Gateway Church's Podcast
Offense vs. Defense
Good morning! You guys are a lot better in the crowd last night. They at least talked back to me. I like that. Do you have your Bibles? I want you to open up to Matthew chapter 11 and Romans chapter 10. I'm preaching a series. I just happened to preach the first part a year ago. It's alright when it's your last message, you can do whatever you want. What are they going to do? Fire me? I'm just kidding. A year ago I preached a sermon called Keys for Kingdom Living. Listen, if you've been around me for one millisecond you're going to understand one thing. I want to win. I'm not here on earth to lose. I've lost long enough. I'm looking for the keys to win. And I want to win down here. I'm going to win in heaven. Heaven is going to be easy, right? I want to win down here. I'm as eternal as I'm ever going to be right now. I love what Pastor Brady did during the communion time. I love communion. Communion has power in it. There's something to that. So I love that. But I'm as eternal as I'm ever going to be right now. I just want eternity to live with me right now as I'm going through this earth. Because heaven is right here on earth. I'm going to show you that this morning. A year ago I was in Kenya. And while I was in Kenya, my cell phone didn't ring one time. I didn't get one email. It was really quiet. It's amazing when you get still and get quiet. How much God talks. And he showed me the keys. Prior to going to Kenya, last year I received a word. A lady came to me and she said, "I've been sitting on this word for you for at least three or four months." And she said, "The Lord told me to tell you right now." She told me. She said, "The Lord's about to give you the keys to unlock miracles, to unlock heaven." And I said, "I think He's already talking to me about it." She said, "No, no, no, no. You ain't seeing nothing yet." I said, "Hot dog. Let's get on it." Well, if you missed the announcement last weekend, this is Jenny and my last weekend, our last weekend here. I want to say a personal statement to you concerning what's happening. I'll tell you a little bit about the transition this morning of what actually has happened in our lives and why we're being sent. We're not leaving. I have bad news for you. You stuck with me for eternity. You can't get away from me. I've checked heaven and looked on your block and my block and you're in my neighborhood. So go ahead and get over that fact. And the other fact, this is really not about us. This is about the kingdom being extended. But I want to make this statement to you. And I mean, it's from the bottom of our heart, from Pastor Robert and the elders. This is absolutely been the best five and a half years of our lives. Without a shadow that is no reservation at all, the deposit that you and the elders and Robert have made into our lives have changed us. Y'all have let us grow up here. This has been the most incredible experience of our lives. And we just want to say from the bottom of our heart, thank you for allowing us to interact with you, to have an investment into you, but for you to also have an investment into us. And I'll tell you the story of why we're transitioning, why we're being sent later in the sermon. But I want to talk to you this morning about winning, keys for winning, keys for winning now. Listen, the church today plays defense more than we play offense. I think the church at large is lost, the ability to score. We don't know how to score. We don't know how to hit home runs. We don't know how to throw the ball over the goal line and catch it. And I think the church at large is playing more defense and we are offense. Every now and then we get a, whoo, got somebody saved. When did that go, whoo. Hey, did you hear them roll three? They got touched. I saw a tear right down their eye. Whoo! I just want to learn how to win down here. I read about winners. Pastor Jimmy was here three weeks ago or so, and he preached on how winners think. I like that. Pastor Tom was here last week. He talked a little bit on prophecy and how his son got a word from God and how he interpreted it. I want to talk about it. I want to continue that. There seems to be a theme. Jimmy talked on prophecy. Tom talked on how his son heard God and what an influence of a father he was to him. If you weren't here, you need to get those. But this morning, I want to talk a little bit about a defense of mentality first that's in the church. And I want to show you why it's here. If you have your Bible right there, go to Matthew chapter 11. We're going to look at verse 12. Have you ever read a verse and kind of stumped you? And you read it again and you go, "I don't have a clue what that means." Anybody out there besides me have read a verse like that? Okay, good. I thought it was going to be all along for a minute. Well, this is one of those verses that I read and I read and I read and I said, "I'm not reading it more because I don't understand it." And then I come back to it a little while later and this is finally what I got out of it. Matthew chapter 11 says, "And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." Now I've heard this verse preach several times that we need to be violent warriors for the kingdom of God now. I don't disagree with that at all. But I want you, I've asked them to leave it up here. If you have your Bible there and you have a pen, I want you to underline a couple of things because I think it's important to see this because what it revealed to me was that the church has had a defensive mentality because we think this is true. Now watch. From the days of who? John the Baptist. I'm going to talk to you in a second about why wasn't Moses or Abraham or David. Why from John the Baptist? Until now, what is suffering violence? The kingdom of heaven. You know what that word violence means? I'm a Greek scholar. I just went and looked it up and read the English part. Real tough man today. I mean interpreting the Bible, getting harder and harder. Violence means to be seized. It says the kingdom of heaven is underseeds. Now how many of us here truly believe today that Satan and a third of the angels that fell can walk right into heaven and kick God off the throne? Anybody think heaven's in trouble today? I can't find anybody in the church that thinks heaven's in trouble. I don't even think heaven's in trouble. So what in the world is Jesus talking about here? What kingdom is in trouble? What kingdom is trying to be seized? Well when I was reading this, he said, "Jeffy says the kingdom of heaven." Maybe he could have a different connotation. Why don't you look up that word kingdom of? So I did. The kingdom of, that little phrase right there says kingdom of. If you just do a word search on that, it comes up 109 times in the New Testament. And this is what it says, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. And what I began to find out, the only place that you can find the kingdom of heaven is in Matthew. 32 times. Matthew was hung up on the kingdom of heaven. Mark, Luke, and John never mentioned it one time. So I made a gander dawn on me. I went back and looked at Jesus' first message. You know what he said? The kingdom of heaven is at hand. That's what Matthew said. But Mark said a different way. He said repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. He said, now when I saw that, this is what triggered in my mind. This is what I want you to see from the defense of mentality. I'm making this whole point, then I'm going to show you the three keys, how we win. But I've got to expose the mentality that's among us first so that you recognize, hey, we don't have to live this way anymore. Now this is the mentality. If the kingdom of heaven is not in trouble, maybe it's the kingdom of God on the earth that's in trouble. I mean, you've ever heard this. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. And then, whoo, barely we're going to get out of here. You ever heard that? I mean, does it not look like in the world? I mean, does it not look like it's getting worse and worse and worse? And we hope the rapture happens soon. See, that'll put you on defense if you live that way. That'll make you defensive minded. Did you ever see when Jesus, if he's our model, did you see him where he was nervous about what was happening in the earth? I mean, think about it for a second. I think about one of the worst situations that he faced. The demoniac running out of the mountains. Now get a picture of this. You've got wild hair. He's got cuts all over his body. He's got fangs for teeth. And he's naked. And he's running at you. You know, I didn't see Jesus going, man. I've never seen this before. Hey, Dad, what are we doing out there? I'm nervous about it. Hey, boys, let's get back in the book and run. Did he look nervous? This man has a legion of demons. Not a few. A whole bunch. And he didn't panic. Why should we? If he's our model, why should we? We should play more offense than we play defense. Everywhere Jesus went, he played offense. He played offense. I love his strategies. If we can expose this defensive mentality that we have today and recognize, yes, the kingdom that we're living in on the earth, the kingdom that Jesus came to reestablish on the earth, the kingdom of heaven that is here, yes. Yes, he's trying to seize the earth. Yes, he's trying to take over. But he doesn't have the authority and power. I'm about to show you that. You know why? It was from John the Baptist until now. Why Jesus said that? Why not Abraham, Moses, or David? Because Satan saw something that he had not seen yet. God no longer came upon man. He made a deposit in man. He took heaven and deposited heaven into man. John was the first man filled with the Holy Spirit. And Satan said, oh my gosh. He was making a move. This is an offensive move, so what does Satan do? He turned the heat up. I'm going to show you two things this morning that shows me from the words of Jesus that we don't have to play defense. Now defense is good. It's kind of fun to stop the opponent, but it's more fun to whip him. Isn't it? I mean, just outscored a sap sucker. All right? Look at this verse. Jesus said two things I want you to recognize and I'm going to show you the keys. Here we go. Matthew chapter 6 verse 9 and 10. This is a verse you memorize as a child. Our Father who in heaven, how will be your name? What's his verse 10? What did he say for Jesus said to you? He's told us. He said, this is the way you ought to pray. I want you to pray. Pray this. Pray the kingdom of God come. Pray for his will to be done. Where? Right here. How? Just like it looks up there. How much stuff did we put up with down here that is never there? Way too much. All right? That's one thing he told you to do. Look at the second thing he told us to do. I got excited when I saw this. I put it in the Amplified because I wanted you to see something. He said, Jesus in Matthew chapter 16 verse 19 said, I will give you what? Uh-oh. Could be showing us something here, huh? Now when I ask you something, I give you keys. Keys to what? You can talk out loud. This is your church. All right. God is not embarrassed for you to talk. Keys to what? You didn't even offend him. That you all talked at the same time. Look at there. None of you died. No lightning out of the sky. Isn't that great? Keys to the kingdom of heaven. Now when I ask you a question, what do keys do? I know they do about three things. Maybe more. It's not an exhaustive study here, right? They open. Lot things. They lock down things that you want to protect. And they start stuff, right? That's what keys do. Jesus said, I want to give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Who is he talking to? You can say me. He's talking to us. He wants to give us keys to unlock some things. He wants to give us keys to lock down something. And he wants to give us keys to start some stuff. Why don't we just start having some fun down here? Most of the church look like it's weaned on a deal pickle. We ought to just loosen up and have a little fun. See, I told you, when it's your last match, you can say anything you want to. I want to show you what he says. Look here. Keys to the kingdom of heaven. What are the keys to the kingdom of heaven going to give you the ability to do? What says? He says, whatever you bind or lock. Now, how do you do that? I put an amplify because I want to see it. That you declare with your mouth improper or unlawful. I'm going to show you in a second. This is one of the keys your mouth has to be involved. Whatever you bind on earth must be what is already bound in heaven. Do you see that? There are some things that we can bind while we're here. But the key to it is, the only way you can bind it with the keys you have, it has to be bound there first. All right? Second key. What's this? He said, these keys I'm giving you and whatever you loose or declare with your mouth lawful on earth must be what already is loosed in heaven. So he says yes. Listen, you can take the keys that I'm going to give you and you can bind some things that are already bound there and you can lose some things that are already loose there. The key is it must have already happened there. Do you see that? This means yes. This means no. Do you see that? You guys are really catching on. I like it. What did Jesus come to do 2,000 years ago? Did he bind somebody here? Did he not say in Luke chapter 10, I give you some power over the enemy? Oh, all power. Why? Because I've already bound him. Do you know what Satan is doing to us? He's roaring like a lion, but what we don't realize is he ain't got no teeth. He's trying to gum us to death. He roars and the hair on the back of our head stands up. We go, here's my point. If he's already bound, then Jesus said, I give you the keys to bind what's already been bound. And I give you the keys to lose what's already been loose. What did he lose? Hadn't the Holy Spirit already been sent from heaven and loosed to the earth? Now, he hadn't left and sent his cousin or junior or anybody. It's the same one that still raised Jesus from the dead. All right. Do you see this? We got to expose this defensive mentality in this and say, I'm going to play. I'm tired of playing defense. Coach, ready to beat a quarterback. And man, give me the ball. All right. It's one I want you to. The first point I want you to see. Second point is what are these keys that Jesus is talking about? We need an offensive strategy. Go to Romans chapter 10. If you have your Bible there, I want you to mark a couple of things. Three to be exact. I'm going to move quickly. I've got a lot to say and a little time to say it. So you're going to have to listen fast or get the tape. All right. Offensive strategy. Romans chapter 10, if you've ever led anybody to Jesus, you've used these verses. These are how we get people to enter the kingdom of God. These are the verses we use. Romans chapter 10, in your sermon notes, I put 5, 6, and 7, but I'm not going to read those for times sake. I'll tell you what they say. Moses, Paul is writing and talking about the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of faith. He's discussing these two topics. Verse 8 picks it up and says, what does it say? The "it" there represents the righteousness of faith. All right. The righteousness of faith says the word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. Now here are the three keys I'm going to show you. They're repetitive because they help people like me who have brain trouble. You're going to repeat them over and over and over because sometimes you learn by repetition, right? Okay. Jesus, he's trying to help us a little bit here. Watch. The word is near you in your mouth and in your heart. Key number one is the word. I'm going to show you this. It's called faith. Key number two is your mouth. Your mouth got to get involved. And key number three is your heart, which is belief. I'm going to show you it over and over. Watch. Romans 10, verse 9. That if you actually will pick up back in verse 8, that is the word of faith. Faith is first. Faith always has to be first. Belief is not first and confession is not first. Faith is always first. Then it says the word of faith that we preach, verse 9, that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you what? You get heaven on earth. Now listen, you may be in a circumstance today that you need a little bit of heaven. I am trying to show you the keys this morning. It doesn't matter what your circumstance is. If you don't know the will of God for your life today, you can find out these keys will work in the will of God. If you need healing in your body, these three keys will work for the healing in your body. You can unlock heaven today and have it presently on earth. And the three keys are evident to us. You've got to have faith first, which enders the mind. You've got to have confession, which has got to come out of your mouth. And you've got to believe it in your heart. So you have mind, mouth, and heart. Faith, confession, and belief. Belief is different from faith. I preached this last year. Go get the tape. Listen to it for free on this Internet thing we have. But you can download it for $1.99 and put it on your MP3. I don't care. But I preached on what's the difference between faith and belief. And there's a major difference. Bible says if you don't have faith, can't please God. Bible says here, but you can only believe you can have it. What in the world is the difference? It's a big difference. Faith comes first. Faith is what you hear. Belief is what you heard and you hold it. Now I'm going to show you how this works. The key, the key, the key is hearing. And listen, I teach in the children's department for five and a half years. I love your kids. Your kids are fun. And I've taught your children how to learn to hear God. I want them to practice. I've taught my own kids this. I think it's important that we learn to hear God. Matter of fact, one of the kids that were in the children's department several years ago, he's already graduated out. And he went to a team party. And in the team party, you only played with a baseball team. At the end of the season, you always go to CC's. I mean, parents have been to CC's team party. Thank you. I know I've been there. They went to CC's and there's dad's checking them in. They're all excited for the team party. And we've been talking about faith and hearing God. And we've been practicing because we know if you can't hear God, there's nothing to confess or believe. All right. What's that? So he goes CC's dad's checking in. And he sees this jar of candy corn sitting right there on the shelf as they're checking in. He, you know, is a child in. Candy attracts them. Why do they put it at the counters at every store? It's torment for mothers. That's all it is. Pure torment. And he sees his candy corn right there in front of the side and says, "If you can guess exactly how many candy corn are in this jar, we'll give you the jar of candy corn." It's his dad's favorite candy. He steps up from the jar. He said, "God knows." [laughter] He stands before the jar and just quiets himself. [laughter] He looked up and said, "462. The man behind the counter went..." "How'd you know that?" He said, "God knows." I asked him. He told me. [laughter] "Give me the jar." [laughter] He takes the jar and hands it to his dad, his dad's going. I want to show you a verse. It's so important that we hear. I want to show you this because in the church today, we don't think God talks no more. He's gotten to be ridiculous. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox. Romans chapter 10, 17 says, "This faith comes by hearing." Hearing by the Word of God. Faith's first, now watch this verse, John 16, 13, man, when I saw this verse I got so excited. However, when he, the spirit of truth has come, what will the Holy Spirit do? First off, he's going to guide you. Don't you know we need guidance. Okay? We need a road map. He's going to guide us into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. Not only will he speak, but he will tell you things to come. Boy, this gets excited. I like when the Holy Spirit starts to tell us things to come. This is his job. When you won't listen to him, you don't let him do his job. It frustrates him. Let him talk to you. I have people all the time telling me, "Jeff, I can't hear God like you." Matter of fact, it kind of bothers me to tell me that you do. Well, I'm sorry to bother by, but you'll get over that. I said, "Do you have any problem here in Satan?" Oh, no, I got him down pat. I say, "Now, just hold it a second. I'm not trying to belittle you here." I said, "But you tell me that you can hear a being who is invisible, that you cannot see, and he talks to you." Uh-huh, call Satan. Oh, man, I got him. I said, "Now, in God a heavenly being, invisible being like Satan, made in the image of God, and you can't hear this invisible being. When the Bible right there from the lips of own Jesus right there said, "He comes to talk to you." Listen, folks, you know why you're not seeing heaven on earth? Because if you don't hear anything, there's nothing else for you to do. Can I tell you, Satan and Jesus both, the Holy Spirit through Jesus, is trying to vie for your heart, and they use words to get there. They use words to get there. I put a story, and I'm not going to take time to read it, but the story of the woman with the issue of blood. That story, I put in your notes this morning. I don't have time to go there, but this is a perfect example. When she heard about Jesus, he had a terrible situation. She heard about Jesus. She confessed what she heard, because it was already in her heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. When she confessed it, she acted on the reason I know it's in her heart. All three components are there, because she acted on it. Faith, act, faith and works go together, and she left her house. She didn't wait for Jesus to come to her. She went to him. I'm going to tell you, the language of heaven is desperation. Most Christians, the only time they ever hear of God when they're in a crisis. And we live from crisis to crisis to crisis to hear God. I'm telling you today, you don't have to live from crisis to crisis. You can wake up this morning and say, "Hey, Dad, you got anything for me to do today?" Uh-huh, you want me to love with my children? That'd be a good thing. What else you want me to do? Now as I go, I'm going to be thinking about it, because I know you got an assignment for me today, because I'm not down here just taking up space and wasting time, am I? You got something for me to do? I know. You sent me your Holy Spirit. I want to do it. I want to play it today. Can I score a touchdown? Can I play quarterback today? You got to be center every now and then, it's just fun. You get to knock somebody down. They didn't lay on top of them. It's great. Do you see the three keys? Do you see what's involved? Do you have your mind involved? Everything that you hear enters your mind. No matter whether you see it, no matter whether you hear it, no matter whether you read it, then it just drops in. How many of you just had thoughts drop in? From Satan or from God? Sometimes you...where'd that come from? I don't know, meteor shower or something? I don't know. Listen, Virginia and I, three years ago, heard right here. We heard three years ago, we were in transition. We said, "What?" This is what we heard. We said, the Holy Spirit spoke to us and said, "You're going to the mountains." Why are we going to Colorado, God? He said, "I didn't say you'd go into Colorado." I said, "You talk?" He said, "I said you're going to the mountains." Okay. What does that mean? None of your business right now. Okay. We took it from our mind that we heard. We sent it on down to our heart and we held it. This is a good thing. We held it. Now watch. We sat on it for a year and a half. A year and a half later, Pastor Robert comes to us last January, December, January '04, and Pastor Robert says, "Hey, I was preaching at Trinity. And before I got up to preach, yeah, the Holy Spirit told me something. It sounded like he's still talking, doesn't he? Is he talking to you? He ought to be. He wants to. He said, "The Holy Spirit said to me, 'You're going to make a great pastor.'" I look back, Pastor Ron said, "Are you saying I'm not a good pastor now?" He said, "No." He said, "You're a great pastor." He said, "But you're going to make a great leader someday." I sense that God's going to send you out. I said, "Now, in that interest thing, because we've been hearing some things." And as a matter of fact, right before you told us that, we had another brother tell us at the end of this year, two words came at the same time. But brother told us that at the end of this year, there's going to be a transition for you and it's not going to look like what you thought it was going to look like. It's going to be different. Matter of fact, you and Brady, you're big buds, and you're going to separate, but you're still going to be linked. I thought, "Okay, take that word, send it right down to our heart, and we're going to hold it." Just because I don't understand it doesn't mean I'm kicking it out. I'm sending it down to my heart because I know someday it'll produce a harvest. So I put that word in. Pastor Robert comes with that word. He sends it down here. I send Pastor Robert Word right down. Someday I'm going to be a good pastor. I don't know about it right now, but someday right now I'm going to be a good pastor. He meant it wonderfully. So, I leave that word down there in my heart. October comes of last year. Lake Country Church out at Eagle Mountain Lake calls us and asked Brady, he said, "Brady, we're trying to transition senior leaders, and we hear your name." He's popping up. "Would you like to talk to us?" He said, "Not yet true." So Brady says to me, "Are you interested?" I said, "No, where is it?" He says right there, Eagle Mountain Lake. I said, "Eagle, what?" Eagle Mountain. Did you say mountain? I got a word in my heart about a mountain. So I ran back to my wife and I said, "Hey, honey, this could be it." When Pastor Robert in January of '04 asked us that a church had called us that day. Interesting. Now, we told them, "Nope, ten months later this opportunity comes up." So we said, "Let's pray." We prayed, and Lord, after we revealed it to the elders, what we're talking about, and we don't do anything in darkness, we found out that doesn't pay. We bring everything into the light. And we said to each other, "Let's ask God." So we asked God, and God said, "No." Now Lord, you said we're going to the mountains. This is Eagle Mountain. Have you forgot what you said? He said, "No, I haven't forgot what I said." So we prayed, "No, I went to the office that morning and asked Pastor Robert." I said, "I've heard something from the Lord." He said, "I heard something this morning, too." I said, "Well, great. What'd you hear?" He said, "No, what'd you hear?" You go first. No, no, you go first. I said, "Okay, I heard we're not supposed to go to Eagle Mountain." He goes, "That's exactly what I heard." I said, "Well, praise God, we're here." I went to the mountain we're going to, but that ain't it. What? I'm going to hold the word and I'm going to kick it out. I'm going to act and I'm going to trust God to do it. So then there began structural changes around Gateway. Remember the other word? At the end of the year, there are going to be some changes. There are going to be some separations. There are going to be some things happening. And there were. And things began to change. And God said, "No to Eagle Mountain." And then I went from overseeing pastoral care to overseeing life groups. Already got elevated to associate senior pastor. And things began to change. We began to be linked, but we began to be separated. And something began stirring in my heart. I said, "God, what are you doing?" He said, "Do you think this is me?" I said, "I know it's you." He said, "Well, then embrace it." I said, "Oh, okay." I said, "What are you after here?" He said, "Once you embrace it, I'll tell you." I said, "Okay, I embrace it." Put a big old bear hug on it. I said, "Okay, God, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm revealing a root of rejection in your heart." He said, "Because of why I'm about to send you. If this is not dealt with now. I can't anoint you for what I'm going to do." I said, "That sounds good. Would you explain what that means?" He said, "Jeff, I've anointed you with a message for your life for healing." You have the gift of healing on you. You have the gift of miracles on you. And the gift of faith. The church today doesn't know what that looks like. But I'm going to anoint you with it. The first thing that's going to happen when I anoint you with this is you're going to get rejected. It's evident in Jesus' life. It'll be evident in yours. And if I can't deal with the root of rejection today, if I can't snip it at the root today, you'll have fruit and it'll destroy you later. I said, "Hammer down." And he snipped the root. And this thing in late country kept growing. But we didn't tell a soul. Four months later, they met ten couple, eleven couples met. One of the couples got a prophetic word out of the media. They didn't even tell the other ten. They left and they called us and said, "We heard God say something. We don't know what it means. We don't know why you're involved." But we heard that you're supposed to be the senior leader at late country. They barely know us. And I said, "We've known for eight months." He goes, "You're kidding." I said, "No, I wouldn't care about stuff like this." So I said, "Can I tell the elders over at late country what's happened?" I said, "Yes, as long as you understand, I'm going to tell the elders at Gateway." Because I don't do anything in darkness. And as soon as you call them, I'm calling my elders, and I want you to know this. If the elders of Gateway say, "This is not God, I won't go." So we told the elders. They told their elders. We began to meet, everybody prayed, and God said, "Yep." You know why we didn't go eight months ago? Because God was assimilating a team that I couldn't assimilate by myself. And he sent them before he sent me. And I said, "Yeah, God." I called my mom. I said, "Mom, Jen and I are in transition." She said, "Really? Where are you going, honey?" I said, "Well, we're going out to late country." She said, "Well, where is that?" I said, "Is that at Eagle Mountain Lake?" She went, "Huh?" I said, "Mom?" She said, "I never told you." I said, "What? I'm not your son. I'm illegitimate. What?" "Don't do this to me. I've been under a lot of emotional pressure lately." If you know my story at all, my mom and dad divorced when I was a year and a half old. I had three older siblings. She said, "That's where at Eagle Mountain Lake is where I met your father." I said, "I didn't know that." She said, "I know." It sounds to me like God wants to redeem something. I said, "Yeah, God." I love the way He works. The key to it is, folks, you've got to be able to hear. You take what you hear from your mind. You send it down to your heart. Now, the abundance of your heart and your mouth will speak. This will work. Not some of the time. It'll work every time. You see, the key is not your mouth and your mind and your heart. The key is the word. I'm going to show it to you. Go over to Matthew 13 if you're right there at 11. Turn over to Matthew 13. I'm going to show you in the next five minutes the game plan of the enemy. Because he has a strategy against these three keys. He knows the three keys. He's not dumb. He's weak, but he's not dumb. He's powerless, but he's still smart. The tactics that he used still work. If you can put these three keys, it doesn't matter what situation you're in today. If you can hear God, you can send this down to your heart and it'll produce a harvest. But the enemy knows this tactic. He knows this strategy. So he has tactics to combat every one of these keys. I'm going to show you right here. It's clear. Jesus makes it evident and clear to us right here in Matthew 13, 18. Tactic number one, opponent's game plan and tactics. Here we go. He attacks the word that's in your mind. What's this? Therefore, here are the parable of the sower. Verse 18. When anyone, what? Here's the word of the kingdom. You've got to hear something first and does not understand it where. In your mind, what's the attack? What's the first level of attack? Your mind. You remember when Peter couldn't pay the temple tax and Jesus said go fishing. In the first fish you catch, open his mouth and pull out a coin and go pay your tax. Oh yeah, Jesus, we did this last year. I remember. We couldn't pay taxes then and we went fishing. Does this make any sense to anybody's mind? Well go fishing and first fish you catch, he'll have a coin in it. It'll be the exact amount that you need for you and for me. Oh by the way, would you pay my tax while you're there? Does this not sound like stupidity? Come on folks. This is how it works. Jesus will say something, it means nothing. It's totally, it's totally oblivious. Why would we do that? This is the language of heaven though. He's asking you to understand it. He's asking you to send it from your mind down to your heart. And if you will, it'll produce a heart. So the enemy comes at me and says that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard. Go fishing and go catch a fish and put a coin. I wouldn't go do that. You ever heard that voice? You got to call your mom and dad and repent for the way you acted as a kid. That's stupid, I would never do that. They didn't mean anything to them, they don't love me anyway. You ever heard that voice? You got to call your wife today and apologize for the way you acted this morning. I know that ain't God. Do you ever hear these voices? See he'll tack your mind on what God said. Why? Because he doesn't want the word to get in your heart. Because if it gets in your heart, watch out, he's about to get whipped. The word whips him every time. So are the first attacks in your mind. Second attack, look at verse 20. But he received the seed on stony places. He hears the word, immediately receives it with joy and says, "Wow!" Man, this is going to be good. I like this word, God. I don't understand everything about it, but I'm putting it down in my heart. What does the enemy do? Immediately, what's the word that says right here? He hears immediately receives it, gets excited, and he goes to the next part of the verse. Yet he has no root in himself and endures only for a little while and it fizzles out. Why does he fizzle out? Because tribulation, persecution comes. You know what tribulation and persecution do? You get the word, you send it down in your heart, you're all excited about it. And then he mimics circumstances around you that what? Are opposite of the word. In fact, he blows them up to make them look and uses intimidation. He uses manipulation. He uses fear. And he says to you, "God ain't going to do it." I mean, when you're sick, you get sicker. Remember when Jairus came and said, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, my daughter's dying. She's sick. She's dying." He said, "Okay, I'll go take care of the situation." He's gone. People come and say, "Don't bother teaching anymore. She's dead. Did he get worse?" Jesus turned to him and says, "You only need faith?" No, no, no. He turned to him and said, "You only need to believe what you heard. Confess it with your mouth." You know how you defeat this tribulation, this persecution? You open your mouth and you flack your guns and you say to the enemy. Write to his faith. Listen here, sapsucker. Come here. You know what God said? And he can't lie. He's not a man that can't lie. Shut up. And you have to engage your mouth. But he's mimicking all these situations and making you quit talking about what you put in your heart. I mean, he's a great manipulator. Last. Look at this last one. Verse 22, "Now he received the seed among the thorns as he hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word." Go to Luke 8, 14. Look at this. He adds one. Luke says, "Not only the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, but pleasures of life brings it to the fruit, to no maturity." What happens is you hear something down there, you send it down to your heart, you flap your guns through persecution and the trials, and you make it past that test and you get down here and you've got fruit on your tree and you're about to get a harvest. I mean, you're this close. Your fruit's on the tree. It's just not mature yet. It's on the tree. And Satan goes, "Oh my gosh, I've got to get it out of their heart. How do I do it?" He brings three distractions and these work really well. He gets your mind starting to attend to riches, cares, what you're going to wear. They can't see me in this outfit. They've already seen me in that outfit. Listen, I have four women in my household too, folks. I don't have shoes to go with that outfit. I need to go buy 20 more pair. Cares, riches, and pleasures. Do we have tickets on the 50-yard line? Why don't we just go out and get some debt and get that this year? Do we have box seats at the Rangers gang? Who could we go out there and hop now with and make us look important? You see how he takes your mind and begins to distract it off of the word and the fruit on the tree, dries up. See, it tacks your mind, it attacks your mouth and it attacks your heart. This is why the church's not winning today. And if you'll take what you've heard and you'll hold it in your heart and let God bring it about when you confess it before the enemy, you will see heaven on earth. Ah, guarantee it. Come on, shoot about your heads. Are you winning on earth today? Are you even in the game? Do you find yourself playing defense? Or do you ever get to go play offense? Well, I'm telling you, the word of the Lord is cleared. You can play offense today. He wants to talk to you. He sent his Holy Spirit here to guide you and to speak to you. And God's still talking. If you'll embrace it, hold it and keep confessing it, you'll have what he said because he's not a man that can lie. Father, I ask you to take this word today and cause it to resonate in our spirits, cause it to resonate in our heart. Lord, keep the enemy from it, from off of our minds, off of our mouths and out of our heart and help us hold what you've said. Ask it in Jesus' name, amen.