The Gift of Faith | Pastor Jason McKinnies | Purpose House Church

I'm Jason McInnis, the pastor here at Purpose House Church. I want to thank you for joining our broadcast on the Pando app. We love you and we're praying for you. So 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is where we've been talking about the gifts of the Spirit. Last week, we just kind of took a little break from talking about the gifts and we talked about just God's presence in general. Talked about how he appears in the wind, the fire and in a whisper. But today, I want to go back to the list and talk about a gift that gets misunderstood probably as much as the gift of tongues does, but just in a little bit of a quieter way. And Paul lists it first among what we've been calling the power gifts. And then it says it in verse nine of 1 Corinthians chapter 12. He says there, to another faith by the same Spirit. Everybody say faith. Anybody in the room named faith? I know we had a young teenager for a while. She's off to school and her name was Faith. He says to another faith by the same Spirit. So right before we get to the gift of healing that we talked, the gifts of healings that we talked about two weeks ago, right before we're talking about the working of miracles, faith is put there and faith comes first.

And that list for a reason, and I want to teach it for a little while and then we'll see what the Lord will do. Because most of what God does through all the rest of the power gifts or the gifts, it starts with faith. And the confusion that I want to clear up before anything else is when Paul says faith in that verse, he doesn't mean the same thing that every other use of that word in the New Testament means. You already have faith if you're a believer. How many of you are a believer? If you're a believer, you have faith. What Paul's talking about here in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 is something else. It's talking about something very specific, very situational, it's a gift given by the same Spirit who gives the gift of tongues and the gifts of healings and the working of miracles. And it often doesn't work the way ordinary faith works. Somebody in this room has had a moment of confidence about something that made no logical sense whatsoever at the time. And maybe you had that moment, you had this just almost an irrational confidence, it makes no logical sense and you didn't know how to explain it. I pray by the end of my six hours of preaching, you'll know what it is and you may have a name for it.

There's maybe other people in this room that if you watch somebody else claim this gift as a way of pressuring you into their motives and or into a financial decision or pressured you into a relationship or ignoring wise counsel because they said, God gave me faith for it. Anybody ever had that happen to you? Somebody else said, I have faith for this, you should do this. Then you went and did it and then they said, you didn't have enough faith for what they originally had faith for. Anybody have been there before? We're in church, we can be honest. Somebody has come up to you and said, listen, I have faith for this, you should do this. I want to talk directly to the people who have been abused by people who have manufactured this gift of faith because the counterfeit of this gift has hurt a lot of people. And hurt people hurt people, but healed people help other people get healed. And so the answer to a counterfeit is to never throw out the original. Let me say that again. Just because something has been counterfeited and people have used a counterfeit to hurt other people and other people have been hurt by it

does not give us a reason in the church to throw out the original. What we have to do is look close enough at the original that we can always recognize a counterfeit. So I'm gonna show you a picture today. It's gonna appear on the screens and I pray that as soon as you see it, there is an immediate moment that happens. And so if you throw up that picture of Pastor Michael, if you throw it up there. Yes. Now, how many of you think that that is an authentic picture? Number one, he doesn't have a moustache. Number two, it should be all Notre Dame, not an Ohio State hat, a Texas jersey, and a Notre Dame pair of shorts, and a San Francisco watch band. The reason why all of you immediately knew that that was not authentic is because you know that Michael DuPriest is a dog, D-A-W-G, dog. He's a dog. So, because you have relationship with Michael, you automatically know that when somebody else puts something on him that doesn't belong on him, you know, because of relationship with the original, what is authentic and what is counterfeit. Everybody good? I'm thankful to the security team for making an AI photo of Pastor Michael. The same is true with the Holy Spirit. You should be so intimately involved with the Holy Spirit

that you know when somebody is putting something on the Holy Spirit that doesn't belong on the Holy Spirit. You should be able to recognize a counterfeit versus the genuine every time it happens. And the enemy is really good at putting together a counterfeit. So, I did a little study this week for you so you wouldn't have to. I wanted to know how the Secret Service, the Treasury Department, can recognize counterfeit money. Why are they so good when so much is happening all the time? Well, they don't spend their time trying to teach a Treasury Department officer about all the different ways that people can counterfeit stuff. That would be an endless job. Their job is to train them so that they are so good at knowing what the original is that it doesn't matter how much effort or how many new ways that the people can come up with a counterfeit. Their job is to study the original over and over and over again so it doesn't matter what any ploy or little plot that somebody else comes with to come with a counterfeit. They know what the original is. The church has gotten so caught up in trying to figure out all the counterfeits that we have stopped being intimate with the Holy Spirit and understanding what the genuine is because we're caught up in some false doctrine or what this person is doing and what that person is. If you would just get involved with the genuine thing, then all the other counterfeits, it doesn't matter what new ploy or what new doctrine or what new thing, and the Lord showed me

something new. There's nothing new under the sun. My friend, just fall in love with the genuine and you'll be well-trained to expose a counterfeit. Everybody good? So, I want to go back to this word faith. We now know what authentic and what fake is and with AI, man, it's really hard to do it. But let's just walk through faith for a minute. Scripture actually uses the word faith at least for four very distinct things and if you don't separate them in the four distinct categories, the gift of faith that we're talking about here in 1 Corinthians will never make sense to you because there's saving faith. There's the faith that receives salvation, right? Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9, for by grace you have been saved through faith that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. So, every believer in the room has this. You have faith, salvational faith. It's not rare. It's the doorway that everybody who's born again walk through. We had to receive this by faith. So, we have saving faith. Then there is a measure of faith and this is what we would just say is a general capacity to trust God and the apostle Paul says, every believer is given this measure of faith and you're given this measure of faith to function in whatever calling that you're carrying. So, in Romans chapter 12 verse 3, it says, God has dealt to

each one a measure of faith. Now, this can grow over time. The more you exercise it, the way that any muscle happens, you look at Pastor Michael, you exercise a muscle and Pastor Michael right now is exercising his upper lip. He's putting weight on it and he's trying to get that to be as big as his biceps. you exercise it, it will grow. We have picked on him so much, even my own mother threatened to slam his head in the trunk if he didn't shave. So, we have a measure. So, we have salvation of faith, we have a measure of faith, then we have what we would say the fruit of faith, the fruit of faithfulness. Paul listed among the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, and it's talking about just being steady, being reliable. It is amazing to me how many Christians say they're believers and they're not reliable. They're not steady. You're in it for the long haul. Too many Christians are, you know, double-minded. So, this, but what Paul's saying here is he's not talking about the gift of faith, he's not saying you have this overwhelming confidence in a single moment, he's just saying you're reliable, you're steadfast, you're faithful. It's who you're becoming, not something you're suddenly empowered to do. Then there's this gift of faith. It's distinct from all the other three. It's not something that every believer carries in the same measure. It's not primarily about your character. It's not about salvation. It's a very specific Spirit-given urge of supernatural confidence that God is about to act in a certain way about a particular situation, given in a particular moment, and then often it recedes as quickly as it came on you. Have you ever been sitting

in a place? Maybe I'm just showing my churchy-fideness. Have you ever just been sitting in a place and you're like, you know what? I think if I laid hands on them right now, they'd be healed and get up and walk out. I was telling John Gordon before the service, I was in my office reading the sermon again. You cannot read about faith and then not get faith. I've been reading this and writing this for like the last 10 days, and I'm like, you cannot write this and read this and then pray over it and walk out and go, God ain't going to do nothing today. You start reading it, you start experiencing it, you start reading the stories of faith in the Bible, then you start rehashing things that God has done in your life, and pretty soon you're like, you know what? I think Notre Dame could beat Georgia. And then often what happens is it recedes as quickly as it comes on you. That's the gift of faith. So the reason why I wanted to say that to you is that many of you are waiting for this right opportunity to exercise or move when God gives you that supernatural confidence, and then it goes away and you're like, yep, that wasn't God. No, it was you waiting for a better opportunity, but it comes on you so quick and it recedes as quickly as it comes on. So when the Lord gets ready, you've got to move. You've got to go to that person and say, listen, God just spoke to me and said, or whatever, however it is happening in your life. So it's a very specific spirit given surge of supernatural confidence that God is about to act in a particular situation in a particular moment, and you better move. Now let's read what the definition of all of this faith is. It's found in Hebrews chapter 11, verse one. Now, faith is the substance of the things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

That's the general definition of every kind of faith that it shares. Substance for what's hoped for, evidence of what's unseen. The gift of faith takes that definition and turns the volume all the way up for a moment, for a season. How many y'all like your music really loud? Love it loud. The louder, the better. Crank it. I mean, I love it loud. That's what the gift of faith, you have faith and it's just kind of going on. How many of you like you listen to a song? I'm a Spotify guy. I got more playlists on Spotify than you can imagine. And I share them to Melissa and she must not share my love for music because she don't listen to anything I send to her. So you know what I do? I wait for her to get in the other room and that song comes on that I've wanted her to listen to the whole time. I crank it up. And then I hear her talking. It's a lot like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I can't hear you over the music. If you would turn it down. And I'm like, I've been trying to get you to listen to this the whole month. Now crank it up. The gift of faith does that. It may be something churning very low in you. Then God tries to get your attention and he just cranks the volume up to where you, it's just this urge that happens on the inside of you. So the get to faith just takes it and just turns the volume all the way up. So I wanted to go back to the very first time in Scripture, when Scripture uses the word believed in connection with God. And I wanna try to piece this together from Genesis chapter 15 to 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Genesis 15, this is when the word believed

is used for the first time in connection with God. How many of you believe God? All right, so I'm gonna lay something on you. All right, so God and Abram are having a conversation. They're having a conversation like most men have with God about their families. And Abram is talking to God about how his wife ain't happy. Like most men, we're not able to please our wives so we have to have get God involved. I'm walking in some dangerous territory. And so Abram's talking to God, he's like, yeah, you know, you made us a promise. And you know, this is, and Sarah and God's like, listen, go outside. Thank you, Mama Helen. I may need an escort home, but. So God says to Abram, listen, why don't you go outside of your tent? And I want you to look up to all the stars that are up there and as many stars are up there, that's how many sons and daughters and children you're gonna have. And the scripture records it in Genesis chapter 15 and verse six, that he believed in the Lord. Now that word believe there is a big word. Like we often take the word believe, like I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and he became my savior. The word believe means total assimilation when we're talking about salvation.

Here, that word believed, it says, and he believed in the Lord and he, meaning God, accounted it to him, Abram, for righteousness. Believe there is the Hebrew word amon or amen. A-M-A-N, that's the basis word. It's the same root word that we get for our word, amen. So how many of you say amen at the end of your prayer? You're praying for your food, you go to McDonald's, which ain't really food, and you start praying for it and you're like, Lord, bless this food to my body. Amen, which means let it be so, let it be done. The root word of amen there means so be it, or this is firm. So Abram is saying to God, I believe you, and God says, you believe me? And Abram says, yes, what you have told me, I, it's something that's firm up underneath me, and because you told me that, God, I'm going to believe you, meaning there is a foundation now upon which I can stand in relationship with you, God. It's the substance of our whole relationship is that God said something, I believed it, and because I believed it, I now can build my life on it. See, if you really believe God and what God says, you then can build your life on it. Many of us say, I believe you, God, and then don't build our lives on him. So he says, amen, so it's like a foundation stone, something you can actually put some weight on. So Abram's faith wasn't a feeling,

it was him putting the full weight of his whole life, his marriage, Sarah's happiness, Sarah's fulfillment, he puts all of that on something God had said, and every time you say amen at the end of a prayer, you're using the same word that Abram was using, saying the same thing that Abram said under those stars, this is firm enough for me to stand on, this is firm enough for me to build my life on it, and so when we say amen, what we're saying to God is, I believe you, so be it, and let it be done. Now I wanna show you something about this gift of faith that surprises some people, because we tend to assume that faith only ever works on behalf of the person who's exercising it. Mark chapter two tells a different story about faith. There was a paralyzed man, he has four friends who carry him over to the house, they all must have had roofing companies, they carry him to a house where Jesus is teaching, the crowd is so thick in the house that they can't get through the front door, they can't get anywhere near the door, so these four men climb up onto the roof, they tear a hole in it, that's how I knew they owned a roofing company, they tore a hole in it, they then lower the man down, on his mat right in front of Jesus. Mark chapter two, verse five, and the New King James says it like this. When Jesus saw their faith, whose faith did he see?

Did he see the paralyzed man's faith? No, he saw their faith. He saw their faith. Does he say anything to the four men? He saw their faith, but he says something to the man who was paralyzed. He said to the paralytic man, son, your sins are forgiving you. Read that carefully. Jesus saw their faith. Not his faith, their faith. Then the paralyzed man, he doesn't say a word in the whole story. He doesn't ask for anything, but the faith that moved Jesus to heal that man was his friend's faith. See, some of us think, well, I don't have enough faith for it, sometimes you gotta have some friends that'll have enough faith that gets you healed. Because you've lived with it for so long and believed the lies of the enemy for so long, you don't believe there's any hope for you. You need some friends who own some roofing companies that'll tear the roof off of the place and get you at the feet of Jesus so that you can get healed. Because faith works. So I think about every time somebody tells me, I don't have enough faith for my situation. Maybe you don't, maybe you don't have it today,

but maybe somebody in this room has enough faith to carry exactly what you need in the situation that you find yourself in. Not instead of you, but for you. The way that those four friends, some of us need some friends that'll carry us to the feet of Jesus. So don't let a season of low faith convince you that you're stuck, it just might mean it's time for you to trust some other people. Then there's a centurion in Matthew chapter eight. There's a moment there, Jesus himself is reacting to this man's faith with something that we would say is almost a surprise. A Roman centurion, he's not a Jew, he's not someone raised on the promises that were given to the people of Israel. He comes to Jesus because his servant is paralyzed and suffering very terribly. Jesus says, I'll come over to your house. The centurion says something to Jesus that Jesus was not expecting. He says in Matthew chapter eight, verses eight through 10, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed, for I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled.

And he said to those who followed, assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. Now, notice what the centurion did not ask for. He didn't ask Jesus to come lay hands on the servant. He didn't say, I need to see it happen, and then if I see it happen, I'll believe that it happened. He said to Jesus, I understand authority. I live inside of a chain of command. If I tell somebody that's under my command to do something, they do it without any questions asked. They go do it. If I tell them to go, they go. If I tell them to come, they come. So Jesus, I recognize that you have authority over the sins and the sicknesses that are in my fellow's body. I don't even need to see it. I just know that you have so much authority that when you tell that paralyzation to go, it's going to go. And Jesus says, I've not seen this kind of faith, not even among the people that supposedly know me. He marveled at him, so he says to Jesus, listen, just say the word, send a word, and my servant will be healed. That gift of faith, that's the gift of faith in a single sentence. I don't even need to see it to believe it. I just know, Lord, if you say it, it's going to happen.

Most of us only have confidence in the visible process. This centurion said, a word will do, because the word will heal. And Jesus marveled. That word matters. Jesus doesn't marvel very often in the Gospels. And when he does, it's almost always in one of two directions. And some of you need to write this in your Bible, because the only other time really that I found that Jesus, the word marveled is used, Jesus was marveling not in the presence of faith, it was the absence of it. He marveled at the unbelief in his own hometown. Nobody was healed because he marveled at that. Like, you grew up with me, you've heard all these stories about me, and you don't even have enough faith. This guy didn't know me from Adam. And he had faith that my word would do it. Sometimes we can get so churchy, we forget about the power of God. We've gotten so used to our protocols that we have forgotten that God can send a word. and God could heal them. We wanna get them all just right. We wanna get them into the methodology. We're gonna wait for the end of the service. And at the end of the service, when pastor says, the prayer teams are gonna come,

that's when I'm gonna make my move. It might be that you need to make a move when God tells you to make a move. And it might be that we can send a word, if I could just get into the Purpose House. No, no, no, no, no. You don't need to tear the roof off of this place and get them in for a Purpose House. You need to get them to the feet of Jesus. See, we get so churchy that we think church is what heals. And it's still the power of Jesus that heals. So there's this statement there that he makes, just send a word. There's also one in the Old Testament that's pretty interesting. It's the second picture of it. It shows you that the gift of faith looks like sometimes believing in the outcome, even if the outcome doesn't come out the way you think it should. Don't ask me to re-say that. But sometimes you have to have faith in the outcome, even if the outcome is not promised to you. Let me give you three guys' names that you know them by. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So these three Hebrew boys are in this tussle. You're reading my mind, and that's not fair. I went right over that joke. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are ordered to bow. If you wanna know what the joke is,

go listen to S.M. Lockridge. They're ordered to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image or be thrown into a furnace that's been heated seven times hotter than usual. So their answer to the threat from the king is one of the most remarkable statements of faith in the entire Old Testament. Daniel chapter three, verses 16 through 18. Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. Children, do not try that with your principal at school. We have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, from the burning fire furnace, and he will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods. Even if the outcome doesn't come the way we think the outcome is gonna come out, we still are not going to bow to you, Nebuchadnezzar. Even if we die in that furnace, we have faith in our God. So we're not gonna bow to your gods and we're gonna believe that our God is gonna deliver us, but even if he doesn't, I still believe that he's God. How many of you have that kind of faith? See, the reason why I wanna ask the question to the modern church is that if the outcome doesn't come out the way we think that the outcome should have come out,

we no longer wanna believe in God. But our job is to believe that he is God no matter what the outcome is. So O king, but if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up. So they say, but if not, that's not a lack of faith. That's actually the fullest possible expression of faith. They believe that God was able. They didn't know for certain that he would choose to do it and their obedience was not conditional on him choosing the outcome that they wanted. That's the piece most people miss with the gift of faith. It isn't the elimination of risk. See, and here's what we got. The reason why most people will not step out in the gift of faith is that if you step out in faith and it doesn't happen the way you think it is, the church folks rise up and wanna stone you. I knew he was a false prophet. He wasn't operating in the gift of prophecy. They were operating in the gift of faith. And you have not. So they believe that God was able. And it doesn't eliminate the risk. And so their confidence was in God. And that operates fully, even when the outcome is still genuinely unknown. You still have to believe God. So they said, God may or may not do it,

but God did deliver them. And they didn't even have the smell of smoke on their clothes according to Daniel chapter three and verse 27, but their faith was just as real in the sentence that they said to Nebuchadnezzar before they went into the furnace than it was when they were out of the furnace. Can I ask you, is your testimony of faith the same regardless of the outcome? Because I've seen way too many Christians, God's gonna do it, God's gonna do it, God's gonna do it. And then God didn't do it. And they're like, yeah, well, then there must be no God. I would question your faith. Your faith cannot be conditional. So then there's another story in the Old Testament about faith. And it's, we go from Abram now to Abraham. Things have happened in his life. God's fulfilled the promise. He's got Isaac with him. And so he's taken, he's got his boy Isaac and they're playing golf. together they are doing all the things together that dads and sons do and God shows up and He is like hey I want you to take your son to the top of the mountain and up there I want you to sacrifice him to Me and this is a weird story to preach in the modern day and if you would think about what Abraham is getting ready to do you are like why would God ask that God was not after Isaac

He was after Abram's heart because sometimes when we get our promise we love the promise more than the promise giver and so God tells Abraham take Isaac the son that the promise depended on the son that you waited 25 years for take him up a mountain offer him as a sacrifice now Genesis does not record you can read it in Genesis chapter 22 it does not record Abraham arguing stalling or negotiating now it also doesn't record that he ever went home and told Sarah anything but it does say that he got up early the next morning he got up early the next morning with his servants and his son Isaac and he takes him up the mountain in Hebrews actually you have got to go all the way almost to the other end of the Bible and Hebrews actually tells us really what the mindset was of Abraham on that early morning what was happening underneath the obedience that Abraham was doing in Hebrews chapter 11 verses 17 and 19 it says by faith Abraham when he was tested offered up Isaac here it is I'm skipping over some lines verse 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from which he also received him in a figurative sense so the word concluding really matters there we always want to focus on by faith the word concluding is really what matters this was not blind resignation by Abraham I'm gonna take my son up to the top of the mountain no Abraham had reasoned his way

to a very specific conclusion has anybody ever got into a reasoning match with God if you haven't you haven't lived for God very long because there are things that go on and you're like now listen God you did that and you did that and you did that now the devil's telling me that you're not gonna do that that and that ever again but if God does not change if God is the same yesterday today and forever James said of God that in him was no variableness he's not buried he doesn't move and in him is no shadow of turning and if God himself said I cannot lie if God said it and Abraham's like in just a few chapters ago you told me to walk outside of my tent and to look up in the stars and that as many stars were there that this boy was gonna fulfill all those promises you said that God so I'm going to conclude that if I have to kill my son because you said I'm gonna have a promise then my son is gonna be resurrected from the dead even though resurrection has never happened before but you said God that that boy was the son of promise and whatever happens up on the top of that mountain I know that you God are not gonna leave it the way I think it's gonna end anybody ever been there you're just gonna have to look at some things and say I have come to the conclusion

that my God is going to keep his word. So one more picture I want you to see what this gift of faith looks like not when one or two people feel it but when an entire nation is the one exercising it not even just a leader the entire nation it's found in second Chronicles chapter 20 King Jehoshaphat gets a word somebody comes to him before church and says pastor all these people don't like you that's what happened King Jehoshaphat is getting ready to go to church and somebody shows up and says hey the children of Ammon the children of Moab and the children of Mount Seir they're gonna surround you. So they go to church they have a solemn assembly they go to church and Jehoshaphat in front of the people see pastors won't do this today because when we pray like that church folks like to use it against you. So Jehoshaphat starts praying let me turn there to second Chronicles chapter 20. I almost flipped immediately to it I started going further chapter 20 so he says okay the children of Ammon

children of Moab and Mount Seir now for time's sake I don't have time to explain why these three characters are coming after the children of Israel but suffice it to say Ammon and Moab are children that were born between an ancestral relationship between Lot and his daughters. Okay so they're people who were born in sin who already had the presupposition of wanting to go towards sinful things. The children of Mount Sierra, they couldn't describe them, and often in the Bible, they're described as the hairy, shaggy ones. Well, hairy and shaggy ones would almost be the children of Esau, people who sold their birthright. So you have people who were born in incestual relationships that appear to be spiritual, and you have hairy, shaggy ones who didn't think enough of their birthright to keep it, are now going to surround the people of God, and they're going to attack them. You gotta be careful when people start lining up against the anointed ones. They appear to have a birthright, and they appear to have been born, but they have not been born correctly. I'm preaching more prophetically

than many of you will even understand, because if you're not careful, you'll start listening to lies of people who have not been born correctly, and people who don't think enough of their birthright, and you'll start believing lies about people who have been born again. And the enemy shows up, and he surrounds them, and you think because there's a crowd, that the crowd is right, and the person who stands all by themself is wrong. And Jehoshaphat said, that's all right, I'm going to church. And he gets in the church, and he says, God, the children of Ammon, and the children of Moab, and them hairy, shaggy ones that need a haircut from you, they're all surrounding me, and I don't know what to do, but my eye is on you, God. And I want to just say this for all the people who don't believe in the gifts of the Spirit, we are in the Old Testament, and there was a boy sitting in the whole church service, the pastor of the church is praying, King Jehoshaphat is just praying, he said, I don't know what to do, but my eyes are upon you, and the whole church is quiet, and Jehoshaphat says, hey, nation of Israel, and oh, King Jehoshaphat, hear the word of the Lord. Does that not sound like the gifts of the Spirit

in operation? Hear the word of the Lord. This battle is not yours, but it is the Lord's. And all you have to do, and listen, he even says, they're going to be down there by the brook, and they're going to come up by the hill, and this is how they're going to come. Why does God know the way that the enemy is going to attack? Because we are not ignorant of his devices. We know which way he's going to come in, he should know which way he's going to go out, because the Bible says that when the enemy be found, he may come in one way, well, he's leaving out of here seven different ways. He came to sow confusion, and he's the only one that gets confused. So Jehoshaphat says, oh, King, just stand still to see the salvation of the Lord. This battle is not yours, this is the way they're going to come up. Now listen, often what we do is we say, Jehoshaphat sends out the singers first. There's a little bit that goes in before that. It says that Jehoshaphat met with the people. You know why I know that the singers had to have heard the word of the Lord? Have you ever known a singer who would say, oh, we're going to battle tomorrow, and we're going to get surrounded

by the children of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir. Oh, pick me, pastor, me and my microphone, we'll go out first. No, I'll be like, Michael, you go first, dog. You be my dog, you be my dog. Go get him, boy, get over there. And they see you coming out there with that mustache, and they're like, we're out of here. So it wasn't just the leader that heard the word of the Lord and confirmed it, everybody in the room. In fact, the scripture says that the husbands and wives stood with their children in the presence of the Lord. And listen, I love kids' church. I love that your kids are over there, and yet I don't like it. Because what I learned about church is because I was in the room when God began to move, and then on the way home, my mom and dad would explain to me everything that had went on in church. And so my mom and dad, and then I saw my dad worship, and I saw my mom worship. I saw my dad pray, and I saw my mom pray. I saw my dad do the one-legged icky shuffle. I did all, and what in the world happened here? And all of a sudden, I begin to say, oh, man, if my dad can be moved by God like that, then I can be moved by God like that. If my mom can pray like that, then I can pray like that.

But we have them over there and separated, so we're not standing together in the assembly of the Lord. And people go, oh, pastor, you mean we're gonna get rid of kids' church? You can't handle your kids. Some of you'd have to start believing and run in the aisles. Because you'd be running after them. Listen, but our kids need to see mom and dad stand before the presence of the Lord. And say, listen, we heard what God said. And they got together with King Jehoshaphat, and he says, all right, tomorrow, they stood before the Lord, then the Spirit of the Lord came on him, and Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem bowed before the Lord, worshiping the Lord. Then the Levites and the children of the Koathites and of the children of the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with voices loud and high. So they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, hear me, O Judah, and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established. Believe his prophets, and you shall prosper.

And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord and who should praise the beauty of his holiness. He consulted with the people, and then he appointed them, and they said, all right, we don't have to have people with weapons go out front. If we'll go out with worship, and we'll go out with praise, the Lord is gonna fight this battle for us. Why do we know that? Because yesterday in church, we heard the word of the Lord. And there's too many people that wanna have faith, and you're not in the building to hear the word of the Lord. And you're in the fight of your life, and you're being surrounded by Ammon and Moab and them hairy, shaggy ones. And your faith is down, and you need to get the worship back out and the praise back out. And instead of sending your Facebook posts out first, how about you send up praise first? Send up worship first, and watch God set up ambushments on your enemies. So he sent out the singers ahead of the army, and he says, hey, God's gonna do this. God's gonna handle it. God answers.

When they begin to sing and begin to praise, the Lord set ambushes. Verse 22, 2 Chronicles 20. The Lord set ambushes against the people of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who had come against Judah, and they were defeated. If you'll just get into the presence of God, God would do amazing things for you. I just wanna draw a line just for a moment. Because this gift gets counterfeited so much, I need to give you some reasoning behind it. Number one, faith always rests on what God has actually said not what people suppose God has said. Presumption assumes that God will act on cue without his word behind it. We must have his word behind it. See, let me show you something in Scripture. Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, and he says, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down. Listen to what he says. For it is written, this is Satan saying this, for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you. That is an exact word-for-word quote out of Psalm 91. He's quoting it correctly, word-for-word. That's the unsettling part, that the devil can quote Scripture word-for-word and be accurate with it and yet still be lying. Why is he lying? Because he's stripping a real promise out of its context

and using it to manufacture a spiritual stunt. Hear me. The enemy whispers to people word-for-word and they turn it into a spiritual stunt. How do you know it's a stunt? Because the attention becomes on them and not on God. If more attention is drawn to you, then Jesus, you're out of line. Let me say it again. If the attention is on you and not on him, you've just stepped into a spiritual stunt. And then, so Jesus answers. How does Jesus answer? He cuts straight through it. He says, it is written again. You shall not tempt the Lord your God. So real faith doesn't test God to see if he'll perform. It trusts what he has already said and then moves accordingly. Even when it's a but if not. James then adds one more piece to this. He says, all right, faith by itself does not have works. Is dead, James chapter two, verse 17. So a claim of faith that never produces any actual movement is not faith at all. Abraham went up the mountain, Jehoshaphat sent the singers out, four friends climbed on the roof. That's the gift in operation. And if you don't have action with it,

you just made a statement, you just put a sentence out there. Real faith and presumption of faith can sound identical. The moment that they're spoken, the difference always shows up in what happens next. Have you ever heard someone say, God told me? I hear that so much. It's the spiritual trump card. Well, pastor, God told me. Well, I think I'm the pastor of this church and God didn't tell me that, but God told me. How do you refute that? You let their actions speak for themselves. The Bible says, don't argue with a fool. You wanna believe that, go for it. And then watch their lives fall apart afterwards. What happens after? God told me. Well, so they say, God told me this and then they do something reckless. They do something financially foolish. Something that is destructive to their relationships. That's presumption borrowing the language of faith. The gift of faith and presumption can sound identical the moment they're spoken, but they are not identical in what they're standing on. See, in Hebrews, it gives us two names of people. This is not my notes, so I don't know why I'm gonna say it like this, but I am. It gives us two names.

It says, as Janes and Jamerys withstood Moses. Who were Janes and Jamerys? Well, Janes and Jamerys were the two magicians of Pharaoh that when Moses threw down his rod and it turned into a snake, Janes and Jamerys threw down their rods and they turned into snakes. And I'm gonna tell you, you don't believe in running aisles, but if people start throwing rods down and there's snakes coming out, I'm outta here. Unless I have heard from the Lord who told me to throw down my rod. And the reason why I need to throw down my rod is not just to prove that I can turn my rod into a snake, but it was to eat their snakes. And Janes and Jamerys kept over and over replicating what God was doing. You have to go back to the message. Why was Moses there to do things? He was there to let people go. And Janes and Jamerys were doing it to keep people into bondage. So you gotta know what the word is standing on, what's behind the sign and the wonder, and not just follow signs and wonders for following signs and wonders. Signs and wonders should point you to the one that you should believe in. So Matthew chapter 17, verse 20,

Jesus said, the disciples are working, they're trying to get these devils out and these demons out. And they said, we can't do it. He said, why couldn't we do it? And Jesus said, because of your unbelief. For assuredly, I say to you that if you have faith as a mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you. Y'all remember that verse? I actually have a whole, I have a whole harvest of mustard seeds here. I mean, you would think that it would fill the stage, but I have enough mustard seeds in here to probably give all of you a couple mustard seeds before you left. I mean, it's a whole cup full of them. I have seashells inside so you can dip them out. You can take one with you when you go. It's small enough to disappear between your fingers. But the modern church quotes that verse is that you must have a mountain size faith in order to remove a mustard seed. Instead of having a mustard seed that can move a mountain. And we get caught up in the size of our faith instead of the one who gave us the faith in the first place. And we start measuring each other's faith and say, well, God can't use you. You don't have a lot of faith.

But the scripture said that if I have a mustard seed and I have faith, see, I got one. If I have that much faith, I can speak to a mountain and the mountain can be removed. And the devil whispers to you, you mean you should have a mountain size faith? No, if I just have faith, because this is not as important as him. See, the devil knows that if you really believe that nothing is impossible, then everything becomes possible. And the enemy likes to twist things up. And I'm gonna close here with this story. And the reason why I said earlier, I wanted to tell you the boy's names that you would recognize, is that we recognize the three Hebrew boys by the name that their enemy gave them. Because he doesn't want you to know them by their real names because their real names actually mean something. So when they went into captivity, he began to change their names. It was Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But Shadrach's name was Hananiah and his name, Yahweh, God is gracious. We can't have people going around on people that God is gracious, we gotta call him Shadrach. So then he says, oh yeah, well then we gotta go Meshach. Meshach, his name was actually Mishael,

meaning who is what God is, or who is like our God? Well, you can have people walking around there going, who is like our God? Nebuchadnezzar thought he was a god. So you can have anybody going, who's like our God? Nebuchadnezzar ain't. Because eventually he's gonna be out in the field, growing long nails and eating things he shouldn't be eating and doing things, because God was trying to prove to him, there ain't nobody like our God. So you gotta change the name. And so then he says, oh, Abednego. His name was Azariah, meaning God has helped. Who is like our God? Our God is gracious, and God has helped. We don't want people walking around saying, God has helped us. Who's like our God, and our God is gracious? Because if you know those names, you know that those three boys ain't gonna die in that fiery furnace. So if I change their name, there might be some doubt in everybody else. And so everybody else starts bowing, because if he can change our name, then he can change what our God is. No, he can't. No, he can't. And I don't know what happened that day

in that worship service there, with that little idol going up there, but there was a gift of faith that rose up in those three boys, who knew that God was gracious, that there was nobody like their God, and that their God was gonna come and help them. And oh, King Nebuchadnezzar, we don't bow to your gods, because I was raised up before I ever came into captivity. There is no God like our God. And my God is a helper, and my God is gracious. And so, oh, King, no matter what you do to us, our God is gracious, our God is a help, and there's no God like our God. And I think when they began to rehearse that, that supernatural volume just got turned up. Nebuchadnezzar kept turning up the music, and God kept turning up the music. Nebuchadnezzar would turn up the music, God would turn up the music, until there was an old-fashioned call of fire again. It was Mount Carmel, but it was in a fiery furnace. If you think that you can ruin our gift of faith in our God by threatening us with fire, our God is the God who answers by fire. And Nebuchadnezzar looks inside of the furnace. There's a lot of things about this story I'm gonna ask God when I get there. But Nebuchadnezzar looks in there, and he says, I thought we threw three.

Did we not throw three guys in the fiery furnace? See, the enemy tried to confuse, and the enemies that wound up wound up being confused. Did we not throw three in there? And the fourth one is like unto, the son of God. Yeah, God shows up when you start messing with his children because our God is gracious, and our God is a helper, and there is nobody like our God. So here's what I want to say to you. There was a word Pastor Aaron gave to me before I walked on the stage, that there's some of you in this room that are praying very specific prayers that you thought were so big that they would never be answered. And God started turning the volume up in the beginning of our service to show you that he is still the God who could answer your prayer. And maybe you're in this room today, and you don't have enough faith for that answer, but God began to speak to other people, and they've started carrying the mat for you. And God is allowing other people to carry the mat and place you at the feet of Jesus. And you haven't even asked anything today. You haven't even said anything today. Nobody's even asked you anything today, but God saw the faith that was in this room,

and he wants you to go home differently than how you came in this place. So here's where I want to start. Is there anybody in the room that your brain is not functioning the way it used to work? We would call that brain fog. Your thoughts are not the way that they used to be. Your mind is so confused and so garbled up that you're having trouble thinking. If that's you, I want you to stand right where you're at. Look at this. The other day when I was home alone, Melissa was gone, and I was out underneath my pool house, I've struggled with this very thing that all this time. you've struggled with. And this morning when I got on my way to church, I'm being vulnerable with you. They pumped so many drugs through my body, I couldn't remember my sermon from when I wrote it to when I had to preach it. Those of you that have been here a long time, I never even used to preach with a pulpit. I would just walk up here and rehearse the entire thing to you, and I always have to read them verbatim. And we were in the car, Melissa was driving, so I was praying, and I was really praying, and all of a sudden, all the stories started coming, and the Lord just started giving me a clear mind. So I just wanted to tell you that God healed me, He's gonna heal you. And this brain fog, now see, you think, oh man, I don't know what it is. Listen, we went from demons and ghouls and goblins to principalities and powers. And the enemy wants to confuse your mind, and he's changing things in your mind, like he changed the names of those boys, so that they would forget that their God was good,

and that their God was gracious, and that there was nobody like their God. So I just want you to lay hands on yourself right now. I want you to just put your hand on your forehead, and I want you to begin to pray right now for clarity of your mind. And every weapon of the enemy, and John and Peter, just every person that operates in gifts, I release you right now to operate in your gift. And if the gift of faith comes on you, I want you to respond to the gift of faith. And here's what I say, if you gotta go, leave quietly right now, but I believe the Lord is in this place to do a work right now. So Lord, give clarity. Lord, you said that we could be washed by the water of the Word, and that it would renew our minds. And so Lord, we lay hands on our own minds right now, and we rebuke the devourer of our minds. We rebuke the devourer of our thoughts. We rebuke him right now, and Satan, the blood of Jesus, is against you. And I ask Lord for clarity right now in the mind, clarity. And for the spirit of revelation, even your Word said that the eyes of our understanding would be opened. And so Lord, open up our eyes of understanding and let our minds be clear in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Lord, you even said that our thoughts are not like your thoughts, but Lord, let our thoughts be like your thoughts. In Jesus' name, dementia be gone, Alzheimer's be gone right now. In Jesus' name, we reverse that curse right now in Jesus' name. We break off every lie of the enemy, every assignment of every principality in power right now. We break it off in the authority of the name of Jesus Christ. In Jesus' name.

This is the second thing the Lord spoke to me just out there. We always want healing for physical parts of the body. And I believe today that the Lord wants to heal families. If your family is fragmented, your family is in trouble, I want you to come forward. I want you to take a step of faith. Pastor Pete and Miss Sherry, I would love for you, I know you pray for all of us so much in private. I want you to pray for us publicly. Would you help me? John and Marge, Ernie, Gene Bumpus, would you come right now? See when my dad died, my family died. I know what it's like to have estranged siblings, estranged family. Right now I believe that the Lord wants to heal. What am I doing? I'm saying that the God, God's going to heal your family. The restoration come right now. In Jesus' name. My prayer teams, if you're on the prayer team and you have faith for this, I want you to come and I want you to lay hands on these people. I want you to operate in faith today. Come on, that's it, the spirit of intercession is in this place right now. The three types of prayer that go deeper than just prayer. There's intercession, there's travail, groanings, come on, let the Holy Spirit just operate through you right now. Let faith arise right now. And Lord as faith arises we ask that God you would arise. And enemies would be scattered. Every lie of the enemy. Every perpetrator. You came in one way.

You're going to leave seven ways enemy. In Jesus' name. Lord your word says in Hebrews that we can dispatch ministering angels to them that shall be heirs of this great salvation. So father right now we dispatch angels. Ministering angels Lord to our children, to our loved ones. And they shall be an heir, a recipient of this great salvation. In Jesus' name. Into that bedroom right now, into that home right now. Dispatch your angels Lord to minister to our children and to our sons and to our daughters right now. Oh God, set up ambushments against our enemy. Come on. The Bible says that when Zion travails, when Zion begins to travel there's birth pains that happen. So right now Lord this promise is to us and to our children. No more double-mindedness. Let my whole house, my whole house shall be saved. Father let our faith, the faith the size of a mustard seed right now speak to every mountain that's in our family. Every mountain that's in our children. And we tell it to be gone right now in Jesus' name.