Your pastor. Yeah. Thank you. Candy. Candy used to sing that song many years ago. It came to mind as Tim was prophesying. I’ve been raised in Word of Life. I’ve lived it my entire life knowing this church, being taught of the Lord in this church. There’s so many years of things that I’ve experienced and I don’t know why, but sometimes if you poke me, you poke me just right.

Like circa 1980, 1990, Word of Life stuff just starts coming out. It’s like a Word of Life pinata. It just starts bursting out like this. And you know this. Thank you for being real. Your father. See if we make it through this. Thank God I don’t have much time today.

Let me share what I’m trying to express. Thank you, Megan. What I’m trying to express is that God has been working in this house faithfully for many, many, many years. That there are many sons and daughters of the Lord, many of whom you are, that are richly received from God himself. I think that’s part of my job today, to remind you of what you have received, what is living inside of you, and what the Lord reminded us today that we are supposed to speak out from what was deposited within. A fountain isn’t a fountain if it doesn’t shoot the water out of the reservoir. You are called to be rivers of living water, fountains of life. But water that doesn’t shoot and burst forth out of you is water that is stagnant. It’s just bottled up. I’d say the life within you is not stagnant at all, but we definitely bottle it up. We hold it in, we kind of harbor it to ourselves.

Here, pop the cork, I like that. Alright. Isaiah 9.

Isaiah is prophesying. He says I’m going to read verses 2, 3, 6, and 7. Two says the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine upon them. You will multiply the nation. You will increase their joy. They will rejoice in your presence as the joy of harvest, as people rejoice when they divide the spoils. Verse 6 for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and the Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government, or of the peace of the throne of David over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with the justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of armies will accomplish this, man. Yeah, that is a prophecy. As you may well know, that is a prophecy of the coming Savior, the coming King. It was exceptionally important to the Kingdom of Israel because they were a people who God brought out of Egypt. He delivered them out of Egypt. He set them on a course towards a promised land. He tried his absolute best, as God always does, to be their king, to be their Lord. And they continually rebelled and refused him. Talks about this in first Samuel, where we first learned that the Lord was King.

Originally, Samuel was essentially their leader. God was using a prophet. But then the people said, give us a king. Well, God always intended to give a king. Part of the issue was in first Samuel the people wanted a king like other nations. So they wanted to be ruled and governed similarly, like the other nations. God said, Samuel, they haven’t resisted you, but they’ve resisted me as their king.

In many ways we do this today. By the way, this is the good news of the kingdom. So I just want to I want to just encourage you. This is the good news of the kingdom, right? When Jesus came, he came preaching the gospel of the kingdom. The good news of the government of God, the good news of the reign and the rule of God. That is what Jesus, his primary message was. He taught on various subjects. But if you look through the scriptures, number one thing, he discussed, the number one thing he proclaimed. Bible says he preached. He was a herald. He proclaimed, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. That’s good news. And that’s not oh, God, he found me out again. I’m in trouble like we do so much in Christianity. Do you know repentance is a gift from God? I believe somebody needs to hear that the quicker you turn into repentance, the faster God can work in your life. It’s actually part of our lifestyle. We repent. Oh God, a little off, I repent. Oh, got a little off, I repent.

But Jesus preached and proclaimed repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. It’s there for the taking. It’s there for you to take hold of. It’s real. The Israelites. And then fast forwarding into the New Testament, when Jesus is preaching this to the Jews of the day, they were like, we know there’s a king coming. We know God has a king. They knew all the prophetic words. They knew the history. They knew there was a king that was supposed to come. But they kept thinking it was going to be a king like other nations.

We do this in modern Christianity. God take over America. The government of America, just if you didn’t know, is not the government of the Kingdom. There is no government on earth that is like the government of the kingdom. The closest thing to the government of the kingdom is what God calls the church. Closest thing. That’s why church, not the building, right? The gathering of the ekklesia, the gathering of the sons and daughters, the citizens of the kingdom. That’s why the church is so essential. We are outposts for the kingdom of God. Do you hear this? We’re not just an organization that meets on a certain day, at a certain time to get together, to clap our hands and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we receive you as sovereign, but we don’t do your rule.

We are here to be governed and ruled by a supreme authority. That is God Almighty and his only begotten son, Jesus Christ our King. As Americans, we don’t really understand King. We have no clue about. We see King, and we often it’s mostly depicted to us in dictatorships or authoritarianism, governments where a single individual says, I’m going to run this show now, you’re all going to bow to me. And they usually do that through oppressive means. All those kingdoms of earth are governed by another kingdom. That’s called the kingdom of darkness.

The good news of the Kingdom. It reached right into the kingdom of darkness and said, I’m going to deliver light. I’m going to establish my kingdom. God said when he said, let there be light. And he started to form, and he started to create, and he started to speak and declare life. He started to speak and say, let there be bushes and trees and animals and every living creeping thing. Then he formed man, and then he breathed into man, and man became a living soul. God created the heavens and the earth. That is what speaking life is connected to. As we are saying down here, you know. I want to clean a couple things up. In Christianity. Sometimes we say, oh, it’s the blood, it’s life, it’s blood, it’s life. And we think it’s just those words. Those words are important because they are direct declaration of what is within you, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that new spirit born of incorruptible seed by the Word of God. When Jesus said the spirit or excuse me, the kingdom of God is in you said, it’s in your midst. He was saying that of himself. He was also saying that of your future destiny.

So when we speak life, what we’re saying is I am aligning myself with the one who is life, the giver of life, the creator of life, and the way the Kingdom operates. His life. But yet we walk in a fallen world. We live in a world that is overrun by the kingdom of darkness.

Let me give it to you in this analogy. If a person owns a property, he’s considered a landlord, and then there’s a tenant, and the tenant can occupy that property at the authorized, you know, permission of the landlord, and they can go live there. So landlord owns a property, person is able to live in the property. But what the person does in that property, the landlord has no say over. Right. Looking at this in our just natural context, that’s not how God’s government works. The way that God’s work or the kingdom of God works is he creates a place for you to inhabit, and then he has a rule, but his rule is beautiful. It’s righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. It’s prosperity. It’s life forevermore. That is what the Kingdom of God consists of. But yes, you do have to come under his rule. Every king has subjects, but otherwise he’s not a king. Every king has subjects. And what God originally did was he said, you know what? I’m fast forwarding through a little bit of like, theology, but he kept the angels out of heaven, says he cast them down to the earth, and he goes down into this place of darkness, and he goes, I’m going to colonize, and I’m going to create kingdom in this place. And he created Adam and Eve, and he gave them what dominion. He gave them and authorized rulership over this place. He created. Right. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He created this place, created man from that place which tells you of their ultimate destiny, of our ultimate destiny is here on the earth. That’s whatHe created man for. And then he said, govern, rule, subdue. God knew all along that the powers of darkness were still around. So the land Lord gave man a place to be. And then they got beguiled. They got tricked. And that dominion, because it was given to man. It was delegated authority. The Lord gave right. He’s sovereign, but he can delegate authority. So he delegated authority. And then we abdicated it. We’re like, oh, shoot. Because we tried to, you know, Adam sinned. We all know the story. But the point here is that the enemy became the squatter. He’s not an authorized ruler. He is, by his tyranny, attempted to take it over and erect his own kingdom. And then, because of that, all of mankind. The Bible says that death passed it. It was imparted, impugned, if you will, and to all mankind. So every person that’s born, the Bible says, is born dead in trespasses and sins, but they are born into that kingdom of darkness.

The kingdom of darkness is dark because. But the dark really means you’re deceived. You can’t make sense of right or wrong. You don’t understand what is light, what is dark. Everything looks as it looks to you and whatever you make of it. So it is. That’s everyone becoming a law unto themselves. And if that doesn’t speak of what are actual modern day problems with not just America, but the world is it’s that very fact everyone becomes a law unto themselves. My will be done, not yours, not his, mine.

So in the kingdom of darkness, there’s disease, there’s disappointment, there’s dissolution, there’s decay, and ultimately there’s death. A lot of the words I know I got a d word for you. In the kingdom of God there is deliverance. It’s the only word that really matters. There is deliverance in the kingdom of God. So three things to the kingdom. I said all that. I know a lot of us know these like this, this foundation. But I have to create the foundation in order to tee off. And I’m just setting it up. The reason why this is so important is, like I was saying earlier, the Lord wants us to remember what he has done for us. I believe we need to have a daily, fresh revelation of what Jesus Christ has truly done for us. And I believe that if we have that fresh revelation, that that is the thing that will propel us into the highways and the byways, to help rescue people out of the kingdom of darkness and deliver them into his kingdom of light. We’ve been talking about evangelism for week after week, and I’m telling you, like, the main thing that seems to always come up is we’re afraid we don’t know what to say or we won’t do it.

So let me give you a commission. From Jesus himself, Mark 16. I’m going to read verses 14 through 18. Afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at a table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. Quick little takeaway here. I love it. Somebody prophesied. Today God can tear down and build up simultaneously. Do you hear that? Yes. So when we repent, we are tearing something down. But then immediately he’s rebuilding something within us. Amen. Okay. There’s a lie of the enemy that likes to say, oh, well, if you repent, you’re going to have to take this long journey to get back to God. And that’s just not true. Not true at all. He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we come before him. And we confess when we come and we say, use that power of the tongue, right? That’s the life I now proclaim is father, I confess I fallen short. I have taken my eyes off of you. I’ve gone back to living in the kingdom of darkness, even though you’ve totally transferred me out of that. I’ve gone back to thinking like the kingdom of darkness. Even though you’ve read my mind and you’ve drawn me out of that. And then, like, I can’t even do it fast enoughHe created man for. And then he said, govern, rule, subdue. God knew all along that the powers of darkness were still around. So the Lord gave man a place to be. And then they got beguiled. They got tricked. And that dominion, because it was given to man. It was delegated authority. The Lord gave it. He’s sovereign, but he can delegate authority. So he delegated authority.

And then we abdicated it. We’re like, oh, shoot. Because we tried to, you know, Adam sinned. We all know the story. But the point here is that the enemy became the squatter. He’s not an authorized ruler. He has, by his tyranny, attempted to take it over and erect his own kingdom. And then, because of that, all of mankind. The Bible says that death passed. It was imparted, impugned, if you will, to all mankind. So every person that’s born, the Bible says, is born dead in trespasses and sins, but they are born into that kingdom of darkness.

The kingdom of darkness is dark because you are deceived. You can’t make sense of right or wrong. You don’t understand what is light, what is dark. Everything looks as it looks to you and whatever you make of it, so it is. That’s everyone becoming a law unto themselves. And if that doesn’t speak of our actual modern-day problems with not just America, but the world, it’s that very fact: everyone becomes a law unto themselves. My will be done, not yours, not his, mine.

So in the kingdom of darkness, there’s disease, disappointment, dissolution, decay, and ultimately death. A lot of the words I know I got a d word for you. In the kingdom of God there is deliverance. It’s the only word that really matters. There is deliverance in the kingdom of God. So three things to the kingdom. I said all that. I know a lot of us know these like this, this foundation. But I have to create the foundation in order to tee off. And I’m just setting it up. The reason why this is so important is, like I was saying earlier, the Lord wants us to remember what he has done for us. I believe we need to have a daily, fresh revelation of what Jesus Christ has truly done for us.

And I believe that if we have that fresh revelation, that that is the thing that will propel us into the highways and the byways, to help rescue people out of the kingdom of darkness and deliver them into his kingdom of light. We’ve been talking about evangelism for week after week, and I’m telling you, the main thing that seems to always come up is we’re afraid we don’t know what to say or we won’t do it. So let me give you a commission. From Jesus himself, Mark 16.

I’m going to read verses 14 through 18. Afterward, he appeared to the 11 themselves as they were reclining at a table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen. Quick little takeaway here. I love it. Somebody prophesied. Today God can tear down and build up simultaneously. Do you hear that? Yes. So when we repent, we are tearing something down. But then immediately he’s rebuilding something within us. Amen. There’s a lie of the enemy that likes to say, oh, well, if you repent, you’re going to have to take this long journey to get back to God. And that’s just not true. Not true at all.

He’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we come before him. And we confess when we come and we say, use that power of the tongue, right? That’s the life I now proclaim: Father, I confess I have fallen short. I have taken my eyes off of you. I’ve gone back to living in the kingdom of darkness, even though you’ve totally transferred me out of that. I’ve gone back to thinking like the kingdom of darkness. Even though you’ve read my mind and you’ve drawn me out of that. And then, like, I can’t even do it fast enough.

It’s not this big, huge, giant journey. We’ve seen people, man. We’ve seen God do some amazing things lately. People who have been lost and in darkness for so long. God has touched them, and they are back in his kingdom, thriving, doing well, getting close to the Lord, getting their natural life together as well. But their spiritual life, which is more important? Our natural life is a reflection of that. But yes, our spiritual life is made right. Yes, this. That’s instantaneous. Some of it is progressive, though. We’ve learned habits of how to live in the kingdom of darkness, and we have to unlearn those. And God will wash us and prepare us and instruct us and disciple us into how to be faithful to him, how to be righteous before him.

Continuing in Mark 16, he says, go into all the world and proclaim, that is, preach. Be a herald, be a royal messenger of my throne. Declare to them that the kingdom of God has come just like Christ did. Says, go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes in is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe. Everybody knows this part really, really well because we all want to believe in see signs. But what? My job today is to bring you back to the sovereignty of God.

In my name they will cast out demons. They will speak in new tongues. They will pick up serpents in their hands. And if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover. So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out. What did they do? They went out and it was the heaven. It doesn’t say they all went to fellowship and they went home and then didn’t do anything. They went out and preached. Where? Everywhere. While the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. So our job as Kingdom citizens, when you’ve been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness, you’ve been transferred into the Kingdom of light.

When he died for you, he ransomed you, paid for your escape out of that darkness. And he delivered you fantastic word. He delivered you into the kingdom of his Son. That’s where we reside now. And then we are learning about the kingdom culture. We’re learning about the ethos of the kingdom, how it operates, how God rules, how he rules supremely, why it can all operate so wonderfully, beautifully, powerfully.

And so we are to demonstrate our citizenship through our stewardship and the way that we handle our earthly affairs, the way that we handle our relationships, the way that we handle contentions, the way that we disagree with the government and all the everything else that’s going on, demonstrates citizenship through stewardship.

Jesus restored our place of stewardship. That’s what Adam originally had. He was the chief steward of that garden. And now every single one of you is a steward of the garden of your heart. You are responsible if there’s anything that you are, dare I say, sovereign over what you technically are not. You would take that crown off and give it to the Lord. But if you have any right and rule over, it’s your own life. It’s your own heart. And what we have to do, like the 420 elders do, they take off their crowns, they throw them before the Lord and they worship him. All our plans, our own way, our own kingdom, our own will. We surrender it in word. And as we do, you will be a proven, faithful citizen of the Kingdom.

And through your stewardship, God will then bring deliverance to everyone you preach to.

So our three takeaways today we need to declare the Kingdom. Life and death is in the power of the tongue. Man. It’s really easy to declare life when it’s sickness, but when it’s salvation. Or unlike today, today that was Kingdom. Hello during worship. That was Kingdom God spoke his servants, his subjects responded. And guess what? We sprang into intercession, declaring life and the hand of God to touch our households, our family, our county. I speak life over Tuolumne County, speak life over San Francisco, which is one of our assignments. We speak life over the state of California. We declare that the Kingdom of God has come. Repent. For the Kingdom of God is at hand. Take hold of the kingdom.

Number two, we’re supposed to demonstrate the kingdom’s power. Oftentimes, we want to endorse and just talk about the kingdom’s rule. Do this, do this, do this, do this. God is a king. He’s sovereign. He has a reign, a realm that he governs, and his government has laws. Those are his rules that all who dwell in his kingdom must abide by. That is how it works. So are there rules? Yes. But if we just make it about the rules without the reign, we are in a religion. That is, we’re trying to prove ourselves through our works. That I’m really good. I’ve done all the rules, like the rich young ruler, all of these things I have kept since my youth.

And he says one thing you lack. What’s that? Sovereignty. You lack relationship with me. So we can’t make it about rules. But are rules important in context to the kingdom? Yeah, absolutely. They absolutely are. So that’s teaching people his ways, making disciples. Prior to that, though, you need to declare the kingdom and demonstrate power. Are you hearing me? Yeah. You need to demonstrate the power of God. Here’s how we doHey, can I pray for you? Can I just pray for your life? Can I just pray a blessing over you? Here’s how we do that. Hey, sister. Brother who? I haven’t talked to you in ten years because I’ve been upset with and not with. I love you. I’m sorry. Yeah. Son or daughter? Child of mine who? I taught all the rules of the Lord.

But you never listen to me. And I’m upset with you. I’m sorry, I love you. Yeah. Come back to the kingdom.

See, we aren’t trying to convince people through evangelism to just come to a religion. We’re not trying to get them to adhere to a bunch of rules so that they have a little bit better of a life. What we are doing is we are welcoming them into God’s government and his holy reign, and we’re walking them into a life of deliverance and freedom, not freedom from him, because that’s how the enemy spends it.

If you want to have true freedom, you live to yourself. You live for your own self. You live for your own will, your own desires, your own power. Be your own boss, be a CEO, be this, be that. Be a king to yourself. That is so anti-Christ. Yeah, yeah. Because it rejects him as King.

That’s not what we’re welcoming people into. God forbid. That’s what the Pharisees did. Every convert the Pharisees had, they said these rules, these rules, these rules. And it said they blocked him from accessing the kingdom. They literally led people away from the door. Who was Christ? So when we lead people to Jesus, yes, he is the door and he is the door unto our salvation.

But it’s more than just that salvation moment. It is the beginning and the entrance to their kingdom. Life now is why. This is why we have to declare the kingdom of God is come, it has come. It’s coming in the future too. This isn’t a full kingdom lesson. There’ll be more in the coming weeks. When we reveal Christ to people as our salvation, we are also.

I want you to remember this final word for today he is King. You’re not just revealing Savior. You’re revealing King of kings. Lord of lords, you have an issue. Take it to the king. You need deliverance. Take it to the king. You need healing. Bring it to the king. Yeah, you need comfort. You need to be washed. You need to feel loved.

You need to be appreciated. Take it to the King. And as they come into his kingdom, his citizens. Who you are will be faithful to love you, to help you, to teach, to stand side by side like we talked about today. Kingdom citizens, it is your duty. To be on mission. It’s the Kingdom mission. It’s why Christ came.

He came to redeem fallen man and bring them back to God. God’s original plan is restored. Restore his subjects back unto himself.

So in closing today, Matthew six, we all know it very well. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Pursue the kingdom of God. Pursue the government of God and his righteousness. There are so many things that will take us off that course. I’m telling you, you’ll go home and with one hour focused and pursuing something else.

I believe what God is challenging with us today and is pushing us into so lovingly.

He’s he’s a good father. He’s a good father said, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. You can do. He’s ushering us into. That position. Actually, usher is the perfect word.

And I want to prophesy this over you. People of God, the Lord is calling you to usher people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. If you want to know what your calling is, that’s it. You are an usher, a steward, a faithful servant servant, my God. Yes, sir. And your job is to usher.

Right this way. Right this way. Come on, out of the kingdom of darkness. I’m gonna tell you all about the king. You need to take your issues to the king. The king has deliverance for you. The king has healing for you. The king has standing for you to restore you back into a place of righteousness. Self-confidence. But God-reliance and we usher them into the kingdom of God.

That is our job.

Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank you. We thank you for Your Majesty. We thank you for your goodness. We thank you that you are a king. Overall. We thank you God that you, through the blood of your son, ransomed us, brought us into your kingdom of light. But not just to be spectators God, but to be citizens and active co-laborers with Jesus Christ our King and just as you sent Jesus as the light of the world into the world, that light that shone into darkness, you are sending us because you said that we are salt and light in the earth.

And I just declare today, Lord, that we are hearing you, and that we will respond, that we will go everywhere, and we will bring light. We will be light. We will embody the kingdom of God. That righteousness, peace and joy will flow from our innermost beak. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will set captives free, that you will redeem people.

You will heal them. As we lay hands and pray, Kingdom will be imparted, Kingdom will come upon them. We declare this now according to your words, Lord, on earth as it is in heaven, according to your will, not ours. Let your will be done in your kingdom. Come on earth as it is in heaven. In the name of Jesus we, we praise you and we glorify you.

Give him a praise in the name of Jesus. Amen, Amen. Yeah, buddy.

What a king! He is a king who would die for his subjects. A king who would wash feet. A king who would serve. A king who would forgive the ones nailing him to a cross? What a king he is. We’re going to continue just fellowshipping with one another. Sharing that just means sharing life. We’re going to go across the street to the fellowship hall, and we want to invite you to come with us.

If you’re new, come get to know us. And, God is moving. Go out and follow that message that Jeremiah proclaimed to us, and he’ll be with you. He’ll work with you. so go ahead. You’re dismissed, and we love you. We’ll see you next week.