(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

How many of you know that God wants to do more?

Come on, come on, let's believe that today.

And he wants to do more in us and he wants to do more through us.

But we have to be on board with his amazing plan.

But oftentimes what happens is we kind of get off track, we get off course with his plan and then the oppressor comes in and begins to basically tell us this is all there is.

Settle right here.

And I want you to know today that our God is not a God about settling right here.

And though we moved into a new venue, it's an amazing venue.

We're grateful for all of those who have sawn in generously to make this spot happen.

Come on, let's give them a hand clap.

Amazing, amazing, amazing.

We've got a long ways to go in getting all this paid for financially, but we are here.

But what we don't wanna do is we don't wanna settle.

In other words, we're not just settling here, we're gonna continue to live out God's mission and God's plan for our life as a church family as we pour God into the generations to come.

You see, God set the stage in Genesis for how life is to be lived by humans.

And when he placed the first man and the first woman in the garden, Adam and Eve, he gave them their assignment.

And he basically says, let's create human beings in our image.

And he says, let us create them in our likeness.

And so he says, let's create them both male and female in our likeness.

He placed them in the garden and their assignment was simply to be fruitful and multiply, permeate God's presence throughout the earth, who God is throughout the earth, be fruitful and multiply.

He tells them to govern the earth, have power over the earth, exhibit power over the earth, and basically press him into the earth.

And that's the human's assignment.

So the Bible says the first man and the first woman, they failed at that assignment.

They missed the mark of God's glorious standard for human beings.

That's what sin is, sin's a picture word that literally means I missed at what God assigned me to do.

And the Bible says sin entered the world, the first man and the first woman got off target.

And when that happened, you know what?

Things began to enter the human heart and they began to mix up God's plan for their life.

And the power, everybody say power.

Power.

The power that God gave human beings to govern the earth with, they basically began to use that power against each other and misuse the power of God.

And because they misused the power of God, the spirit of oppression moved in.

And many people today are still oppressed because people misuse power.

But today we're gonna kind of get back to God's heart of what that power is all about.

That power is so we can work together, everybody say together.

Together.

To work together to be fruitful and multiply and permeate His goodness and His presence and His nature into the earth.

And so when you become a part of a church family, you've been caught out of darkness into the wonderful light.

You have an assignment and you have a purpose in your life.

And that assignment and that purpose is to come together, use our power to bring the goodness of God in this world.

And the enemy is against, but God is for us.

Come on.

Leverage the power.

But again, the spirit of oppression exists even in people who've been caught out of darkness into the wonderful light.

So how do we overcome the oppression?

How do we overcome the oppression in our life?

Well, first and foremost, it is to put faith in the one that came to lift that oppression.

His name is Jesus.

I wanna show you what Jesus says in Luke chapter four, verses 18 through 19.

He says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

This is right after He was tempted by the enemy to be given all power of the kingdoms.

Jesus says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed, everybody say oppressed.

The oppressed will be set free.

And at that time, it says, and at that time of the Lord's favor has come.

And so what Jesus here is saying, He's saying, look, I am not gonna use my power so that all the kingdoms of the earth are given to me.

I'm gonna use my power properly and let people know that God has come to them and He came to set them free from the spirit of oppression, from the spirit of poverty, from the spirit of being held captive, and I am coming to set a people free.

And so in other words, Jesus came to reverse the curse.

But you gotta have faith that Jesus came to set you free.

In other words, He didn't just come to deliver you from your sin, from the penalty of sin, He came to give you power in your life so you could overcome sin.

And so many of us miss this.

They think that Jesus came just to forgive us of our sin and say, now that you're forgiven, just wait some 70, 80, maybe 100, 120 years and come live with me in heaven.

But Jesus didn't come to bring you out of the kingdom of darkness and put you in the kingdom of light so you live an oppressed life for your entire life and then go live with Him in a far off place called heaven one day.

Technically, Jesus made you for earth.

But the reality of it is, is the enemy begins to make you think that you don't have any power in this earth because he brings the spirit of oppression over your life to hold you back from your full God potential.

See, see, that's what oppression does.

Oppression basically begins to make you think that you are ineffective in God's assignment for you.

And it will begin to come in your life and it'll begin to say, I can't.

Or it's too big.

Or it's not as if God said it was.

And so the spirit of oppression works in such a way to begin to tell you that God don't want more out of your life.

The spirit of oppression will begin to say, settle right here.

You see, whenever we look at the Bible and the book of Genesis, as Genesis unfolds, what's amazing is when you get to Genesis chapter 11, this is what we call the tower of Bible.

The people come together and they said, let us make a name for ourselves and build a tower into the heavens.

And the Bible says at that space, what does God do?

God says, I didn't create you to build a tower to heaven.

I created you to live on earth and permeate my presence throughout the earth.

So God confused their language, scattered them all off of the earth and said, get back to the assignment.

I'm a God that will come to you.

I'm not asking you to come to me.

Come on, somebody.

Jesus came in the form of a man.

Jesus is God in the flesh.

He came to set the oppressed free.

He came to set the captives free.

He came so you could live as if God designed you to live here on earth, as it is in heaven.

Your goal shouldn't be to go to heaven.

Your goal should be to bring up there, down here.

You remember Jesus' prayer?

Jesus prayed and he says, this is how you pray.

May your kingdom come here on earth as it is in heaven.

See, the reality of it is, is we're created for so much more, but we have to learn how to navigate through life and live in that abundant land.

In that land the Bible describes as the early Hebrew people came out of slavery, out of bondage, the Bible describes a land that is a promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land with all the provision you will ever need to live here on earth and be who I've designed you to be.

See, the promised land didn't come without challenges, but what it was was a land that had all the provision the people would need in order to be who God had assigned them to be.

God's purpose in taking them into the promised land was to provide for them so that they would recognize him as their heavenly father, but what were they to do?

To take that goodness into all the earth, to all the nations of the earth, to be fruitful, to multiply, to permeate God's presence throughout the earth.

However, these people had been enslaved for multiple generations, for over 400 years in a place called Egypt.

And so when God came to their rescue, the Bible says he delivered them by his strong hand, he brought them out of Egyptian slavery, out of darkness.

But what God had to do is take them on a journey so they can learn how to live in the promise.

And my friends, if we don't get anything today, may you understand that God desires for you to live in the promise and be overflowing with his goodness and following through with your assignment, which is simply to be fruitful and multiply and permeate his presence throughout the earth.

But understand the assignment doesn't come without trouble because sin has entered this world.

The promised land is a picture of the abundant life.

It's not a picture of heaven.

And the reality of it is is God calls us now out of darkness into the wonderful light to live in this promise land, in this fulfilling life.

But you'll never be fulfilled if you settle and you don't keep producing and doing what God's designed you to do.

That's why I'm saying right here, right now, yes, you know what, this is an amazing venue.

This is an incredible space that God has gifted us with.

But it will be real easy to settle and say, let's build a name for ourselves.

Instead of saying, God, we wanna stay on target and we wanna stay on mission and we wanna make your name great by being fruitful and multiplying and permeating this earth with your goodness.

So again, today, what I just kinda wanna drive into is begin to talk about coming out of this and oppression and then beginning to lift that spirit of oppression off of ourselves.

Look what it says here in Exodus chapter three, verses seven and eight is these people were being oppressed in Egypt.

God says this to Moses.

He says, I have certainly seen the oppression.

Everybody say oppression.

I've seen the oppression of my people.

They've been there for 400 years.

God says, I see it.

I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers.

God says, I see it.

And I've heard the cries of their distress.

Yes, I'm aware of their suffering.

So I have come down.

Everybody say come down.

I've come to humanity.

I've come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land is a land flowing with milk and honey.

So what God says is, look, I'm not looking for a people to build a tower to me.

I'm looking to come to people, rescue them from the hand of the enemy and then begin to work in their lives so that they can be everything they're designed to be.

I need you to know today that this picture of these people coming out of Egyptian slavery is a picture for you and me, how Christ came down and he works in our life today.

He delivers you from bondage.

He delivers you from slavery.

He pays the penalty so you can come out from underneath the hand of Pharaoh.

So you can come out from underneath the hand of the enemy.

He came to pay a price.

He says, it's a blood price.

It's given by my one and only son.

And he says to the Egyptian or to the Hebrew people here in this slavery, he says, put blood over your doorposts because I'm a God that's making a covenant with my blood and my people.

And the death angel will pass over your house today if you believe.

I see you, I hear you, and you step out on faith and you trust what I'm doing.

This is what it means to trust Christ.

Christ sees you, he hears you, he will deliver you if you will just trust him with your heart.

If you're oppressed, I need you to know today that God doesn't just walk by it and not see you.

He sees right where you are.

And he says, I will come to your rescue.

My friend, this is what the cross of Christ, the resurrection of Jesus is all about and what it means in our life today.

But what he says is when I come to your rescue, I'm gonna take you into abundant living.

And in order for me to take you into that abundant living, I've gotta work out the 400 years of Egypt that's been deposited in you.

I gotta work out the old oppression so you can understand that I'm a God you can trust and I have a new life for you to live.

You don't have to walk underneath the spirit of oppression anymore.

So God's remarkable.

He brings them out.

He begins to take them on a journey towards this promised land.

And the first thing I wrote in my journal about this is God, you know what?

He wants you to come live in the promised land.

But when you come live in the promised land, he wants you to be ready for your assignment because living out your assignment in the promised land is gonna be difficult too.

In other words, it's not everything's just gonna be roses.

Again, it's an abundant life, but the enemy is still at work in this world.

And the reality of it is, is God says you can live this abundant life.

The enemy's at work in this world, but you gotta build the endurance to stay in that, in that rich and satisfying life.

So God takes them on a journey.

And look what it says.

God builds endurance in them as they come out.

The Bible says in Exodus 13, verses 17 through 18, when Pharaoh finally let the people go, God's judgment came against, this is amazing, you should go read it.

In Exodus, I think it's 12, 12, God's judgment comes against Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods.

Not just Pharaoh, Pharaoh and the Egyptians gods.

And the Bible says now, when Pharaoh finally let the people go, God did not lead them along the main road that runs through the Philistine territory, even though that was the shortest route to the promised land, the quickest way to the abundant life.

God said, if the people are faced with a battle, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.

So God led them in a roundabout way through the wilderness towards the Red Sea.

God took them on the roundabout way.

Why did God take them on the roundabout way?

To build endurance in them.

So whenever they face a battle, they would know that he is their God and they are his people.

And whenever the enemy tries to oppress them or hold them back from their full God potential, they would be ready for it.

And God says, you're not ready for it yet.

And the reality of it is, is everybody in our culture and our society wants instant success.

That's why it's called Instagram.

It's why we have microwaves.

It's why we have, you know, all of these, all these instant this, instant that, instant grits, you know what I'm saying?

Instant tea, I want it now.

And that's the reality of our hearts.

We want the abundant life now.

And God says, you can't handle the abundant life now because the reality of it is, I gotta work some endurance in you because when you get into abundant listening, you need to understand something.

It will be the fight of your life.

It's the fight of your life.

It's the fight of faith in a world that is against you and sin that is against you.

But you are a believer in God and you trust him with all of your life.

And I gotta build the endurance in you so when you get in the fight, you will stay in the fight and you will be exactly who I created you to be.

God, why you got me on the roundabout way?

It's for development.

It's simply for development.

And you know, again, we don't like development.

We don't want to develop.

It's hard to develop.

People don't stay at jobs today because they don't wanna develop.

They don't want the crunch.

They want the pressure.

And the reality of it is the pressure makes diamonds.

The pressure makes you great.

The pressure develops you.

God took him on the roundabout way because it was gonna be too high of pressure.

The Philistines were gonna come against him.

He's like, man, they're gonna wanna go back and live and settle in Egypt and in this place where they were just simply slaves.

I created them for greatness.

And I'm not gonna take them on the shortest route.

I'm gonna take them on a long route that's gonna protect them and it's gonna develop them into all I've designed them to be.

You see, I think about King David.

You ever thought about what he did before he got to be king of all of Israel and got to the palace?

He was developed along the journey.

Backside of the desert, shepherd boy.

You know what?

His brothers were all fighting battles and doing courageous things and David having to look after his sheep on the backside of the desert, his family's sheep on the backside of the desert.

And God was teaching them.

You know what?

You gotta learn what it really means to be a shepherd when I put you in a place of leadership.

You see, that was developing David for his potential.

That was preparing him for what God had designed him to be.

And David probably wasn't thinking about no palace whenever he was on the backside of the desert fighting lions and bears and keeping things off his sheep or whatever else.

It was just like, why the heck am I here?

Is probably what he's thinking.

But God's like, because I'm developing you to be the leader of the nation of Israel and to lead people to greatness.

And if you're gonna lead people to greatness, David, you gotta learn to fight the fight, develop where you are so you can be prepared for where I'm taking you to be.

The pressure was gonna be greater in the palace than it was on the backside of the desert.

See, oftentimes we don't understand why God has us where he has us, but it's simply for development.

I think about my own life.

I finished seminary, that's graduate school for Bible school, okay?

And when I finished seminary, it was like Sunday school on steroids.

I finished and I thought, man, God, I got all this knowledge, I got all this incredible, I've been to the Bible, I took New Testament, Old Testament, I've learned what protagonist is, I've learned all of these terms and I've learned all this stuff about the Bible.

God, I'm ready.

So I thought, well, what you do is you go to churches and you try out for churches and you try out to pastor churches and do these things and I did a little bit of that and they all said, we don't want you.

And I was like, okay, well, God, where do you want me?

And God took me on the backside of the desert, let's call it, God took me to Walmart parking lots.

And so I finished school, had the education, had the degree, had life experience, all these kinds of things, had the credentials to lead a church, but where did I find myself?

I found myself in a place in the middle of the night, fussing and fighting with old ladies about their parking space because my assignment was to take Walmart parking spaces up to ADA compliancy.

And I need you to know today, when you take an old lady's parking space away in the middle of the night and she wants to park in it and you're just trying to help her make her life better by bringing it up to ADA compliancy and you blocked off her space, she will let you know about it.

Story sounds crazy, but now I realize it was development.

It was development and God was developing me for, listen, you gotta be able to push through some things.

Sometimes people are not going to like you with all my heart because you're trying to help them.

I need you to understand something.

A lot of times when you try to help people, they don't want the help and they end up hurting you.

But the reality of it is what God taught me in those Walmart parking lots, you're trying to help these people and they're being really ugly.

You just press through, get the space fixed and eventually they'll be able to park back in their space and everything's gonna be okay.

It sounds crazy, but what God was preparing me to do is to lead in the local church and begin to help people find their full God potential and understand the resistance that's gonna come with that.

And what I'm saying, I could go on and on and on about the stories of preparation.

See, God tears you on the roundabout way to develop skill and to develop character.

Skill and a character.

He wants you to have endurance with your character.

He wants you to have endurance with your skill and he wants you to develop in such a way that you kind of begin to overcome the opposition and you don't fall underneath the spirit of oppression.

See, these people had come out of oppression, but God had to prepare them to live in the promised land so they could fulfill their full God-given potential.

And the next thing I wrote down about this journey was we have to learn to refresh.

Everybody say refresh.

We have to learn to refresh properly.

What we find in this story is a group of people that didn't refresh properly.

And we find it in Exodus chapter 17.

And to set up the story, God had taken them on a journey.

He had taken them the roundabout way.

Now God is providing for them.

Every step of the way, God provided food for them.

God provided drink for them.

But they get to this place that's known as Rephidim.

And in Rephidim, the place was to be a refreshing place.

This place with palm trees, place where you could kind of kick back and rest and relax for a minute.

But when they get to Rephidim, what happens is they don't have any water to drink.

And because they don't have any water to drink at that space and that time, and they're on the journey, they begin to basically test God and argue, argue back and forth about this God who brought them out of Egypt and was taking them into the promised land.

And they began to complain about what God was doing.

So they were in the resting space, but they found themselves, instead of looking forward to the future, they found themselves in a space where they begin to complain against God.

And see, I want you to know that God calls all of us to a resting space, but a resting space is not your destination.

A resting space is to rest for a minute, not settle there.

Keep the vision out in front of you and keep running towards it and running after it.

And what they do is they're thinking this is a place that has palm trees and it's a resting space.

And so, man, we ought to just kind of rest here for a while.

And God's like, no, no, no, rest here for a while.

I'm gonna provide for you here in the rest, but the reality of it is I need you to move from Rephidim on towards the promised land.

Refresh properly, understand what refreshment is for.

Refreshment is given to us from God so that we can refresh and renew our spirits in what we're created to do.

For to be fruitful, multiply, and permeate His presence throughout the earth.

And if that isn't what your life is about and you're just in a resting state or you're in a settled state, may God renew you in that place to refresh you about what your assignment is.

If not, the enemy will sneak up behind you and oppress you right in that space of rest.

It's what happens in the story.

Let me show it to you, Exodus 17, verses seven through eight.

The Bible says, because these people complained, Moses named the place Massah, which means test, is what the scripture says, and Meribah, which means arguing.

So Moses gave the space a name, testing and arguing, because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, is the Lord here with us or not?

He was right there with them, but they didn't believe it because they wanted to settle there.

And God was just seeing if they would recognize if He is their provider.

And you know what?

He is gonna provide everything they need to get to where they need to go, but their job wasn't to settle there.

It was to simply trust God, rest for a moment, and move forward.

And the Bible says, while the people of Israel were still at Rephidim, the warriors of Amalek attacked them.

So what I find fascinating about this passage of scripture, while they were arguing and complaining about what God wasn't providing and keeping their focus on where they needed to go, they were arguing and complaining and saying, why has God brought us out of slavery and brought us to this place?

And here we are, and it's just gonna be stagnant.

And it's not, they weren't refreshing their souls in the goodness of God.

They weren't refreshing their spirit in the right way.

And though Amalek snuck up behind them, the spirit of oppression snuck up behind them, the Bible says God helped them overcome it because they came together.

The Bible says Moses and Joshua and Ur and Aaron, they all came together, and God began to work out that attack on their life, in their life, and God began to put that spirit of oppression at bay again.

We have to learn to refresh properly.

And arguing and complaining is a way for the devil to get a foothold on your life and stop the progress that God wants through your life.

Listen to what Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, Philippians chapter two, verses 13 and 14.

He said, for God is working in you.

How many of you believe that today?

Yeah, for God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him.

That's an amazing statement right there.

Giving you the desire, the heart, and the power to be fruitful and multiply and permeate this earth with His presence.

The power to do what pleases Him.

Do everything without complaining and arguing, other words, trusting, so that no one can criticize you.

Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

Wow.

Rest properly.

He says, you know what?

Whenever you stop to rest, don't get caught in this cycle of settling and complaining about what God is doing.

Trust God.

God is in the process.

God is the provider.

God offers the power.

We gotta believe it.

God showed His power through Moses' staff.

He says, that rock that you put over the Red Sea, hit the rock with your staff and watch water come out.

I am the provider.

I will do what I need to do in order for my people to get to where they need to get to, but you gotta trust me.

What I've discovered is when we stop trusting God, we start settling in.

And the reality of it is, is I don't believe our God called us to settle.

I believe He called us to be fruitful and multiply.

I believe He called us to take the good news of Jesus to every tongue, every tribe, and every nation.

I believe He says we are to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

I believe the assignment of the local church isn't to settle in, but to build each other up in such a way that thousands and thousands and millions of people come to know who God is, because we're to be fruitful and multiply the light of Christ in the earth.

Come on, don't you settle?

It matters.

It matters.

But the oppressor, the oppressor says, oh, just go back to Egypt.

It's not making a difference.

You've been working hard in the church.

Just rest.

Nothing wrong with resting.

We all should have a Sabbath.

We should all rest, but rest responsible and rest in such a way that you don't get caught and complain about what used to be or what is, and start looking towards the future.

God is the source.

So let's be a people that believe Him to refresh us.

The last thing I wrote down about this journey, because this journey helps us overcome oppression, is we must remain faithful.

Remain faithful to the vision, no matter what anybody else says.

Remain faithful to what God's called us to be and do.

And again, it's hard to do, and it was hard for them to do, to step into the promise, to step into the abundant life, to step into a nation with all the provision that would ever need to be enlightened to the nations, for this group of Hebrew people to take over the land that God says was theirs, that He was given to them.

The Bible says it wasn't easy because there was a majority vote that began to deter most people from the voice of God.

Bible says that they sent spies into the land to see if it was abundant.

And whenever those spies came back, the majority of the spies began to voice, voice that they couldn't go into the land and receive the promise, they might as well settle right where they were.

The majority of the voices began to voice that to the community.

And the Bible says most of that community didn't enter into the fulfilled life.

A life overflowing.

I want you to know the enemy comes to kill, steal and destroy, but Jesus says, I came to give them a rich and satisfying life, an overflowing life, abundant life.

God called you to live in the abundant land, but oftentimes the majority will say, you can't really live like that here.

Let me go back to the beginning of my sermon.

You were created for earth.

You were created not to go just up there, you were created for God to come live in your heart and you to be planted here and to permeate this earth, to be fruitful, to multiply, permeate his presence in this earth and be the person that he's called you to be.

In other words, God has a human family that he wants to come live in our presence.

And technically, if you study the scriptures, those who go to be with the Lord like right now will come back one day and we're gonna rule and we're gonna reign with God here on earth.

A new Jerusalem is coming out of the heavens and it's gonna come to the earth.

So I will say that you're created for earth.

But the reality of it is that so many of us are sitting around and we're not living the abundant life right here and right now, cause sin entered the earth, but you need to understand that Jesus is gonna come back and put sin and all wickedness in the abyss.

And what we have to do is we have to live the abundant life.

Look what the majority said in Numbers 13 about this land, this abundant life.

They said, we can't, everybody say can't.

You need to get that out of your vocabulary.

We can't.

This is the word they brought back about God's promise.

Says we can't, we can't go up against them.

They are stronger than we.

We can't, they're stronger.

Oppression.

So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites, all the other people.

The land we travel through and explored will devour us, will devour us.

God didn't say that, but they thought it.

So they spread the bad report and people were gonna live in oppression.

Anyone who goes to live there, all the people we saw, they were huge.

We even saw giants, they're the descendants of Anak.

Next to them, we felt like grasshoppers and that's what they thought too.

So the report, the majority's voice wasn't gonna remain faithful, it was gonna trust, you know what, what they saw instead of what God had said.

God calls you to live in the promised land.

God calls you and me to live the abundant life.

Here on earth as it is in heaven.

And yes, there's giants in the promised land.

Yes, there's problems in the promised land, but the fruit's there too.

If we will choose to trust God and step into it and not settle on the outskirts of the promised land, but step into it, God will show up in a powerful way.

The Bible says two of these people didn't agree with the majority's voice and they are the two, Joshua and Caleb, that entered into the promise and lived the abundant life.

Look what it says in Numbers 14, two of the men who had explored the land, Joshua and Caleb, tore their clothing.

They said to all the people of Israel, all the people of Israel, the land we traveled through and explored is a wonderful land.

And if the Lord is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and he will give it to us.

He said it, he'll do it.

It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey.

Look what he says, verse nine, to all the people of Israel, Joshua, Caleb, do not rebel.

Do not rebel.

Do not rebel.

He says, do not rebel against the Lord and don't be afraid of the people of the land.

They are only helpless prey to us.

They have no protection, but the Lord is with us.

Do not be afraid of them.

My friend, if we don't believe God's promise and step fully into it, into the abundant life that he came to give us, if we don't develop on the journey and if we don't rest properly and we don't step fully into it, let me tell you what it is, it's rebellion.

Rebellion.

Are you rebelling against the Lord because you're settling on the outside of who God says you are?

I need you to know today, Jesus didn't come to give his life on a cross so you could settle where you are.

He came to give his life on a cross so you could be saved from your sin, have the power over sin, live in the abundant life and step fully in to being fruitful and multiply in all of this earth.

Why would you settle?

God came to lift the spirit of oppression off of humanity.

Let's not misuse our power, but let's work together with the power of God, not against each other, but with each other and let's see what God can do.

The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter six, he says, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the powers of darkness and the principalities that live there.

It says, that is what our battle is against.

My friends, when we come out from underneath the spirit of oppression, we start seeing people differently.

We start seeing men and women differently as God called them to be different, but we also start seeing them as people God created to do great things.

We start seeing other skin colors different from our skin color differently.

We don't believe that because we belong to a certain race or have a certain skin tone that we're powerful over them or oppressed under them.

We start seeing people differently and we start saying together, we can make a difference in this world.

We don't start looking at social economic classes and say that that person's more powerful because they got more than that person's got.

We start seeing no, it's taken all of us to bring the goodness of God into this world and so we wanna work together, work in harmony and do that.

I need you to know today that our battle isn't against flesh and blood, but it's against powers and principalities and the dark realm.

Let's start using our power to live in the promise and let's bring up there, down here.

Come on, church.

Father God, I thank you.

I thank you.

I pray we would remain faithful.

We wouldn't give up on the journey right outside of the promise, but God, we would believe you.

We wouldn't rebel.

We would step fully in.

God, we would know that there's more.

There's greatness that's deposited in us to be expressed in this world so people can come to know who you are.

God, I pray we could make every human being a part of your family by your word flowing in us and flowing through us so we can express the goodness that Christ shed as he gave his life's blood on that cross.

God, I pray we would live by the same power that lifted him from the grave.

God, he didn't rebel in the midst of all the struggle.

God, he followed through and he delivered a promise to us so that we could walk fully in it.

God, I pray today if there's one here that don't know the goodness of God that came through the lifeblood of Jesus Christ, God, they would recognize that he came to forgive them of their sin and he came to give them power over sin by depositing your spirit in them.

God, they would receive that gift, they would turn from their sin and they would walk in this new way of life and walk towards the full life, the overflowing life.

May they be fruitful and multiply with their gifts and talents and together may we change the world.

We pray this in Christ's most holy and precious name.

Amen.