Let the Kings Arise

Mike Connell

Kings Dream (1 of 4)  

Sun 31 Oct 2010 AM « Back to Top

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Kings dream. Kings declare. Kings prepare and then kings are generous. You're called to be a King! Will you live like a servant who's not enough and always complains and has no dream? Or will you live as a king, begin to dream, begin to declare, begin to prepare and begin to generously give? You have to choose.

I want you to open your Bible with me in Genesis, Chapter 37. I just want to read a few verses and I want to share with you just some thoughts on this theme, Kings Dream. Kings Dream. We're just talking some of the aspects about kings in these coming weeks, but you're called to be a king. How many knew that, you're called to be a king? You're called to be a king.

You are one. It's just a matter of knowing that you are, knowing that you are who God says you are. He says you're a royal priesthood. You can't be royal unless you belong to a royal family, so when you and I were born again into the family of God we became royalty, kingly seed, the seed of our Father, king of kings is within us. When you're born again you're born by the word of God. His spirit comes in. There's a DNA implanted in you and I and we become kingly. Trouble is catching up with who are now we're in Christ.

We tend to live like we used to live, like slaves. I want to talk about that and help us in this series so I thought we'd start with the area of kings dream. What is the dream you have in your heart? So we read in Genesis 37 and there was a man by the name of Joseph. Joseph was 17 years old and was feeding the flock with his brothers. And it says - Verse 3 - now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons. He was the son of his old age, youngest boy and he made him a tunic of many colours. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and couldn't speak peaceably to him. So you can see it's not a very happy environment that Joseph's in. Everyone hates him and they can't speak nicely to him at all.

Now Joseph had a dream. Now Joseph had a dream and there's where it all changes. Joseph was the youngest in the family. He was the hated one, despised one by his brothers but favoured by his father - but Joseph had a dream, dreams and visions are the language of the spirit. God wants to give you dreams and visions. He wants you to be dreamers, visionary. Every one of the body of Christ can be visionary. Why? Because it says in Acts, Chapter 2, that this anointing of the Holy Ghost shall be poured out upon all flesh and it says and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Then it talks they shall see visions, young men shall see visions, old men shall dream dreams.

So God's plan is His body, no matter how old we are, young we are, that we would engage the supernatural realm and have dreams and visions, that we would have experiences that open our insight and understanding beyond what we live with. Everyone needs a dream and a vision. Dreams have to do with possibilities. How many know that movie The Bucket List? It was a great movie wasn't it aye? I was just talking to Andy Lowe and he said I've just ticked something off my bucket list this weekend. I said what's that? He said well I'm going down to be a passenger or a pilot or whatever it is in the Targa Rally. I said have you done that before? He said no, I've never done it before. I said well what do you have to do? He said well someone told me to bring nappies ... [Laughter] ... and a sick bag because it's scary, but he said I've got it on my bucket list. I want to make sure I get it done before I die.

Now that's just a very simple thing. It's about having a dream of something you want to get done in your life so you don't let your life get frittered away and eaten up day by day, one day at a time. Every one of us needs dreams. Every one of us needs visions. Every one of us as believers need to have things in the future we're looking forward to and planning for and preparing for, not just existing, not just living as we are. There needs to be dreams, dreams and desires of the heart. I'll share about some of these things in the weeks to come, how you can access that and some of the mind sets you've got to break to break free into this area.

So God wants us to have that and interesting thing about the thing about kings is that God has called kings to be fruitful. God calls every person not only to be a king but to be a fruitful and productive king, so when you look at the beginning of Joseph in Genesis 30, Verses 22 to 24; When Rachael, his mother, conceived and bore him forth she said I'm going to give him a name. I'm going to call him Joseph. Why? Two reasons; one is God has removed by reproach and two, he will add to me. So the very same thing applies to us. Joseph had a destiny inscribed at his birth in his very name and it was that the reproach was taken away, the reproach of being unproductive and unfruitful was taken away and through this son there will be much added.

This is exactly the same when you got born again. When you were born again as a Christian God put His spirit in. Then the reproach of Adam failing, sinning and falling, of a king living in defeat is broken and now God has a king emerging into the earth in you who is called to be fruitful. Jesus said in John 15, He said you've not chosen me. I chose you to bring forth fruit and fruit that remains. It remains through remaining in Him, so we're called to be fruitful and overflow of a life that comes connected with God.

Most believers do not accomplish or fulfil their potential and one of the reasons is a lack of vision and dream to accomplish something with your life. The other is a lack of connecting to the source, the one who can empower you to fulfil that dream. You know that we focus and talk so often about spirit life, the life of the spirit. Why? Because there is a dimension of God life unless you are connected to Him and stay connected and the life is flowing, you can't produce the fruit of heaven in your life.

You'll hear us in the church talk about restoration retreats and freedom retreats and things like that. It's not just something we do. It's to unlock baggage and the bondage so kings can dream and connect and begin to fulfil their destiny! It's not just something you go to. It's a part of you owning I have a destiny as a king to accomplish something and I need to be free of the baggage! I don't understand why people stay in a Holy Ghost church like this and still don't open up their heart to let their lives be sorted out. It's a total paradox really. It's quite strange - don't understand it at all. However...

Around the world people hunger for it everywhere we go. Lyn goes out; people draw by the crowds to get what she has. Ian goes out; people draw by the crowds to get what he has. I go out; people draw by the crowds to get it. Celebrities come to get it, businessmen come to get it. They see something that can unlock the dream in their life, set them on a course to serve God and be free. So here's the thing - kings dream. Kings have dreams. Do you have dreams? What are your dreams? What have you written down about your future? What are the hopes? What are the aspirations? If you haven't done don't be condemned. There'll be some reasons for it and in these coming weeks we'll hope to unlock it so that you begin to start to reach out and dream.

If all your dreams have been dashed and you've lost any hope of dreaming, we want to see in these coming weeks if you would break out of that and begin to dare to dream again, then begin to start to talk about your dream. But kings dream. Kings dream! God is able to do more exceedingly abundantly than we ask or think or ask or dream. In other words God has got much more for us but we have to position ourself before Him, asking, pursuing and then allowing Him to change how we think. You keep thinking the same thoughts, you'll live the same life!

So it's about our thinking, where your mind goes, what's occupying your attention. If it's filled up with games, if it's filled up with internet, if it's filled up with television, filled up with all these things, it is stealing your life and your potential.

We have to understand you've only got one life to live. A bucket list - it caught on so much it kind of captured people, because what it did was - and I love the film. It's one of the best films I've ever seen. It was a great film and they had such a touching ending - I cried. I cried. I tell you now, it was touching. I thought I wonder why I cried. I realised because there's something, an eternal message in it. You've only got so much time and then it's over. Make good use of the time you've got. It's the one thing you can never replace. You can replace everything else around you except people and time, so we have to value those things - so we need to dream.

The movie caught on because this guy had a list of all of these things and they were not quite fulfilled the way they thought. The guy dreamed of kissing the most beautiful woman in the world. He had something in his mind what that might be and it turned out he was restored in his relationship with his estranged daughter and kissed her - the most beautiful woman in the world.

So sometimes dreams don't quite work out, especially God dreams. God dreams never work out quite like you think. Oh my! And that's what happened for Joseph. Now he had this dream and so kings dream, we need to dream. What did he dream of? You know what kings dream of? Increasing a kingdom. They dream of dominion. They dream of expanding their influence, so what did he dream of? Well he dreamed - this is what he dreamed and it says he told the brothers this dream. He said now listen to the dream, please listen to my dream. This is what I've dreamed. We were binding the sheaves in the field and my sheave rose and stood upright and your sheaves stood up also. But they bowed down to my sheave. ... [Laughter] ... That was a really nice dream. He was very happy about that dream, especially if you're the youngest in the family and they don't speak nicely to you. He comes out and you can almost catch the king inside him you know? Oh, we all had sheaves but yours bowed down to mine - and they hated him, so he had another one.

The brothers said shall you reign over us and have dominion over us and they hated him for the dreams and hated him for the words, but he dreamed another dream, told it to his brother - look, I dreamed another dream. The sun, the moon and the 11 stars all bowed down to me - and he told his father and his father told him off. So dreamers don't necessarily have a very good time when you start to share the dream. God told me I'd do this! Who do you think you are? That's what goes on.

So he had a dream. He dreamed of dominion. That's what kings dream of. They dream of a future different to what is here, a future shaped by the words of God. Now your future is shaped by your own desires perhaps or it's shaped by the opinions of people, or maybe it's shaped by your past. Well I've got no education, I can't get anywhere. Who told you that lie? So there are many things - oh, well we're poor. We've always been poor. My family's always been poor, or I've had this bad background. I've been abused and I have no education. This is all junk and rubbish, but what does God say that would frame your future?

You see God, everything, the world that came into being was framed or constructed by the word of God spoken forth, but before God spoke it forth He dreamed it. So we're creative, we're like God in that sense. We've got creativity, so we need to dream, need to position yourself for dreams and begin to start to thing what is it that God has put in my heart for my future? What is it that stirs my passion? What is it I wouldn't want to die without doing it? What is it that really stirs me? A lot of people just get too busy to stop and ask the question, but you need to because you only have one life and it's going - tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, just like that - and you don't know when it runs out.

So the dream is what begins to cause us to think about the future and gives us hope and inspiration and desire and longing and it keeps us with a forward focus, keeps us looking to God so it gets focus. So kings must speak their vision. Kings declare their vision. Notice he told his brothers - now you've got to be careful who you speak it to. You speak your dream to the wrong person, they'll leap on you and smash and crush the dream into the ground and powder it because your dream threatens them. Who do you think you are? Why should you dream like that? Why should you be like that? What they really mean is well I'm not going to be like that and neither will you be.

It's like crabs in a bucket. No crab will ever get out if you've got crabs in a bucket. They all will pull the one - as soon as one climbs up and gets on top the others all pull him down and unfortunately many people are like crabs in a bucket. I think New Zealand culture's a bit like crabs in a bucket - someone climbs up and starts to look like they're getting out, we've got to find a way to pull them down. It's a ridiculous thing isn't it?

But if that's the culture you've got to find a way then how to guard the dream of your heart, but you still need to speak it and there is a place to speak it. Every morning when you get up there's a need to speak your dream, to speak it over your life, to speak the future, to speak what God says is true about you! That's how men of faith rise. That's how men grow to be strong in the spirit. They don't just wait and say oh God, what's today going to hold? Today is the day the Lord has made! Today is a good day! I command my day to line up with God's plan for my life! I take dominion over everything that the devil has cooked up against me - it shall not succeed! I call God's dream into being in my life.

You've got to get assertive and get up there in the morning you know and shape your world before you go out to meet it. Demonic people have been up probably at midnight calling curses on you and you wake up heavy and grrrmph. Come on! You've got to learn to rise! Begin to speak the word of God! That's how we begin to create and construct something about our future, see?

Bible says in Romans 4:17, it says God causes things to be not as though they are, so everyone whoever said to Abraham said Abraham, father of nations - yeah, that's me, father of nations. Abraham looked up every night and he saw the stars; yes, children, children, many children. Then he looked down and he saw the sand - many children. Just like Brian,he looked at the past and there's seven kids - look, many children! He looked at the seat, there's an empty seat. Empty seat in the van - one more child, one more child, one more child, there it is now, he called it into being, just magically appeared I'm sure! ... [Laughter]

Now you know it didn't magically appear. He had a vital part in it, isn't that right? ... [Laughter] ... Dreams don't just happen you know. You've got to do your part, see, then the dream has got to be cooked up and prepared before it's delivered. This is true of all dreams, this is how it is. There we go.

Okay, here's the last one to finish on. Kings prepare. Kings prepare. Ecclesiastes 5:3 it says a dream comes about through much activity, not through lots of talk. [Laughs] So well there's some people like to talk and if you're prophetic you probably like to talk a lot. [Laughs] You've got to get past the talk and doing something you know - you know, all talk, just a talker. They say oh, he's just a dreamer. Great to have a dream but your dreams got to find action, it's got to find a reality in it and so we find - I'll just look at one part of - just look over into Genesis 39 because I've run out of time and I want to just give you three areas that actually Joseph was prepared in.

The Bible says in Psalm 105, it says until the time His word came the word of the Lord tried him, so although he had a dream there was a timing for the dream to be fulfilled and there was a preparation before that timing came about. You can delay the timing. You can miss your timing, but you have to be doing something before your dream is fulfilled. You want to dream to be a doctor? Well you've got probably five to seven years of study and hard work. Then the dream is fulfilled, so whatever you want to do in life, life teaches us have the dream, get a plan, stick with the plan and become big enough to fill that dream. Most people don't get big enough on the inside to fill the dream that God has.

God's dream is a big dream. God's dream for your life is bigger than you can imagine, greater than you can imagine, so the problem is we're stuck with thinking too small and we're stuck with being too small and God wants to expand us. So when you start to get a dream in your life and begin to start to pray that dream into being and plan towards it, believe me you are going to have to grow into it, become big enough to fill the dream. The problem is not the dream coming about; mostly the problem is you getting big enough to fill it.

So you get a businessman and they want a great big business and there's millions coming in - but are you big enough to run such a one? No. So you have to grow, you have to prepare. So people have the dream. You've got to grow - YOU have to grow into the dream and God always grows people into things. What you're facing right now is God trying to get you grow into your dream or into His dream for you. We don't always see it that way.

So we do know the story of Joseph. He had a great dream, we're excited about the great dream, we identify with him being told off and rebuked and put down for his dream. But often we don't realise is that he actually did something to fulfil the dream. He did something. He held a promise of God and grew through the difficult circumstances God took him through to prepare him. Let me give it to you quickly - in Genesis, Chapter 39, Verse 1. Joseph had gone down to Egypt. He was a slave in Egypt. He was stripped naked, put up on a box, sold in an auction to the highest bidder. That's not very nice. But he had a dream and he never let go his dream and so what happens, it says here the Lord was with Joseph. He was a successful man in the house of his master the Egyptian and the master saw the Lord was with him. The Lord made all he did to prosper in his hands and Joseph found favour in his sight and served him and made him an overseer of the house. In Verse 5, it came from that time that he made him overseer of the house and all that he had. The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake and the blessing of the Lord was on all he had in the house and all he had in the field.

Now we could preach a message just on your role in the workplace off that one verse. The Egyptian representing an unsaved person and the Christian, being a source of blessing to the business, a source of blessing to the community. God blessed the Egyptian because Joseph was there. Think about that. Now that didn't just happen by chance either - oh, well that was Joseph. Notice Joseph did some things, so here's some of the things. See Joseph was there but Joseph was in the palace. A little bit later he's in the prison. Now here's the thing; he's in a palace and he prospers; he's in a prison and he prospers and he is learning how to manage people at kingly level, governmental level and he's learning how to deal with the lowest of society, the scum who were in prison. In both places he prospers. That's no accident, but he is learning. He's having to learn how to manage people at every strata of society, so God gives him a dose at the top and a dose at the bottom and now he's equipped to be able to manage and lead a country of people at every level, socially and financially in society. His prison experience, his Egyptian experience and prison experience was all part of preparing for the dream that God had for him.

Maybe you feel you're in prison right now. Okay, what is it God wants you to learn? Don't stay in prison too long aye? I'll just finish it now. He grew in these things; firstly he grew in capacity. He grew in ability to live at a regal level, at a high society level. Many Christians can't handle it at all. They can't even talk or communicate with people who've got money because of what's in their own heart. Think about that. It makes them uncomfortable when someone's got money, wealth. But God wants you to be able to live in there, serve in there. They would prosper because you're there. You would ask yourself what makes me uncomfortable? That's what God wants you to grow in your capacity in, so you can welcome people.

One of the things I love about by son Dave is Dave can relate to people at every level. I've seen him. He's met with Presidents, he's met with people top financially, he's met with people right down to people out of prison and there isn't one that I don't find he can't connect with and talk with. Very few people can do that. You've got to be free inside of any envy of what they have. You have to have no agenda whatsoever and people sense it. They sense it.

So Joseph's preparation; first he grew in capacity, see? He grew in capacity. Now how did he prosper? The Bible says how you prosper. You meditate in the word of God and you get to perform the word of God, get to do it. That's what God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8, he said you meditate in it, hold the word in your mouth, do the word of God, you'll prosper. So he prospered. How did he prosper? Well we look at it and we interpret it, oh he just had a lucky break. God blessed him because God wanted to do it, but He doesn't do that for me. No, this is a principle. You're a king. You're called in a kingly calling and God will prosper if you do what other people do that prosper.

Okay, the second thing he did is he grew in character. He had to grow in character. Character's what you are when no one's looking. Character's what you are when no one sees - had to grow in character. He had some huge issues to face; hatred of his brothers, injustice, betrayal by his brothers, sold as a slave, as an object of meat, just a piece of meat down on a slave market, bitter words spoken to him, betrayal, injustice, thrown into jail on a false rape charge when he'd stood up for what was right, temptation, ingratitude by those he helped, delays. He had to face all of those things. They sound familiar to you? It's called God's training process for kings.

What did he come out with? When he emerged at the end, when his time came, he showed great grace to his brothers. Don't worry, it wasn't you sent me. God sent me beforehand. He showed huge grace. He showed generosity - I'm here to provide for you, provide for the people who are bitter and hated him and put him down and then betrayed him? That's generosity and grace. That's a great, great character quality. I don't find many Christians have that. They find that hard, hard to be kind and gracious to people that have hurt them, to bless people, so too small to be great. Understand what I'm saying? We have to grow.

These things come to grow kings. You're a king in growth. What did he show? He showed strength. You've got to be strong to handle that kind of pressure of being betrayed, of being falsely accused, thrown to the bottom of the jail and you know you did right, treated and chained like a scum at the bottom part of the jail, then still serve and work your way up until you're in charge and everyone trusts you and loves you, believes in you. Tremendous internal strength, strength of character, determined! This prison that I'm in right now - I might be chained up. Everyone says I was guilty of rape. They want to take me and cut me up or cut parts off or take my head off or something - but listen. God said it's different. I've got a better future than this. It does not end here. I'm only in the middle of the story.

It doesn't end there. It ends when God has fulfilled His word in my life and when the time came the word of the Lord was fulfilled, but before that it was always something - this is how the word of God tries you. You see it, but then everything in front of you is different. Then what you've got in there starts to come up. He showed great faith. Finally he grew in faith, he held onto the word of God. Genesis 49 tells us Joseph - now this is the blessing of Joseph. This is what was on his life. Joseph is a fruitful bough, planted by a well. Ha ha! Now we begin to discover how he could do it. He had a well of life that came out of relationship with the spirit of God, whose branches go over the wall. In other words he was always reaching to be bigger, could never be contained. It says the archers shot at him and sorely wounded him but his strength remained. It says his arms remained strong and his bow was strong. In other words he could shoot words too but he didn't shoot bitter words, he shot words of faith, words of blessing. In the midst of adversity his strength remained because God strengthened him.

God helped him when everything around him was bad to hold the vision, to speak it until his words that he spoke, his bow was strong. No matter what anyone did to him his confession was strong, his testimony was strong. He fired words out knowing those words will not return empty. I shall arise! I shall come into dominion! I shall come to the truth! I shall come out in the calling of God! I will ARISE to fulfil the destiny! His bow was strong. That's your bow, your mouth; the words, the arrows. Got to find the strength to praise God and declare God's word instead of filling your mouth with negatives and complaints and difficulties and obstacles and whatever, like they did in the wilderness and fell there.

So the time came and Joseph came out and what a generous man he was. Well brothers, I know you betrayed me, I know you sold me out and I know you're feeling bad he said. Listen, don't feel bad. It wasn't you. I see now the hand of God shaping a king and I'm going to tell you something. God has positioned me to provide for you.

That's what kings do. Kings dream. Kings declare. Kings prepare and then kings are generous. Are you a king? Well you are, but will you live up to who you are or below who you are? Will you live like a servant who's not enough and always complains and has no dream? Or will you live as a king, begin to dream, begin to declare, begin to prepare and begin to generously give? You have to choose.

Father God, we thank you that in this house are many kings in the making. We thank you Lord that that anointing, that royal anointing of the Holy Ghost, that anointing that was on Jesus who is called King of Kings, Lord we thank you that anointing has come upon us calling us to arise and to learn how to walk as royalty in the earth today. God, we declare oh God, kings in the house are arising. Today we thank you that just as Ian and Kay are emerging globally kings hidden in the house over many years, we thank you today that there are hidden in the house other kings, other kings who will emerge and arise in these coming days to take the gospel in the mighty power of God to our community, to our nation, to nations of the earth. We thank you that there are kings in the business field, kings in education, kings in the marketplace, kings arising in the midst Lord. We hear the shout of our king in our midst. Arise and shine for light is calm and the glory of the Lord is rising upon you! Lord, we rise to that sound in Jesus' mighty name and we declare YOU reign, YOU reign oh God.

Come on, let's stand to our feet. Let's begin to sing that song, you reign over all the earth. Make it the declaration because you and I are united with Him and if He reigns we reign with Him.

Summary Notes

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Introduction:
· Gen 37:1-10 Joseph dreamed a dream!
· Dreams and visions are the language of the Holy Spirit
· God reveals His plans and purposes through dreams and visions – pictures of the future and possibilities
· Act 2:17 In the last days will be outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Visions and dreams – all flesh – divine bucket list

Destined to be fruitful:
Gen 30:2-24 God has taken away my reproach
· Joseph = OT3130 = He will add to me
· Prophetic destiny to add to be productive and fruitful
· All believers are called to be productive and fruitful
· John 15:16 Chose you to bear fruit. ‘I chose you to bring forth fruit’. He chose us
· Fruit = overflow of a life draws upon the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. The overflow of abiding in Christ and His life coming forth

3. Kings Dream:
· Eph 3:20 God is able to do abundantly more than we ask or think
· We must explore the realm of possibilities and not accept what is. We are born into a Royal family, Identity
· Kings dream of extending the kingdom
· Gen 37:5 Now Joseph had a dream
· Dream – supernatural influence, inspiration into his life
· God communicates in dreams and visions, trances, inspired thoughts
· Eg Abraham, Jabez, Joseph
· Must position self to dream and to see
· Alone/quiet/focus/meditate
· Dream of: Dominion, Influence, Significant and influential life
· The Word of God came to him and formed a dream of the future, a blueprint

4. Kings Declare their Dreams:
· Gen 37:5,9,10 Joseph told his brothers, father
· He didn’t understand it all but spoke and declared the Word of God
· Power of the tongue – must learn to speak forth dreams
· Your words shape the spiritual atmosphere create room for the invisible to become visible
· Declaring the word of God over your life shapes and frames your future
· It is a daily declaration
· Declaring his dream triggered the events that fulfilled the dream

5. Kings Prepare:
· Ecc 5:3 A dream comes trough much activity
· Dreams don’t come about by just dreaming – speak – order life
· Ps 105:19 Until the time his (dream) came the Word of the Lord
- there is a timing for dreams to manifest
- We must cooperate and play our part in fulfillment
- Faith without works is dead

Joseph Preparation:
i. He grew in capacity:
· Gen 37:2-5 Joseph served in the Palace – and
· Gen 37:20-22 Joseph served in Prison – and prospered
· God makes it clear that if we meditate in the word we will prosper Joshua 1:8
· He developed skill and capacity in different environments

ii. He grew in Character:
· Gen 45:4-8 Do not be grieved – God sent me!
· Gen 50:19-21 I will provide
Obstacles:
Hatred betrayal ingratitude rejection
Injustice delay bitter words temptation

Joseph developed:
Grace wisdom generosity
Strength faith

iii. He grew in Faith – held onto the Word of God:
Gen 49:22-24 Fruitful bough by a well
Archers – bitter words, hate, injustice
Bow = mouth Arrows = words spoken
Arms of hands made strong by God Almighty

Let the Kings Arise (2 of 4)  

Sun 7 Nov 2010 AM « Back to Top

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Peter says, you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. Many believers tend to think we're sinners, and see ourselves in terms of our past or our failures, but God says you are an offspring, that God has chosen you, put His DNA spiritually into you and now you are the offspring of God in the earth. He says you are a royal priesthood. In other words you have royalty in you. You are the offspring of a king. Notice how kings operate, how kings speak, they carry themselves in a noble way. They act in a way often different to what ordinary people do. Why is that? Because they know who they are and they know how they're to operate in the earth.

Please now open your Bible with me and let's have a look in Mark, Chapter 4. I shared a message a week or so ago - can't remember when, it seems a long time - but about kings dream. You are a king. If inside you you understand who you are, then one of the things you realise is your need to have dreams about your future and about your direction. I love the idea of Bill having a bucket list. Isn't that fantastic, a bucket list and it'll be so many trips to China and so many people saved, now preaching and of course casting out demons next year. You realise that? ... [Laughter] ... Put that on your bucket list too, casting out demons and praying for the sick and healing them. You've only got one year to get ready for it. It'll be fantastic.

So I want to speak today, let kings arise. We sang a song earlier on, Rise Up and there was a theme flowing through our songs at the beginning about rising up. In the Book of Peter, Peter describes us like this. He says you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. Many believers don't know who they are. We tend to think we're sinners and we tend to see ourselves in terms of our past or our failures, but God says you are an offspring, that God has chosen you, put His DNA spiritually into you and now you are the offspring of God in the earth. He says you are a royal priesthood. In other words you have royalty in you. You are the offspring of a king and I don't know about you but when you notice how kings operate, how kings speak, they carry themselves in a noble way. They act in a way often different to what ordinary people do. Why is that? Because they know who they are and they know how they're to operate in the earth.

The Bible says that you and I are a priest. That means we have access by faith into the presence of God, to pray and to see, to hear from God, to access His wisdom. But we're also a king and I want to share today a message called let kings arise. I'm going to follow this theme for a little while, but we're going to have a look here in this passage about kings in training. In the Book of Revelation which is a revelation of Jesus Christ there's a number of things the Bible says, but one of the things, they see Him coming and He's clothed in white riding a horse and His name is King of Kings. He's a king and He has many kings under His kingship. You need to see yourself as a king under the kingship of Jesus Christ, called to advance the kingdom. If your Christian life is about just coming to church and hanging on and not doing too many bad things you've missed the point completely. That is not what Jesus came to do.

He came to speak a message about a kingdom that was advanced through miracles and signs and wonders, a kingdom that brings hope to people. He wanted us to be born into that kingdom and then extend that kingdom. I want to share with you something that's actually really incredibly practical. I'm going to take it out of one of the stories of Jesus of something He did. In Verse 35; On the same day about even when even had come Jesus said to them "Let us cross over to the other side." Now when they'd left the multitude they took Him along in their boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And there was a great storm arose and the waves beat into the boat, and it was filling up and looked like it was going to capsize I guess. But He was in the stern and He was asleep on a pillow. Imagine sleeping through a storm, you've got to be really tired or really at peace. They woke Him up and said "Teacher, don't You care we're about to die?" He arose, He rose up. He rebuked the wind and He spoke to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. And He said to them, "Why are you so fearful? How is it you have no faith?" Notice that - no faith. No faith. Your lack of faith is revealed in how you respond to the storms of life. And so they feared exceedingly and said "Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!"

So I want to open some things on this. I want you to keep as you're thinking about this that Jesus is the King of Kings. He's about to demonstrate His authority in nature and He's got in training a bunch of junior kings. I want you to see some specific lessons that we can draw out of this. It says here even had come. Now in the Bible, in Bible times the day began at the evening, so when we get up in the morning, say it's a new day, but for the Hebrew culture the new day begins in the evenings. Six o'clock at night is the beginning of the next day, so it's evening and daylight make up the day, the evening first, then the daylight. So you notice this, you read that verse there it's very clear He's talking about a new day, a new opportunity, so when evening had come it's the end of one day, the beginning of another. It's the beginning of a new and a fresh day. God is always doing new things, completely new things and fresh things and kings don't live in yesterday's things. They live in the new things that God is doing, so we see that Jesus at this point, it's a new day. I don't know whether you're aware of it but there is a new season in the earth at this time. There is a new day dawning for the church of Jesus Christ, a day when miracles are in the marketplace, a day of the church invading society in a way it's never done before.

When I've been up to Taiwan earlier this year we had 80 pop stars and media people. I've never been in any church anywhere in the world where they have penetrated the culture, the pop culture and had one so many people in the media to Christ, it's a new day. It's a day for new things to happen and every day we arise it's an opportunity for something new, so new day here speaks of a new beginning.

Now God is about to move and do something different. You and I need to be aware that what God did 10 or 15 years ago is not what He's doing now. We're in a new phase, a new season of God's work, of God's work in nations, so the first thing is even had come as the beginning of a new day meaning that every new day you need something fresh from God. One of the dilemmas that many Christians have is living out of the experience of last year or the year before, or even a decade ago or even a childhood experience of God. We need fresh experiences of God for the new seasons that we're in, fresh revelation from Him. Notice what it says, Verse 35; Then He said to them. So the first thing we see is that kings receive prophetic revelation. It's a new day and Jesus' got new things to say. Jesus spoke to them. Notice there He spoke to them; don't live in last year's experience. What is God speaking now?

God is speaking a whole number of things to His church globally right now about kingdom, about world missions or global missions, about Israel, about the supernatural, many things God's saying. Notice Jesus spoke to them. There was something He had to say. You have to position yourself to hear it. If you go back up to Verse 34, when they were alone He said all things with His disciples. In other words the crowd didn't hear what He was up to. It was the disciples who spent time alone. Are you building time alone with God to hear what He is saying for this season you're in in your life?

We've been a ministry for many years, but right now for us I feel that God wants to speak new things and fresh things. We want to spend out next season seeking Him for fresh things that He wants to do - can't live off yesterday's experience. It isn't enough. We need new things for the new day. We're living in a generation which is open to the supernatural in a way unprecedented. We need to be experiencing as individual believers and as a church a new dimension of God. It comes through the prophetic word. It comes by hearing God speak. It comes by you positioning yourself to let God speak to you.

In the story of Mary and Martha, Mary positioned herself and she heard directly first hand from the Lord. How many of us are positioning ourself to hear first hand from the Lord? Kings receive prophetic revelation. If you're going to be a king serving under Jesus Christ, we need to be hearing from Him what does He want me to do? What does He want for this next season of my life? What adjustments do I need to make? What fresh vision does He want to put in my heart so I'm not living day to day; I'm living out of an anticipation, an expectation of new things God is about to do.

As a church we're about to launch into Pakistan. This is a completely new day. We're about to launch into the whole area of media and being able to impact multitudes, millions of people through media. This is a new day. God is saying new things. It's not just the latest thing we dreamed up. This is something God is speaking about, is a door opening up into the Muslim world in a way that has never happened before. Wherever I've gone in the Muslim world Jesus is appearing to people. People are supernaturally encountering Him, but nevertheless the church must arise and let the gospel go into these places. It's a new day! It's a new day! It's a new day!

It's a day of global harvest. It's a day of ordinary believers arising with the supernatural power of God operating in their life. Don't say it's not for me. It is for you, but you've got to position yourself so you're in the flow of revelation, hearing from God, capturing His heart. It's a day I believe when God is raising up fathers and mothers to nurture a generation that's fatherless. This is a great day. It's a great day for us! It's a great day if we can position ourself and be hearing how God wants us to respond.

There's men and women in here, God wants you to catch your heart for the next generation and invest time and energy and finance in working with them and raising them up. So it's a new day. Notice here that while they were alone Jesus spoke to them. You don't get to hear from God usually when you're out with a crowd. You get to hear from God when you're alone. Notice the second thing is - the first thing is kings receive prophetic direction, prophetic insight, prophetic revelation. If you're going to serve God and advance His kingdom you need to be hearing Him, because you need to hear Him for that workplace. You need to hear Him for your family. You need to hear Him for your business, need to hear Him for the school. You need to hear what God has to say because what is doesn't necessarily mean it's got to stay that way. God says it can be different.

Now second thing is kings dream of enlarging their territory. Most kings have got something in mind. They want to govern the territory well, they also want to enlarge it, want it to grow wealthy, want their subjects to grow wealthy. They want the territory to increase. They want to grow and expand it, so Jesus was continually thinking how to take new territory. Jesus was a visionary. His vision at the end of it was go take the gospel into every nation of the earth! I don't hear Him saying sit and look after yourself. I don't hear Him say sit in a cosy place just concerned about yourself and your children. I don't hear Him saying that. I hear Him saying go into all the nations of the earth!

When we first talked about Pakistan they wanted to raise their eyes and say isn't that risky? Yes, but starting the church in Jerusalem was very risky too. Come on, it's a day when God is causing people to arise with a sense of challenge. If you're in business how can you advance the gospel through your business? You're not there just to survive. You're there to prosper and do well and release resources and get a heart for mission, see God moving. So you notice here His words to them. Here's what they got. Let's cross over to the other side. I want to draw two things about that; the first thing is the other side. The other side meant the other side of the lake. There was a realm of territory of the Gadarenes that Jesus wanted to enter. It was governed by demonic powers. The people were shut down. In fact the very first person they met was the most demonised man in the region, real scary, maniac lunatic but the heart of God was we've got to go to new territories. I know we're having revival. I know we're having great meetings. I know people are getting blessed. I know people are getting touched - but there's territories have never heard the gospel and I want to go to those places. Let's cross over to the other side. Let's go to where we haven't been before. Let's not rest and be comfortable. That's the heart of Jesus.

See, so kings are forever thinking how they can enlarge their territory. Jesus is a visionary, wants you to get vision of how your life can have an impact. Get alone with God one day and write down how many years you think you might have left and say what could I accomplish with the kingdom of God in that time? Don't sit around saying I wonder what the church can do for me, or maybe isn't doing for me, end up in a small world and complaining negative world. Start to think like a king. I'm a king! I need to hear what God could do through me and the life I've got yet to live on the earth!

Come on, you've got to get that in your spirit. Go to the other side, new territory, new opportunities. It could be in your personal life the territory, could be a financial area, could be a business area, could be a family area. I mean every one of us has got some territory to advance the kingdom in. You may just be stuck in some form of bondage. Well that's an area, write it down, that's the other side for me. I've got to break out of that thing and get free of it. Maybe something that's got around you, a habit that's got your life; you say the other side, I'm crossing to the other side. I'm not staying here. I've got to break out and see the kingdom of God break through in my life. The other side, so let's cross over means you have to travel through. You've got to move forward. You actually have to move, have to progress.

There's a good word that you can use for it - it's called migrate. A person migrates, they go from one place to another. Our life with God is from faith to faith, it's a journey of migration. It's not of staying where we are. Anyone who stays where they are has stopped. Anyone who stays where they are has stopped. They're dead in the water. A yacht dead in the water don't go anywhere. It's just at the mercy of whatever. It's becalmed. It's a horrible state when you're like that. No, no, we need to be moving forward, making conscious decisions especially with the exit of this year as we come into next year, we are moving to take new territory personally, in our family, in our business, in our finances, in our ministry effect on other people. We're going to enlarge. We're going to break out, we're going to take new territory. See, so you must be willing to make the change.

Now of course as a church we've been through a lot of changes in this last year and they're quite challenging I suppose in many ways. You do feel the stress because we all tend to like to be comfortable, but actually I'm looking and thinking well now I've got people up there in America with the Dream Centre; I've got people up in Auckland now with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kids. I have Dave and Kate working with millions up in Pakistan. We'll be having people - we've got people up there in Northern Territories there, working with Aborigines. We've got lots of things are happening. We've got Sue up in Uganda and all kinds of things are happening there.

So we see our territory is enlarging. Now you see unless you identify with that you miss what God is doing, can't see the big picture. Big picture's very, very big, but of course if we're in our little world we can't see a big picture at all. Now God wants us to expand our thinking, expand our believing in every kind of area, expand the thinking. Amen!

So here's the thing: kings dream of enlarging their territory. What assignment has God given you? What is your territory and how can you enlarge it? What has God called you to influence? How can you increase your influence? You may be in a rest home or you may be in some place, well who can you grab from the jaws of hell before they slip out and burn up forever? ... [Applause] ... There's always some territory to take, always in the kingdom of God. Amen! So kings know there is somewhere.

Here's the next think you notice: kings advance to new territory. I want you to see something here in these verses. When they left the multitudes, the multitude just are the multitude. They don't usually go very far. They follow everyone else. If you're going to be a king, if you're going to stand up and fulfil your destiny, you can't follow the crowd. Young people, you want to be great - don't follow the crowd. Crowd are lost, bewildered, bewitched, under all kinds of influences. They don't know where they're going and they don't know what controls them. So they left the multitude. If we live our live to please people and we live our life continually to meet the needs of people, live our life continually to keep people happy, we will never, never move from where we are into larger territory because you know what happens? The moment you try to step out and make a change people try to stop you. We don't want you to make the change. We don't feel comfortable with you being there because it'll show up we're not moving. That's what happens - happens everywhere.

So you're going to move from the crowd, so there's a couple of things that they had to - the first things they had to do was they had to leave the crowd, had to leave the crowd behind. The crowd - it takes vision and courage to go against what other people do. You'll probably realise over the years we've never really followed what all the other churches do and not everyone's very happy about that. Some people come and say well you should be like them down the road. No, because we were never raised up to be like that. We've tried to resist some of the current trends because they violate the DNA I have. Church should be full of God, full of the presence of God, full of what God is doing, full of people who love one another and love God and are happy to be themselves, keen to advance the kingdom of God. See?

So you have to resist the pressure. There's pressures everywhere, pressures in ministry, pressures in finance, pressures in business. No matter where you are there's pressure. The question is if you're a king do you have vision and will you expand your territory and resist the pressure of people? It takes courage to do that, say our marriage is going to be different, our family's going to be different, our business is going to be different, our lives are going to be different. It takes courage to do that, so you've got to leave the crowd because the crowd aren't doing that and the crowd are never right. Never. Think about that.

Why would you follow the crowd if they're never right? Come on, think about it. Just think about it. A couple of years ago the crowd were saying come on, buy up more land, buy up investment, buy up property, buy this, but God was saying to me something different. He was saying no, no, get rid of your mortgage, make sure everything's all paid off. I felt a bit goofy and stupid that I was the only one thinking that way. Turned out to be quite a good move really - so they left the crowd. See? Kings advance to new territory, so to advance to new territory you've got to stop worrying what people thing. You've got to advance in what God is showing YOU to do. Notice they did two things; they left the people and they left the shore. You never go out into the seas of opportunity if you don't leave the shore of security. Sometimes we've got to step out and take risks and take chances and step out and let go of security.

I think for Dave and Kate, early on for them that right now they're planning to let go everything that they've tried to build and to let go all security. Now at that age in life that's a big challenge, knowing that you're going to sow your finance in your life and you have an uncertainty about your future - if you're a responsible father and husband that's a huge challenge. Be the same for Doug and Kalinda. Same for Terry. These are big challenges, to leave security, to leave the shore to pursue that walk that God's called us to. Now your security doesn't mean leaving Hastings or anything. Your security could be just your house. It could be something you've got your life invested in and you could do great things but you're held to that thing. What is it that's holding you? What's stopping you? What's got a grip? What is the crowd saying to you? What is it got hold of you that as a king you can't enlarge because you fear the crowd or fear to leave the shore? Think about it, see?

So here's the thing. They were not alone - Jesus was with them. You may think when you take the journey of faith you're alone and it feels like you're alone. It feels incredibly lonely I can tell you now, but you're not alone. Jesus is with you. Now the other thing if you look in the verse you'll see something I hadn't noticed before. Other little boats were there. There's other people stepping out just like you and sometimes when you step out in faith and do something a bit different it feels like you're the only one and you feel like you're a little bit weird, but you know what? I can tell you now there's always other people doing it too. You just don't know about them yet.

So here's the next thing. Kings have spiritual perspective. In Verse 37 it says a great storm arose, tremendously great storm arose. Here's the thing you'll find. There's always demonic opposition to the dreams of kings. If you intend to advance the kingdom of God there will be demonic opposition. The demonic opposition came in two ways; one in the form of a storm and the second when they landed in the form of a person. In other words, putting it simply, that whenever you try to fulfil your destiny in Christ there's certainly you will find demonic opposition rise up in the form of circumstances and people.

All of it will be to intimidate you, make you lose your dream and look out for yourself and become full of fear and full of unbelief. It's always the same, every kind of situation where we try to step out and do the things of God, inevitably there will be some storms. You have to be ready for them. That word storm there, it means literally a whirlwind, like a column of air that's just swirling around and around like that. You get caught in a whirlwind, boy, you really now it. You get spun around and thrown up in the air and you're extremely unstable for a while. This was no ordinary storm. It was a demonic storm. I've been in one of them. When I was preaching in Fiji I was in a room preaching about religious spirits and this whirlwind started up inside the room. Wind just started to run round the room like that. It was loud enough to hear and strong enough to feel and there was no physical cause for it. As quickly as it started it stopped, went out and then it attacked the church evangelism, tore all the roof off it. It didn't touch any of the other huts. It was a demonic whirlwind, so this is a demonic whirlwind that actually caught up the seas and then raised the seas up so they were in danger of sinking.

There's a number of storms. There's usually three different types of storms come in life. There's storms that come because we goofed up so badly we've created a huge mess and now we've got a storm. Those are not good ones. You've got to repent, it takes you time to put them back together again and if you're honest with God He'll help you. There's another storm that God lets rise up to get your attention or to check your faith out, then there's a demonic storm. Demonic storm's just straight out resistance. You've got to discern what the storm is, so this was a demonic storm because straight after they met a demonic man.

So new assignments have new challenges. Keep your eyes on your assignment, not on the challenge. Jesus said we've got to go to the other side. If He said we've got to go to the other side, He didn't anticipate a boat sinking on the way. And if it did there'd still be driftwood to hold on to to get ashore. Paul had three boats sink under him but he carried on. This is Christianity that Jesus proclaimed was never sissy. The boat sank, he carried on. In this particular case Jesus had no - He knew the end from the beginning. If He has given you an assignment He'll get you there and I don't care what storms come and whether your boat sinks on you; nevertheless He can get you there because if He gave the assignment He didn't change because there was a storm!

If you live out of circumstances, feelings and experiences, when they turn bad you'll sink. You have to build your life on revelation and on the word of God so in the storm you keep your perspective. You keep sound in your mind. Storms come to fill you with fear so your faith goes. Notice what Jesus said; they were so filled with fear, He said you've got no faith. In other words the storm and circumstances when they focussed their attention off it caused them to forget the assignment that they had and what happened then? They got filled with fear, they began to doubt the word of God. Then they began to accuse Jesus; Jesus, you don't care about us. They began to blame Him; you need to help us. They're thinking not like a king, they're thinking like a victim, someone powerless in something they can't control. What it exposed was their thinking. What it exposed was their faith levels. Listen, you can be in the middle of meetings and God's doing stuff and still develop no faith.

Faith is built on hearing and responding to the word of God, of getting God's word into your own heart and life. Otherwise you can be in a great meeting, have a great experience and the next day your boat's sinking. The key thing is what did God say to you and are you pursuing it? And if there's a storm what is coming up in your life in the face of that storm? If you're a king you'll arise and assert your dominion. If you're a victim you'll say oh, help me Jesus, I'm sinking, wah wah. Who's stupid idea was it to put us in the boat?

Come on. Jesus was so unconcerned He was asleep. Why was He so unconcerned? Because He absolutely knew He was going to the other side. He'd heard from the Father. He had revelation. He's a king. That's why He's acting like a king - He's sleeping unconcerned about the circumstances. Not only that; He expected them to act like kings. He expected them to act like He would and He had and stand up and do something. He expected them to do what? He expected them to stand up and speak to the demonic storms and exercise kingly authority. I'll develop this another time, but kings make decrees and assert dominion aye? So what happened? It says Jesus rose up and He spoke directly into the storm and told it to be quiet. The word is He commanded or He legislated or He set a divine decree. What you understand is He used His power of words. He used words filled with faith to shut down the demonic storm and calm the circumstances down. There was a great storm, then there was a great peace. What changed it from a great storm to a great peace was a king standing and speaking into the storm, speaking the word of God into the storm, not doubting in His heart.

He said you have the faith of God or faith like God you'll speak to the mountain, be removed! I can't understand why so many Christians have such quiet voices when there's so many things you need to speak strongly and firmly - be removed! See? There's a reason for this. Kings decree, they don't beg. They don't plead, they don't entreat. Kings stand up and speak the word of God. You were here on this earth as a king. You have to learn how to speak God's word over your circumstances, speak God's word over your marriage, over your personal life, over your finances, over your family.

The Bible says the world we see were framed or constructed by God having a dream and speaking a word. We, when we operate in faith, must learn how to do the same thing. Father, in Jesus' name I declare today everything in my day shall work together for good for me. I declare in Jesus' name things come into divine order. I receive revelation today. You've got to learn how to speak the word of God over your life, calling the things to be not as though they are. That's how kings operate. That's how kings pray. Kings speak over their life, speak over their circumstances. They take dominion over spirits.

I take dominion. I declare no assignment against me shall prosper today. Every weapon that's formed, no weapon formed against me shall prosper; no relational weapon, no financial weapon, no spiritual weapon, no emotional weapon, none shall prosper today! I walk in the blessing of God today. You've got to learn to arise like a king and speak like a king because you ARE a king. See? We are kings waiting to rise up. That's why I share this message, when Jesus heard of the storm He arose. Let the kings arise and begin to exercise their kingship and start to speak in the spirit and shape their world according to the word of God!

There's so many believers undermine their world constantly, living and talking like a victim, speaking negatively, speaking and complaining. The people of Israel in the wilderness complained so much and the Lord said to them what you said, it'll come to pass. But Joshua said we're well able to go up and take these giants - God is with us. He said that's how a king speaks. You'll go in and possess the land and I'll make sure you get there.

You've got to learn to speak like a king, to think like a king, to frame your world like a king would frame his world, hearing the voice of God, desiring to expand your territory, letting go of what people think and letting go of circumstances to step out and to do new things and rising when the voice of God comes and speaking into it like a king. If storms come speak into them. Something happens, rise up and speak. Don't talk to people about your problem - talk to the problem. Don't complain to someone how tough it is. Get near God and get His perspective and decree it over your problem. Make the circumstances of your life yield to the invisible realm of eternity.

The Bible says all these things are a light affliction and they work for us a great weight of glory while we look not at the seen things which are temporal, but at the unseen things which are eternal. What does that look like? Very simple. You keep your eyes fixed on what God is saying. If God said to get there, well that storm's not going to stop me! If the boat sinks it doesn't mean I'm not going to get there. I will get there because God has sent me there! If you're thinking about you have a destiny, a core of things to accomplish in your life, you don't have to be afraid of death. Why? Because God will keep me 'til I fulfil my assignment. It's a perspective about life. It's a whole king's way of thinking about life. I've yet to accomplish many things. I can't die tomorrow or the day after; there's things for me to do. So I need to declare like a king and speak over my life and over the areas God's held me responsible for what God is saying.

Father, we just thank you today. There are many kings waiting to rise up today. There are men and women here today who have your seed in them, who've received your spirit and have a royal seed. There's royalty in waiting oh God. Father, I pray that in today and in the weeks ahead that the voice of Your spirit will stir that kingly seed to stand up and to begin to start to walk like a king and think like a king and speak like a king and act like a king and create a different realm around them, just like a king would.

Perhaps just while we're finishing here in the last few moments, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, don't know Jesus Christ, then a great day for you to come to Jesus today. Jesus said this; whoever received Him and believed on Him, He gave power to be a child of God. Notice that - a child of God, born into a royal family. You may be complaining about your background, where you've come from and what happened, all that kind of stuff. Listen, I've got news for you. When you get born again you come into a new family, get a new start, get a divine DNA put into your spirit and soul. You become different. But you have to make a decision. God says He's chosen you. Will you just say yes, I'm responding?

If you're here today and you want to become a Christian - a Christian's just a follower of Jesus Christ, a king in training, but you've got to make a decision and a choice to personally receive Him. If there's anyone here today right at that point I'd love to give you a chance to receive Jesus, become a Christian, have your sins forgiven, have a fresh start in life. If that's you today and you're right at that place of decision today and you sense man, God's talking to me, I need to respond. You may feel a bit nervous on the inside, but you know something's happened. Your heart's pumping - man, I just need to do something. Why don't you raise your hand and say Pastor, I want to become a Christian today. Anyone here today, right at that place of decision, just raise your hand, just let me know - I want to become a Christian. Anyone here today, anyone here right at that place, just let me know, raise your hand. Raise your hand. Just raise your hand, let me know.

There may be others here today and you've been just strengthened. In fact you felt God speak to you to start to rise up on the inside. If that was you, God spoke to you about that, about making changes in your personal life, beginning to re-think and set some clarity around your direction or where you're going. If you know God's speaking that way, say that's me, God's talking to me that way. God bless, God bless, God bless.

Father, we just pray that in these coming weeks kings will arise, in Jesus' mighty name. Everyone said ... [Amen!] ... Amen. Come on, let's give the Lord a clap. ... [Applause.]

Summary Notes

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1. Introduction:
1 Pet 2:9
“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood:
· We must know and agree with what God says we are - our identity
· Chosen generation – selected by God to carry His DNA and be his family
· Royal Priesthood – access into the very throne of God
· Royal or kingly, regal
· Kings don’t beg, don’t think as a victim - powerless, blaming others
· Kings decree, legislate, make commands
· Kings discover and declare the will and purpose of God and advance the Kingdom
· Rev 19:16 “…He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords”
· Jesus is raising a generations of Kings and Lords to advance His Kingdom

Kings receive Prophetic Direction
a) “Even had come” v35
· Even = beginning of a new day. Days began in the evening
· New day = new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences
· God is always dong new things, fresh things
· Kings don’t live in yesterdays experience, they look forward to a new day
· New day = required new direction and revelation

b) “He said to them” v 35
· Don’t live in past experiences, yesterdays revelation experience
· Position yourself to hear God daily
· EG Mary, Jesus rose early and Moses
· V34 While they were alone He explained all things to His disciples
· Jesus raising Kings – took them aside to give revelation and direction
· ‘Alone’ – must build and prioritize time alone with God

3. Kings Dream of Enlarging their Territory
1 Pet 2:35
“Let us cross over to the other side”
a) Crossover” = to travel through, to journey through, go to new places
· Must be willing to move forward, enlarge, advance from current position
· Migrate = journey to a place of new opportunities
· There are challenges and obstacles to be faced

b) “Other side” = the territory beyond the place they were standing
· The country of the Gaderenes v51
· New territory, new areas to invade and advance the kingdom
· New experiences to have
· It could be personal life, finances, marriage, family, ministry
· God calls every generation out of their security to advance the kingdom
· New territories to enter: Media, education, government, finance, arts
· What dream do you have of the future enlargement, advance?


4. Kings advance New Territory
“They eft the multitude and took Him along on the boat’ v36
Left = 863 = to forgive, to send away= choose to let go can advance
i) Left the multitude (people)
· Kings don’t get led by the crowd and multitudes
· Kings have vision and direction and courage
· Crowd lacks vision, they pressure you to conform, to do what they want to do
· Kings hear God and have vision of new territory
· Faith life is in a journey of hearing God and moving forward
· It takes courage to be different

ii) Left the shore (place of security)
· No great adventures unless you cast off from shore
· Boat journeys are filled with uncertainty – cast off – let go
· What is holding you back? What are you clinging to?
· Jesus was in the boat
· Faith journey seems lonely but:
You are not alone; Jesus is with you
You are not alone; others are taking the same journey
Your faith stirs others

5. King have a Spiritual Perspective
A great storm arose and the waves beat in the boat
a) There is always demonic opposition to Kingdom advance
1. Storm 1 Pet 2:37 2. Demonised man 1 Pet 5:1
· Storm = whirlwind, rotating column of air with great turbulence
· The demonic storm whipped through the sea in to a turmoil
· Every assignment of God has demonic opposition
· Demonic opposition – circumstances or people

b) Focus on the Assignment not the circumstances, challenges, feelings – 2 Cor 4:16-18
· Disciples lost spiritual perspective
· Fear of death Accuse and blame Faith quenched and doubt
· Focus on saving self and not the assignment
· Think like a victim not a king
· Missed opportunity for growth

6. Kings make Decrees and Assert Dominion
· “He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea …” v39
· Do you arise in your spirit like a King for battle or do you cringe like a victim?
· “Said” = 2036NT = to command, to legislate, to decree
· Kings make decrees – they assert their authority over the territory
· Whatever your assignment, territory – must learn to address the demonic!
· Mark 11:23 “Have the faith of God … peak to …not doubt with your heart”
· Jesus rebuked the wind and sea and disciples
· God requires us to walk by faith not by experiences alone
· Jesus expected them to interact with the circumstances as a King

Servants or Kings (3 of 4)  

Sun 14 Nov 2010 AM « Back to Top

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God does not want you to live in the realm of a servant or slave. He wants you to live in the realm of friend - very important for your destiny and for your future that you migrate in your thinking from servant to friend. A servant is trained to: listen for instructions; follow the instructions. Their own desires or dreams are not involved.

Wonderful. Well we've been looking at the theme of kings over this last couple of weeks and I know you're going to enjoy what I share with you this morning. So I want you to open your Bible with me in John, Chapter 15 and we'll read Verse 14 and 15. I want to call this message today servants or kings, which are you -a servant or slave, or are you a king? Which are you? Of course the way you think and the way you approach life will reveal it very clearly and I want to give you some biblical perspective. Notice here it says in Verse 14 and 15, this is Jesus' last session with His disciples and so the Bible recounts a lot of it. There's about four chapters; John, Chapter 13, 14, 15, 16 right through to 17 is all Jesus' words to His disciples. That's a lot of words written down and so the things that are shared there are really important.

You notice what He says here; You're my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends for all the things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. So Jesus at this point is raising the status of His followers. He says I'm no longer calling you servants. That meant prior to that time He had addressed them or treated them or called them servants. A servant is someone who listens to commands and does what they're commanded to do, but Jesus wants to elevate their status. He wants to shift them to a different realm of living. It's not a servant or slave, it's the realm of friend, a friend of God.

God does not want you to live in the realm of a servant or slave. He wants you to live in the realm of friend - very important for your destiny and for your future that you migrate in your thinking from servant to friend. Notice what He says here; servants know how to obey - so a servant listens. What a servant is trained to do are these things: number one, to listen for instructions; number two, follow the instructions. That's what a servant does. Their own desires or dreams are not involved. They wait for instructions and follow instructions, so a person who's a servant really has no dreams or desires of their own. They're not given expression to them. They just live to fulfil the will of another. That's the role of a servant.

Jesus is wanting to lift them up. A friend has a personal relationship. A friend connects and communicates heart to heart. When you go through the Bible and you begin to look at the friends of God, you find there's something quite interesting. Yes, they were God's representatives. You find that they fulfil what God wanted them to do, but they engage with God and often disagreed and debated or tried to persuade Him to change His mind. You have a look at Moses and God said to Moses, well I'm going to get out of the way. I'm going to kill all these people and Moses stands up and begins to negotiate with God and God changes the plan. Now that's a true friend.

They're able to come into relationship with God in such a way that God engages them and listens to them. It's not the role of a servant. A servant just does what they're told. Moses clearly had gone beyond the realm of a servant when he's negotiating with God about how He's going to treat Israel for their mistakes. Abraham was similar. He was called a friend of God but you notice when God said that He was going to destroy the city he begins a process of bargaining and he's a real Jew really because he beats Him down from you know, well if I find 50 in there, well what if you only found 10? Then he gets it right down to if I found one, so he does actually a bargaining with God. Can you believe that? ... [Laughter]

What kind of relationship did he have that he's able to walk and talk with God in that way? This is what Jesus is saying; He said I call you friends. Now what you have to see is that there was a progression of things happened in John 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17. In John 13 Jesus models what a king behaves like. He said I'm your Lord or I'm the king. But then what He did was He took off His outer garments and He went down and He served the disciples, so He showed them a king actually can engage at the lowest level of class and serve. The kingdom of God, kings in God's kingdom, can serve and minister to the lowest levels of life, the lowest levels of human need. That's what God's kings can do. What a contrast that is to the kings of the world.

In John, Chapter 14, Jesus promised the Holy Spirit. Now you've got to understand what He's doing. He's promising - He said I'm about to leave you. I've modelled for you what a king is like. I've done this for you. Now you can do this for one another. Then the second thing is He promises a kingly seed. The Bible says that we receive the Holy Spirit, we are born again. There is an impregnation of our life with divine DNA, so when you get born again and the spirit of God comes into you, the divine nature of God becomes fused with your spirit. We are one spirit with the Lord, so therefore you are of divine origin. You have divine seed or life inside you, divine DNA. It is natural for you to connect with God. It is natural for you to walk with God. It's natural for you to speak and interact with God. It's natural for you to flow in the things of the spirit. Why? Because you're fused. You are now royal seed.

If you want to know where you come from well you have a look at your background, but when you got born again Jesus broke the connections to your old background and fused you and pulled you into a new family. It's a royal family. So one, He modelled what that kingly family would behave like. It's a family that knows how to serve needs. Two, it's also a family that's got royal DNA. You have royal DNA within you. The third thing is Jesus then raises them to a kingly stature. He raises them to friends. He'll always have pre-eminence. That's why He's called the king of kings. Kings talk with one another. You have a look at the leaders of nations. They meet and they build friendships with one another. They respect one another. They understand the domain over which each one rules and they relate in certain ways.

Jesus said I'm lifting you up out of the status of being a servant and into the status of being a king. I've shown you what a king acts like. I've demonstrated kingly power. Now I'm going to put kingly seed in you. I'm raising you up to become of a kingly family. I want you to live, act, think, talk and advance the kingdom of God. Trouble is we get stuck with a slave mentality.

In John 17 Jesus said He would share His kingly glory with us. So He's very clearly, the whole context of those few chapters is God is wanting to understand I am shifting you from where you were, servants of God, slaves to sin, I'm shifting you now to become kings and I'm going to anoint you and launch you into the world and you're going to have a global mission to advance the kingdom right through until every person, every part, every generation hears the gospel of the kingdom of God! Trouble is we get caught up in church. Actually, you're called to a kingdom. Church is here to help prepare you to do your kingly duties. Think about that.

Okay then, so let's have a look in John 13, we'll go back into there and you see Jesus is a servant king. He's not a servant. His identity never was servant. His identity always is He is a king. It says in Chapter 13 and Jesus, it said knowing that His hour had come - Verse 1 - that He would depart from this world to His Father, having loved His own that were in the world, He loved them to the end. The supper being ended and the devil put it into the heart of Judas, Simon's son, to betray Him - now notice this; Jesus, knowing what He had - knowing what the Father had given to Him, knowing where He'd come from, His origin. He came from God - knowing where He was going, He was going to God. Now where have you come from? See? Oh, I come from Dannevirke. I was born there. NO! Come on. You haven't renewed your mind yet. You have been born from above. Your citizenship, the place you belong, is in heaven with God. You are born from above. You are a citizen of Him. Where have you come from? You've come from heaven. Where are you going? Going to heaven. Where are you from? You're from a royal family and you're going back into that royal family and you are royal seed on the earth. Do you look like it? No, not at all, but then David didn't look like a king when he was running around and everyone was chasing him. Joseph didn't look like a king when he was going through some hard times.

Whether you look like a king or feel like a king is not the point. God says you are that by divine birth. You have royal blood inside you, God's blood, God's DNA. So Jesus was a king. He knew who He was. He knew His identity. He was a king and He knew it.

When you read the scriptures you'll find (and it almost was there today in what Amanda read) in Matthew 2:2, the wise men came and they said who's he who's born king? You follow through the scriptures and Pilot says to Him in John 18, are you king? He says too right I am. I am king. When He died on the cross they wrote something up on top of Him. It was called Jesus of Nazareth, king, king of the Jews. The Bible shows in the Book of Revelation He's there, He's the king of kings. He was always king. He never changed His kingly nature, never changed His kingly seed, never changed in His death. When He came into this earth He was born as a king in the earth. He knew who He was. He knew where He came from, knew where He was going and knew His realm of domain, His mission and assignment in this world, and He came to elevate and raise others to become kings like Him. He would be the first among kings, kings like Him that would advance the kingdom of God.

Now the problem is if you have a religious mindset you'll think like a servant. Jesus came to advance the kingdom of God. He demonstrated kingly behaviour and raised their status. Now the kings of this world act and think differently to the kings in the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdoms of this world you'll notice that position is important. Rank is important. Privileges are important, titles are important, power is important - so in the kingdoms of this world it's very concerned with position, titles, power, privileges that go with kingship, all of those kinds of things. The kingdom of heaven is not like that at all. It is not concerned with position. It's not concerned with title, it's not concerned with privileges, it's not concerned with people waiting on them. It's not concerned with any such things.

Jesus said in Matthew 20, the kings of this world exercise dominion and lordship and control people and exercise authority and turn them into servants, doing their will, fulfilling their vision. But He said it shall not be so among you. You shall not think or behave or operate in that paradigm or way, yet so often we find among Christians the biggest things are their positions, their titles - all those kinds of things are very important to some people. You know why they're important? They don't know who they are.

If you know who you are you don't worry about all those things. You don't need a title - I'm a leader! ... [Laughter] ... I just got six inches taller! You don't need that. You don't need it. Well I get to sit in the front! ... [Laughter] ... See, you don't need any of those things if you know who you are. It's all take it or leave it. You don't need them to establish your identity because you know who you are. I am born of kingly seed, I am a king. It's got nothing to do with any role, rank, position or where I might be right now. It's got to do with what Jesus did inside me. That's who I am!

Now once you know that, then you've got to think like a king. The problem is people don't think like a king, they think like a slave. You are a king. In 1 Peter 2:9 it says you are a royal, royal, royal - you are royal, you are royal - tell someone. Say "You're royalty." ... [You're royalty.] ... If you knew you were royalty you'd never carry on like a slave. That's why you've got to - tell them again. They forgot it already. "You are royalty." ... [You're royalty.] ... Look them in the eye, see. People have trouble. Your royal highness [laughs] That's good isn't it aye? That's a world title. Notice the word 'highness' in it. ... [Laughter]

We're just royalty. We're part of an eternal kingdom that's going to go on forever. We get to take it all over! But you've got to be doing something right now, not just waiting for all that to happen. So Jesus lived for a cause. He was a king who knew how to wash feet. Oh, now this is blowing our minds away because in this new kingdom we're a part of the kings wash people's dirty, dusty, grubby, pooey covered feet. I'm not sure whether I want to be a king any more. I kind of had something else in mind being a king. I sort of had in mind being on a throne and people bowing down to me and looking after me and I had privileges and perks and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The world thinking!

He said it shall not be so among you. That's not His kingdom - that's the world's kingdoms which are ranked in order like that. He says God's kingdom's a different kingdom, where the king of kings can come down, wash feet and die on a cross. That is the nature of that kingdom. Jesus came and served people - but He was never their servant. Neither at any time was He a servant. He actually was in deep covenant relationship with His Father. He was a Son. He operated out of sonship, out of relationship.

We're going to show you just a few ways that kings and servants think which are quite different. I want you to change how you think. I want you to think like a king - you must think like a king! In Galatians 4, Verse 1, it says now the heir - that's the kingly seed who's entitled to the inheritance - if he remains a child he's nothing more than a servant. Oh? Think about that. You might be entitled to a big inheritance, but if you remain a child usually you can't get hold of it. Someone administers it for you. You're no different than a servant in the house having to learn. So notice what He said; while we're a child. While we're a child we're no better than a servant, so that means you've got to grow up see? Then He says but we're no longer children and He says what children look like. Now I'm going to read - we need to read this because I want to show you something in this, then we'll just give you some comparisons between a servant and kingly thinking and servant thinking.

So let's just go into Galatians for a moment, then I'll finish up. Galatians, Ephesians, there we go. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Chapter 4, Verse 1; Now I say the heir - that's the one who's entitled to the inheritance - as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but he's under tutors and guardians until the appointed time. Now notice how He applies it. First of all He gives you a natural picture. If you remain a child, even though you are entitled to the inheritance you can't have it. You're just no better than a slave, you just do what you're told. Now notice what it says, I want you to watch this. He says now when we were - what tense is this? Past. We were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world. Now what He's talking about there, we were in bondage living under rules.

How can you tell a person's a child? They live under rules. Do this. Don't do that. Their role: listen and obey. It's great for children to learn to listen and obey, in fact if you don't listen and obey you're going to grow up to be a monstrous teenager. So one of the first primary tasks is for children to learn to listen and obey.

Now notice what He says, that when you live under law, do's and don'ts, you have to do this, you can't do that, you're not allowed to do this, you must do that - when you live under laws. He's saying when you live under religion you remain a slave and you can't access what God has provided for your inheritance, the supernatural, miracles, dreams, visions, abundance, breakthroughs, enlargement, new territory. You can't get it if you live under religion. It's impossible. That's what He's saying. Now the dilemma is of course we just apply that to everyone else.

So when the fullness of time came God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law - notice redeem, to completely purchase us out from being bonded to law-keeping and bring us into instead placement as a son. A son is different to a slave. A slave has got rules and laws and they're told to do this, told to do that and they do it and they get punished if they don't. A son has relationship. A son enters into connection with the heart of his father. A son catches his father's businesses and shares his fathers concern. A son also has dreams of his own. A son also has desires of their own. A son talks with his father about how the dreams and desires can be fulfilled. Think about that.

Now we need to learn from Israel's history because Israel were called to be like that. Israel, my first born son. God wanted them to come into the liberty of an inheritance, so He got them out of Egypt where they were in bondage. They trusted in the blood, they came out of Egypt, they walked through the wilderness. Now there are two things they did which are very, very significant and we won't look them up. I'll give you the reference for them. The first one is in Exodus 19. In Exodus 19 God Himself came down and glory on a mount and He wanted the people to come and connect intimately face to face with Him. In Exodus 20 they said Moses, this is too scary. You go and represent us. So the first thing they did was they drew back from intimacy with God and replaced it with someone going to God and telling them what God had for them. They replaced it with a person.

God wanted them to be a nation of priests. He wanted them to be a royal kingdom where they all had access to Him and when they would not come near to Him He had to change the plan. Every person here is called to personal relationship with God. You are not designed to live off sermons week to week. They can be helpful. They can be constructive. They can build, they can motivate, they can reveal truth, but you're not made to live like that. Man shall not live by bread alone. Every word God is speaking to them, God has designed you to live from a flow of revelation, designed you to live out of a personal walk with Him. No personal walk with Him, you have become a slave immediately. Personal walk with God, intimacy, relationship, listening, hearing, communing with Him, sharing your heart, your dreams, your desires, beginning to draw instructional wisdom from Him - this is how He wanted Israel to be, but they didn't want that. They wanted someone to hear God and tell them what God was saying.

Many Christians are addicted to coming up and getting prophetic words. Why? They want someone else to hear God for them and tell them what to do with their life. It becomes another form of divination, instead of being responsible to listen to God. One of the foundational things in your life is to know who you are and then to connect with the one who has called you to Himself. All ministry, all leadership is to build people to Christ. He is the head. This is the first thing.

The second thing is you'll find if you look up in 1 Samuel, Chapter 8, and then again in 1 Samuel, Chapter 12, you'll find this is what happened. They looked around and they saw that the other nations around them had a king and they said give us too. We want to be like everyone else. Give us someone to rule over us - and God was very upset. He said but I rule over you. This is a kingdom where I'm in charge, you all hear me and I give you direction. I don't want you to have someone over you. They said give us a king anyway. He said well okay, I'll tell you what the king will be like. He will take from you. He'll take taxes. He'll extract from you and then he'll tell you what to do. Oh, we want that. We want that - and God was so displeased, now get this - number one, the first thing that happened was six times, it says he will take from you. It'll be a one way street when you put someone to be what God intended - a role God intended you to take. We're not to become dependent on people. We're to recognise the giftings of one another, but no one should ever be a substitute for the kingship of the Lord in our life, no one. ... [Applause] ... No one. No one, because He said it'll take something from you. Second thing that happened was they lost their harvest. They lost their harvest.

If you let someone take over charge of your life telling you what to do, you will lose your dreams and your destiny and your harvest. You see God's plan is not for us all just to be gathered in a church. We're to be gathered and mobilised into the community to fulfil dreams and desires and to activate the kingdom of God, to advance the kingdom of God. So if you do not value your relationship with God and let someone do your praying for you, someone else do it for you and you don't value the dreams and desires in your heart, then what'll happen is you'll never fulfil what God called you for. This is where so many people are. So many people are trapped in this place.

I'm finding God is bringing a revelation to the church. It's about His kingdom. It's about Him working through you, changing lives around you. Everyone is called to that. Everyone's called, so we've got to break it. Let me just share a few simple things that are just the difference between a servant and a king and we'll just finish up with that.

Servants must break out of slave mentalities. I want to share a couple of meetings with you or teachings with you to help you understand and recognise victim thinking or slave thinking. Slaves think a certain way and not only do they think a certain way, they talk a certain way. Here's a typical example; well, stuff happens. That's a slave mentality. It's not kingdom mentality - comes out of a heart that's resigned that stuff happens and we can't do anything about it. It's not a kingly statement. It tells something about a heart that's still in bondage. I want to share some of these things to help you recognise it. Once you get a few things about how people talk when they're in slave mentality you're going to pick this up everywhere. You're going to start to hear victim, victim, victim, victim, victim. Everywhere you go you'll hear victim talk and the thing is to make sure that you break out of victim talk and begin to start to speak and think and act like a king you are. Amen. Amen!

So let's have a look at the difference between a servant and a king and I'll just quickly go through these. I could develop them more but I'll leave it to you to think through. Now the first thing is for the servant, his identity is a servant. That's who I am. I am a servant. I serve, see? But for a king, well his identity - I'm a king. I am a king and I make decrees and declarations. I begin to build. I have designs and desires. I have a dream and vision. The slave, well the slave is not thinking like that. That's who he is. So you see here's the second thing about a servant; a servant is waiting for instructions. They don't do anything until they hear. They need to hear, so they practise listening and obeying and they're very good. They listen and obey and they're very good at that.

Jesus said if you don't learn to listen and obey you can never graduate to being His friend, because learning to listen and yield to God, revelation and obedience are qualifiers for friendship, see? But that's not where we stop, so a person who thinks like a king takes initiative. It's very difficult for many Christians to take initiative, because they're afraid of getting it wrong, afraid of making a mistake, afraid of missing the will of God. What if I miss the will of God? That's what they do and so they live like a slave. I'm so scared of missing the will of God, actually I won't take responsibility for decision making. I won't take responsibility for my life. I'll wait until God tells me.

Now there is a place and times when we need to listen clearly for directions from God, but if you want to - see I hear people say well God told me to go down and buy this, God told me to go down and buy that. God told me - you know, you hear people talk like that. Well God told me to buy - and they kind of go on and on about what God told them. It appears like it's really spiritual. It's incredibly childish. You could just if anyone talked to you like that say wait a minute. Hang on, back up here. Let me just run this by you. You're telling me that you are so childish and irresponsible that God's got even to remind you to buy toilet paper? What is with you. Grow up. Think it through. It sounds spiritual but it's incredibly religious and it's incredibly childish - but it can intimidate and come through as spiritual. That's what it's meant to do, but actually it's childish.

God gives you a free will and He gave you a mind. A mind. ... [Applause.] ... A mind to think, design, imagine, create and order your life with. He gave you that. He's not going to do it for you. You have to think. Tell someone you have to think. I know it's going to hurt, but think. It's true. Some people become Christians, they stop thinking. They become in slave mentality - I just got to do what I'm told, I got to wait for God to tell me what to do - but God, you're not talking to me. I'm not hearing anything. I'm stuck - passive and stuckness. There's another thing, so for a servant their relationship is authority based so they're big words. The big words that are big in their mind are submit, yield, wait, obey you see?

Well the king has already gone past all of that. They've grown out of the childhood stage and now it's covenant based, so they're concerned about engaging. What they have is God's, what God has is theirs, and they talk then about the sharing of resources, how they can walk together. It's a different deal. It's a whole different level of relationship. He said I'm not calling you servants any more, I call you friends. Friends talk and share dreams and desires with one another.

Here's another thing. The servant buries their own dreams and desires so they can serve, meet needs and please. A servant will bury all their dreams and desires. Now let me ask you this; Think if you were God for a moment and you designed a plan for every person before they came into this world. Think about that. The Bible says we're created for works that He prepared before we were born, in Ephesians 2:10. So now how are we going to get that person you have designed, how do you get them to connect to the plan you have for them? How are we going to do it? Just think about how God's going to do it.

Here's the first thing He does. He puts a desire and a passion in them. It's in their hearts. They have desires. They have dreams, they have passions. When they do what they're called to do, man they fire up and become energetic see? The second way is puts His Holy Spirit in to direct you, primarily if you're going off course. Now if you only wait and listen for the Holy Spirit you'll become a slave. You won't actually arise and take responsibility God has put in your heart dreams, desires, passions, destiny to fulfil. So many believers never connect to their dreams, desires and passions and never get a fulfilled life. They get a servant life doing what I'm told, waiting for God to tell me what to do next, so there's another difference you see. So a servant is relatively passive, waiting for instructions, whereas a king takes initiative and plans how he can advance his territory.

A servant is so worried about getting it wrong and getting punished he won't do anything until he gets an instruction, whereas a king says man, risk and failure are part of the deal. We're going to have a go anyway. Come on, think about it. Think about it. Religion keeps people as slaves. Jesus came to set us free - so here's another thing then. So we saw then that a servant would tend to be passive and powerless and waiting to be hold, whereas the king is proactive. He's thinking now what's some ways, you see? So the servant will be praying for God to tell him what to do. God would say you're creative, got ideas. Why don't you find out what ideas you've got and what resources you've got and try something? It might be a shock. It might work. If it doesn't work I'll help you out and mistakes aren't fatal in the kingdom because there's no condemnation of those in Christ Jesus. Ha ha ha! You can step out and have a go - if you're a king, because a king can step out and have a go! It's the servants can't. They're terrified they'll get it wrong. They live under the bondage of fear, whereas a king says well I'm going to have a go anyway and if it doesn't work out what did we learn? Okay, up and at it, we'll go ahead. Come on man!

A servant has a sense of entitlement - well I've done this for God, so therefore this should happen. I paid my tithe but nothing happened. ... [Laughter] ... I'm not going to tithe any more. I hate God. I'm resentful for Him not coming through like I expected Him to. Grrr! You know someone like that don't you? I know you know someone like that. They end up in resentment and anger because what they feel entitled to they don't get, whereas a king has a sense of responsibility. They have a sense of responsibility. I've got some things here I can do, so a king would look at the church and say man, I've got giftings here. What can I do to help build people? The servant says well what's the church going to do for me? How's it going to help me get out of my hole? Come on, give us a break. Get out of that thinking. It's a victim thinking. It's a victim thinking.

Become part of a royal family with something to contribute, something to give see, so a servant values personal security. So think about this; the servant that was given the one talent just buried it all and didn't do anything. The other ones all traded and got commended and got promoted. It's a mentality. It's a way of thinking see?

So a servant values security but a king values destiny, so a servant will try to do everything to make sure I don't get into trouble and they get to the very end of their life and say I'm still going to church. Aren't you pleased? ... [Laughter] ... But you see a king doesn't think that way. A king says I can never sit in a pew and that's it for my life. I have to be advancing the kingdom. What has God put in my way? What could I do? What could I give? How could I advance the kingdom of God? How can I touch someone's life? How can I grow my resources? So kings of course - see servants always have a poverty mentality, never got enough, but a king's not thinking that way. A king's thinking how can I multiply my resources? Don't want to live off a wage all my life. I really need to get busy here and find some ways, creative ways I can make money! I've got a kingdom to advance and it's going to take some money to do it - so I want to grow in wealth so I have abundance to give to others! That's how kings think. Jesus was never a poor man.

Okay and I'll give you the last one here. You're not going to like this one. I know you're not going to like this one. You're definitely not going to like this one. Here it is: A servant, a person who thinks like a servant, is waiting for revival - one day, soon. I heard that 30 years ago. One day, soon. So this is what you should do. You should pray and wait. ... [Laughter] ... That's the fruit of it. That is the fruit if you go down that route too far. I believe in revival. I believe God revives people, raises them up, puts His spirit in them, anoints them, puts vision and passions in their heart and wants them like a king to be busy with what they have! Be busy with what God has given them! Be busy with their entrustment, growing and expanding their giftings, training, taking initiative to do things instead of waiting - for one day it'll be better. No, one day you'll be old and die. ... [Laughter] ... That's what'll happen and your day will have gone. This IS your day! THIS IS YOUR DAY! No more thinking like a slave! No more thinking like a servant! Transform the thinking to think like a king, to walk like a king in nobility and dignity, to treat people with a heart to see them prosper and advance, to look after the interests of people that God brings into your world, to find ways to serve, create wealth, create resources, multiply, increase! This is how kings think. This is the thinking God is bringing into the nation of the earth right now.

This is one of the worst things that happened was about 150 years ago, come out of teaching the rapture, that you hang on until the end and then whisk! Up you go and the rest all burn! ... [Laughter] ... That is the most horrible, horrible thing I've ever heard. Survive and then escape and those wicked sinners will be all burnt up and that's what they deserve and they're gonna get theirs! So as a result of that you had a church and it's like a boxing ring with a little fella and a big fella and the big fella's beating the other one and pummelling him around the ring, beats him up and pushes him around the ring, beats him until he's black and blue but he hangs on and he won't give up. He hangs on and he won't give up and he hangs on round after round after round. Finally the tenth bell rings and a hook comes down from out of the sky, hooks the little fella and says he's the winner. ... [Laughter] ... Now this is just nonsense. He's not the winner. God's plan is something different. God's plan is an overcoming church. You read the Book of Daniel, read the Book of Daniel, read the Book of Revelation. It's not all about evil things. It's about a rock, not formed with human hands, becoming a mountain that fills the whole earth. It's about God's kingdom advancing right through the whole world. It says all nations shall come to the glory. Nations shall flow into the house of God. Why will they do that? Because it's the primary influence in the world!

Don't get some defeatist mentality. Don't get some victim mentality. Don't shut down and become passive. This is a great day and hour for kings to arise, an hour for you to discover who you are, to discover what God put into your heart to accomplish and begin to do what you need to do to get there. And it's not just about listening for instructions. It's about investing in yourself, about getting someone to help you and coach you. It's about gaining wisdom so you can make decisions. You don't run a business waiting for a miracle every week. What a tragic business that would be and what a pathetic runner you would be. What you do is you run your business on wisdom and under the blessing of God. It goes better that way.

So what a great day. How many know someone who thinks like a slave and a servant? How many of you know someone? I know it's not you but you're thinking of someone right now - but God has called us to rise up and become kingly seed.

Come on, let's just stand to our feet right now. Let's give the king of kings a great clap! Let's give Him a great shout! ... [Applause, verbal praise] ... There is a time coming when Jesus will come again, but He's coming for a glorious church. He's coming for a people full of glory. He's coming for a people who are changed. He's coming for a company of kings! He's coming for a company of people transformed into His image and likeness! He's not coming for something weak and defeated. He is moving by His spirit in this hour, reviving is taking place now! Tomorrow there'll be more. The day after, there'll be more! There is a river taking place now! It's time to lock into that river to grow in that river and see His glory manifest!

Father, we honour you today. We give you the glory! Come on, on the count of three let's give Him a shout - one, two, three ... [Shouting] ... Let's shout to the king of kings! Shout to the Lord of Lords. Shout to Him, the glorious one!

Summary Notes

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Introduction:
· 1 Pet 2:9 “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood …”
· We must know and agree with what God says we are – that is our Identity
· Chosen generation – selected by God to carry His DNA, to be His family
· Royal Priesthood – access into the very throne of God, royal kingly, regal
· Kings don’t beg, don’t think as a victim – powerless, blaming others
· Kings decree, legislate, make commands
· Kings discover and declare the will and purpose of God and advance the Kingdom
· Rev 19:16
“He is king of Kings and Lord of Lords”
· Jesus is raising a generation of King’s and Lords to advance His Kingdom
· Mark 4:35-41 Kings in Training

Kings receive Prophetic Direction:
i) “Even had come” Mark 4:35
· Even = beginning of a new day, Days began in the evening
· New day = new opportunities, new challenges, new experiences
· God is always doing new things, fresh things
· Kings don’t live in yesterday’s experiences, they look forward to a new day
· New day = Require new direction, new revelation

ii) “He said to them” Mark 4:35
· Don’t live in past experiences, yesterday’s revelation
· Position yourself to hear from God daily
· Eg Mary, Jesus who rose early, Moses
· Mark 4:34 While they were alone He explained all things to His disciples
· Jesus was raising Kings – he took them aside to give them revelation and direction
· ‘Alone’ = you must build and prioritize time with God

3. Kings Dream of Enlarging their Territory:
· Mark 4:35 “Let us cross over to the other side”
a) ‘Cross over’ = to travel through, to journey through, to go to a new place
- You must be willing to move forward, enlarge, advance from current position
- Migrate = journey to a place of new opportunity
- There are challenges and obstacles to be faced
b) ‘Other side’ = the territory beyond the place they were standing
- The country of the Gaderenes
- New territory: new areas to invade and advance the kingdom
- New experiences to have
- Could be your personal life, finances, marriage, family, ministry
- God calls every generation out of security to advance the kingdom
- There are new territories to enter: Media, Education, Government, Arts
What dream do you have of future enlargement, advance?
Kings know their assignment

4. Kings Advance to New Territory:
· “They left the multitude and took him along in a boat” Mark 4:36
· “left” = 863 = to forgive, to send away, choose to let go so they can advance
a) Left the Multitude (People)
- Kings don’t get led by the crowd or multitude
- Kings have vision and direction and courage
- Crowd lacks vision, pressure you to conform, do what they ask
- Kings hear God and have vision of their new territory
- Faith life is a journey of hearing God and moving forward
- It takes courage to be different

b) Left the State (Place of Security
- No great adventures unless you cast off from shore
- Boat journeys are filled with uncertainty – cast off, let go
- What is holding you back? What are you changing to?
- Jesus was in the boat
- The faith journey seems lonely but – you are not alone as Jesus is with you, you are not alone as others are taking the same journey, your faith stirs others

5. Kings have a Spiritual perspective:
· Mark 4:37
· A great storm arose and the waves beat in the boat
a) There is always demonic opposition to advancing the Kingdom
- 1) Storm 2) Demonic man Mark 5:2
- Storm = whirlwind, rotating column of air with great turbulence
- The demonic the demonic storm whipped up the sea into a turmoil
- Every assignment of God has demonic opposition
- Demonic opposition = circumstances or people
- New assignments mean new challenges

b) Focus on the Assignment not Circumstances 2 Cor 4:16-18
- Mark 4:38 The disciples lost their spiritual perspective
- Fear of death, accuse and blame
- Faith quenched
- Focused on saving self and not the assignment
- Think like a victim not like a king
- They missed the opportunity for growth

6. Kings make Decrees and Assert Dominion:
Mark 4:39
“He arose and rebuked the wind and said to the sea ….”
· Do you arise in your spirit like a King for battle? Or cringe like a victim?
· ‘Said’ – 2036NT = to command, to legislate, to decree
· Kings make decrees, they assert their authority over their territory
· Whatever your assignment, territory …you must learn to address the demonic
· Mark 11:23 Have the faith of God … speak to … not doubt in your heart
· Jesus rebuked the wind and sea and the disciples
· God requires us to walk by faith not by experiences alone
· Jesus expected them to interact with the circumstances as Kings

Slave or Son (4 of 4)  

Sun 21 Nov 2010 AM « Back to Top

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You may still be in bondage, but God sees you as His son. He sees you according to destiny. He sees you according to His call on your life. You may be struggling and have all kinds of problems, pressures; you may not even be saved, but God sees you through the eyes of His destiny, says My Son and He calls you to move out of slavery and into sonship.

I want you to open your Bible with me in John 15. I want to pick up where I was last week. How many felt challenged last week? That's good isn't it? Well I'm being challenged too, so mostly I'm preaching to myself. You just get to hear it, that's all. [Laughs] You can be like listening in, but God's speaking to me in a lot of areas at the moment and it's good to be part of it. So let's have a look in John 15 and we want to ask the question today whether you're a slave or a son, a slave or a son - and we're going to pick up from John, Chapter 15, Jesus' words. There they are in Verse 15; "No longer do I call you servants." That word is [doulos 00.00.45] or slave, someone who just does what someone else asks them to do or tells them to do without any understanding at all - He said for a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. There's no revelation. It's just do what you're told. It's an issue of obedience - but I call you friends, for all things I've heard from My Father I've made known to you.

So you didn't choose Me but I chose you. Amen, God chose you. That's a good thing to know, you got chosen. You didn't turn up by accident. You thought you got here by accident or you came because your parents made you or something like that, but actually God chose you - and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain, whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. So Jesus is talking to His disciples in this and He is lifting their status. Now through the Bible people had not known God as a Father. People had known God in many ways, in fact continually through the Bible it's a revelation of what God is like and so various people in the Bible, God revealed Himself by His many different names and His names represented what He's like.

God is so big it's hard to put Him in words, so He reveals Himself in a whole number of different ways and when Jesus came into the earth, Jesus brought the ultimate revelation of who God is. God is Father and so Jesus came to represent the Fatherhood of God and He's now speaking to his disciples who'd only known what it is to live like a slave under the laws of the old commandment, under the laws of the old covenant, in a realm of obedience; do this, you're blessed. Don't do that, you're cursed, so they lived under laws. They lived under laws but the laws were to bring them to a time when they'd come to know God in an intimate relationship, so Jesus says I no longer call you servant slaves, people just called to be obedient, but I bring you into a new realm, friendship, relationship and friendship. That's God's heart for you and me is that we move from being a slave to keeping laws; do this, don't do that, must do this, mustn't do that, ought to do this, ought not to do that. God wants us to move from that mentality into the mentality, the freedom, the liberty of being a child of God. It's fantastic to be a child of God.

Every morning I have one of my grand daughters just comes, throws open the bedroom door, big grin and comes and leaps on the bed and wants just to have a hug. Now no one else can do that. She can do that because she's family. Family have privileges. Family have access - so God's desire is that we become a family of kings. In 1 Peter 2:9 we saw that you are a royal priesthood so when you and I give our life to Jesus Christ, Jesus paid the penalty for us on the cross. He took the penalty of every broken law and then when you and I receive Him His spirit enters our heart, DNA of God gets into us, kingly royal DNA gets in us. We become changed on the inside and God wants us to come out of a slave mentality and into a friendship relationship, being a family of kings representing Him on the earth. Jesus is called the King of Kings, so that's the things we saw last week.

Now I want to take it a bit further this week. Let's have a look in Exodus, Chapter 4. In Exodus, Chapter 4, we're looking at the Old Testament. We're looking at God's plan for Israel, so at the beginning God began to work through a man and a woman, then He worked through various people, then finally He begins to reveal He wants to work through a nation, a nation called Israel. Ultimately it'll be through the church, but this is what God spoke to Moses in Verse 22. He said I want you to go to Pharaoh. Pharaoh was the ruler of Egypt and held all the people of God in bondage. They'd been in bondage for 400 years of slavery, so notice He's talking about the end of slavery. This is what God's got in mind; Israel's had 400 years of hard slavery. They've been under a culture of taskmasters, under hard and bitter bondage for 400 years, not a single miracle. Four hundred years, not a single prophetic word; 400 years, not a glimmer of hope; 400 years, building pyramids, serving the Egyptians, their lives made very hard and very bitter. It tells us in Exodus 1, it tells us that they made their lives hard and bitter with the bondage that they put on them.

So for 400 years - now you can imagine, that's generation after generation after generation after generation, your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, your great-great-grandparents, so it went on 400 years. That's a lot of history and so Israel at that point felt abandoned by God. They were living in slavery, living as though God had abandoned them, as though they were orphaned and had no God to watch over them or care for them or provide for them. That's what it looked like. That was their experience for hundreds of years - terrible, terrible experience and notice what God says to them.

He says you'll go to Pharaoh and you'll say Thus says the Lord: "Israel is My son. Israel is My firstborn." So I'm telling you let My son go that he may serve Me. What an amazing revelation. There's a lot just in that one verse. This is what Moses was commanded to go to the Pharaoh and stand before him and he was called to declare something; this people that you treat like slaves, this people who have been in bondage for years, I'm telling you who they really are. They are the Son of God, a corporate son, a body of people that God says this is My Son. Jesus is revealed as the Son of God, the literal Son of God, but God wants to raise up a corporate Son. He said He's My Son, My firstborn.

When the Bible refers to the word firstborn, the firstborn was the one first born but the firstborn was entitled to a number of privileges. So the firstborn - and Israel would understand this - the moment they heard the word Son and firstborn they would understand that meant a double portion of inheritance. It meant priesthood in the family. It meant responsibility to be a blessing for the extended family, so he's bringing a revelation of who they are to the taskmasters. Israel is My Son, it's not your slaves. He's My Son. You may still be in bondage, but God sees you as His son. He sees you according to destiny. He sees you according to His call on your life. You may be struggling and have all kinds of problems, pressures; you may not even be saved, but God sees you through the eyes of His destiny, says My Son and He calls you to move out of slavery and into sonship.

Coming into sonship meant physically they were removed from Egypt and they physically were put into another land which became a land of inheritance, full of gold and silver, buildings, dwellings, prosperity, an inheritance. So God speaks to them but here's the problem. Let's have a look in Exodus, Chapter 1, read the verses there. It says - Verses 13 and 14 - the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve in hard bondage. They made their lives bitter with hard bondage and mortar and brick, all manner of service in the field and everything they made them serve was very hard. They had a hard life. It's a very good picture of what life is like when we're without Christ, it's very hard. It's very bitter. We serve many things, alcohol, work, all kinds of addictions and problems. Very, very hard.

So Israel truly were victims. They were powerless to remove themselves out of that situation. they were powerless to save themselves, just like you and I are powerless to save ourselves from sin. We need a saviour. They could not resist the taskmasters. They were subject to them. When people are without Christ they're subject to demonic powers, to sin, to bondages of all kinds and they'd like to live a better life but they just can't. They're victims. They're held in slavery, so a person who is a slave most times is a victim. They cannot escape out of what they're caught in.

But during that period of 400 years they developed a victim mentality or a slave mentality. Now victim mentality is not the same as being a victim. A victim mentality is when a person has a way of thinking. It's very prevalent in New Zealand and I'll tell you what's at the root of it and I'll tell you how it manifests itself. We're going to look at it particularly in the church how it manifests itself - so a victim mentality is when a person has an outlook or a way of looking at their life. You cannot live as a king and a Son of God and live with a victim mentality. You can't. You have to shift from victim thinking into sonship and kingly thinking. You have to change and we want to talk in another session how to make that change.

So a victim thinking is when the person refuses to take personal responsibility for their life and rather, they blame others for what's happening in their world. I'll say that again. A person has a victim mentality when they will not take responsibility for their life. That's their feelings, their thoughts, their choices, what's happening in their life; but rather they blame someone else. It was my father, my mother, it was the government, it was the preacher, is was the teacher, it was this, it was that, it's the white man, it's the black man, it's the whatever. There's always someone to blame, but prevalent in victim thinking is someone else is to blame or someone else is responsible.

Now if someone else is responsible you have no power to change. You are stuck as you are in victim land and I'll share with you just some ways that people would speak that reveals in their heart they're still a victim. You might be surprised and I'd ask that you'd have a think about some of these things I'll share with you a little later and begin to ask the Holy Spirit to show whether this is what is going on in your heart. If you hear yourself talking like this, you will know that deep in your heart your belief system is I'm a slave, I'm a victim and I have no power to get out.

Of course victims look for someone to help them out. They become very co-dependent and victims look for someone who'll take all the responsibility. Now underneath this victim mentality, it's not my fault, this victim mentality, someone else's fault, someone else is to blame is why my life is going so badly. Under that, this is the root of it. It actually is rooted in what we'd call an orphan spirit, the belief I am abandoned and I'm on my own. You will find - and I cannot think at this point of any exceptions to any person I have met that had a victim mentality, that without exception they believe they were on their own, that they were abandoned and of course we live in a culture where there are no fathers, where there is - sorry, not no fathers. Where there is an abandonment of families by fathers.

We live in a culture where so many young ones at school have no father living in their home, shaping their life and so that orphan spirit or spirit of abandonment rests on them and drives them into victim mentality; I have no one to look out for me. It's not my fault, it's your fault - and so underneath it will always be abandonment and deep bitterness and certain ways of thinking towards life. God is wanting us to become kings. We have to move out of victim mentality wherever we see it. We have to confront victim mentality whenever we engage it, so we don't get sucked into co-dependent relationships and bad relationships that just cannot work.

Many young people get themselves into relationships that will never work because someone inside that relationship is thinking like a victim and depending on the other to come through for them. I need you. I can't live without you. This is typical of the kind of thinking that destroys relationships, creates a burden and a pressure on people. Okay then, so an orphan spirit can't be cast out because it's a whole way of thinking. It's rooted in bitterness, abandonment and a whole way of thinking about life; I'm on my own and I'm bitter about being on my own. It's not my fault and so therefore to get out of that situation we have to deal with the whole belief system. I'll show you how to do as the Lord unveils it to me. [Laughs] I'm only one step ahead on this one. ... [Laughter] ... I've been convicted by my own studies. [Laughs]

I began to find as I started to look through it elements and areas where God wanted to heal me and to change my own thinking. That's good. It's healthy and so let's have a look then about what Jesus promised. I want you to see Jesus' promise in John, Chapter 14. Jesus made an incredible promise. This is the promise He made. Now Jesus has been with the disciples, He's been actually a spiritual Father to them. He said you haven't seen the Father. If you've seen Me you've seen the Father. Jesus fathered them - not physically fathered them, but He actually had a fathering spirit over Him. He revealed what a father is like and so He discipled His sons. They were spiritual sons. They didn't all turn out well, but He was a father to them.

So in John 14, Verses 16 to 18, He's about to go to heaven. He's about to finish His course on this earth, pay the price for sin and He makes a statement to them. He says He's about to go and then He says, Verse 16, I'll pray the Father, He'll give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world can't receive, because it doesn't see Him or know Him; you know Him, He dwells with you. He will be in you. Now here it is - "I will not leave you orphans." I will not abandon you. I will not leave you fatherless. I will not leave you without a father to comfort you, love you, embrace you, stand with you, discipline you, speak into your life, speak into your heart. I will not leave you an orphan. The Biblical word there for orphan is fatherless. Father shapes identity. He said I will not leave you fatherless.

He spoke to His disciples. He was fathering them. He was a spiritual father to them for three years. He's about to leave them. He said I won't leave you fatherless. He said I'm going to send you another that's exactly the same as the one you've had, no difference. I'm going to send you another comforter or father. He's called the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth. He has been the one in me. He's been the one that's been with you. It's the spirit of God in Me that has manifested what fatherhood looks like and He says that spirit, that same spirit that's in Me, once I've gone to heaven that Holy Spirit's going to be released into every one of you. He said the comforter, the fathering I've given you, the spirit of God will come into your life and there's some things He's going to do inside you. I will not abandon you and leave you as orphans.

So what does the spirit of God do? In Romans 8, Verses 14 to 17, He said now as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons or mature ones in God. So one of the goals in our Christian life is to learn and to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit and learn how to be led by Him into experiences with God and to be led in life. If we're going to be a king, then we have the seed of a king, the spirit of a king in us. We need to learn to get to know Him, know the Holy Ghost, learn how to express His life through us, so we can be kingly.

What He's saying then is keeping rules and regulations, do's and don'ts, is not going to cut it. What is needed is a life filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the spirit of God, filled with the spirit of the Father, filled with the life of God. That is the life that will represent God. That's the mature life. He said you've not received a spirit of bondage again to fear. That word bondage is slavery. He said you've not got something from Me that's going to bring you back into slavery, do this, don't do that. I'm giving you something completely different. I'm giving you the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the Father Himself will come in the person of the Holy Spirit. He's identical to Me. He will come inside you. He's going to lead you into liberty, because wherever the Holy Ghost is LIBERTY!

We mistake churchianity for Christianity. Most of churchianity is bound and miserable. It's under the law and in slavery, but the life that God intended is in incredibly free, so free it becomes offensive to churchianity. It's so free it offends the church people. It really is. It is so free. He will offend you by His freedom. The Holy Ghost is wild. The Holy Ghost is absolutely wild, believe me He's wild and He's so free. When we learn to yield to Him our lives become free. Most of us are far too uptight. Most of us are living in slavery rather than the freedom, kingly freedom that the Holy Ghost wants. ... [Yeah!] ... Kingly freedom! Joy! Life in the Holy Ghost! Joy, peace, patience, long-suffering - all the fruits in the spirit and the life of the Holy Ghost! Whoa! That's what He's calling us into.

So He said I haven't given you a spirit of slavery. When you got born again you didn't get born into keeping lots of laws; cut your hair, don't do this, don't do that, put on a suit, shape up - you didn't get born into that. You got born into another kingdom. It's on the inside. It's full of the Holy Ghost, full of joy unspeakable, full of glory! That's the kingdom! ... [Applause] ... That's what Jesus has for us! Notice He said you've received the spirit of adoption, the spirit that positions you into sonship that helps you grow to maturity, so the work of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness in our spirit, you are no longer an orphan. You belong to someone. You belong to God! You belong to Almighty God! You are one with Almighty God! The spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is inside you. You're in vital union with the Holy Ghost! Oh, we need to get that into our heart and spirit! ... [Applause] ... Full of it. Meditate on it 'til it gets free, free inside.

So the Holy Ghost imparts the life of God. The Holy Ghost puts some presence inside us and dwells inside us. He begins to reveal who we are. You're better than that. When you do something goofy He doesn't tell you off and scold you and chastise you, giving you a whipping. He doesn't do it that way. He says you're better than that. You're a king. You're not behaving like a king right now when you're carrying on with such a cranky attitude. That's not how kings behave, come on. You've got more in you than that! Let Me get control of your life a little bit and you'll see you can be a lot different. And of course the Holy Ghost reveals the Father. He reveals the Father.

I want you to have a look with me in Luke, Chapter 15. So we see what a wonderful thing Jesus called us to. How wonderful. See, the trouble is in getting in from our head to our heart. We'll have to talk about how to do that - when they get more insight. [Laughs] Okay, now we're going to have a look in Luke, Chapter 15. I want to show you what happens to many people in church. Church is wonderful. Church is the family of God, but church is God's design, needs to be run God's way. Needs to have freedom for the Spirit of God to move. Church is primarily His family, so therefore we need to walk and address one another as family. Of course if you're from a dysfunctional family well you'll have real problems as soon as you get into church, because you'll find that there's someone next to you from a dysfunctional family too. They don't love you very - they're not nice at all, they're horrible. But they're family so you've got to live with them.

So Jesus brings us into family. Now Jesus, in Luke, Chapter 15, the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him, but the Pharisees and the scribes complained, saying this Man receives sinners and eats with them. So here's the setting for what Jesus is about to tell you; He's in a setting where everyone who is a sinner and everyone who is a failure, everyone whose life was a shambles, a mess, who was from the other side of the tracks, they came to Him. They came to Him and they liked Him. He was nice to them. They didn't sense any judgement at all - no judgemental attitude, nothing. He didn't look at them and mentally look them up and down and decide whether you're in my world or not in my world. That's pride and judgmentalism you see. No, He didn't do that. He just made everyone welcome, so He was able to welcome them, hug them and eat with them and drink with them. So you know what the religious people, the church people's problem was? That Jesus ate with them. How can you be eating with that kind of person? How can you have them in your home? How can you be eating with such people! Don't you know what they're like?

You know they're so sinful some of it could get on to you and defile you. That's the thinking. That is the thinking, that some of the world's sin could stick on you and make you a mess. Well you can't have much in you if that happens. You've got the Spirit of God in you to make you clean. So then Jesus told some stories. You know the stories He told; first one about the lost sheep, second one about the lost talent and third one about the lost son, prodigal son. I don't want to talk about the prodigal son. I want to focus on the elder brother and we're going to look at the elder brother. We'll see if next to you is not an elder brother. If you've been around in church for more than a year probably you're an elder brother already, but you don't know. It's all very easy to tell, see your response to the unsaved. That just gives it up really easy.

Okay then, so you remember the story. Just to sum it up a man had two sons and the youngest son didn't want to live with the father. He wanted out, says dad I'd rather you were dead. Give me the dough. Get me out of here. Give me the money now, I want my inheritance in advance and he took off. Man, did he have a time. He blew all the dough, had a wild life with the women, the drugs, out there buying stuff. Man, life was great. Then he lost all the dough. There was an economic downturn, got into great despair, ended up feeding pigs and finally he came to his right mind and went back to his father with a humble heart.

The father was waiting for him. Wonderful, most wonderful passage in the Bible, the verse in the Bible where it says: and the father saw him while he was a long way off and ran to him and hugged him, welcomed him. That's God. That's God. That's God. He can hug the gay person. He can hug the drug addict, hug the homeless, He can love people, not ashamed of people. Doesn't matter how fallen they are - but there's an older brother. Now let's have a look at the older brother. It's as though they're having a big party. I love it when God - God loves parties. He said every time a sinner gets saved, then they have a party. Isn't that good? So the more we get saved the more partying - I like that. That's really good, parties in heaven. I don't know what you think you're going to do? Sit around there playing a harp or something. No, you're not going to be doing that at all, it's ridiculous. Having a party! Oh, joy unspeakable! Here it is: so anyway, here was the other brother and so - Verse 25 - the older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house he heard the music and the dancing, heard all the dancing, whoa. Wonder if it was salsa dancing ... [Laughter] ... Wonder what kind of dancing it was. There was dancing and music, so they're having a party and having great fun. So he called one of the servants and he asked what these things meant, what's going on? He said your brother's come - your brother, notice - and your father has received him safe and sound and you father's killed the fatted calf, you know the big fat one? He's killed it and your father's invited everyone. We are having a party, the wine is out, the food is out. It's all on. The son has come back.

But he was angry and he would not go in, so his father had to come out. The father had to go out and meet the other son and the father's gone out to meet this one. He pleaded with him, please come in. Please come in, please come in, don't stay out. Please come in - but he said this: 'Lo, these many years I've been serving you; I've never transgressed your commandment at any time. You never gave me a young goat. You never made me a young goat that I may make merry with my friends. You never touched me the way you've touched someone else. You never poured your glory on me like you poured it on someone else. You never did miracles in my life like you did it in others, no. No, you never did any of that. As soon as this son of yours comes back - he's devoured your livelihood with the prostitutes and now you've gone and killed the fatted calf!

He said to him, son, you're always with me, all I have is yours. It was right we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, he was lost and he's found. What an amazing thing - so the older brother was serving in the field. Now here's the thing, you have to understand this. He had no revelation of his sonship. He had no revelation of the father's heart. He just served in the house. He would be a representative in this particular case of the Pharisees and the scribes who had no understanding of the heart of God for the lost. Of course mentally when I say Pharisee and scribe you exclude yourself. Isn't that true? Oh, well who would say I'm a Pharisee? I'm just a Pharisee. No one would say that. I think they might be - anyway that's how it goes.

So here's the thing. He had an orphan spirit. He had no revelation of the father's love so he too was spiritually an orphan and he had a slave mentality. Now when you look at this passage you're going to see exactly what it looks like in a church context. Let's just have a look and you'll see. Now you notice what happens, there's some celebration and the first thing is when he heard about the brother's arrival and the father's celebration this is what he did. His heart, as soon as he heard it, closed up. His spirit closed up. What do you do when life doesn't go well for you, when you have troubles or difficulties or setbacks or things around you don't go right? Do you open up your heart to God to look at that situation, or do you close your spirit and withdraw?

Second thing that he did was he isolated and withdrew from relationship. He would not go in. When people have an orphan spirit and abandonment and bitterness in their heart, when something happens that knocks them emotionally, they withdraw from relationship and connect and isolate. If you withdraw from relationship and isolate, it's most likely that at the core of your heart you have an orphan spirit operating. You don't understand the Father's love and so you're taking it on personally. Then what he did was he struggled with deep feelings of rejection and loneliness and isolation and resentment. Now this is my experience with many people. I have struggled with that over many years of my life. Things would happen that would be a setback and instead of thinking about it right and handling it like a child of God, I'd go into an old pattern, a childhood pattern and become hurt inside, then isolate, withdraw, shut down.

It become such a habit of mine I could hardly stop it happening. What it means is there's something wrong in the heart. There's a lack or devoid of revelation of the love of the Father. That's what causes that. It's a void of revelation of love, so therefore you isolate and then you live in your pain and try and process it. Of course you become lonely and you'll say church is a lonely place. The church isn't here to meet your needs for loneliness. That has to be met by choice of your own, to deal with the inner belief system and find a relationship with God and learn to build friendships. When you build friendships the fruit of that is you're not lonely. If you want friendships you'll always be lonely. Just think about that.

Okay then, so his words revealed the mentality so you notice his behaviours revealed what was in his heart as soon as he heard that someone else had been blessed. Now how many times have you heard someone else get promoted and instead of celebrating immediately you thought why not me? It's not fair. That inability to celebrate with others, rejoice with their successes, is a sure sign of your lack of revelation of the Father's love and provision for you. I've found very often when someone gets blessed others in the house will say why him? They're an elder brother. They haven't got revelation of the Father's love for them, so the moment someone is acknowledged or comes forward, immediately there's negative feelings and a shutting down and withdrawing in pain and it's because of underneath there's a lack of revelation of Father's love for you.

When you're full of the love of the Father for you you're happy for everyone to be promoted, everyone to be celebrated. Someone just got a new car - that is fantastic! Take me out in it, you know, instead of you don't deserve that. ... [Laughter] ... That's an elder brother attitude. See, that's what the elder brother's - he doesn't deserve that! He doesn't deserve being blessed or being generous. Why? Because he needs to earn it and he hasn't earned it. Where did he get that thinking from? That was his own thinking. I've got to earn it. I've got to earn it. If I just am good enough and work hard enough I'll earn blessing from my father. That's what he's thinking. So now his words give him away completely.

Notice what he says; your brother has come - he was angry, wouldn't go in, so he answered. He said 'Lo, these many years I've served you. I've been serving you. I've been serving you. I'm the one entitled to the fatted calf. How come he got the diamond and I didn't? Look, it touches everyone. When there's revival and God pours His spirit out, the elder brothers appear in their numbers. It's true, so the first thing you notice - I'll give you some keys ways, a slave mentality, a victim mentality. Look, people think like victims, they'll think similar. This is what it is. First of all they justify themselves, I'm right. See, I've been a servant. I've been working, look, I'm doing alright. There's nothing wrong with me. Don't look at me. I've done something, I've been working hard you know - so a victim will always think they're right. I'm right. The word is viewed through 'I'm right' see? They justify themselves.

Second thing is you'll notice he blames. This son of yours wasted your money, so victim people blame everyone. You find someone blaming, they've got a victim thinking. The blame - oh well, you know, it's because of this, because of that. Oh well, you know it's not my fault. No, NOT MY FAULT! Very, very strong victim, okay. Here's the next thing. He said I've served you many years. What was he hoping? Why was he serving many years? He was hoping to be able to have a party too. He said I wanted to have that party too, I've served you many years. Notice he's passive? There's no record he ever requested anything. There's no record he ever came boldly to his father and said dad, can I have this? He just was passive, so when people have got the older brother mentality here's what they kind of think like; I'll just work and hope that God notices me and people notice me and they meet my needs. I'll tell you now, it's never going to work, never ever ever, yet people do it. I've done it.

So he's hoping. The next thing you notice is resentment. Resentment and bitterness are in the heart; you never gave me - I've worked so hard. I've been a good Christian. I come to church, I tithe, how come he suddenly got blessed and promoted? I've been tithing all these years. How come I never got - it just hasn't worked for me. There's a bitter resentment against God, bitter resentment against anyone going ahead. This is a sign of victim thinking. It's a sign of a person who has an orphan spirit, that they've got no revelation of love of the Father. So what else does he come up with? He says - here it is - this son of yours - judgemental and fault-finding. So you find when people have got this problem of victim mentality they find fault with everyone else.

You hang out with someone and they're always right and they blame everyone else and they don't tell you really what they're up to, they have no plans and they're just sort of passively waiting hoping that one day I'll get lucky? That kind of stuff isn't going to happen. It doesn't happen. It's typical victim mentality, judgemental, fault-finding thinking. Finally, he refused to take personal responsibility for his dreams.

What he had was a dream and a vision of something with his friends and he took no responsibility for that dream to be fulfilled, so when people have a victim mentality they do not own their dreams and plan how they might accomplish their dreams. They hope somehow it'll come about magically. That's victim mentality. In the church it works like this: there's dreams and desires and they're never vocalised. There's no plans made. They just pray and hope that one day God will do something and it'll all just come together somehow, lucky lucky, blah blah, Amen. It doesn't happen if you've noticed.

It just doesn't happen that way. Nothing happens that way. If you have dreams and desires you've got to bring them out into the open and talk to Father about them. Then get planning and taking responsibility and ownership for them. You make me feel so angry! No, I don't make you feel anything. Actually your feelings are all yours. That's victim thinking. Well you made me late. No, I didn't make you late. You were late all on your own. ... [Laughter] ... You understand? It's in the culture to think that way and under it is a generation without fathering that have an orphan spirit that's been abandoned and need to be shaped in their heart and their thinking to be a king.

This young man flushed the - he just flushed it out, so he failed to understand the grace and goodness of God, how to position himself to receive it. He failed to actually break out of his victim thinking. He was thinking if I just serve a long time it'll all work out good for me somehow. The result was he felt lonely and isolated, bitter, resentful. There was no joy in his serving whatsoever. Now you've probably heard people with victim speak. I want you to think about this because out of the mouth the heart speaks, so here it is.

If you've heard someone saying things like this - here's a few tick offs - if you heard someone thinking like this I can tell you now it's a victim thinking. If you hear them say this kind of thing: It's not fair - victim! You should have a little - you know those gas horns? It'd be quite good to carry one around. They've got that tank of gas that's got a little horn on it and you just push the button and when you push the button it goes WHAAAAAA! Like that you see - so when someone says it's not fair WHAAAAAA! I hear victim speak, you know, or it's not my fault WHAAAAAA! There it is again, victim speak's all coming out. You've probably heard it. It says I can't - WHAAAAAA! There's some victim speak - of course you can, you've never tried! What have you done to prepare yourself? Have you got any advice? There's all kinds of ways through. You don't have to have 'I can't' - you've never tried. How much have you tried? See?

I shouldn't have done that - WHAAAAAA! Victims always speak of what they should have done, could have done, might have done, ought to have done, but people who are kings don't think that way or talk that way. Servants always live under the law. No one listens to me - WHAAAAAA WHAAAAAA WHAAAAA! Heard that one a few times! ... [Laughter] ... Take responsibility for your communications. Learn to make yourself clear. Check out whether people understand you. Don't go saying no one listens to me. It's nonsense. You have an inner belief of a victim that no one will hear you and blow me down, life works out according to your beliefs. Well done! ... [Laughter]

You know, you want to change you've got to break out of that thinking, you've got to break down that internal thinking. I'll give a couple of more. Nothing I do is ever good enough. WHAAAAAA! I hear some victim speak here again. Dear Lord. Here's another one - you'll love this one: I don't have enough time. WHAAAAAA! WHAAAAAA! WHAAAAAA! Listen, that's victim speak. ... [Laughter] ... Do you have a 24 hour day? Then you've got time, it's just what you do with it's different, that's all. Don't have enough time, what nonsense. You ask a busy person they'll get it done because they can make time because they manage their time and they don't have excuses like I haven't got enough time. We've all got 24 hour days, seven day weeks, 365 day years. You just decide what you do with your time. You don't have enough time means you just spent it on the wrong things.

Here's another one, you'll love this one. Young ones, you'll love this one. My life sucks! ... [Laughter] ... WHAAAAAA! Big long blast, victim blast. Come on! That is just so bad, my life sucks. Your life's the sum result of all your choices. Break out of victim thinking. Take responsibility. Some of you are already angry ... [Laughter] ... I can feel it. I can see it in your eyes, the look. Sorry, I'm just saying what the Lord's been saying to me. ... [Laughter] ... If I have a bad day, oh it sucks! WHAAAAAA! Sorry. Better attitude needed here, break out of that stuff. I'll give you the last one. You'll find this one in a church. This is very much in a church: no one around here cares about me. ... [Laughter] ... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Get outta here! ... [Applause/Laughter] ... That is victim speak.

Kings don't talk like that. Nobody cares about me?! Lot of nonsense - just projecting out onto the world your own belief system. If you believe no one cares about you, great, welcome to your world. You'll find no one cares about you is exactly what'll happen. [Laughs] They'll walk past you - ha! - and they don't care, don't seem to care. Actually they do care. It's just there's something that you're radiating out that's defiling everything around you and making your world become just like you believe in your heart. See?

So we could probably come up with some more. You could probably think of a few of your own. How many know someone who's said one or other of those things? ... [Yes!] ... You all know someone. Right, just carry around and horn and if you're a leader you should get one of those gas horns and carry it around. The next time you hear someone, especially if you're in your leadership team and they do that, just one loud long blast. ... [Laughter] ... Aaghh! Snap them! Now what was that about? I heard victim speaking and I don't like victim speak! You're trying to suck me into your negative world and I refuse. Kings don't go into negative victim worlds. Kings challenge them how to break out of their slavery, so it's a matter of thinking different things.

Notice what the father says? He doesn't answer any of the things at all. He doesn't get drawn into all of this. He doesn't get drawn into the moaning, groaning, judging, whining, complaining negatives, not one little bit. He doesn't try and justify what he's done. He doesn't try to explain what he's done. He doesn't do anything because he's not a victim. He doesn't need to justify and he doesn't need to blame, doesn't need to explain, doesn't need to do anything. He just said son, everything I had was yours. You just needed to ask. Son, everything I've got is yours, you just need to ask. Son, everything I have is yours! You just needed to ask! I love you.

The word son there is not older son, mature son. It's a little boy son, it's a child who's no different than a servant because he remains childish in his thinking. You say child, you're thinking like a child. You're part of my family. Everything I have is yours. Rise up and begin to declare your dreams and plan how to fulfil them and ask me for how to resource them and I'll do it. What a great thing. So the son got a revelation of the father's love. He couldn't receive it because he was so caught in his own victim thinking. Now Jesus was applying that to the religious people, the scribes and the Pharisees who couldn't understand the generosity of God, that God will pour His spirit and touch undeserving people, but that is what God is like.

Here's what God is like - He's good. Here's what He's like - He is good. He is good all the time and not only that, He's full of grace. That means He gives people what they don't deserve, but we've got a religious world that divides up if you deserve it you get it, if you don't deserve it you don't get it. That's not how God operates by the way. That's the law. He operates differently. He says I'm good! I'm good all the time! I'm generous all the time! I give all the time! Believe and receive and open your heart to experience my love and be transformed from being a slave into being a son of a great family, part of a royal line destined to rule over all creation.

We need revelation of the Father's love. We need to turn from our victim slavish thinking and come into the inheritance God has for us. One of the greatest lessons in the Bible is that the children of Israel, having received the goodness of God, refused to break out of their negative complaining, whinging, whining, blaming, excusing behaviour and in the end God said well what you've been saying is what's going to happen. You can't enter the land. We can't walk into the new things God has unless we let God reveal His love and open our hearts to think differently. Amen!

Father God, we just thank you today. What a great God you are. Oh, I hear the horns sounding in heaven today, pushing on all the negative thinking, all the negative talking and encouraging us to begin to think differently.

Summary Notes

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Introduction:
· John 15:14-15 “no longer do I call you servants … I have called you friends”
· Jesus raised the status, identity of his disciples to a new level
· Servant = 1401 = doulos = slave, one who gives himself wholly to the will of another
· God desires to raise s from slaves to sons – to be part of a royal family – Kings
· God’s plan is for a family of Kings 1 Peter 2:9 with Jesus the King of Kings

Israel was called from Slavery to Sonship:
· Exodus 4:22 “Israel is my Son, even my First born … let my Son go that he may serve me…”
· Israel was in bondage in Egypt – in slavery to taskmasters
· The taskmasters made their lives bitter with hard bondage Ex 1:11-14
· Israel were slaves, victims – hurt, rejected and abused
· Victim = person who is abused, hurt, oppressed by another ad is unable to resist
· Victim thinking = the person refuses to take personal responsibility for their life and blames others for what is happening in their world
= A way of thinking and interpreting life comes from unresolved offences, pain, and heart beliefs
· Underneath victim thinking is an ‘orphan spirit’ i.e. a person is abused in life and has no one to love, affirm, value, comfort, nurture, protect or discipline
· An ‘orphan spirit’ cannot be cast out – it consists of ungodly beliefs/bitterroots
It is developed over a lifetime – it becomes part of the way a person thinks.
It must be displaced, out to death by experiencing the Father’s Love and revelation of the Spirit of Sonship

3. Jesus’ Promise to His Disciples:
· John 14;16-18
“I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you”
· Jesus was about to die on the Cross – redeem humanity from slave to son
· “Another” = one exactly like the one you have had
· He promised He would not leave them orphans
· Orphan = 3737 = orphanos = to be fatherless, without a father to comfort, love and direct
· Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit

· Romans 8:14-17 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit we are the children of God”
· We did not receive the spirit of bondage = 1397 = slavery, lacking, freedom of spirit
· Adoption = 5206 = to pace into full rights and privileges of Sonship
· Holy Spirit = Imparts the DNA of God, Reveals who we are, Dwells joined to us, Reveals God’s father love

4. Elder Brother Mentality:
· Luke 15:25-32 “The older son was in the field – serving”
· The elder brother was serving his father working in the fields
· He had no revelation of the fathers heart or love for him
· He had a slave or victim mentality – an orphan spirit
a) His behavior revealed his mentality – when he heard the news of his brothers arrival and the fathers celebration
Ø He closed up his spirit – ‘angry’
Ø He isolated and withdraw from the relationship – ‘would not go in’
Ø He struggled with feelings of rejection, anger and heaviness

b) His words revealed his slave mentality
Ø Justified himself - ‘I have served … never transgressed’
Ø Blames - ‘This son of yours … wasted your inheritance’
Ø Waits passively, hoping - ‘I served these many years’
Ø Resentment/bitterness - ‘You never gave me…’
Ø Judgmental, faultfinding - ‘This son of yours’
Ø Refused personal responsibility for own dreams and desires - ‘Make merry with my friends’
· He failed to understand grace, and the unconditional love of the Father
· His attitude was that what was wrong in his life was because of someone else – he felt lonely, isolated, unloved and bitter

c) How Victims Speak:
· Luke 6:45
“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks”
· Listen to yourself speak: do you speak like a King or a Slave?
‘It’s not fair’ ‘No one listens to me’ ‘Nobody cares’
‘It’s not my fault’ ‘Nothing I do is good enough’ ‘I can’t’
‘My life sucks’ ‘I don’t have enough time’
‘I shouldn’t have done that’

d) The Father’s Response:
· Luke 15:31
“Son, All I have is Yours”
· “Son” = 5043 = teknon = a child, one born to the father with rights and privileges but is still a child
· God wants us to experience His Love and Fatherhood and to receive all He has that is available to us

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