BISHOP NOEL JONES - THE POWER OF PRAYER
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 (upbeat music)
00:05 (upbeat music)
00:33 - In Ephesians chapter one,
00:35 I've been dealing with the issue of prayer
00:39 and I'm looking at maybe two or three parts
00:44 that we may just call the power of prayer.
00:47 Because in the two prayers of Ephesians,
00:53 and actually I've been studying the prayers of Paul,
01:01 and I thought it would be essential to look
01:04 at the prayers of Paul,
01:05 to see in an environment that is anointed
01:13 or filled with the Holy Spirit,
01:16 what it is that we seriously need to pray about.
01:23 There can be no relationship with God
01:27 if there is no communication.
01:30 And the communication literally
01:32 and actually begins with him.
01:36 He has to initiate the relationship.
01:43 Quiet as it's kept, you are not the one
01:47 who stimulated God to respond to you.
01:52 It is God who has to initiate the relationship
01:57 because if Romans chapter one is important
02:01 to a theological matrix,
02:04 then we were to reprobate to decide in and of ourselves
02:09 to come to God.
02:14 Many times the flesh doesn't like to hear
02:21 that the spirit will acquiesce
02:24 because the spirit understands
02:25 that the things of God that relate to us begin with God.
02:30 None of us, none of us,
02:34 I don't care how wonderful you think you are,
02:36 none of us initiates contact with God.
02:42 It is God who has to initiate the contact
02:47 and faith cometh by hearing,
02:51 hearing by the word of the Lord.
02:54 So you can't have faith unless you hear
02:58 and you can't hear unless he speaks.
03:02 So the whole issue of revelation
03:04 and the fact that you have a revelatory experience with God
03:09 indicates that he has initiated the action.
03:14 Because we move within the parameters
03:17 of what God has initiated,
03:20 then we find that there are certain needs
03:24 that we have that are exposed
03:27 because you cannot walk in the presence of God
03:32 and he not expose weaknesses.
03:38 Ephesians chapter one, look at about verse 15,
03:41 pull it up on your machines
03:42 and all the other rest of the stuff.
03:44 It's an important dynamic
03:49 and it's critical to grasp
03:52 that it is God who initiates
03:59 and it's God who declares,
04:03 let there be light even in my life.
04:07 And as he declared, let there be light,
04:10 then once that light comes on,
04:12 it is going to expose weaknesses.
04:19 Oh yes, oh yes.
04:21 I tell my friends all the time,
04:23 they say, well, Bishop, we don't see you wearing,
04:27 you know, fancy clothes, yellow tie,
04:29 brioni suits and all of that kind of stuff.
04:32 And I simply tell them I'm too flawed to be flashing.
04:35 Because when the light comes on,
04:39 it doesn't only come on on your good features.
04:45 [audience laughing]
04:48 Let me take the picture this way, this is my better side.
04:52 The light comes on, it exposes everything.
04:58 And so there is absolutely no way
05:02 to have a relationship with God
05:04 and not talk to God about the darkness
05:09 that is in each one of us.
05:14 So as we deal with him, he exposes
05:18 and those things stimulate us into repentance
05:22 because of the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
05:26 And that moves us then into praying like,
05:30 forgive me as I forgive others.
05:34 It's critical and it's very important
05:36 because I think that most of us have become frustrated
05:41 because as James says, we have prayed amiss.
05:46 And I think it's important now
05:50 when we consider the ecological systems,
05:53 the geopolitical systems, what's going on in our country,
05:57 that for those of us who are walking with God,
06:02 for us to know seriously
06:05 how to talk to God about ourselves.
06:09 Oh, I feel all right here.
06:12 I'm telling you that we are about to go through
06:18 even more horrendous times.
06:20 Oh yes, I know what the prophet told you,
06:24 everything's gonna be all right,
06:26 but he didn't tell you when, did he?
06:27 So if we go to Ephesians,
06:33 first the chapter of Ephesians,
06:36 and I'm gonna pick up at verse 15.
06:39 Wherefore also after I heard of your faith
06:42 in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints,
06:48 cease not to give thanks for you,
06:52 making mention of you in my prayers.
06:55 And here's what he's praying,
06:57 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
07:01 the Father of glory may give unto you
07:04 the spirit of wisdom and revelation
07:08 in the knowledge of him.
07:12 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened,
07:18 that ye may know what is the hope of his calling
07:21 and what the riches of the glory of his name.
07:25 The saints, and thirdly,
07:28 what is the exceeding greatness of his promise.
07:34 Of his power rather, to us would who believe,
07:38 according to the working of his mighty power,
07:41 which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead,
07:45 set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
07:49 far above all principality and power and might and dominion
07:54 and every name that is named,
07:57 and not only in this world,
07:58 but also in that which is to come.
08:00 Put all things under his feet,
08:03 gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
08:06 which is his body,
08:08 the fullness of him that filleth all in all.
08:12 I have visited this before, I think multiple times,
08:17 but he opens by saying something
08:21 that causes some consideration.
08:24 He says, I'm gonna pray for some people,
08:30 but I'm gonna pray because I heard something about you.
08:35 And what he heard was that they had faith in the Lord Jesus
08:42 and love unto all the saints.
08:51 Now, I don't know if you're giving any thought
08:57 to how superlative that is, how wonderful that is.
09:02 And when you look at the Greek
09:05 and the construction of the Greek
09:07 as it relates to faith in this context,
09:11 he is not just talking about having faith to believe,
09:16 to enter into salvation,
09:19 but what he's talking about here is faith
09:24 that governs the child of God's everyday life.
09:29 Because you and I have to understand by now
09:35 that if you are a child of God at all,
09:39 the just shall live every day by faith.
09:46 I give an example now, it's sort of tragic,
09:52 but Elder Jackson and Sister Betty didn't think this morning
09:57 when they awakened to head this way,
10:03 that they would have to move into another dimension of faith
10:08 simply because circumstances changed
10:14 that are out of their control.
10:19 And immediately they're thrust into a situation
10:24 that calls for a reservoir of relationship with God.
10:29 Because when you're not operating
10:35 within the parameters of faith,
10:37 you ask questions like, why me?
10:41 I don't know, have you ever been through something
10:45 you didn't expect, didn't plan?
10:48 Something that was not spawned out of ill behavior
10:53 or bad attitude.
10:56 And immediately something has come upon you
11:00 that you had to draw from the well
11:05 in order to be able to handle it.
11:08 Now that was an extreme case,
11:13 but every day there is something in your life
11:17 that would either move you to reject God
11:22 or move you to believe him more.
11:24 And that's that everyday walk of faith.
11:31 I have to have faith when God tells me no.
11:41 I have to have faith when he says yes.
11:44 And I have to have faith when he says not now.
11:48 Now maybe somebody can give me another scenario,
11:52 but all I see is no, yes, not now.
11:59 But it takes faith to have any kind of communication
12:05 with God and what Paul is saying is,
12:08 here we got a group of people
12:11 that walk with him by faith every single day.
12:15 Now not only do they walk by faith
12:20 in the grocery store, in the pharmacy,
12:24 walk by faith when they get up in the morning,
12:25 cleaning the house by faith,
12:27 and talking to the neighbors by faith,
12:30 and enjoying life by faith, following him by faith,
12:34 but they have love unto all the saints.
12:39 I know some people in the church that don't like me.
12:49 (audience laughing)
12:52 And I ask the Lord to help me
13:18 not to know who they are.
13:20 Because I've got to move into another dimension of faith
13:36 to pray for them that despitefully uses them.
13:45 (audience applauding)
13:48 I think there's a lesson in that.
13:51 I think that there's a conversation that we can have
13:55 as to where prayer is directed.
14:01 Because I would simply ask you
14:06 on the second aspect of his accreditation,
14:12 I would simply ask you, do you love all the saints?
14:17 We talking now.
14:20 Amen.
14:23 Some people you got to get close to for discernment.
14:28 I want you to give some consideration to the fact
14:41 that loving all the saints,
14:46 there's some people in your family
14:52 you have problems with.
14:59 I was married once before and my ex-wife,
15:09 when I would seek to console or to make up,
15:13 I would say, do you love me?
15:17 She would say, I love everybody.
15:23 And because I like to argue,
15:34 I always had a retort in my pocket.
15:39 And I'd say, but you don't know everybody.
15:46 And I've since learned that maybe God
15:52 has kept some people out of our space
15:56 because of the struggle we would have with loving.
16:05 Now you're looking at me like Alice in Wonderland,
16:08 but I would like to ask you,
16:10 have you begun to love your ex-husband yet?
16:15 And are you back loving your ex-wife?
16:23 Have you somehow found some love for your baby mama?
16:30 (audience laughing)
16:33 Don't play with me now.
16:36 And you raised that child from birth,
16:45 the child is now 22 and you don't want nothing to do with it.
16:48 Don't sit here and act because you're in church.
16:57 Like it's easy to love everybody.
17:00 There are some saints you won't get in their car.
17:06 And there are some saints you won't invite to your house.
17:11 Now you might act like it's because you're so holy
17:15 that they can't come.
17:18 But if you that holy and they that shabby,
17:23 then it seems like you ought to get close to them
17:26 in order to get them saved.
17:27 Your enemy wouldn't be your enemy anymore
17:32 if you got them saved.
17:34 There is nothing more demanding
17:41 and nothing more difficult for the child of God
17:46 than to love everybody.
17:55 You can't love people and have malice.
17:58 You can't love people and can't see them coming,
18:02 hate to see them coming.
18:04 You can't love people and can't stand them.
18:08 And the truth is,
18:13 so the conversation we're having here
18:18 is a conversation that speaks to us
18:24 as to who we ought to pray for.
18:26 Give it some thought with me
18:30 and I don't think I'm dyslectic.
18:32 Our proclivity, our tendency,
18:37 maybe I need a stronger word,
18:39 our predilection is to pray for folk who are wicked,
18:44 especially in our family,
18:50 especially if we got to deal with them.
18:54 (audience murmurs)
18:56 Our tendency is to pray for folk who are weak,
19:00 folk who are broken.
19:04 And generally we call for prayer
19:10 when we're going through something.
19:13 That's the tendency.
19:15 But it seems as if Paul is contradistinctive
19:19 to the natural or the normal way
19:23 that we would pray.
19:24 For he has decided
19:28 not to pray for anybody weak in the Ephesian church.
19:34 He's decided to pray for some folk
19:38 who are obviously very strong.
19:42 They have faith in the Lord Jesus
19:46 and they have love towards all the saints.
19:51 My first reaction would be,
19:53 why would I be praying for somebody
19:57 who has already achieved the spiritual platitude
20:03 of being able to love folk I can't stand?
20:10 Why am I praying at all?
20:13 It would seem like they have already arrived.
20:19 What he's showing me is
20:23 that maybe we have left off praying
20:26 for the people who have the most potential
20:31 to be powerhouses with God.
20:35 Maybe I'm seeing this by myself.
20:39 Have you seen this with me?
20:41 Maybe we have ignored praying for the child
20:46 who is anointed.
20:50 And we prayed for the child who's disobedient.
20:54 We prayed for the child who's in the game,
20:59 but we're not praying for the one that's not in the game.
21:02 We're praying for the individual that's broke,
21:07 but we're not praying for the one that's got some money.
21:09 What he's showing me is maybe you ought to put your sight
21:15 on folk who God has his hand on
21:19 because when God puts his hand on somebody,
21:22 they immediately become a target.
21:25 The devil does not want a child that he already had.
21:35 He wants the child that is walking away from him.
21:38 The devil don't want a household
21:42 that is already messed up.
21:45 He wants a household that's already together.
21:48 The devil wants to break up what God loves.
21:52 I wish you'd understand me.
21:54 And if God loves it, I ought to pray
21:57 that it stays the way God wants it to be.
22:00 I'm gonna try not to whoop.
22:08 Why don't you pray for me when I'm blessed?
22:15 Instead of hating.
22:19 Why don't you roll over in the morning
22:21 and say, "Lord, keep him on the level he's on
22:25 "and don't let him go lower, but let him go higher.
22:29 "Lord, give him more so he can bless more.
22:32 "Keep him healthy so he can go more, so he can touch more.
22:36 "Keep his mind alert so he can move
22:39 "in the hearts of people more.
22:41 "Do more, more, more.
22:43 "Don't make him any less."
22:45 You gotta pray for folk who God has his hand on.
22:50 Devil wanna kill that child, kill that preacher,
22:54 kill that missionary, kill that worker, kill that...
22:58 The devil's in the killing business.
23:03 It's a critical thing, then.
23:13 'Cause he's showing me now
23:15 that I need to pray for folk
23:19 who are qualified for the next level.
23:23 Oh, yes.
23:28 I discovered something in my life.
23:32 I discovered that the good doctors
23:37 keep going to conferences.
23:43 The people who have good marriages
23:45 keep going to the marriage conferences.
23:48 You know what I mean?
23:51 The people, everything they tore up,
23:54 they ain't going to nothing.
23:55 And they need to be there more than anybody else.
24:01 The good, great basketball players
24:05 keep going to the special sessions.
24:12 The good football players keep watching the field.
24:15 There is something about when God has his hand on you
24:22 that it stirs the enemy up.
24:27 It makes him mad.
24:30 And it causes him to bring people
24:35 who have an influence in your life.
24:42 Everybody don't bother you.
24:43 Except you all have extended that,
24:49 in Jamaican we call it barteration.
24:51 You have extended to people who don't know you
24:56 the opportunity to judge you.
25:00 That's the social media, that's what that did.
25:04 You just opened the door to hear some junk
25:10 from people who don't mean anything to you.
25:14 But then you made them mean something to you
25:16 when you started responding to them.
25:18 You already had enough mess around you.
25:23 Now you've extended the parameters of the mess
25:26 all the way to South Africa.
25:27 People answering you from Ethiopia.
25:31 As if you didn't have enough to deal with
25:38 from Ethiopia street.
25:39 (audience laughing)
25:42 He says I pray for you and I cease not to make mention
25:50 of you in my prayers.
25:52 Because there is something that I need you to have.
25:57 And that is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
26:01 the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit
26:05 of wisdom and revelation in him.
26:10 I want you to notice first of all,
26:14 that you will find in his prayers
26:16 that he's never asking for material things.
26:21 (audience cheering)
26:25 I tell you this.
26:32 He's never asking God for a Cadillac, a Rolls Royce,
26:37 bigger house, nothing.
26:44 Because he is very, very familiar with Jesus's prayers.
26:53 And with Jesus's teaching on the sermon on the mountain.
27:00 And there's one thing that I think every man in this house
27:05 who takes care of a family ought to understand.
27:16 You know you got five kids now.
27:24 And they're eating like they.
27:28 (audience laughing)
27:31 Heavyweight boxes.
27:33 I don't know in your family, growing up in my family,
27:38 it was six of us, seven of us really.
27:44 And they had four boys, three girls.
27:49 My brother Max, when my dad would bring the hamsteaks,
27:54 he'd want to eat a whole hamsteak by himself.
27:59 Or eat a dozen eggs.
28:00 The biggest fight in my house was over food.
28:06 Eating like crazy.
28:12 Now, you know you gotta pay the electric bill,
28:17 the light bill, you know you gotta buy groceries.
28:22 Now, why would you as the head of that house, the provider,
28:27 wait until your wife has to ask you for money
28:35 for everything you know you gotta take care of?
28:43 It's like she's gonna approach your throat.
28:51 (audience laughing)
28:54 Carefully.
28:56 Wondering what kind of mood you're in.
29:03 Hoping to catch you at the right moment.
29:10 Baby, can we have $150 for groceries?
29:19 Now, you know what your household needs.
29:23 You wake up every day looking for something
29:28 to eat up in there.
29:29 Come sometime, bust the door open,
29:34 2 a.m. in the morning, baby, I'm hungry.
29:37 Wipes the sleep out of her eyes.
29:41 And go get whatever is in the cupboard.
29:48 You know you're gonna need groceries.
29:53 So why you got them begging you
29:59 for something you know is going to be needed?
30:05 Now, to anybody in here, that kind of behavior is hard.
30:16 But we act that way towards God.
30:21 We treat him as if he is a husband,
30:28 a father who does not know how to take care of his husband.
30:35 I wish somebody would understand me.
30:43 Jesus said, "Don't insult me
30:47 "because I know what you have needed before you asked."
30:53 And you keep running up in here
30:58 asking me for something that I've already provided.
31:01 Don't insult me
31:06 as if I don't take care of you.
31:13 I got news for you.
31:15 Most of us already been taken care of.
31:18 We just acted stupid with what God gave us.
31:21 I know what you have needed.
31:30 See, he said, "Look, look, look, look.
31:32 "If you don't think I'm right, take a look at Solomon."
31:35 Solomon comes down here dressed in all of his glory
31:40 and he don't look no better
31:43 than one of the lilies of the field
31:45 who comes up today and is gone tomorrow.
31:48 If I can take care of a bird that's flying in the sky
31:52 and take care of a lily that's about to die,
31:55 then don't you think I can take care of you?
31:58 I need you to pray for something else.
32:06 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
32:11 I'll take care of the rest of it.
32:19 I feel like shouting in here.
32:25 I feel like giving God the glory.
32:29 And I'll give you my own testimony.
32:32 I don't remember when I have ever prayed for money.
32:36 I never prayed for money.
32:39 I never prayed for a house.
32:41 I never prayed for a car.
32:43 I never prayed for anything material.
32:46 And I got more than most
32:48 because I don't insult God.
33:01 Shit, I feel like shouting in here.
33:04 I need you to pray
33:08 that the eyes of your understanding
33:13 be enlightened.
33:17 Because I got too many saints
33:22 who don't know what they have.
33:30 And have not made the proper assessment
33:34 of what's significant and what is not.
33:38 My soul in relationship to God
33:49 is the best food, house, car, clothes
33:55 I could ever have.
33:59 Because what God is saying is I'll put you in a position
34:02 where you understand where your peace comes from.
34:06 You think your peace comes from what you got on your back.
34:12 And I want to tell you, you're seeking to put it
34:14 on your back, but it can't do nothing for your spirit.
34:17 I don't know God, I don't need you to go after something
34:27 that's gonna perish.
34:29 Labor not for the thing that perishes.
34:35 That ain't where I want you to put your energy.
34:40 I want you to put your energy in me
34:42 and come to get close to me.
34:46 Close to me if you're naked.
34:47 Can I talk about God for just a minute?
34:55 And oh Lord, somebody's taking time,
35:00 so I looked at the time and I said, oh Lord.
35:02 Much of, and I think the influencers
35:11 have been deceived.
35:14 I want to do a little podcast when I look at America today
35:18 and remind me where I started just in case I don't get,
35:22 you know, I'm at the age now where I gotta, you know.
35:25 And when you look at America today,
35:29 and if you don't feel the undertone rumblings
35:35 of where we're going.
35:38 And all of it began with believing a lie.
35:53 And America has now over the last seven, eight years
35:57 have become adjusted to believing lies.
36:06 (congregation laughing)
36:09 But lies don't come from the bottom up.
36:16 (congregation laughing)
36:22 Lies come from the top down.
36:25 So I want to deal with a podcast that talks about
36:31 when influencers are deceived.
36:35 How masses become slaves to lies.
36:43 And God said, here's what I'm going to do.
36:52 I'm going to send a strong delusion
36:56 because they have no love for the truth.
37:03 It is the influencers that have changed the churches
37:18 understanding of God to material wealth.
37:23 It's the influencers.
37:28 Those of us who have a voice that people listen to.
37:34 I have a friend and he might throw out a nugget of truth.
37:43 Say something, you know, we talk Bible all the time.
37:48 He'd get sick of us because that's all we do.
37:50 And he throws something out and then man, I said,
37:55 prophet, I think you got it.
37:56 Oh man, I can't get no amen.
38:00 Now, if the Bishop Jakes had said that,
38:01 you all would be running and falling out.
38:03 See, he got a revelation.
38:08 And I said to him the other day, I said,
38:11 you have just spoken to my point.
38:15 And that is the people who have three or four people
38:20 following them.
38:23 And you know, you're in trouble.
38:25 You've been preaching four, five, six, seven, eight years.
38:28 And when you look at the likes, you only got two.
38:30 You ought to try something else.
38:35 Go into some other kind of business.
38:37 Who are you talking to?
38:41 You posting every week and all I see
38:44 is two and three people.
38:46 Ain't nobody listening.
38:49 The thing is, when you have people
38:54 with 2 million followers, why are they following them?
39:01 Because it's something they have that they're listening to.
39:06 And the voice that is closest to the truth
39:13 is not being heard because it's not exciting,
39:18 because it's not endearing, it is not drawing,
39:22 it is not magnetic.
39:24 So when the influencers are deceived,
39:29 like Jim Jones.
39:33 Don't look at me like Alice in Wonderland.
39:38 Apostolic folk.
39:42 Apostolic folk were in the crowd that took the cyanide.
39:47 Influencers have got us believing
39:55 that a relationship with God is material.
39:58 And y'all have begun to measure us by what we drove up in.
40:07 The label in our clothes.
40:13 The house we live in or the neighborhood.
40:17 And it has taken us away from what we should be praying about
40:24 as opposed to what we are praying for.
40:29 Can I talk to you a little bit?
40:31 Just a little bit, my time is up,
40:33 but just a little bit I wanted to point out to something.
40:36 The prodigal son in his ignorance,
40:41 in his immaturity says to his father, "Give me."
40:46 And his only prayer was, "Give me."
40:52 - Give me. - Give me, give me, give me.
40:55 Father, in the name of Jesus, give me, Lord, give me.
40:57 Give me a new job, give me, give me, give me, give me, give me.
41:00 Give my child, oh, Lord, you know my child need a scholarship.
41:03 Give me, give me, you know my child need a new car.
41:06 Give me, give me, we need a new house.
41:07 Give me, give me, give me, give me, give me.
41:10 - Absolutely.
41:12 - But after he'd been down to the hog pen
41:15 and he was trying to get back home,
41:19 he no longer was talking about give me,
41:24 he kept on saying, "Make me, make me, make me, make me."
41:29 Satan can take from you what you have been given,
41:35 but he can't take from you what you have been made.
41:38 (audience cheering)
41:41 Oh, I feel like shouting here.
41:45 I am who I am in a Rolls Royce.
41:47 I am who I am on a bicycle.
41:50 I am who I am in a thousand dollar suit.
41:53 I am who I am in nothing at all,
41:57 because once you have been made by God,
42:00 you cannot be unmade by the devil.
42:04 (audience cheering)
42:08 - What kind of person do you want to be?
42:11 I want to be nice.
42:12 I want to be hospitable.
42:14 I want to be loving.
42:16 I want to be forgiving.
42:17 I want to be friendly.
42:19 I want to be a help.
42:21 I want to be a giver.
42:22 I want to be, that's what I want to be.
42:25 Stop praying about what you want to have
42:27 and start praying about what you want to be.
42:30 (audience cheering)
42:36 (audience cheering)
42:39 And I feel like giving God some glory.
42:45 Give somebody a high five.
42:47 Say, neighbor, there is power in prayer.
42:52 You come in here tore up,
42:54 come in here on drugs,
42:56 come in here messed up,
42:58 broken in every way,
43:00 but when you call on the Lord to make me,
43:05 make me Lord,
43:07 make me like Jesus,
43:09 make me, make me anointed,
43:12 make me, make me a son of your glory.
43:17 I need you to make me somebody that people can depend on.
43:23 Make me somebody that can walk in
43:28 and tell the devil how to get out.
43:30 Get out of my house.
43:32 Make me somebody that demons will tremble
43:37 when I walk in the room.
43:40 I might be in a broken down car.
43:43 I might pull up in a dirty suit,
43:45 but I have the power,
43:47 the power of the anointing in my life.
43:51 I don't want you to see my car.
43:57 I don't want you to see my house.
43:59 I don't want you to see my clothes.
44:01 I don't want you to see my shoes,
44:03 but I want you to see Jesus.
44:05 Don't show me your house.
44:18 Show me who's in your house.
44:20 Don't show me your car.
44:22 Show me who's driving you.
44:25 Don't show me your clothes.
44:27 Show me who clothes you.
44:29 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:32 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:36 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:39 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:42 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:45 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:48 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:51 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:55 I want you to show me who clothes you.
44:58 [ROAR]
45:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
45:04 [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
45:19 Oh, yes.
45:25 Yes.
45:25 [CHEERING]
45:29 That'll change the face of the church.
45:36 I hear the song.
45:46 [APPLAUSE]
45:53 It is in challenges that we re-evaluate and reassess.
46:04 And this year, we didn't know we would be
46:08 moving into different places.
46:12 But we waited for the right place.
46:18 And I promise you, we have.
46:21 By the grace of God, choir, the right place.
46:28 But I've seen once new direction, same Jesus.
46:35 And things haven't stopped shaking up.
46:46 Still got some more shaking up to do.
46:50 But through the power of the Holy Ghost
46:53 and the direction of the Spirit of God and the Word of God,
46:58 we're going to change the face of the church.
47:04 And changing the face of the church
47:07 isn't always changing the building.
47:11 It's changing the faces we look at who claim
47:17 to be representing Jesus.
47:21 [APPLAUSE]
47:24 And that'll change the access that the unsaved
47:36 has to the things of God.
47:41 Because God, his Word, and his system
47:43 has never been prohibitive.
47:48 It's the people who have ministered it,
47:53 who have been the ones who keep people from the things of God.
47:58 [APPLAUSE]
48:01 The disciples were some of the greatest hindrances.
48:10 And Jesus didn't get rid of them,
48:13 because he was going to change all of them
48:17 to be what he wanted them to be.
48:20 You're in this building, and you're not born again.
48:26 I want to introduce you to Jesus.
48:28 [APPLAUSE]
48:38 I am working on a paper, a very serious paper,
48:42 because I'm going to not publish it,
48:44 but I'm going to take it directly to the group
48:46 that I know who needs it.
48:49 Let me say no-believe is a better word.
48:53 And I've discovered that, and I'm asking the question,
48:58 who is the center of your church?
49:05 Are we using Jesus to bring people to us,
49:11 or is he using us to bring people to him?
49:15 [APPLAUSE]
49:19 It's a totally different approach.
49:23 And if you're in this building, and you're not born again,
49:28 the Lord is using us to bring you to him.
49:33 I don't care where you were last night.
49:35 I don't care how rough it is.
49:39 I'm not turning the homosexual away and say, you can't come.
49:43 Come on.
49:46 I'm not turning the prostitute away and say, you can't come.
49:50 Come on.
49:53 I'm not turning the addict away, the alcoholic away.
49:57 I'm saying come.
50:00 She'll make me whole.
50:03 Oh, it is Jesus.
50:10 Jesus, Jesus.
50:11 Yes, it is Jesus.
50:14 Come on.
50:14 Let's call him.
50:15 Come on.
50:17 It is Jesus.
50:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
50:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
50:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
50:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
50:32 (upbeat music)
50:35 [BLANK_AUDIO]