doesn't change. God doesn't love me more now
that I've walked in without of walked in victory over this
stuff than he did before. Yeah, you understand.
It's not. It's not that it's now.
I've affected my condition, and I am the only person on the
planet or in the universe that can affect my condition.
Jesus can't do it for me, man. I wish it.
I wish we could do this by laying on hands.
Man, I sure do, but it doesn't happen that way.
But it's simple. Not easy, but it's simple.
So James chapter one, verse 21 says we're for lay apart all
filthiness and superfluidive naughtiness.
We got that on this on over here.
Then he says, receive with meekness the engrafted word
which is able to save your souls.
The word save is not talking about our eternal preservation,
but it's talking about like like we would restore an old car or
an old house or something, an old piece of furniture.
That's that's that type of restored restoration.
So it restores my soul, my mind, my will and my emotions.
See, those problems I was facing was in my flesh and in my soul.
Not in my spirit, but in my flesh and in my soul.
And as I began to renew my mind and keep it renewed, keep it
renewed, then transformation began to happen and it began to
affect those around me and it began to affect my mission.
Amen. Last one.
First Peter, First Peter, Chapter 2.
And just just to kind of give you a tool here that we've got
available for you for free on our book table back there.
I just did a little research and I found this very simple Bible
reading system where you read from 10 different places in the
Bible, 10 different lists. It's not a plan where it's not
based on date or anything like that.
You know, I'm saying you just, you read one that you can see my
ribbons there. That my ribbons that's from my
different places that I read. You finish one list and you just
start over and you so every day I'm reading 10 different places.
When I began to do this again, the negative continued to fall
away. And the positive I began to grow
in ways that I had tried for years and years and years and
years. So we've got this available for
you if you want to pick up one of those in our table or if you
want to look it up. It's called the Professor Grant
Horner Bible Reading System. There's nothing magical about
it, but man, it's a great tool. When I began to do this, the
coolest thing about this is what me.
There's there's tons of cool things, but what's so awesome is
see the Holy Ghost. So show me something here in the
first list and then I'll show it to me in the second list and the
third list. And by the time I'm done, he'll
have showed me the same thing 10 times.
I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but if you show me
something 10 times, I'll eventually get it.
Does that? Does that make sense?
So man, I can't tell you enough about this.
I highly, highly, highly encourage you to do this, but
let's let's look at the first Peter chapter 2 verse one.
Therefore, laying aside all malice, guile hypocrisies,
envies, and evil speakings, as newborn babes, desire the
sincere milk of Pret, and tox desire the sincere milk of
worship. Desire, the sincere milk of the
word. I had three babies and I watched
him. And, man, when it was time to
eat, it was not like a casual thing, you know, The baby was
not like, well, mom, I don't know what you've got prepared
tonight. You know, it's well, I could
eat. No, it was like, get out of the
way. I mean, you know, I'm saying.
And it wasn't like, just well today.
I'm not very hungry. No, it was Hey, I two hours ago.
And guess what? I'm gonna eat again in two
hours. So what I'll do with the word is
I'll take some in in the morning and I'll take some more and
maybe in the middle of the day, and I take some more at night
before I go to bed. Amen.
That. So as newborn babes desire the
sincere milk of the word that you may what grow thereby
because there's things that we need to grow ourselves out of
that we never will if we don't do this again. 26 years of
ministry at the time when I when I stumbled into these things. 23
years of ministry. Been a missionary for seven
years at the time, been to Bible school, done all of these
things, but I was struggling with stuff that I didn't have to
struggle with. Hey man, I just had to make some
changes in my own life. Let me just put let me just
throw this out here. I'm going to, I'm going to turn
it over to Pastor Earl here in just a second.
It takes an average of 4 minutes to read most Bible chapters.
So if I read 10 chapters, that takes 40 minutes.
That's one episode of Swamp People.
I mean, I can give up in it, but I like swamp people.
Chew them. You know, I like Swamp People,
but I've never watched an episode of Swamp People that
changed my life. I mean, you understand what I'm
saying? It's worth giving some of these
things. It's worth doing whatever we've
got to do. And here's something.
Here's something the Holy Ghost told me as I stumbled into these
things. I mean, I literally did.
I stumbled into him. And as I begin to enact a man,
I've seen transformation in my life.
I've seen man. I've got renewed mission.
I've got renewed vision. I don't want to quit the
ministry anymore. I don't want to quit being a
missionary anymore. I want to go back and win more
souls for Christ. Amen.
I want to go back and harvest more harvesters in France.
I'm going to get back over there and pick a fight.
Amen. With the devil.
Hallelujah. But here's the thing, the Lord
said, Brian, if they'll do on purpose what you did on
accident, I'll do what I did and they'll experience the same
thing you did. And again, I'd love to just say,
hey, if you'll come down here, I'll lay hands on you right now
and this will all happen. It won't.
Doesn't happen that way. There's other things that we
received like that. But man, I'm, I'm telling you, I
encourage you try this for three weeks.
I shared this with the pastor in Alabama that was about ready to
quit the ministry. He had tears in his eyes as we
sat there. We were eating and I was sharing
some of these things with him. And he said, Brian, I've needed
this. I've not been doing this.
And then I just so happened he was leading a minister's group
and I I was there. He didn't know I was going to be
there. And he said, Lord, what am I
supposed to share with these ministers?
And he said, what's changed your life the last couple of months?
And he said this. They got it out and shared him
with the ministers. Didn't know I was going to be
there that morning. I just challenge you.
What do you got to? You got nothing to lose.
I don't even charge you for this.
I mean, you know, you already got a Bible.
They don't got to be special. Just take a Bible and start
reading it like this and and send me an e-mail in three weeks
and tell me. Tell me if it doesn't work.
Amen. I'd love to stay longer, but I
I've got to go. So y'all stand up.
Let me pray over and I'll just turn it over to Pastor Earl.
Father, what a privilege it is to be here with these wonderful
people and Saint Augustine, Father and Lord, my hearts cry.
Lord God is that if there's anybody that are dealing with
some of the stuff that I was dealing with, unnecessary
burdens and unnecessary battles. Father God that I challenge
them, Holy Spirit, that you would resonate this in their
hearts tonight. That they'll make some changes
in their life and see the victory, see the negative laid
aside and see them be able to put on the Newman and run their
race and reach their assignment and reach the mission to reach
those around them father in Jesus.
Name. Thank you so much for listening
to this message. If you want more, subscribe to
our Message podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and
SoundCloud. Rating and leaving a comment
will go a long way with helping our messages get better
circulation. If you'd enjoy watching our
weekend messages, visit youtube.com/anchor Faith.
We'd love it. If you'd subscribe, leave a
comment or a like on the messages.
If you'd like to find out more information about us and how
we're influencing the world, and help support the work we're
doing by giving, just visit anchorfaith.com.