LIVE: Power Over the Darkness (September 19, 2021)

[Music] from the love of my own comfort from the fear of having nothing from a life of worldly passions [Music] [Music] accepted [Music] oh god [Music] [Applause] [Music] i shall [Music] i shall not from the fears [Music] [Music] me [Music] yesterday [Music] [Music] [Applause] i shall is [Music] [Applause] [Music] shall i watch [Music] i shall [Music] [Music] though my heart and flesh [Music] it is has overcome and the grave is overwhelmed the victory is [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] when this darkness [Music] [Applause] [Music] the victory [Music] no more [Music] on my knees [Music] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i will rise when he calls my name no more [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i is [Music] [Applause] good morning good afternoon and good evening church family welcome and welcome back to shepherds grove presbyterian church streaming to you live out of irvine california i'm preston parker and i have the amazing opportunity to be your live stream host for today's service so welcome i'm so happy that you decided to not only spend your sunday but spend the start of your week with us family i know if you've been watching over the past couple weeks you've gotten to meet my great friend elizabeth who is my co-host as well and so elizabeth and i we talk a lot and we kind of have like a cold lingo going on now and so whenever we see each other either going through something or feeling stressed or maybe even down in ourselves we look at each other and we say french fries french fries yeah and that reminds us of god's grace now i know some of you are trying to figure out how do french fries equate with god's grace what does that mean well family if you've ever been to a fast food restaurant let's say mcdonald's burger king whatever it is and you get your meal and you've got your fries in a little bag or in a little carton and you eat all the food you think all the food is gone but just when you look back in the bag there are a couple more fries down at the bottom of the bag or there might be a whole nother carton of fries down at the bottom of the bag that is just like god's grace once you think that you've strayed too far from god or something that you've done is unforgivable or whatever it may be god extends just a little bit more grace to you to cover whatever it is that's going on so i want to encourage you with that family know that god extends a grace and mercy and love to you whatever situation you may be in so this week don't be down on yourself don't be too hard on yourself but just remember french fries and remember that god's grace covers everything that may be happening in your life only as long as you continue to inch closer and closer and closer into his light amen a man you know family i'm so excited that y'all are here today we have amazing music and an amazing sermon coming your way and i see that some of you have been sending in your prayer requests and your praise reports as well which we love but i want to challenge you all to do something uh still something a little extra for me today i want you to copy the link wherever you're watching from facebook youtube shepherd's grow of hour of power whatever site you're watching from and i want you to share it with someone because i believe that there is a word and there is a message that is going to touch someone's heart and you are the messenger to deliver that to your friend your family your loved one so without further ado share this stream with someone and know that we love you and we can't wait to enjoy today's service with you amen see you at the end of service and a special tribute to ann waltz you don't want to miss this irvine feeds the world will be returning to shepherds grove next weekend over the course of three days we are going to be packing a hundred thousand meals for people in need around the globe and we need your help next sunday we need volunteers who will go right on over to the fellowship hall and help pack meals it's really easy to do we'll show you how to do it all you have to do is show up and be willing to help we really hope you'll go out talk to curtis today and tell him that you're going to be a part of this incredible project as we change the world right here from shepherd's grove hi i'm victor akiyame and i'm the new youth pastor here at shepherd's grove one of the things that i've loved so much about this church is just how welcoming people have been to me this week they've come up to me they've invited me into the family of faith like i've never experienced and we want to also invite you into the family of faith we want to encourage you this week to invite your friends your family co-workers anybody that you could think about to come check us out and see what we're doing here at shepherd's grove and as always make sure to stop by the website check us out on social media where we have details about all of these things and so much more that you just won't want to miss we hope you have an absolutely fantastic week and remember as always god loves you and so do we [Music] so [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] this is the day the lord has made we will rejoice and be glad in it good morning hello visitors and church family it is always a joy to be with you did you know that there is no christian without a miracle every life that comes to jesus must come by way of a miracle if you are in christ you are a miracle and today christian or not you are so loved well we're just so glad that you're here wherever you're here from because some people are in the house and some people aren't but no matter what we're just grateful that you're gathered with us today and we believe god has a good word for you father we come to you in the very strong name of jesus and we ask today that you would open and enlighten our hearts to see the world the way you see it help us to see people that we don't get along with the way you see them that they're loved by you help us to see that we live in a spiritual world with material results help us to come under the authority power and life of the kingdom of the heavens today and we ask this all in the very strong name of jesus amen amen turn to the person next to you and say god loves you and so do i [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh is [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] a [Music] r [Music] is [Music] i [Music] is [Applause] [Music] happy birthday hannah from the hour of power in germany switzerland austria you are a great woman of god and we are glad that you are on our side have a blast and enjoy your special day hannah happy birthday we love you god bless you dearest hannah very happy birthday from the dordon area in the heart of france henna we love you happy birthday hi hannah we wish you a happy birthday and hope to see you soon happy birthday hannah greetings coming from the canada office of the hour of power hey hannah you're the kindest person i've ever known we love you hey hannah happy birthday happy birthday hannah happy birthday from your production crew happy birthday hannah thank you for always being so kind and caring and really really investing in each and every one of us we love you and we're so excited to see what this coming year decades you name it all of it has in store together with you thank you for being a blessing happy birthday to one of the kindest and sweetest people i know i hope that your day is truly as wonderful as you are so many happy memories of traveling the world with you including amsterdam and hong kong we love you hannah hannah you are one of the most selfless people i know a beautiful human being inside and out you are such a great person i know that you're such a great advocate for the orchestra and we all love you for that hannah you are so encouraging and supportive to me and everyone around you hannah i just love you so much you always keep me up to date on when scriptures are changing on sunday morning you're just the best we so admire your love for the lord and your commitment as a prayer warrior [Music] happy birthday hannah we love you we love you hannah we love you hannah we love you hannah we love you hannah we love you we love you [Applause] wow wow you guys know how to make a girl feel special thank you that means so much to me and this church and the people here and our church family and friends means so so much to us you have no idea so thank you for making my life like more bright and wonderful so love you okay in preparation for the message second corinthians 10 3-5 for though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world on the contrary they have deb divine power to demolish strongholds we demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to christ church family as we submit to god we have been given the power to set the oppressed free and to break every bondage amen [Applause] [Applause] so [Music] with no family all that [Music] with no friends there's no need to celebrate [Music] [Applause] to be [Music] when the kids all come together [Music] [Music] [Music] is but when you fall here [Music] we can finally start to see [Music] [Music] [Applause] peace you when the kids all come together [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] lord what is i shall not want he maketh me to lie down in green pastures he lives besides [Music] is [Music] is [Music] i will [Music] i will [Music] you are with me you will come for me [Music] he shall follow the me of my life [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] bonnie gray is an author and inspirational speaker who loves to encourage women and discuss topics relating to emotional and spiritual care her new book sweet like jasmine finding identity in a culture of loneliness looks at her life and how she embarked on a journey of finding belonging in christ after uncovering a hidden family secret please welcome bonnie gray bonnie hi welcome thank you so much for inviting me to this beautiful worshipful time with your church family i'm so happy to be here bobby of course well we're so glad to have you you have an amazing story maybe we can kind of start there uh you have a pretty interesting faith journey yeah you know this is something that i've hidden from even myself because my mother was a male order bride from hong kong she was 17 when she came here and she had me when she was 18. 18 years old and then my father was a busboy who worked in the noodle shop in san francisco chinatown so these seem pretty interesting if we were to look at it from a story point right but it was actually my background and it was very it made me feel different it made me feel ashamed because when i went to school i didn't know anybody that had that kind of a background and then my father left when i was seven and at that time i didn't know anybody who came from what i felt was a broken family you know i've been going to church since i was a little girl i've known jesus since i was little but even within the church i didn't know anybody you know that had a broken home everybody looked so happy and well put together i just kind of put it to the side you know bobby i just i just wanted to fit in so i never really shared that part of my story with anybody was that the secret that you uncovered this your mother being a mail-order bride no i i knew that but i want to show you this and our church family here this morning and get it really close if you can see it it says certificate of life birth it's my birth certificate bobby and you know i was telling you i hadn't shared that with anybody it seemed to me it didn't matter um my family background and the secrets i never knew why my father left bobby you know i knew they came together it was an arranged marriage they didn't know each other but then once i became a mom i was looking at two boys josh and caleb and we named them josh and caleb because we're hoping to build a new legacy you know i wanted to leave my past behind me but when i was looking for a birth certificate to enroll my son he was only three at the time and any mom knows once you have that second baby you realize i need the older child to go and make popsicle stick art for a few hours so that i can get some rest so i was looking for that birth certificate i ran across my own i'd never really looked at mine before that closely you know and i realized my mother she gave birth at a hospital called chinese hospital and when i looked closer i realized she was living in a home a house that was on the same street as a hospital i was like why is this hospital called chinese hospital and i realized one day my son will grow up to ask me where's grandpa where's my grandfather and when did we come to america i married a caucasian and so my children are half chinese-american and i realized i need to find the answers why did my father come to america why did he leave those are the secrets i started to go back and find at first i did it for my sons because i didn't want them to grow up feeling like they didn't really have a story the way i did bobby and it's interesting the way god works he led me on this journey to find my father where is he all these answers that my mother never wanted to talk about and those are the secrets that i uncovered i never really wanted to know but god said bonnie it's time for you to know your story i didn't know it at the time i thought i did it for my children but you know how god works so did you find your father then well you know i i hate to leave you on a cliffhanger you know i think all of us have those kind of mysteries in our family um i'm a speaker and i'm also leading different retreats and i always ask my audience and i even led a retreat for u.s military army officers and i asked them what is a question you would have wanted to ask your mother or father and inevitably like 99.9 people always want to know i want to know who you were before you got married what were you like as a child what happened to grandma or grandpa all these family secrets that we grew up even though we have our own children our own happy marriages those questions inside us they make us long to be known we want to know more about our stories and what what was the principle that you learned in this story that you feel like you can share with our congregation i mean you're you obviously have a deep faith in god but you've been through so much what have you learned through all of this well you know it's interesting i wouldn't have really wanted to go back and right now i'm i'm on the other side of the body so it seems like i'm so happy and joyful but i started having panic attacks and anxiety attacks when i became a mom i've never had them before and you know i was a missionary in my 20s i loved taking care of others and being positive but i realized that god loves those especially who are encouragers who take care of others because we have to a lot of times hide a lot of our own feelings and our pain and our wounds and i never thought that those things that happened in my past were important and so what i learned is that god cares about each of our wounds and our healings and so once i had those anxiety and panic attacks i knew i needed to go back into my past and this beautiful verse i was actually so touched hearing the beautiful choir saying that the lord is my shepherd you know and that people need people the beautiful children's voice is singing in our worship service today because i love this verse it says even to your old age i am he i am he who will sustain you i made you i will carry you i will sustain and rescue you and one of the friends of our power is henry nouwen one of the last messages he gave he said when our wounds seem to be a source of shame we become heal a source of healing we become wounded healers yes and so i realized that that's so important that we can share our stories with each other so that we don't have to be alone and i don't think i really understood that because i grew up kind of on my own and being strong i didn't know god had a need for my weakness and my wounds well bonnie thank you so much bonnie gray your book is coming out october the 5th it's called sweet like jasmine i want to encourage you if you're struggling with believing that god loves you because of your past or things you've gone through this book will really encourage you bonnie thank you so much for joining us today yes thank you and for those who pre-order i have a free audiobook because you know during this time it's wonderful to get encouragement whether it's through reading through listening so i just invite those who are brothers and sisters watching go to sweetlifejasmine.com and i want to just welcome you on this journey of god's love and healing wonderful thank you so much have a great day thank you bobby well church family would you join me in prayer this morning father we come before you this morning our hearts full of your love for us and lord we pray that as we leave this place as we leave this room as those of us who are watching online leave our homes lord that we take that love that we're feeling in this very moment and we share it and spread it with the world lord we pray that we can be a missionary people that everywhere we go every encounter we have every person we talk to every moment of every day we see the world through your eyes that you invite us to be your hands and feet in this world lord we pray for our communities that we find ourselves in everywhere all around the world there are needs and lord we pray that your church rise up and meet those needs we especially remember this coming week irvine feeds the world as this church community seeks to pack a hundred thousand meals lord we pray that those meals go to feed hungry children who are in desperate need lord we remember all of the missionaries all of those serving your church here and abroad may they feel your love may they feel us praying for them us standing in solidarity with them us lifting them up and lord we pray for pastor bobby and the message that you have placed on his heart may we have ears to ear hear and hearts that are transformed by your word and may we leave this place forever changed in jesus name amen as you've heard a few times already this morning this upcoming week as irvine feeds the world we've been doing this years and this year we're upping the ante we're looking to pack a hundred thousand meals over the weekend we cannot do that without you and so i encourage you next week after service to stop by the fellowship hall and to spend 30 minutes packing meals it's really easy to do we guide you through it we help you do it but it's a really easy tangible way to help put a meal into someone's mouth that needs it and what a great gift that is you know as we come together as a church one of the ways we continue in our worship is of recognition that everything we have is god's everything that he gives us is his and so in turn we worship and we give back a portion of what we have to his work through the church we're so thankful for every one of you here who has given so much to this church and who continues to do so if you brought an offering with you there's offering baskets at the doors that you can place that offering you can text you can go online you can write a check but there are so many other ways to give to this ministry as well by being involved by spreading the good news if you're watching online hitting that share button and telling people about what god is doing here and what god is doing in the world because we believe that god is alive and active in today's world and changing people's life amen amen god bless you all as you give [Music] many nights we prayed with no proof anyone could hear [Music] [Applause] we were moving mountains [Music] though hope is [Music] who knows what miracles you can achieve when you believe somehow you [Music] hope [Music] seeking faith and speaking words [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] when you believe [Applause] [Music] you will when you believe [Music] [Applause] thank you voices of hope thank you choir for all the work you're doing thanks to all the parents of voices of hope because it's a lot of work you want to enroll your kids and voices of hope we're always taking kids it's a free program although it's going to take a lot of effort i i used to practice twice a week i don't know if they still do that as much i know there's been changes but anyway thank you guys so much we appreciate you welcome to shepherd's grove we're so glad you're here there are some things about this church that make us a little different than your normal neighborhood church one of the things is that we're a media church or media church meaning that we design a lot of our worship services with media and mind most churches will design that are online they'll just have their church service and then sort of post a camera but not think about who's on the other side of that we try and work that into our worship service so that people at home or people who are unchurched can get a glimpse of who we are before they come before they come and visit us and so that's an important thing so that's why we do one thing you realize on the internet and television is there's very little patience for fluff or filler and that's why very often everything is very programmed is because we know that if we have a lot of fluff and filler in our worship service that the people who are watching online may miss out on something god has for them because they just don't have the patience to wait for you know certain things so anyway and if you're watching we're so grateful that you're joining us so that's why we do what we do and here we encourage people to move from being um uh guests to hosts we don't really think in terms of members the way most churches do like i'm a member here so i vote although that is true we're presbyterian those things are in place but our core values are really like when you become a member that means you become a servant leader it means that you're you're here to serve and here to help so i want to encourage you if you want to get involved more to plug in with rooted and if you've already done rooted or even if you haven't join us with irvine feeds the world next week let's get out there and serve and and make a difference all right no matter who you are we're so glad you're here would you stand with us we're going to say this creed together as we do every week hold your hands out like this is a way of receiving from the holy spirit let's say this together i'm not what i do i'm not what i have i'm not what people say about me i am the beloved of god it's who i am no one can take it from me i don't have to worry i don't have to hurry i can trust my friend jesus and share his love with the world thanks you can be seated i think there is a general despair that many of us in life feel because we are out of touch with the spiritual dimension of life that might sound esoteric but i have a world view and in my worldview i believe that behind everything that's material there's something spiritual happening there's something invisible that's going on that affects what i can see and i know that when i forget about that world and lose touch with that world i actually begin to lose touch with myself because although i'm a body i'm a spirit too so if i go out of touch with my spirit i go out of touch with myself many of us we feel despair even though materially things are well we have some money in the bank maybe the job's going well maybe your relationships are good maybe you have a nice house but inside you feel empty or you feel like you're missing something my belief is that in large part this is one we are out of touch with the spiritual world or number two maybe you understand some of those things but you're out of touch with the reign of the kingdom of the heavens in that world in other words you're not under the power of the holy spirit his life his mercy his grace and his love and when we can receive that spirit in our daily life things just feel better things go better we have an inner strength that gets us through difficult times we have a deeper ability to trust that even though maybe now material things aren't going well we know that the spiritual affects those things and i find it interesting that that we have this perspective that the scientific community for example or the educated community rejects this world view that's actually not true at all i've seen that many times but i i've told this story before but it's such a pivotal experience in my own life i i had the opportunity years ago to participate in a group of scholars called biologos and the first event i went to two of the events the first one i was invited by rich mal who at the time was the president of fuller he was able to to invite a student from the seminary and he invited me to go along and i i didn't realize at the time what a gift it was i almost didn't go actually when i got there it was at the harvard club in manhattan it's a giant building owned by the university of harvard and they had a room there and it was a gathering of mostly scientific researchers particularly in the fields of biology and astrophysics in other words the smartest people in the world they were all research professors from mainly four schools mostly harvard but also mit cambridge and oxford university these are i think those are well-known schools aren't they they're a lustrous and uh the most shocking thing in getting there was not how intelligent they were the stories they told the most shocking thing was that they were all christians and when i say christians i don't mean like christians like the king of england as a christian [Music] i mean the first thing i saw in walking into a room at the harvard club was a room of hundreds of science research scientists arms in the air like a bunch of pentecostals singing hymns and spiritual songs loudly these are guys that run some of the most impressive and highly funded research programs in the world it was a weekend and there were many discussions that were held but one of the rules was you're not allowed to tweet or write about the things that these scientists say regarding their faith in other words they don't want people to know how christian they are and when i ask well why if they're christians and they're so smart i mean we're only talking the smartest people in the world why won't they talk about their faith and the answer was a resounding we don't want to lose our funding this is not a judgment on them by the way it's a judgment on on the prejudice of the scientific community of some in the scientific community that if i'm doing research on a thing that somehow my belief in a spiritual world or in god is going to affect my objective opinion of the outcome of this particular study again i'm not judging them i i just feel bad that they felt stuck that they couldn't talk openly in the way that they were in the safe place about their faith and i felt like for me as a seminary student you know who's in training to be a pastor this was incredibly bolstering to my faith because i think of myself as a fairly intelligent person but not to an astrophysicist at harvard or yale you know i i know i'm not anywhere near where they are but when i see that guy or the gal who runs the hubble telescope with her hands in the air and eyes closed singing a mighty fortress is our god well that tends to have an effect on a person and it did for me you can see why many of them gave lectures and there was a beautiful all of the lectures were incredible it made me want to go to harvard but uh they they they wove together the scientific and the theological so like uh one person i was always the guy in the room asking the dumb questions and i often got laughed at and i kind of wondered if that meant they didn't have an answer i don't know but this is one i'll never forget a lady who run the hubble telescope she gave a speech and she showed an image of a spaceship going around the earth and what it would look like if it was going the speed of light the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe and this gif showed a spaceship going about this pace something like this speed of light around the earth very fast right and then she said well that light from the moon to the earth that would take about a second and a half i was like oh okay and then she said and then if light was traveling from this this one blew my mind it takes light to get from the sun to the earth guess how long it takes five and a half hours that means at two o'clock two o'clock in the afternoon the sun that you see in the sky has already set it's lagging the light you're seeing is old it's five and a half hour old light you see a sun there but if you if you're pointing the sun is actually there isn't that weird yeah because it took the light from the sun five and a half hours to get to your eyeballs you are you tracking with me because light even though it's the fastest thing in the world it's it's taking a while to get here so the sun's actually down there not up there ready for another mind bender let's keep it this is how big the universe is okay the uh the closest star we can see in the sky is alpha the closest star to our solar system is alpha centauri so it's the closest one okay if you're going to speed of light it would take four and a half years for that light so the alpha centauri we're seeing is four and a half years old and this the star that's the furthest away in our solar system or rather in our galaxy that you can see is 7 500 light years away in other words if you were on that star am i losing everybody yet okay if you're on that star this is the kind of stuff we talked about if you're on that star 7 500 miles away and you had a telescope that could see earth the light from earth would be 7 500 years old meaning you'd be looking back in time you would see the bronze age you would see like people with spears and you'd see what they actually looked like isn't that weird and the star that we see might not even be there anymore because the light we're seeing is from 7 500 years ago and the width of the whole galaxy is 100 000 light years meaning that if you're on one side of the galaxy and you can see the other side of the galaxy and we can with a hubble telescope the stars that you're seeing on the other side of the galaxy of just one galaxy that lights a hundred thousand years old meaning that that star is not even there anymore it's like over there somewhere or it might not exist and probably a lot of them don't the whole breadth of the galaxy 43 billion light years of the whole universe rather which is full of galaxies in other words there's a god that's me you know i like you could hear these people and talking about i mean i remember raising my hand i said and they were talking about how the universe is always expanding in every direction and i raised my hand i was like what do you mean it's expanding they're like you know it's expanding i was like into what into space and she goes no space is something and i said well so it's not it's not like into space she's like no i was like so if i had a spaceship and i was at the edge and i went through it wouldn't be space she goes no it'd be nothing it's not there and and everybody's starting to chuckle at this point these are all smart people and i'm like i don't get it of course you don't know it's over there right because you can't observe it so what's over there well i know it's over there it's god look um the first thing i want to say is that in this field of evolutionary biology um biological medicine uh astrophysics normative physics that these professors from these prestigious universities were like not only like had some you know belief in god but they had a heart for god and this really had an impact on my life it's easy when you look at the world and there's very vocal people who say some things that maybe oppose your view to feel like because you're a humble or good person to be like oh maybe i'm just a dummy but the truth is some people are just very arrogant i mean maybe there's you could say there's three ways of looking at the world there's more than what we know there's less than what we know or there's exactly what we know two of those seem wrong to me but many people say there's exactly what we know i don't believe that when i was in oklahoma i feel like i got a certain kind of wisdom that that was to listen to your gut there are some things that can lead you astray sometimes and it can lead down some dark paths but it can also sometimes protect you from the arrogance of of those who like a hundred years ago when people wouldn't want to give birth in a hospital because if you gave birth in a hospital you were more likely to die and the doctor said that's not true the doctors weren't washing their hands because they didn't know about germ theory more like 150 years ago um that oklahoma wisdom would have helped you you see so i want you to know that we live in a world where god is doing amazing things behind the surface that we don't understand that we don't get and that sometimes we don't have to understand we have to trust the lord and be patient and pray and get in touch with the spiritual part of our living so that we are not brought down by just what we see in the world that brings us to plato's cave i need like four or five choir members who are okay sitting on the floor for about five minutes and sitting shoulder to shoulder to come help a brother out anybody just come along we're gonna sit i'm gonna have you sit right here next to each other all right we got four thank you guys concert black you know you can either sit here on the step or back here i feel like there your retinas are going to burn out but your legs will be more comfortable so which one do you want let's burn your retinas out right here all right all right so sit facing this the screen all of you guys okay this is allegory of plato's cave and imagine this thing that they're sitting on is a little bit weird okay is this podium in the way okay so these are all people that know each other and they are looking at a projection literally they are but in the allegory they're looking at shadows on a wall coming from a fire behind them that they can't see and what they're looking at you guys hear some blocking you know point at it observing they're looking at shadows like oh look that's a thing that's that means this that means that wow that's amazing and they're changed so they're not allowed and they just believe that this is the world this is what plato taught you know and one day one of them hi guys is also kind of sitting there and he decides to sort of like turn around to look behind and and he sees all something that they don't see but he's chained and his chains come loose he's wearing a blue jacket that's too small for him and he begins he he begins to walk out and and uh and and he he starts to walk out of this cave and he realizes wait the shadowy world wasn't what was real it's this world and so he sees for the first time a sun and the sky and clouds and trees and this is way more real than the shadows he's been looking on on the wall his whole life and think about this he doesn't have words for blue he doesn't have a word for tree or deer or mountain and but he's just so overjoyed that he found this place and that this is his new life and he enjoys it for a while and he's loving it he's just so grateful that he's not stuck in that cave anymore but then he remembers his colleagues back in the cave he's been out there for a while he decides to go back into the cave and what happens when you're out on a summer day it's bright and beautiful and then you go into a place that's pitch that's almost pitch black as he walks in before he could see when he was in the cave but now as he walks in he's basically blind because his eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness so he's feeling around like this and he comes to tell his friends about this place but he's tripping and he's like there's there's yellow and black but there's also this other color and it's not black and it's not yellow but it's it's other he's trying to describe blue you see and there are these things and his friends are laughing at your point they start laughing at them like no no no guys like you're tripping literally thank you guys i appreciate you yeah thank you choir members i really appreciate you and so plato says this is the sort of the nature of the world we live in and although i don't like everything that plato talks about plato likes order a little too much and smooth surfaces but but for the most part this is a foundational belief of the of the west really of a lot of western philosophy skepticism but remember that plato's skepticism originally and many of the greek philosophers skepticism was not just of the greek pantheon it was more of our worldview believes that the earth is flat and that there's a watery world below that water comes up we can observe it we can see water you know coming out from out of the earth and we believe that the sun you know kind of goes over and the greeks many greeks actually were able to prove the world earth was round and so a lot of science actually comes out of a skepticism also not just of the gods but a skepticism of what we think we're observing what if it's there something deeper what if you look at it through a microscope what if you look at it through a telescope and so plato actually did believe in a spiritual kind of a spiritual world a kind of one god though it's not the same as the christian god although aristotle would have said that that plato was on the verge of discovering it you know i don't i don't know if that's true what i do know is that um there is a spiritual world behind the material world that we live in and that jesus christ gave us the keys to not only see and understand that world but to function in it and to live under its authority and power again so much of the despair i think that so many people feel today especially young people who many have now grown up without religion or the spirituality that they've been given has been limited to a you know an exercise on a yoga mat or a couple of cute sayings from confucius but not really been invited into the reality of the kingdom of the heavens working in our lives today through miracles and power and understanding and the development of the soul as a disciple i think so much of the despair that we feel is an out of touchness with the gift that our ancestors gave us in their observations when god interacted with the world written and carried as the greatest selling book of all time the word of god that is the best way to understand and to operate fruitfully and with joy and with power in this spiritual world that god made and what a wonderful world it is and to see it as it is an amazing thing that we can all take part in it see and that's that's where christians oftentimes miss out is that for christians it's about reading or studying or understanding but there's a missing out on the practice or living in in that power so this is part of hannah's journey too of learning to pray for people and wanting and expecting that sometimes you will see a miracle and so because she acted in that sometimes she actually has seen these miracles take place in the way that they did in the bible and she wrote them down uh when jesus disciples this is really interesting okay when jesus disciples in luke 10 are told to go out and live under this authority of the kingdom of the heavens they come back and they say that they did signs and wonders and that even demons obey them and remember what jesus says behold i saw satan fall from the heavens like a bolt of lightning notice he doesn't say that after the resurrection or after pentecost or the ascension he says it after his disciples step out in faith and walk in his power it's the moment that a believer takes what jesus said for real and that's when satan fell from the heavens like lightning when they realized that they had all the power all the authority to live in in the kingdom of the heavens now with all of its power and life and goodness is that too abstract hannah and i were working through this passage together she sent me this text i posted on my instagram stories because it touched me and she said and this is exactly right we're talking we're working through the passage second corinthians 10 3 through 5 where uh paul talks about the weapons of our warfare and are mighty and she and the warfare is a spiritual warfare it's not like the way that rome fights killing people hurting people but it's for pulling down strongholds you know pulling down evil injustice sin death god tells us she says to submit to him before trying to resist the devil if we are submitted to god the devil will not just walk but run or flee from us if we are submitted to god the devil is not a battle for us he's a battle for those who are not submitted or don't know god we are called to set the oppressed of the devil free and break every yoke in other words if you don't if you can't trust that loving your enemies that that being honest in how you live that settling matters quickly with your neighbor that living unhurried and unworried if you can't trust your lives to these key teachings of rabbi jesus then your life isn't submitted to the power and the authority of the kingdom of the heavens at four and a half minutes and a huge text to go through let's see let's see if i can do the text in four minutes are you ready act 16. all right here we go we're going to do this all right paul last week we left off on philippians paul planted this church and it's and while he's there proclaiming the gospel there's a little girl probably somewhere between 6 and 10 who it says is possessed with a python spirit okay now uh oftentimes it says she was possessed by a demon that gave that made her a fortune teller that's an okay translation but a greek reader when he saw a python spirit would have immediately gone to the most famous place in the world the ancient world the oracle of delphi oracle of delphi was a it was a girl in this would have in one in this little room here and you could go there and pay a lot of money and she would be basically high on ethylene and prophesy to you now that the belief was that apollo and this is in the classical teachings killed a serpent called python or apothea on this mountain and apothea fell into the earth into gaia who was apathy's mother and there for centuries his carcass had been decaying and the smell which was ethylene that was coming up out of the ground uh was the smell of his decaying carcass and so this little girl in this room would breathe in these fumes she would get high and begin speaking oracles to those who would pay all right this only happened a few times a year as a highly spiritual thing in this greek cult and so there's famous examples where the athenians who are facing the persians they say she says your wooden walls will protect you so they think oh should i build wooden walls around athens and they interpret it as the ships you know the ships and they they win the battle of sardis anyway so when it says that she had a python spirit it's referring to an oracle she's like she's like an oracle she's like the oracle of delphi where not necessarily she's a fortune teller but people can come to her just think about what that's saying there's a very good chance that this little girl who's a slave aside from all the other abuses that may go along with it was also maybe her her owners were drugging her and she was speaking to people in these oracles and stuff and paul looks at her and casts this python spirit a snake spirit out of her and sets her free and then she no longer is fortunate so our slave dealers get upset and they throw paul into prison and i just don't have the time to unpack this i'm rushing this thing maybe i should put this on pause what i really want to say to you is ultimately this story leads to paul being beaten and being harmed paul is chained to a wall and he is praising and worshiping god it's easy to think paul and silas are faking it but they are not faking it they are trusting in the midst of all they're going through that god is doing something behind the scenes spiritually in in the lives of those who are around them and he is he sets this little girl free from whatever it is he sets this jailer who is watching this free and as they even though they took upon themselves punishment and harm they were able to rejoice and praise and sing spiritual psalms and real material results came out of their joy they weren't faking it uh and so that's that's that's my invitation to you is that in life when we go through hard times when we get beaten down or persecuted or harmed i want to make you a promise that if you can live in the kingdom of the heavens or under the power of the spirit of jesus christ you can have this thing within you that that's not like oh i'm so beat up and i'm like i'm going to get an infection on my ribs and my arms hurt but you know what i should do i should worship god in this time i don't think that's the message of that passage i think the message is a testimony that paul and silas had seen god do so many amazing things they just weren't even worried about it that yeah it hurt and it was painful but they just believed that god was doing something amazing and and he did do something amazing he set them free from prison he took this brutal jailer and made him a godly man i want to encourage you that in life when things get hard don't view your circumstances uh don't view god through your circumstances view circumstances through god's faithfulness and goodness try and trust that what you're observing in your life now is just a small part of what's actually happening in your life and that the big part is an amazing thing that god has in your future so walking in the kingdom of the heavens is entrusting in that okay father we thank you and we love you we ask in jesus name that you would send your holy spirit to break chains in our lives particularly in our mind where we feel caught up in materialism and caught up that only what we see is what's real we pray that you bring us freedom and we ask it all in jesus name amen [Applause] [Music] rejoice [Music] so [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Applause] [Music] and now the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you the lord lift his countenance upon you and give you peace in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen [Music] hey church family thank you all again for joining us for today's service wasn't that sermon good wasn't the music inspirational and uplifting i told you it would be now family there's something that dawned on my spirit that i just want to remind you and leave you with it says when you go through hard times worship pray praise and submit to god and watch satan flee watch him flee he can't handle it when we give all the glory the honor and praise to god and also remember that wherever you are in your walk remember that there is grace for you all right everything's gonna be all right everything's gonna be okay there is grace there is love and there is mercy for you now i saw your prayer request believe me and uh we just we want to keep all of our church family in prayer this week we have prayers for anna for doctors to find a cure for her stomach pain for patty who has surgery on wednesday for larry vasquez who has surgery this week as well for kelly top who's been diagnosed with stage four cancer for jay becky for discernment over the school boards to make decisions and keep the students and staff at the forefront of their minds for ella who is 12 and has liver problems after a tumor removal for janus who says that satan is coming after her and fur all of those who may have job interviews or who may be going into the next steps of their lives we just want to keep them all uplifted in prayer so if you would bow your heads and close your eyes and let us pray father god in the name of jesus lord you hear our cries lord we cry out for all of those who are dealing with turbulent waters in their life lord we just ask that you touch them whether they are dealing with sickness where they are dealing with uncertainty whether they are going to be at the hands of a doctor lord we just ask you lord to touch the hands of the doctor touch the minds of the doctors and the nurses and everyone who works in the hospital lord bless them to be in their right minds and bless them be ready to do your work lord and bring your children to healing lord we ask that you bless all of those in charge of making decisions on behalf of the children in the schools lord bless for them to make decisions that will positively impact these students that will protect their health protect their well-being lord and protect their experience while they are learning more about the world lord we pray for the staff members as well lord grant them the wisdom and the guidance and the protection that they need as they deal in these times of chaos lord we ask that you pray for all of those who um who are dealing with sickness in the body and who may be hurting god lord we send our angels to surround them lord we release angels over them lord and lord we guide them to heal and we guide them to comfort we guide them to peace of mind spirit and body lord lord in all these things that we just continue to bless one another we continue to love on one another lord and we ask that you will be ever present with us as we deal with the turbulent days of life lord and bless us to remember french fries bless us to remember that even when we may be down on ourselves even when we may be going through life's crazy obstacles lord that there is grace for us that there is healing for us that there is power that there is strength that there is encouragement for us and so with all of these things lord we continue to give you the glory the honor and the praise satan has to flee we bind satan and all of his demons lord and we thank you we worship you and we praise you in jesus name i pray amen family thank you so so much for joining us today and we can't wait to see you again next week at 9 00 a.m sharp until then i'm preston parker god loves you and so do we you

Channel: Hour of Power with Bobby Schuller

Views: 1,859

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Ugc2ggyIM8I

Length: 84min 40sec (5080 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021