What the Enemy Wishes You Did Not Know

Today, I want to speak to you about something that really is my life's message. This is something that I live, that I breathe, that I learn regularly over and over again. And it's a message that the enemy wishes, you didn't know. This message has been birthed in me over the last few years. It is from the story in the book of Esther. And I'm not going to read you the whole book, because we're going to cover pretty much the whole book today. But I'm going to tell you the story. But if you want to find what I'm talking about, it's in the Old Testament, in the first third of the Bible, really. And it's this remarkable story of a woman who was very insignificant, but God chose her to change history.

I love the story of Esther because I feel like there is treasure in that book for us as the people of God to find, to digest, to allow it to take root in our life. Because if we allow the truths that we find in that book to overwhelm our lives, we will become a people who are incredibly unstoppable. And more than happy to do the impossible because we understand who our God is, but not only who our God is, but who he has made us to be. And so this message is from the book of Esther what the enemy wishes you didn't know.

Let me just tell you the story of Esther, the story of Esther begins with the king of Persia, a man named Ahasuerus (Xerxes I), he was the most powerful man on the planet. He had glory. And he had pomp and he had ceremony and as a way of showing the world just how incredible he was. He decided that he would throw a party that lasted six months. We're told right at the beginning of the story that he threw this party for all his governors, all his officials, all of his army, he thought he invited them all into the palace grounds. And for six months, they didn't do any work. There wasn't anything else happening, other than eating and drinking. And all of it was intended for him to show people just how glorious he is. He's basically saying we're so amazing and we have such a firm grip on the entire planet. We don't even need to do any work. Come and join party because we're amazing enough to basically pause all work for six months.

Can you imagine if the government of the United States did this? For six months, all we're gonna do is eat and drink. Some of you might think this is already happening anyway, for six months, all we're gonna do, I'm just joking. God bless the United States anyway, for six months, all we're going to do is eat and drink, because we don't even need to work because we've done everything that's needed already. At the end of six months, he decides he's going to open the doors of the city and allow everybody in to have one week of feasting and drinking and retold, there was wine flowing without end without measure. And it says at the end of the six months, and one week, he was merry with wine, not a surprise there, after that amount of eating and drinking. And when he is merry with wine, he decides that he's going to call his Queen Vashti to come and parade in front of him and his men.

Unsurprisingly, Vashti doesn't love the idea of coming to parade in front of a group of men who are incredibly drunk by this point. And she does the unthinkable, which is, she says: "No". Now you got to understand in our day that might not seem so strange. In their day, it was impossible for a woman to say no to a man, much less for women to say no to the king. And so the king is incensed. He's in a rage. He says, What do I do? He gathers his officials, what can be done about the problem of Vashti. And they say to him, oh, King, the problem isn't only that the Queen has humiliated you by saying no to you. The problem is now that every wife will think she has the right to say no to her husband. And obviously no one can live in a society like that.

So here they go, what do we do, and they decide that what they're going to do is throw Vashti out of the kingdom and they're going to throw an empire wide. Beauty Pageant. It wasn't so much a beauty pageant, we say it like that to sanitize what was actually happening. It was actually a horrible thing that they did. They went and literally stole all the beautiful virgins from their homes, wherever they were in the Empire, brought them to the palace to train them up for one night with the king. The king got to taste everybody and then decide who he wanted to be his queen. It wasn't a beautiful fairy tale story.

But into that horrible evil plan, enters Esther into the story. She is a Jew who has been brought into the Persian Empire by force; her and her family. She is an orphan, which pretty much makes her the lowest of the low. She's a woman. So she's already part of the lowest food chain. Anyway, she's been raised by her cousin Mordecai, but this is the thing about Esther, she's beautiful. And she's a virgin. So she gets drawn into this idea of the king's officials. And she starts being trained up to have a moment with the king. And eventually she wins the favor not only of all of the officials, but of the king himself. And she unbelievably gets crowned Queen of the Empire.

Now this is where the story gets interesting. into the story comes Haman who is an official of the king who hates the people of Israel. He hates the Jews and concocts this plan to destroy the Jews. And he gets the king to sign off on this plan. And Mordecai, Esther's cousin, hears about the plan. He goes to Esther and he says to Esther, Esther, you got to do something about it. This is terrible. Every one of the Jews is going to be put to death. And Esther looks at him and says, and I paraphrase: Are you kidding me? Don't you know that I'm nothing and no one. You see the crown on my head, but you know what happened to Vashti when she decided to think for herself, no woman has any significance. And here you come to me and you say to me go to the king and tell the king your idea while the king hasn't summoned me and everyone knows if you're not summoned, but you enter the presence of the king, you can be put to death.

But Mordecai begins to speak to her. Words that put courage in her, words that give her what she needs to stand up and do something in that moment. And we'll look at those words together in a moment. And so she says to him, okay, get your people to pray and fast. My people will also pray and fast.

In three days, she goes to the king. And when she goes to the king, something miraculous happens, rather than putting her to death rather than saying to her, no, I didn't summon you - how dare you come into my presence? The King says to her, what do you want? What can I do for you? And he has mercy on her. And Esther says to the king, I want to throw a party for you. She understands the king's love language. He loves partying, okay, I want to throw you a feast please come and have a party. And the king goes to dinner at Esther's house and Esther says I want Haman to come too, so they go to the feast together. Then at the party, the king says to Esther: Esther, what can I do for you? And Esther says come to another party. So she throws another party for the king and Haman.

And at that second party, the king says, What is this all about? What can I do for you? And she shows the king, what Haman is really planning. And she reveals herself to be a Jew, which she has kept hidden up until this point, and she pleads for mercy on behalf of her people. And what happens in that moment is something that no one would ever have thought possible. A woman changes the course of a nation because in that moment, Haman is condemned to death. And his plot is completely uncovered and thrown aside, and the Jewish people are saved. It's a remarkable, unthinkable story that you would think is just a fable or a legend. But it's historical fact. And you find it right there in the book of Esther in the Bible.

And the thing about this book is that it's not meant to be something that we go: Oh, it's amazing how God used one person in history all the way back then. The thing about this story is to stir up our hearts. This understanding that the God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, is still looking for one person, even today, to do the unthinkable to change the course of an entire nation of an entire people group. I wonder if that person is you. I wonder if that person is me. Because as Pastor Roberto said, This, for me is not just kind of a theory out there somewhere. But I come from a family that has literally changed the course of a nation, not because my family is special, not because my grandfather and my father were really spiritual, more holy than you were me. They are just normal people. But because God is gracious Father, he loves to use men and women to do the impossible.

If only we wake up and realize that our Christianity is not about us coming and warming a chair every Sunday morning. But it's about us changing the nations with the kingdom of God. That's what you were made for. I'm gonna say again, being a Christian isn't about you sitting in your seat every Sunday, checking that off your to do list and then getting on with normal life. Being a Christian is understanding you are now a heir of a kingdom. And every part of that kingdom is bursting through your life so that the men and women around you are radically transformed. So that you can do the impossible wherever you go. Because we are part of an impossible kingdom, we get to play in the impossible. That's the mandate on every believer.

And so from this story, I want to throw out a few things that I really believe the enemy tries to hide from Christians, the enemy tries to lie to Christians about because he understands if we grasp the truths of these things, then we become incredibly powerful in the offense against the kingdom of darkness.

The first thing is, you are better than you've ever believed you are as a brand new Christian. See, sometimes we talk about Christianity, as if it's a behavior modification program. Sometimes we talk about Christianity, as if it's all about morality, as if the cross and resurrection of Jesus is really something of a spiritual washing machine, where you go into the spiritual washing machine of the cross and resurrection, you go round and round and round and get all of your grimy dirt off. And then you come out the other side whites again, but you're pretty much the same person. It's just that you've been washed. That's what the enemy wants us to believe about Christianity. He wants you to believe that the cross and resurrection of Jesus all it did was clean you up a little bit. But I want to tell you, the gospel is not about a holy God making bad people good. The gospel is about a Father God raising dead people to live so that the orphans can come home. He is not interested in purely changing our morality. He is interested in raising us up from the dead. That's what the gospel is about.

The Bible says in Second Corinthians 5 that you and I, those who are in Christ Jesus are now a new creation and that word new means completely new. That's what it means. If you look into Greek, new means new, it doesn't mean a better, cleaner version of yourself. It means brand new, something that the world has never seen. That is what it means to be in Christ.

I'm going to tell you when you become a Christian, you are not just a cleaner version of your old self, every cell of your being you might look the same on the outside, but every cell of your being has been transformed and taken on the supernatural substance of being in Christ. In Second Corinthians 5, a few verses later, it says, Jesus who knew no sin became the substance of sin, so that we would be set free. The thing is here, Jesus, he knew no sin, took on the substance of sin, so that you and I would take on the very substance of righteousness. Do you understand what that means?

It means you haven't just been washed, it means every cell of your being has been changed, so that you are now the very substance of the righteousness of God. That's why Christians can overcome sin. It's not because we're really good at self control that we can overcome sin. It's because God in His kindness has already transformed the cells in our bodies, so that now that we are the substance of righteousness, it is more natural for the Christian not to sin, then to sin.

And if we understand that, and begin the renewing of our minds, that Romans 12 talks about, we can come into alignment with what heaven says is already true about us. And we can start behaving the way we actually have been made to be. You know, there's this really incredible thing in modern psychology, where psychologists tell us that we don't behave primarily out of our desires, we behave primarily out of our understanding of our identity.

That means that the way for Christians to overcome bad habits isn't that we would keep punishing ourselves for desires that we think are wrong. No, no, the way for Christians to overcome habits and sins and problems in their lives, is for us to understand our new identity in Christ. Because if we fully get that in our brains, if we allow that truth to blow our minds, then we will walk in the truth of our identity, and our identity walks in freedom. It's a remarkable thing that God has done.

You know that which you behold, you become like, and the enemy loves for you and I to focus on our old nature to focus on our sinful behavior. He loves for us to form accountability groups that constantly pray and bemoan our old nature and our sinfulness. Because he knows that if he gets us to focus there, then will always live there. But the way to walk in the righteousness of God is to focus on who we have now been made to be. It is to allow our minds to be consistently washed with the truth of the new creation of God in our lives. That's how we get to live free. ˇAnd so the first thing the enemy doesn't want us to know is that we're brand new creations, he doesn't want you to know that in Christ, you are better than you ever thought.

The second thing he doesn't want you to know is that you are more than the world's estimations. See, this Queen Esther her whole life, she had been told that women are nothing. Women are the lowest of the low. If you're an orphan, which means you belong to nobody, and in the ancient world who you belonged to, your family name, your parents, and the family line was incredibly important to your significance. So if you were an orphan, you had no significance because you had no parents to speak of, you had no family name to champion you. And so here we have a woman who is already a low Jew, who was already not a good group of people in the Persian community. They were the lowest. Oh, they're the ethnic minorities that we don't like speaking about. That's who she was a woman, a Jew, an orphan, she had everything against her name.

And so for her whole life, she had understood from her culture, what was to be expected from her, which was nothing. She had nothing to offer. And so even when she goes through the process of becoming Queen, even when she is seated now next to the king, she has this mentality that her culture has told her, which is there's nothing much to be expected of you, you are still insignificant, which is why when Mordecai comes to her and says, Esther, you got to do something about this horrible evil plan that Haman has concocted. She replies, I can't do anything, I am a nothing and a nobody.

I want to tell you, the enemy is heavily invested in telling you and me that as Christians, we're nothing and nobody's. He is heavily invested in telling you and me through culture through lies through whatever means possible that you and I are insignificant. That you and I cannot possibly use our voices to do anything that will change anything. That you and I are losers. That you and I must be stupid. If we're people of faith, whatever it is, some of you may have come from families like that, where you've been told again and again and again, you're stupid, you're a loser, you are never going to do anything, you're never going to amount to anything. Some of you may have lived with those lies, I want to tell you they are lies. Because you are more than the world's estimations.

We belong to a father who is king of all things. We belong to a father whose name is above every other name. We belong to a father who has every resource at his disposal. We belong to a father who threw the stars into space, and maintains all of creation by the word of his mouth. And you and I are not just little grubby servants or slaves in the kingdom, which he could have made us to be. He could have done that, that would in itself have been gracious. But no, he did something much more crazy than that. He lifted us up like he lifts the poor, and seats them with princes, says Psalms. That is exactly what he did to you and I. He lifted us up from the gutter. And he seated us with the prince with Prince Jesus with the king with the Lord of Lord, he seated us in Christ Jesus. And not only did he make us an adopted son and an adopted daughter, but he made us co heirs with Christ. Do you understand what that means?

That means every single thing that Jesus has access to right now, you and I have access to. You are not a minority shareholder in the kingdom, you have been made a co heir, a complete and equal heir with Christ, Jesus in the kingdom. If Jesus can bring healing, you and I have the access to the supernatural to bring healing. If not, we're not co heirs. If Jesus can raise people from the dead, you and I have access to the same power of the Spirit by which to do that same thing. If not, we are not co heirs. Do you see what I'm saying? It's either all true, or none of it is true. But you can't find a middle ground that your brain finds acceptable.

Because the same Bible that says, For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, which sometimes as Christians, we find easy to believe, is the same Bible that says now we're seated in the heavenly places as co heirs with Christ Jesus. Both things are either true or both things are false. But as Christians, we can't just pick and choose which bits seem acceptable to us. And then live our ordinary lives and wonder why we're not seeing the victory that God promises. We are co heirs with Christ, you who are in Christ, you are more than the world's estimations.

I don't care what people have said to you about the color of your skin or about your background, or about your age, or about your gender or about whatever else that you can think of. I want to tell you, if you are in Christ, you are more than the world's estimations, you were made for greatness. You have supernatural DNA in you. That's what 1 John 4 says. You have literally the seed of God in you. It means there is supernatural life coursing through your veins. Romans 8: The same Spirit that raised him from the dead lives inside of you and me, it means that you and I are more than the world's estimations. You and I are the hope for this city because the light of the world lives inside of us.

And He has so transformed us so that we now not only reflect Him, but have been made light ourselves. That's what it means to be in Christ. You're more than the world's estimations. And in the conversation that Esther has with Mordecai, Mordecai begins to speak to her. And he begins to say to her, Esther, you got to do something. I hear what you're saying about what you believe about yourself. I hear what you're saying about your hesitancy. I want to tell you what if you were made for such a time as this.

I want to say something to you, because as a pastor, as someone who has been in ministry for many years now, I have noticed this creep into the church again and again, where we start saying things like: Oh, this generation is so difficult. It's really hard. No, no generation before us has faced the challenges that the church faces today. We're not being thrown into a lions' den at the moment. So I think that there's ancient people of faith who have something up on us, okay. So we're not living in a generation, that's any more complicated, or any more of a challenge to Christ, than any other generation in history.

And the reason I want to say that is you and I were made for this generation. That means you and I must live in hope, understanding that the God who made us for this time, put in us all the solutions that would be needed for this time. You and I don't need to bemoan: Oh, I wish I lived in whatever season where there weren't so many complexities around this issue of morality. I can't possibly fight all these challenges that we're facing today. That is a lie of the enemy.

If you're alive today, it means that Jesus made you specifically to bring the solutions for this time, no matter how complicated they are, it is in you to bring the kingdom of God. And Mordecai begins to speak to Esther. And he says: What if God made you for this time, for this moment, and as he speaks, something supernatural happens in Esther. Her courage rises up in her to do the unthinkable, to go and face the king.

Mordecai in the book of Esther is a picture of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now, for many of us, as Christians, we struggle with the person of the Holy Spirit,ˇ because many have come from backgrounds where really the Trinity is more about the Father, Son, and Holy Bible, than it is about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But the Spirit is very much God, just in the same way that the Father and the Son are. And we cannot cut out a third of the Trinity from our life experience. If we do that, we will struggle because it is the Spirit who empowers the people of God in this day and age. And we've got to understand. I think there is this thing that has held people back from the Spirit of God, because of some confusing ways that we've taught about the Spirit.

I have heard it said many times, that it is the Spirit who comes to convict the Christians of their sin. And when we talk about that, and we say it in our stories, and in our anecdotes we talk about, I was at work, and I was gossiping. And then the Holy Spirit convicted me and I felt really, really bad. And I realized that what I had done was really, really bad. And so I won't do that again. And the way we describe the Holy Spirit is like the control monitor of heaven, like he's running around like a busy little bee, after every Christian making us feel really bad about the things that we do wrong, so that we can change our behavior. No one wants to spend time with someone like that. It doesn't make it very fun to have conversations with the spirit if we genuinely believe that his primary role is to point out to us the 15 ways we failed before breakfast, and what we should do about it. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to spend my time like that.ˇ And I think there are many Christians who genuinely believe that that's the primary role of the spirit and because of that, they're trying to run away from the spirit. Because it's not fun being with the Spirit, if all he wants is you to feel terrible about your failings.

But when we think of the Spirit like that, it's because we've not understood what the Bible is saying, because in the book of John, chapter 16, Jesus says the Holy Spirit comes to convict, not the believer of their sin, but the unbeliever in order to lead them into righteousness. Andˇwhen you read Galatians 4 and you read Romans 8, you understand that the role of the Spirit towards the believer is not some kind of petty policeman picking you up and fining you for every tiny fault.

No, the role of the Spirit towards the believer is the spirit of sonship. He is the spirit of affirmation. He is the one who is telling you that haveˇtheˇright standing before God. He is the one who is saying you were made for greatness. He is the one speaking courage in destiny over you. You have not spent time with the Spirit of God if you're not hearing that from him. Because the Holy Spirit absolutelyˇis awesome. The Holy Spirit comes to speak so much identity and destiny and courage into you and me. Psalm says the thoughts of God towards the people of God are as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore. Basically, you can't ever count them. It means every single second of every single day of your life, the Holy Spirit is speaking words towards you. And it's not: you failed again. If you are a son, a daughter, you are made for greatness, you can do the impossible. That's what He is saying to you. That's why I love spending time with the Spirit of God. Because as I invite the Spirit of God to overwhelm me, I not only see God clearly, but I see myself clearly. And I understand that I am made to do what is thinkable by the estimations of the world.

So you areˇbetter than you believe. You are more than the world's estimations.ˇ

Number three. You're not outnumbered. The enemy loves you and I to feel like, as Christians, we are backed into the corner of a room, and the enemy is hunting us down. And he's overwhelming us. He loves to make us feel that way. Because if he can make you feel small, and make you perceive him as big, he has already won the battle before he needs to do anything. The enemy is a liar. Do not listen to him!

Let us just do some simple maths together. In the book of Revelation, we are told that when the enemy fell, he took 1/3 of the angels of heaven with him when he fell. That means if you don't count God, the Father, Son and spirits who I'm sure you'll agree are a majority in and of themselves. But even if we put God aside for the moment, if you're just counting how many good angels there are, it's a ratio of two good angels to one demon, before we even factor God into the equation. That means when the enemy makes you feel that you are outnumbered, he is simply giving you the most incredible lie because it's the other way around. He is the one who is always outnumbered. Do you see that?

So when we talk as Christians, like all the demons are of hell are against us. First of all, I don't know anyone who's significant enough to have all of the demons of hell against them. But anyway, when we talk like that, what we're doing is we're giving power to the enemy's hand, we're allowing him to keep lying to us. As if there's more demons in the room than angels; that is never the case. They are always outnumbered. So there's an element of truth in the lies of the enemy. It's not a fair fight. Absolutely. But he will tell you, it's not a fair fight, because you're outnumbered. He's lying on the second part. It's not a fair fight, because he is outnumbered. It is not a fair fight, because he is already defeated. You are never, ever on the backfoot as the people of God. You are never, ever backed into a corner as the people of God. You are never outnumbered.

And I don't say this because I've not walked these battles. I don't say this because I don't understand real pain. I say this because even in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death, I have always walked with my God, which means that I am still not outnumbered, even in the midst of darkness. You were never, ever outnumbered. You better believe that when Esther was walking down the hallway, to the throne room of the king that day, every demon in that place was saying to her: Turn around, turn around, you one little insignificant woman, turn around. But thank God for the courage that was inside of her in that moment, to silence the lie of the enemy and to to keep going in the direction towards the king.

You and I will face battles in our lives consistently where the enemy knows that we are moving ahead into the purposes of the kingdom. He will say to us: Turn around. He will come against us to make us feel like we're on the wrong track. Like we are outnumbered that it is safer for us to turn around. I want to tell you:ˇ Stand your ground. The enemy is a liar. Keep going.

I say to our people all of the time: The enemy is playing a game of spiritual chicken with you and I all the time. You know that game of chicken? When two people run at each other and you're kind of seeing who is gonna lose confidence, which person bales first. The enemy is playing that game with you all of the time. When you've heard who God is, when you've heard who you are, when you've heard what God is saying about the direction you're meant to be going. The enemy then plays a game of spiritual chicken with us, which is basically he comes at us head on and he's betting that you and I will move. And we'll turn around. What if we don't? What if we don't? See, the Bible tells us that the Spirit of God lives in every Christian and the fruit of the Spirit. One of them is self control. And another one is patience. That means now you'll agree that the enemy does not have the Spirit of God and him that means he doesn't have either the fruit of self control or the fruit of patience.

That means you and I, in a game of spiritual chicken can out-patienceˇthe enemy. You have the Spirit in you, when you know who God is, when you know what he said about you, when you know what he said about your destiny and the direction in which you're meant to be walking. Do not give ground. Out-patience the enemy.

There's this moment in the book of Genesis chapter 32, when Jacob is being called by God to go back to his homeland, I don't have time to tell you all the story, but it's basically not a good situation between him and his brother. He saw his brother Esau is in his homeland. Jacob tricked him out of a few really significant things. And after many years, God says to Jacob, many years on the run, God says to Jacob, turn around, go back to your homeland, because I'm going to do you good. And as Jacob is traveling with his family, and everything he has towards his homeland, there's this moment where his servant comes to him and says, Your brother, Esau, is coming to meet you with 400 men. How many of you know that's not a good moment for Jacob? It's not like, oh, wow, he's coming to welcome me. It's like, oh, my goodness, he is coming to kill us all. That's what he's thinking.

And in Genesis 32, there's this profound moment where Jacob prays, and he says to God, help me. My brother, Esau is coming, and I fear him. But God said, I will surely do you good. I'm going to tell you in this day, in this generation, God is calling up Christians to be a kind of people, who have heard what God has said about himself, what God has said about us, what God has said about our city, what God has said about our destiny. And we stand our ground, no matter what is coming against us. And we say, but you said, I will surely do you good.

I want you to know that some of you need to go home, and you need to write down your prayers, and you need to start proclaiming over them: But you said! Because you need to declare what he promised into your situation. A number of years ago, I was speaking to Julian complaining about God. I know none of you are so unspiritual as to ever complain about God. But I'm just confessing my sin before you. And I was complaining to him how God said this, and God said this, but this is not happening. He promised us this, but none of it has been happening. And I felt in that moment, God speak to me and he said, the problem with you is having your sentences the wrong way round. What does it mean? Yeah. What does it mean?

And he said to me, your sentence is: Promise, but problem. Youˇneed to switch it around: Problem, but promise. And in that moment, something was done in me. You and I need to be about God, people. Not God, you promise these things, but here's my problem.ˇ God hears my problems ("but, you said") and nowˇstickˇto it. Stick to the ground, stick your landing, you're literally glued to the spot, refusing to cede, you are not outnumbered.

Another one he does not want you to know is that feasting and joy are the best context for breaking free. You know, Vashti and Esther did the same thing. They both defied the customs of their day with the king. But Vashti was unsuccessful. Esther was incredibly successful. Why? Because everything she did was in the context of feasting and joy. The Bible and Nehemiah 8 tells us it is the joy of the Lord. That is our strength. Too many Christians see joy as a frivolous emotion. It is not. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit and joy equals strength. Some of us wonder why are we in battles. We are anemic. In our Christianity, we do not have power to see any breakthrough.

I want to ask you: If you're telling me you feel weak, I'm going to ask you where is your joy? Because joy equals strength. And there's this lie that the enemy has brought, that intercession needs to be introspective and depressed and intense to be really spiritual. That is a lie. You know, Julian and I look for intercessors. For our ministry, we are always looking for the happiest people in the room. Because we understand that joy equals strength. I don't want weak intercessors praying for me. I want that happy kind because they're the ones who see breakthroughs. It is in the context of feasting and joy that we see the breakthrough. Psalm 23 reads:ˇ When In the presence of my enemies, He prepares a table for me and He says, sit down and eat.ˇˇSo many of us think that in the presence of the enemies, we need to be running around, fighting strongholds. God knows where we are so busy running around, and he isˇsaying: Sit down, I have prepared a table for you, based on my goodness, feast on my presence. It is the context of feasting and joy, that is the best for breaking free.

I believe in intercession. I love praying. But if your intercession is depressed, please stop. If you feel overwhelmed by the things that you're praying for, please stop. I'm not saying this to be mean. I'm saying it because you will never see a breakthrough, if you are depressed about what you're declaring into. You need to be armed with joy, so that you can minister from the truth of heaven into your circumstances.

Last one: The Father is kinder than you can ever believe. See, even this evil king extends mercy to Esther. In that moment, there's this picture of how God the Father behaves with you and me. The father is kinder than we dare believe. See, the enemy, right from the beginning of time, has been working really hard for you and I to think that God is mean. Right from the beginning of time the enemy has been working really hard for us to think of God as anything other than kind, somehow a killjoy, or someone who's going to hold things back from me, or maybe an angry father who's waiting to smite you. This horrible, scary, God who is looking over you to see when he might snap you out. The enemy wants you to think all of those things about God.

Because if you can pretend God is like that, then you will never understand just how kind the Father is. But the Father is kinder than we would ever believe. There's this moment in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus is in a synagogue, and he's handed a scroll to read, and he rolls up the scroll and he begins to read and he reads from a prophecy in Isaiah. And I'm going to read you the words of Jesus. He says this: The Spirit of the Lord is on me. You might have heard these verses before: Because God has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to set free theˇprisoners and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And we're told then that Jesus sits down, he rose up the scroll again. And he says: Today you are hearing that this scripture is fulfilled.

Here's the thing, if you know the prophecy from Isaiah, you'll know that Jesus ends it at a strange place. Because there's one more verse that he leaves out. And it's the day of the vengeance of our God. Why does Jesus do that? Why does Jesus leave out the last bit of that paragraph, that last bit of that phrase of the prophecy? Why does he end it with a year of the favor of the Lord? It's because Jesus is the favor filled, full stop of heaven. It's because Jesus Himself took every ounce of the vengeance of God against sin and the enemy so that you and I will never experience it. What that means is because Jesus comes to show us that the Father is kinder than we ever dare believe. You want to know what God thinks about you? Is is favor. You want to know what God thinks about you today? It is favor. You want to know what God thinks about you tomorrow? I can give you a spoiler alert: It is favor because Jesus is the favor filled, full stop of heaven.

There is nothing in the heart of God towards you other than love and affection, joy and delight, pride as a father before you. He is kinder than we dare believe. I want to finish with one thought from Psalm 23. When we're told: Surely goodness, and mercy will follow me all of the days. I want us to notice it is "surely", not maybe not hopefully, not if we try really hard, not on the days when I prayed enough or read enough or did good enough. Now, surely, this is a secure, firm foundation beneath your feet. No matter your circumstance, no matter your behavior, no matter your attitude. Surely. Goodness. And mercy will follow me all of the days of my life. You have a target on your back. And it's not for the judgment or the punishment of God. It's for goodness and mercy. He follows you with goodness and mercy and he has a great aim.

I want to tell you something about my everyday existence. I'm an introvert at heart. I love alone time. The funny thing about children is they don't understand that. It's not like I can tell my toddlers: mommy is an introvert. So she needs alone time. Although sometimes, funnily enough, now my kids sometimes say, I think Mommy needs alone time. But the thing about my kids is that they follow me around 24/7. Sometimes I go to the bathroom just to get a breather. And even then I have two sets of hands, hitting the door: Mom, are you in there? And I'm like, please just leave me alone for one second. See my kids, they follow me around all the days of my life.

When you go home, I want you to remember this in the same way that my toddlers will not leave me alone. goodness and mercy will not leave you alone. Because you have been flanked by goodness and mercy all the days of your life, no matter what you're going through. He is following you with goodness and mercy. We sang a song earlier that the wind and the waves still know his name. You know the thing about that story in Mark 4, where Jesus is in the boat and the storm is raging. That's where that line comes from. The boat is in the storm and the fishermen think they're going to die. That means the storm was legitimately bad. They knew the waters. Jesus is fast asleep. They wake him up and they say to him: Master doˇyou not care that we're drowning? And we know the story. Jesus gets up, he calms the storm, the wind and the waves remember his name.

That means in your storms, the wind and the waves remember his name, but he calms the storm. And he looks to his disciples. And he says:ˇ Have you still no faith? And when he says to them: Have you still no faith? We often think that what Jesus is asking them is a question of his power. Do you still not believe after all of the miracles that I've done that I could do this? But Jesus is not asking them a question of power. He's asking them his question in response to their question. Their question was not a question of his power, but was a question of his heart. Master, do you not care? That we're drowning?

So many of us in the storms of our lives. We're sitting in that boat and we're saying Jesus, Don't you care that I'm drowning? I want to tell you, the father is kinder than you believe. He has armed you even in the boat with goodness and mercy. And as we feast in the presence of our enemies, on the goodness of God, we will see breakthroughs. Armed with joy. Because you and I are more than the world's estimations. We are made to change the world. That's not just rhetoric. That's a fact.

Please stand with me for a moment. I just want to lead us saying something over ourselves: Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all of the days in my life. I want you to repeat that over yourself in this moment. Let's do it together. Surely, goodness and mercy will follow all of the days and man, surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all of the days of my life. Surely, goodness, and mercy will follow me all of the days of my life. Not maybe, but surely! Goodness, and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Lord Jesus. In the name of Jesus, I want to speak against the lies of the enemy. I want to speak against lies that have told us that we're still a little bit grubby, lies that have told us that we're not a brand new creation, lies that have told us we are nothing, we are nobodies, we are insignificant. We can't achieve anything. Lies that have told us that we're on our own, in a corner and the enemy is bearing down on us. Lies that have told us that we need to get super intense to ever see any breakthrough. Lies that have told us that God isn't to be trusted.

In the name of Jesus. I break the lies of the enemy. And where there's been hopelessness, I speak hope and where there's been discouragement I speak courage into your beings, and where there's been a sense of loss and a sense of isolation and I'm a no one. In the name of Jesus. I speak greatness in you for those who are in Christ. Jesus had been made to do the impossible. I speak joy. Whether it's depression and anxiety, we break the back of depression and anxiety in the name of Jesus. Some of you need to start laughing at the lies of the enemy because you're very godlike. When you do that. We're told in Psalms that he laughs at his enemies. Some of you need to identify the lies that he's been speaking to you and then laugh at them, to arm yourself with joy against what the enemy is saying. But we submit ourselves to you today, a God who is kinder than we could ever believe. Thank you for the goodness and mercy that follow us. In Jesus' name, amen.